Pilgrimage's Role in Development of Buddhism in Japan Essay

Pilgrimage's Role in Development of Buddhism in Japan - Essay Example The Kumano within the Southern Wakayama Prefecture ended up becoming a large center for pilgrims and adherents of Shugendo Sect during Heina Period. Some other significantly important pilgrimages at the time were to Mt. Koya, Hasedera (Kyoto) and Shitenno-ji  (Osaka) (Swanson & Chilson 2006). Between 160 and 1868 AD, during the Edo Period, the number of persons making pilgrimages to Shinto Shrines and Buddhist temples increased rapidly, particularly to the Kotohira Shrine, the Ise Shrine, the 88 Shikoku temples, Zenkoji (Nagano), Mt. Fuji (Shizuoka), and the Kiso Ontake (Nagoya) (Reynolds  2001; Covell 2005). One phenomenon during Edo Era was the special pilgrimage to Ise-Jingu Shrine, known as Okage Mairi. The tradition of Okage Mairi has continued to be unabated even the contemporary Japanese society, with approximately 6 million people paying a visit to Ise Jingu Shrines per annum. Perhaps behind the phenomenon lies some nostalgic past: Resurgent interest in the region and som e desire for a temporary escape from the over-crowded urban settings (Alisal, Ackermann, Dolores 2007). Pilgrimage and Development of Buddhism The history of pilgrimage in Japan could be traced back to the early years, at least by the era of Nara, between 7610-794 AD. The pilgrimages flourished during the initial day, through Heian era (947-1185). At the time, the aristocrats and the imperial family were the most active pilgrims (Kaempfer 1995). During the latter days of the ninth century, the imperial family members took some interest in the religious visits to various shrines in the country and the temples that existed outside Japanese capital of Kyoto. From the late tenth century, the custom became adopted by the aristocrats, to a certain... The development of pilgrimages within Japanese society could greatly be conditioned to geographical, cultural, religious or topographical factors. There were there primary types of pilgrimages among the Japanese: Pilgrimage to the sacred mountains, pilgrimage to the shrines and temples based on the enshrined divinities and pilgrims to the sacred places, which are based on special powers of charismatic persons such as Buddha. The pilgrimages to the sacred mountains were founded on Buddhist notion of jiriki, self power, an idea that made those who are self strong via ascetic practices. Buddhists believed that there was a need of training for one to obtain some special powers, which were acquired through regular visits to the holy mountains. The non-Buddhists specialists like the healers, the ascetics and the shamans as well as the greater public also acquired the special powers. During the Middle Ages (twelfth and eleventh) aristocrats believed in pilgrimages to the sacred mountains to help them experience Pure Land while they were still living. Moreover, it was believed that kami of the mountains were manifestations of the Buddhists divinities; they were merely special ascetics, and would be guided by the aristocrats within the region. By the nineteenth century, there were more that 17,000 senior guides that were familiar with the sacred mountains. Even as the aristocracy and courtship declined during the initial days of Tokugawa era, there was a novel phenomenon emerging in already existing mountain pilgrimage beliefs. There were four major pilgrimage sites that had been recommended by Buddha.

