#ugc111

It seems that there is a huge significance for the Cambodians to think of lions as sacred guardians to guard their sacred religious places and perhaps ward off evil. Perhaps lions being known as the king of the jungle and are also very fierce animals made them two possible reasons that the people chose lions to be the guardians of their gods since they would be able to ward off any evil beings. It may also be used to show how divine their gods are, and how much reverence the people have for their gods, as lions are symbols of power and might. Then this would mean that their gods are so powerful and mighty that even lions are their guardians. This can also show how their religion is respected by the people there , and how much it has been incorporated in their lives. 

It is very intriguing as to why they viewed possessions to be so negative to almost a full extent. Although it may also be possible that Thomas was exaggerating on this, it also represent their views that one can only live well when they do not own anything other than their holy and sacred materials. 

This quote is also interesting where it mentioned 'let your glance be turned to the ground'. It may be possible that this quote is about Clement telling his fellow Christians that one way to live in that world of persecution (against Christians) is to live modestly and humbly, as this can be a way of hiding themselves from their persecutors and thus protect their own lives in that time period?

Importance: Since the author, Clement was writing this text after a series of mass trials and executions of Christians in Rome, he could have been briefly answering the question of ‘how shall we live during chaotic times?” Clement emphasizes on the themes of wisdom and faith.  He encourages the newly converted Christians to pray regularly (may have been viewed as a means of communication between god and his followers) and to maintain absolute faith in God; he sees God as the supreme being. He could have possibly viewed prayer to God as a solution to the problems Christians were facing at that time in Rome.  Clement also highlights the importance of having wisdom; he asks his readers to have rational thinking. He tells them to think before performing any particular action and to use one’s knowledge only when necessary. 

However, this also makes me curious, because since they also believe in the idea of karma, would such duties, especially of warriors, be counted towards their karma as good or bad, even though they may just be fulfilling their Dharma, but they still may be killing people? Or as how the quote above goes, slaying or even to be slayed, may not be even considered as a deed (due to having an eternal atman, therefore one is never truly killed?), but rather, it is fulfilling their Dharma that is the 'deed' that their karma would be counted towards?

By using the word 'improve', it also shows an interesting side about the ideals of Laozi as it could possibly mean that men cannot even do, or attempt to do anything to the world, and the leaders or kings or deities do not have the right to do anything that may change the world as it was, regardless of whether the world is in a good or bad state. Instead, it has to reach an equilibium by itself and then, things will finally fall properly into shape and then things will get better by itself. 

The common theme of these two texts are the body and death, but their approach to this context is different. Epicurean philosophy believes that the soul is similar to the body and dies after we cease to live; whereas Stoicism believes that the soul is different from the body and its performance shouldn’t be hindered because of an injury to the body.  Epicurus emphasizes that our soul dies too when we cease to live, hence we need not worry about afterlife so we don’t have to worry about it while we are alive; he also encourages his readers to conquer the fear of death to lead a happy life.  Whereas, Epictetus focuses more on the elements we can and cannot control; his philosophy is being able to let go of things we cannot control (one of them being death), to lead a happy and quality life.  Ref: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/

In this sense, women had been depicted to place the highest importance on their sexual desires rather than having the desire to stop the war and have a peaceful society. This is something that is very intriguing as it feels very bizarre to imagine one to find one’s own sexual desires to be more important than anything else in the world. Therefore, this sentence has demonstrated a very unusual characteristic and role of women in the society of ancient Greece, depicted by a man (Aristophanes) in this same era.