Seminary Program

This is where we post the essays from many of our Universal Life Church Seminary students. When students finish a ULC course, they write a comprehensive essay about their experiences with the course, what they learned, didn't learn, were inspired by, etc. Here are their essays.

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Friday, April 21, 2006

Buddhism

Final Essay on Master of Buddhism 
Rev. Nancy Rutledge

Thank your for offering this course on Buddhism. I found it to be very interesting and informative. I learned so many things I was not aware of before the course. I learned about the Guatama Buddha (Siddhartha Guatama) and his life and how he is considered the founder of the Buddhist Religion. Guatama Buddha was a fully enlightened being. The course covers how he was born and brought up and lived and died, technically a Hindu.

This course also covered the differences between Buddhism, Hinduism and many other religions. I also learned a lot about the other religions. Buddhism is one of the oldest religions, predating Christianity. It’s amazing that the Buddhism religion is here today. The first 200 years was only an oral tradition. This was a very in depth class. It had a lot of information from the course text, the Internet and other resources. I read several of the books suggested and enjoyed their information.

One particular area of interest was on Nivana. It is the most misunderstood term in Buddhism. Those in the West recognize the term as Heaven or a Heaven on Earth. The Buddhist describes Nirvana as the ultimate goal and it is reached in the state during enlightenment. Nirvana literally means extinguishing or unbinding; the freedom from whatever binds you. Once these bindings are totally overcome, a state of bliss is achieved and there is no longer the need for the cycle of birth and death. All karmic debts are settled.

I was unaware that there were that many types of Buddhism and meditations. This course will help me in my walk as a minister. I have a better understand of the Buddha and his religion. I can say that I have truly learned form this course and I highly recommend it.

Blessings to you all,

Rev. Nancy Rutledge

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The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, Wicca, Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more. I have been a proud member of the ULC for many years and the Seminary since its inception.

The Universal Life Church offers hand-fasting ceremonies, funeral ceremonies and free minister training.

As a long time member of ULC, Rev. Long created the seminary site to help train our ministers. We also have a huge selection of Universal Life Church  minister supplies. Since being ordained with the Universal Life Church for so many years and it's Seminary since the beginning, I've watch the huge change and growth that has continued to happen.



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