Translation and Half-caste Essay Example for Free

Translation and Half-caste Essay Half-Caste is a poem written by John Agard. It presents another culture through dialect and uses complicated terminology. The poem is quite emotional and John Agard uses many techniques to present his ideas and views on Half-Caste. The poem is all about the different definitions of Half-Caste, it is undefined. Agard compares the word half-caste to Tchaikovsky’s piano, Picasso’s canvas and English weather. Firstly, John Agard uses rhetorical questions throughout the poem; ‘what yu mean?’ this shows that nobody knows what Half-Caste means it is down to the reader’s own opinion. This is repeated a lot throughout the poem. Rhetorical questions were very effective in this poem as it made the reader think imagine what the phrase half-caste means. Another technique that Agard uses is repetition; ‘what yu mean when yu say half-caste’. This demonstrates that John wants to emphasise this phrase. Repetition helps the reader to think about what half-caste actually means because it shows that there is no real definition and that it is the reader’s own interpretation of the word. The poet tells the poem in a confronting way because he uses the word ‘Half-Caste’. The poem is confrontational because the poem is coming across in an argumentative way especially against those who are half-caste. This could offend some people so the reader may think that, Half-Caste could be quite offensive. Half-Caste has many emotional thoughts. For example; is there anything wrong with the term ‘Half-Caste’, is it insulting, is he proud. A mixture of emotions are used here, including tension and anxiety, anger and also happiness. John Agard presents his ideas in a confusing way. The reader would think this because he does not actually know what half-caste means but yet writes a poem about different views of the term half-caste. He also writes the poem as a past experience as if he was a victim of racism. Agard uses things associated with half-caste so maybe he has been affected; ‘one leg’, ‘half of mih ear’, ‘half of mih eye’, ‘half-a-hand’. This shows that Agard must understand what half-caste is all about but he signals that half-caste is undefined without saying it in the poem. John Agard is very open-minded during the poem; ‘an I will tell yu de other half of my story’. This could show that there is another half to his story and that there may be a more cheerful side of his story. These words show that you should not judge people if you do not know them and don’t be judgemental. It does not matter what race or culture you are, be mindful. Agard uses insults to present his views on the term Half-Caste; ‘ah rass’. This could be offensive and cause anger towards the reader. The poem suggests that the reader only knows the definition of half-caste if you are half-caste. It is outsmarting all of the racist people because racist people may find the poem an insult. In the poem, the reader thinks it suggests that everything is a bit mixed up but it does not matter because everyone is unique and different. In conclusion, John Agard uses a variety of effective techniques to present the ideas and views to the reader. The reader thinks that the poem is quite confusing in the way it is written because it compares lots of things that the reader is not entirely sure define the term Half-Caste. The reader likes the way that Agard writes the poem as a past experience. Agard uses many techniques such as rhetorical questions and repetition which makes the reader think but also makes the poem flow well. Overall, the reader thinks that Half-Caste is a good poem that explains the different meanings of Half-Caste.

Delegation Essay -- essays research papers

Delegation Paper   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to Batman and Snell (2004), delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to a subordinate at a lower level requiring that the subordinate reports back to their manager the results, positive or negative. Within my professional career I have experienced several management styles. With regard to the subject matter of delegation, I have been lead by an experienced, effective, and efficient manager that utilized delegation and the functions of management while employed with Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS). The Customer Service Manager (CSM), Ebonie Kelley, Site Manager at McDermott, Will and Emory, was accountable for a team of 32. Of the 32 team members, six were apart of the management team. Her management team was a diverse mix of age, race, gender, and ethics. As the site manager, she is accountable for an enormous amount of responsibilities, but budget, site policies, and staff procedures were the bulk of these responsibilities. Organizing a management team was an ideal choice for operating a customer service based operation. She understood that maintaining the same level of efficiency without actually doing the bulk of the work was the goal she wanted to achieve. Her team consisted of two team leads (TL), one for the mail department and one for reprographics, and four lead site representatives (LSR), three for mail and one for reprographics. As the CSM, she delegated responsibilities, author...

