What brought you to buddhism?

Bunks

Reading a lovely post by @Lee82 about discovering the path made me reflect on what opened my eyes to buddhism / buddha-dharma / the buddhist path.

I was brought up athiest (although that was more of a cultural thing - I always had questions) but when my daughter was born it opened up something inside me that I hadn't experienced before. I turned 40 around the same time and started to ask "What is this?"

I then read "The Art of Happiness" and it totally struck a chord with me!

I still haven't decided on which tradition to follow though. I like certain aspects of all of them. I am exploring Zen at present.

Interested to hear what (if anything) brought others to the path?

Lee82

Hi @Bunks, happy to hear you took interest in my story :-)

Jason

A combination of being interested in religion and philosophy in general, experiencing a lot of suffering in my life, and being being curious about meditation. As I mentioned in another thread, my first inkling that Theravada Buddhism was right for me, and that it contained within it existential truths about life, was while reading Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah. The more I read and thought about life, about how each living being is subject to aging, illness, and death, and about how much we, as human beings, suffer mentally, the more I became interested in learning more about the Buddha's teachings, which promised to help put an end to suffering.

I spent a lot of time visiting a Thai Theravada temple near my house and meditating (which I discovered thanks to Brian, the site owner, who also went there), especially during some really difficult times, and reading the suttas of the Pali Canon; and I had a feeling that this path had more potential for my spiritual growth and well-being than any I'd previously undertaken. I even quit my job at one point to spent some time living at a Buddhist monastery in Perry, MI.

I find the teachings themselves both rational and empirical in nature. The Buddha isn't talking about anything beyond empirical observations (although some things do stem from extrasensory perception) and divisions of experience that are utilized to eliminate suffering in the mind; and the noble eightfold path doesn't rely or depend upon things I can't easily experience for myself or intellectually grasp on my own. Even its ethical structure is based on the perceived cause and effect relationship between our actions (kamma) and how they're experienced (kammavipaka). The methodology is pretty straightforward (even if the philosophical underpinnings can be fairly complex), and I appreciate that.

More importantly, over the past decade, my study and practice has helped me in a number of ways, mainly by helping me to better deal with a range of emotional issues that have plagued me since adolescence, particularly depression and violent, angry outbursts, neither of which were abated by medication or pleas to the unknown. While progress has been relatively slow, there's been definite improvements over the years, which have been noticeable not only to myself, but to friends and family as well. And much of this is thanks to following the Buddha's advice to his son, Rahula, in MN 61, observing the five precepts, and practicing mindfulness.

ThailandTom

Suffering and the internet, only after watching 'Spring Summer Autum Winter' by chance.

federica

My Roman Catholic Mother's gift of a book, to me:

"The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche.

mynameisuntz

Stumbled upon in within my constant philosophical readings. I've always been about Western philosophy, but eventually a connection to Eastern philosophy was made within some readings, and I was hooked.

Also reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

BonsaiDoug

Not to sound too trite, but it kinda found me. I had always done a lot of reading about Taoism, and so a friend recommended I "look into" Buddhism. The more I read the more connected I felt. And so the journey continues.

jennynicole

I actually came upon Buddhism while researching my novel. I had penned one of my characters as being a Buddhist without even fully understanding what Buddhism was. I began my research and noticed that almost every Buddhist belief and practice I came upon was extremely similar to my own personal beliefs. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school my whole life. However, I haven't been a practicing Catholic in years and had settled upon not having a formal faith system at all. I just assumed that my beliefs didn't fit into any category. The more I read about Buddhism the more I realized that I wasn't alone in my beliefs. So, here I am and I'm more than happy to be here.

Geoff-Allen

Interestin discussion!

I suppose I came 2 Buddhism after a LOT of suffering. Schizophrenia at its worst is an absolute master-class in suffering!

Was raised Catholic but never really felt it suited me - all that talk of sin & hell didn't feel right ...

I would recommend one book - The Lost Art of Compassion -

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Art-Compassion-Discovering-Psychology/dp/0060750529

Plus if you wanna whole bunch of Buddhsit teachings/quotes, try this page -

http://viewonbuddhism.org/dharma-quotes-quotations-buddhist/index.htm

Best of luck!

Wisdom23

do you know what i can't quite remember, i am a self confessed worry aholic getting better though lol. I was making my way through a selection of semi helpful self help books until i someone or something pointed me in the direction of buddhism. So i picked up Buddhism for dummies lol the front cover alone ' shakyanumi' seem to bring a sense of calm and tranquility to me. Reading along alot of the principals and philosophys rang true with me so i continued along the buddhist path and here i am today still fairly fresh and new to buddhism but loving it non the less. I am still having slip ups occaisionally i.e sarcasm or harsh thoughts i put this down to fact that i was bullied well picked on quite a bit and still am now from time to time which has left a wee bit of bitterness in me which i am trying to rid but as i said buddhism is helping so muuch

caz

Birth

federica

caz said:

Birth

Which one, exactly.....?

Tombo

Failure,for what felt like the umpteenth time. Subsequent despair. Then a feeling that there must be a way out, a way to live differently from the palette of reactions and coping mechanisms that I'd previously lived.

Cue the self-help section on Amazon. Stumble upon Jon Kabat Zinn,Noah Levine,Jack Kornfield, HHDL.

It's working,slowly. And life's better than before.

Sabre

I started meditating quite early in my life, because I suffered from a thinking mind , and was also interested in it; how does it work, why doesn't it do what I want? When you start meditating, you quickly get in touch with Buddhism, but I can't really define a certain moment or event. That's also because it took me some years to get more into Buddhism than just the meditation and the precepts, because at first I couldn't really take on the more metaphysical aspects (in lack of a better term) of it, being very skeptic from birth.

charirama

I knew a little bit about Buddhism, that it was based in Loving Kindness and Compassion, and then I began to notice that many of the people I admired were Buddhist. I wanted to learn more about it so I started reading some books and it began to make sense to me.

I was fortunate to do some work with Dr. Gabor Mate who was one of the people I admired after hearing him on the radio. I got to spend a bit of time with him discussing Buddhist philosophy and how he applied it in his daily life then I started going to meditation retreats and meeting some teachers.

I started practicing Yoga around the same time as I started practicing Buddhism and I have found that they compliment each other very well.