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What Brought You to Buddhism?
Hi, All:
What is it that attracted you to Buddhism? Was it a particular event in your own life, something more chronic/ongoing, someone else you knew who was interested in it, or something else?
Peace,
Ben
What is it that attracted you to Buddhism? Was it a particular event in your own life, something more chronic/ongoing, someone else you knew who was interested in it, or something else?
Peace,
Ben
0
Comments
The fact is, a series of incidents opened the Dhamma door for me... I studied Shiatsu and Qi Gong, both Oriental practises, that revealed a lot more than just the subjects they covered... and at the same time (or around it) my mother (of all people - a devout Roman Catholic!) gave me a copy of "The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying". That was around 17 years ago.
The rest, as they say.....
Good question, by the way.
I'd always been intensely interested in religion and spirituality and I was raised a Roman Catholic but in a fairly unstructured way by my parents. I went quite deeply into Christianity when I was a teenager and became a bit of a Jesus freak.
But in my mid-30's I went through a series of heartbreaks and found myself unable to recover from them. I sought help everywhere I could think of and nothing helped. I was in deep despair and needed to find a way out. I knew suicide was out of the question because I believed in reincarnation at the time and felt quite strongly that suicide would only prolong my suffering, not end it.
One day I was in bed and I sat up suddenly and said to myself, "That's it! No more suffering. I can't take anymore. I have to do something about it. There's got to be a way to live in this cruel world without becoming overwhelmed by it or drowned in it." I thought to myself, "Who are the happiest and most peaceful people on earth?" And immediately I thought, "Buddhists!"
So I took their example and followed the path to end suffering and everyday since then I've become more and more confident I chose the right way for me. I'm happier and healthier than I've ever been in my life and the more I learn and understand the Dhamma the stronger, healthier, more grateful and happier I become.
So that's my story. Thanks for asking and I can't wait to read more responses.
Basically, what brought me to Buddhism was suffering from panic disorder and agoraphobia (for over twenty years). I had spent many years looking for a way out of my problem, thinking it to be external then one day, and I have no idea why, I just had enough. I bought a book on panic attacks by a woman who recovered and this book was littered with quotes by Chogyam Trungpa and how meditation aided her recovery so it all went from there.
That was a year ago and I have been the happiest I have ever been in my life. Unfortunately, I have hit a bad patch and I am ready to throw in the towel and accept that I will never recover, will always be unhappy and am just plain "wrong" for this world. Basically I am ready to give up and just go back to being the useless, idiot I believe I am. What is the point? I surrender!:mad::rant::grumble:
What brought me to Buddhism was curiosity. I had heard about a Theravada temple near my house from a friend of mine. He said that he had visited the temple with Brian and practiced meditation. I had always been interested in various philosophies and religions, and I was very interested in learning more about meditation. I finally managed to get the courage to visit on my own, and after talking to a couple of monks and participating in an evening chanting and meditation session, I began attending them fairly regularly. After a while, I began to read some of the discourses of the Buddha and I developed an appreciation for the goal to end suffering, and consequently, the various teachings and practices that are designed to lead the practitioner to that goal.
In essence, I was drawn to Buddhism because my whole life has been one big exercise in the Four Noble Truths. I have seen firsthand the suffering I put myself and others through—I am able to look back and see how many of my unskillful actions ripened into unskillful results, and how those consequences were not worth the relatively small amounts of happiness they provided. The reverse is true in regard to my skillful actions as well. Now that I have this knowledge, I can better shape who I will be in the future. Even if I do not reach Nibbana in this life, I will still have the benefits of making myself a more skillful individual. I am also doing my best to make my influence on the rest of the world a relatively more positive one than the negative one of my past.
Jason
Buddhism doesn't tell you any of these unless your intention is to ordain... everything else is a choice....
Evidently not.....
methinks we have some studying to catch up on......:rolleyes:
I cannot remember a time before knowing bits about the Dharma, particularly the precept against killing. My parents were great debaters at the breakfast and dinner table. I can clearly recall the discussions about the death penalty (they were both abolitionists), the Christie/Evans case and the role of Mr Justice Christmas Humphreys' sentence of death. I was 10.
A couple of years later, to the horror of my atheist father, I started to go to church, a local 'Low' Anglican service with lots of singing and very little theology. Even then, I did not stop studying other spiritual paths. At university, I became a Catholic and, later, studied for the priesthood with the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), although I left them quite quickly.
When I was 16, HHDL and his entourage escaped from Tibet and entered my awareness as a real person as against the novelistic images of lamas from Kipling, Hilton and 'Lobsang Rampa'.
As the years went by, I became aware of how skimpy and allusive was Christian instruction on meditation (or 'contemplation' to use the Xtian term). I also became disturbed by the exclusiveness of the Christian churches. Vatican II, with its emphasis on ecumenism (or 'oecumenism' as we termed it in the 1960s LOL) and on the notion of Lumen Gentium (a light for all people) was what brought me to Catholicism. Divorce and remarriage took me out of the mainstream Church but I never lost my sense that human beings need more than bread and circuses.
Two decades ago, diagnosed with chronic liver disease which affects and cripples the heart, I turned to meditation under the tuition of a Burmese Forest Tradition monk and an eccentric Catholic priest, a friend of HHDL's brother and who espoused Hindu ideas too. My study of Buddhism began again in earnest.
Today, I find - and share with others - a beautiful, elegant and nourishing synthesis between Buddhist practice and the kerygma, based on a 'hermeneutic' of inclusiveness. By 'hermeneutic', I mean the way in which I read and understand the scriptures of both disciplines, illuminated, too, by my love for the Sufi poets. Buddhist practice has, more and more, become central to my daily life.