Vw Strategy India

Marketing Solutions Volkswagen India Case Study Innovative campaign inspires 2,700 car recommendations in 4 weeks Volkswagen (VW) is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. As Volkswagen pursues its goal of becoming the number one automaker in the world by 2018, India has become a key component of its strategy. India is currently the world’s second fastest growing car market, with shipments expected to more than double by 2018. As a relatively recent entry into the Indian automotive market, VW needed to raise brand awareness. To address this challenge, Volkswagen’s marketing team focused one of its key brand pillars, innovation, to make a strong impact throughout the roll-out in India. Innovation was showcased not only in Volkswagen’s product introductions, but also in its communications and advertising. Challenge †¢ Create brand awareness among working professionals †¢ Build loyalty and aspiration †¢ In uence decision-making Solution †¢ Establish †¢ Enable VW-branded Company Page on LinkedIn LinkedIn members to recommend their favorite VW models †¢ Use LinkedIn Recommendation Ads to extend reach Innovative marketing strategies raise awareness VW India created groundbreaking campaigns such as the world’s rst ‘talking newspaper’, which used light-sensitive chips to speak to readers about Volkswagen as they turned the pages of their morning newspaper. The talking newspaper ad created a sensation in India, and garnered worldwide attention for taking print advertising to a new level. In one year, brand awareness ore than quadrupled, increasing from 8 percent to a high of 37 percent. Volkswagen next turned to digital media to extend its success and create new opportunities for customers to connect with the brand. Lutz Kothe, Head of Marketing for VW India, says, â€Å"At Volkswagen, innovation is woven into everything we do. In formulating our digital strategy, we looked beyond the obvious for innovative ways to eng age our audience. We knew that for many people, their car affects their professional life and their professional identity affects their car choices. This made LinkedIn a natural choice to connect with current and potential car buyers among the growing Indian professional population. † 1 Why LinkedIn? †¢ #1 resource for career-minded professionals †¢ Precise targeting by seniority and geography ensures match with affordability criteria, dealership locations Results †¢ 2,700 †¢ 2,300 product recommendations in 30 days new followers on VW India Company Page †¢ 960,000 viral updates about VW car models †Indian car market growth second fastest globally,† The Times of India, Jan 12, 2011; IHS Global Insight Automotive Industry Analysis, (data status: 07/02/11), rounded. Recommendation Ads get people talking Next, Volkswagen launched a series of Recommendation Ads encouraging more customers to join the conversation. Each ad showcased endorsements of actual LinkedIn members, and invited the community to recommend their favorite Volkswagen model. Volkswagen used LinkedIn’s broad reach (100 million members worldwide, 9 million in India) and precise targeting capabilities to connect with professionals who matched the buyer pro les for their different models. Lutz Kothe said, â€Å"Volkswagen was the rst company in India to use LinkedIn Recommendation Ads, and the campaign was a success. We went in with a goal of inspiring 500 recommendations among current and prospective car buyers. In less than 30 days, over 2,700 Volkswagen fans had stepped forward to recommend their favorite cars and share these recommendations with their professional networks. In the same time period, we gained over 2,300 followers who asked to stay abreast of the latest news and developments from Volkswagen. Kothe concludes, â€Å"In a world where people spend an increasing amount of time at work, thinking about work, and interacting with their work colleagues, we believe it’s important to foster discussion about Volkswagen products in a professional context. Our innovative partnership with LinkedIn lets our customers learn about Volkswagen products and provides insights†. LinkedIn Recommendations are ‘Network Aware,’ allowing members to see who in their professional network has recommended VW products Engaging working professionals on LinkedIn LinkedIn approached Volkswagen India with an opportunity to be the rst auto major to establish a presence on LinkedIn Company Pages. ‘Company Pages’ provide a branded home base within the LinkedIn community where businesses can showcase their company, products, and services in a trusted, professional environment. Volkswagen India participated in the worldwide launch of Company Pages in November 2010, and soon thereafter opened up their pages to allow LinkedIn members to post reviews and recommendations of their car line in India including the New Beetle, Vento, and Polo. Mr. Lutz Kothe, Head of Marketing & PR, Volkswagen Passenger Cars says â€Å"We were pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to create our Company Page on LinkedIn and start engaging with customers among the LinkedIn community. Furthermore, the quality of interaction was very high. Recommendation Ads accelerate results 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Week 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Launch of Recommendation Ads LinkedIn member-generated recommendations of VW car models increased dramatically with the launch the recommendation ad campaign. Over 2,700 Volkswagen fans recommended their favorite car models to their professional network in just four weeks. Sample Volkswagen recommendation ad featuring the new Beetle Reach the world’s largest audience of business professionals with LinkedIn. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions http://marketing. linkedin. com/contact Copyright  © 2011 LinkedIn Corporation. LinkedIn, the LinkedIn logo, and InMail are registered trademarks of LinkedIn Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and names are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. 10-LCS-032-G 0511

Beijing EAPS Consulting, Inc.

