Empathy papers are papers  demonstrating your empathic understanding of certain dimensions of the traditions covered in this course. Imagine that you were a believer/practitioner of a tradition studied, and reflect upon how its worldview, doctrines, and/or practices would affect you personally. That is, try to look at the ideas and practices as an insider of the tradition, and consider the benefits, limitations, or struggles those ideas and practices may bring to your daily life. Use the present tense and relate “your life” in a matter-of-fact fashion. (That is, instead of saying “If I were to adopt X as my religion, I would have to make a change to do Y,” it will be more effective to say “I am a follower of X, and in my daily life I experience Y.” The former is still commenting as an outsider looking in, and the latter is putting yourself in the shoes of an insider.) You are expected to be both appreciative and critical about the tradition, rather than being completely for or against it. For instance, “I am a follower of X, and I practice Y, which gets me through difficult times, but practice Z has limited my choice in.... ”Note that a real-life “insider” necessarily has a social location determined by gender, age, class, geographical location (in their homeland or in the U.S., for example), sub-tradition, individual practice, etc. That is, the more specific you are with your “insider” persona, the more realistic your empathy paper will be. Stated differently, it will not be a good empathy paper if you simply repeat the sentences in “Low-Tech Virtual Lectures” or make broad statements like “my religion is all about A and B.” It will of course be helpful if you do some extra research on some real practitioner’s experience, but it will suffice to draw from what we cover in course material and the video clips introduced in “Low-Tech Virtual Lectures.” All sources must be properly cited.  Each unit provides a few traditions that you may emphasize with: in Unit Three you can imagine yourself a Confucian, a Daoist, a Shint?ist, or someone who has taken all of the “Three Teachings” into their life without exclusively identifying with either (as most East Asians typically do). You are to pick one tradition from the current Unit to write your empathy papers on.  please Choose one tradition from a Confucian, a Daoist, a Shint?ist to write paper.