Right Speech is difficult, but so necessary

Posted on February 23, 2012 by AMH

For the last year, my intention has been to focus on a specific spoke in the wheel of the eightfold path—Right Speech. Almost immediately after I set this intention, I experienced big challenges and big failures. The lessons learned were painful but utterly necessary to truly take Right Speech to another level. Through the process it has been easy to see how the spokes are related to one another—Right Intention and Right Speech are intertwined at every level.

My first lesson came in the form of a deep intuition of a long friendship. It was clear to me that the stories some friends had of me were not how I saw myself or my current story. I felt this disconnected undercurrent as I struggled in my new and stronger self, one that left any trace of victim aside. The new self was one that others could not recognize, and one that showed significant growing pains through repeated mistakes. Continue reading →

Tolerant Christians. They do exist.

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Brian

A few years back I got invited to a wedding in California. A very good friend of mine was marrying his love—who just so happened to be a pastor at a Christian Church.

I went to their wedding, which was small, touching, and beautiful. While I was there I met some of their friends and I learned a lot about their church—the First Christian Church of Orange.

One thing that struck me immediately was that Olivia, the bride, went out of her way to make sure that she respected and understood my Buddhist beliefs, and wanted to make sure that I was comfortable at her Christian wedding—something no Christian in my experience had ever done for me. I was quick to ensure my friend and his bride-to-be that there wouldn’t be any issues. I was totally awestruck at the fact that they even considered my feelings in the matter. It was very humbling and a striking turn of tables, as generally Buddhists in America have to make sure to explain or apologize to their Christian friends and ensure their comfort in awkward situations like weddings and funerals.

I tell you that anecdote to set the stage for the kind of church that Olivia presides over. Over the time I spent in Orange with the newlyweds, I came to have a great deal of respect for their church. They were openly tolerant of everyone, regardless of race, background, and (most strikingly) sexual orientation. They had many openly gay congregants.

The church doesn’t just pay lip service to being “open”, either. In getting to know my friend’s new wife, she used her convictions and biblical knowledge to explain exactly why her church believes that Jesus Christ was, above all else, a tolerant and loving man. Their mission was only to share Christ’s love of everyone.

One of the friends I met while in Orange was Michelle. She is also a member of the church. She writes a blog about being a single Christian mom and today’s post, on Valentine’s Day, really struck me as capturing the spirit of the church.

The post is called “Be Loud in Love“. Reading it brought me back to my trip to Orange and was a refreshing reminder, in a world that is filled with news of hatred, violence, and intolerance, there are indeed loving and kind Christians out there. This particular passage struck me:

There are some Christians who “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This seems to me like a backhanded insult, that the Christian does not love the whole person, but instead they love who they, the Christian, want the ”sinner” to be. You can’t only love someone’s potential, you have to love their reality, too. That’s like saying “I love the thin person inside of you.” This idea is not love, it is simply tolerance.

I know a lot of Buddhists have, if not outright hostility, a general distaste for Christianity—in a pushy Christian society like America, it’s not hard to see why. Just try to remember our own philosophy of loving kindness and let’s try to practice a little tolerance of our own.

Must be the full moon

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Brian

I’m not exactly sure what has crawled up everyone’s ass lately, but I’ll say this:

NewBuddhist is a light-hearted community. We laugh. We don’t take things too seriously. We are here for people who are reaching out to Buddhism to answer some question or fill some gap in their lives. We have compassion for those who are new to Buddhism. We are not jerks.

If you have trouble with taking things far too seriously, or you are by nature an angry person, or it bothers you when people are “wrong on the internet”, or if you feel the need to be correct all the time, NewBuddhist is probably not a great place for you. There are, I’m certain, other Buddhism-centric communities that appeal to advanced practitioners or embrace the drama.

But drama? NewBuddhist ain’t it. Lincoln and I (the two guys who run this site) are just normal, happy dudes. We chill. We drink bourbon once in a while. We joke. We laugh. And we believe, with all our hearts, that practicing lovingkindness and compassion in an online space is entirely possible, appropriate, and so very, very modern.