The case study, â€Å"Beijing EAPS Consulting, Inc. † in the Custom Book, (2011), examines the project management structure of the Beijing EAPS Consulting (BEC) company. This case study also addresses about project plan itself and how the co-workers are struggling with this communication between both mangers. This project plan has demonstrated many strengths and weakness. The one thing that the project plan needs put into action is safeguards to insure that the project is completed on time. BEC has taken on the matrix organizational structure.This type of structure combines functional and divisional organization structure styles. There are advantages and disadvantages in utilizing this type of organizational structure. Advantages include resource utilization, specialization, cross functional areas, communication and flexibility. Resource utilization allows for the project departmental managers to focus on their strengths. Also, it allows for the managers to all the workers to specialize in an area of important for that project. In turn, it uses people across the company who specialize in a field that relates to the project at hand.This matrix structure permits cross departmental communication and flexibility to work on different projects across the company structure. ( Guzman, 2012) However, with advantages come disadvantage with this type of matrix organizational structure. This structure increases complexity within the organization by leading to confusion among both workers and managers. The managers may not know what a certain employee has on their plate. In reverse, the employee will obtain an overload of work because they are receiving work from two different types of managers.Another disadvantage is an increase in overhead cost for the company due to the need for double management. This double management can lead to confusion between managers as to who has the higher priority of work creating a power struggle. (Johnson, 2012) The case study,  "Beijing EAPS Consulting, Inc. † in the Custom Book, (2011), reveals many advantages and disadvantages to this matrix organizational structure. For instance, the project manager, Ms. Song, and the departmental manager, Mr. Yang, are having a problem deciding who makes the final decisions on work to be completed because they are the same level in the management structure.Ms. Song feels like she does not have the authority to give direction to Mr. Yang’s employees. She is also wary about asking Mr. Yang to give his employees work from her because of his temperament. The loud and abrasive attitude of Mr. Yang represents the rational personality type. A rational trait is more forceful and can get angry quickly. (Lewis, 2003) Mr. Yang knows he has this type of personality; however, he does not do anything to curve this problem when he notices that Ms. Song is not communicating with him.Also, the employees do not know which manager to listen to or how to prioritize their work at hand. This causes more conflict between the employees, the project manager and departmental managers. In addition, these employees are not sure if the project manager or the department manager is their direct supervisor. This in turn causes conflict between both managers. There are some strengths and weaknesses that have been made clear about the project plan in the case study, â€Å"Beijing EAPS Consulting, Inc. † in the Custom Book, (2011).These weaknesses include an overload of individual and team projects. The employees need to work extra hours to keep up with tight deadlines. They are also working across department lines meaning they have to meet the demands of more than one manager at a time. When urgent matters arise they are required to add the new work to meet a new deadline on top of the current work load which now causes more stress on the employees and managers. On the other side, some of the strengths include being more efficient and market-oriented. These st rengths will help the company grow in size and profit.Also, being a matrix structure allows for multiple cross functional teams to work together. This helps the company work in a team environment with collaboration across all departmental boarders. Kloppenborg, Shriberg, and Venkattaman in Project Leadership (2003) discuss many factors about working in a team environment and the type of team behavior that is needed to help balance the expansion and management problems facing the Beijing EAPS Consulting company. To begin, the team environment needs a leader that is committed to the company and to them.This leader also needs knowledge of the project at hand, as well as the skills to help facilitated the project completion. Also, within this team environment it is a good idea to bring in the team members to participate in the 5 classical team development steps. These include forming, storming, norming, preforming and adjourning. By bringing in the entire team, a sense of community and rapport is built with the rest of the team. This helps to create a better cohesive and happier team environment. Team behavior is very important for a growing company like BEC. They need to make sure that heir employees have the correct company vision and attitude to expand. One of the big factors in getting a team together is to make sure that they socialize. They need to get to know each other and to understand their team members backgrounds both personally and professionally, along with their skills and behaviors they emanate. This will help lead to respect within the team environment. One of the major factors BEC is missing within its team environment is ground rules and codes of conduct. This helps the team share in understanding and expectations of the team as a whole.This implementation would help promote the correct behavior for any given situation within the team environment. These rules would also let them know who is in charge and who they report to for a specific project or goal they have been assigned. (Exforsys, 2010). Once you have a team in place, the next important goal is to make sure that your projects are completed on time. There are many ways safeguards and project planning can be done to mitigate the risk of being late for a project completion. The first thing that would need to be done is a Work Base Structure (WBS).This would insure that all aspects of the project have been planned out with timelines and schedules of smaller milestones. The WBS would take into account any risk management planning that would need to occur along with any communication planning. Another great safeguard is to build on some time to the end of the project deadline for any unforeseen events but have a set firm deadline. This firm deadline will give the project team a sense of responsibility to get the project done within that timeframe. This is a commitment from, not just the company, but the sponsors, team and project managers.In saying that, the project mana ger would need to track the progress of the work completed and the schedule to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Once milestones are met upper management would be notified as to the progress of the project. (Phillips, 2004) Every company needs a designed structure for communication between employees and management. The employees need to understand the reporting structure up though management and whether they are reporting to a project manager or a department manager However, it is not just the employees that need this definition of reporting structure but the managers need it as well.When the project manager is developing the team they need to create a community type of feeling within the team environment. This will help to insure that there is communication and good rapport with the team. Finally, making sure that a team stays on track and meets deadlines is a major under taking for the project manager. They need to build a WBS and take into account safeguards to insur e that deadlines are met.