It is an unfortunate fact that my personal synthesis of these two spiritual paths into a broad way to liberation is unacceptable and even repulsive to some, Christian, Buddist and atheist, but I take comfort in the friendship and tolerance that I have found here, at New Buddhist, and from such teachers who are truly versed in their own way, such as HHDL, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton and so many others.
As I am due for more hospitalisation soon, I shall be asked my religion. For a number of years now, I have put down "Christian Buddhist". I am still not sure which is the noun and which the modifier but it certainly puts off some of the more tedious chaplains!
Illuminating and generous as ever Simon...
Please let us know when you're due into hospital.
We shall all, of course, automatically keep you in our hearts and thoughts, and say prayers for you.
Rather like Simon I am a bit of a mongrel. I take the advice to read everything and evaluate it for myself, very seriously.
Paganism has been my path for most of my life although, like most people of my age I couldn't miss the Christian messages with which we were bombarded.
I came to know Buddhism through a friend who loaned me books on the subject and I found it fitted well with a lot of my existing beliefs.
In the past few years I have come closer and closer to Quakerism and so, were I obliged, with a knife at my throat, to fill in a form I'd have to say Quaker with strong Buddhist and Pagan leanings .... but then I loathe labels as divisive and unhelpful.
Put me down with HH the DL - my religion is kindness.
Take Care,
Ben
Well, sod them eh? I can't abide narrow-minded zealots of any faith. They don't like me either.
I wish you all the best. I have a friend who calls herself a Christibudd. Perhaps she should start her own religion, or at least patent the name;)
RE: Thread Question:
Complete accident and also, in hindsight, rather embarrassing. I've always had a vague interest in religious / spiritual teachings but in my youth other matters were on my mind.
Apart from the obvious interests of a hormonally challenged yoof, I've always been interested in archery, so one day (in the college library) I looked for any books I could find on the topic. It being not exactly a popular sport (like everything else I tend to like) there was only one book on it, so I took it home to read.
Oh fool me. Yes, a book on Japanese archery with a bit more thrown in then I'd expected.
Zen In The Art Of Archery (no idea what Zen meant back then - still no nearer now). What a bizarre experience. Me trying to glean useful (if exotic) archery tips whilst being totally baffled by the content.
I returned the offending book but the damage had been done - seeds were planted. Those seeds would yet take years to ripen but there was a sort of mysterious siren voice that lured me back.
There you go, I've confessed. Shabby I know. If it had only been a chance encounter with holy monk or a Himalayan adventure, but no... an ignorant mistake.
Kris
P.S. A link:
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Archery-Eugen-Herrigel/dp/0375705090/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212671605&sr=8-1
I get very embarrassed when I am asked why I moved to France and have to admit it was entirely by chance, I was supposed to be sailing around the world and ended up here, not very far from where I started .... but 17 years on there seems to be something about the place that I like.
Oh, and I am very familiar with Kyudo, the way of the bow.
Hi bushinoki,
It seems I took a similar (but odd) path. At college we had one lesson a week called 'recreational studies'. We had a choice of things to choose from, so I'd already done some French and figured I'd like to improve. It didn't work out, as I was by far the weakest and the lessons were very boring, so I dropped out.
The principal pulled me into his office after a few weeks and said if French was not for me I'd have to choose something else. There wasn't much on the list, so I chose art (which I was doing anyway and I'm good at). The art teacher (not my regular one) was overjoyed to see me and more or less made me her 'pet student' right away. I soon realised why. The other kids were a bunch of brainless rejects who hardly knew how to pick up a brush.
They used to stare, as if I were an alien. It all got very uncomfortable and I drifted off.
After a few weeks the principal pulled me into his office again but this time he was furious. It was, he said, my last chance and final warning. He pushed a list under my nose and told me to choose a subject and attend or else he would expel me without further warning.
The list only had about three things left available; a first aid course, basket weaving and Karate. I chose Karate, as I figured I could learn some self defense and the group would be a little more dynamic than the previous two attempts.
I turned up early and the first student who arrived was a Chinese girl I vaguely knew from school called Margaret. We chatted a bit then the other students arrived (all girls)! Margaret explained that there had been one guy in the class before but that he couldn't hack it, being kicked around by girls. When the instructor turned up (a lady of amazon proportions) I got a sinking feeling.
She looked me up and down and said "You're the one they've sent me from the art class right?" I was sunk - the girls could barely stop laughing. The worse thing was, I had NO choice any more I had to turn up week after week to be a kind of punch bag for a bunch of Lara Croft wannabees, who all had some kind of prior martial arts background.
Margaret was very kind and patient with me (unlike the English girls who enjoyed kicking my butt) and because I sort of knew her, I was pared off with her. She was one of the best in the group anyway. At the end of the year I could hold my own and my fitness level was brilliant.
I carried on with Karate for a few years after that but always this Zen 'thing' kept coming up. A Koan I recall from that time was "What becomes of the fist when the hand is unclenched"? With samhadi, I can now appreciate the beauty and profundity of those words.
Fate's odd eh? I just seem to have stumbled into these things.
Regards
Kris
We meet people, we are brought into contact with religions or philosophies for a reason - sometimes they cause us enormous change, sometimes they just enlarge our perspectives but they never happen for nothing
Cool question. I have been wandering for years following my Catholic rearing. I spent many years looking for something that really meant something to me personally. I first tried Hinduism, and the Maharishi. Then I took on struggling threw the Bhagvgad Gita,and various schools of meditation. I, also read my first Alan Watts
I knocked a girl up and got married and played at being a catholic again. Had three kids. Recalled childhood sexual abuse, went to court and won. During that time I dabbled in Shamanism, as well as, the writings of Don Miguel Ruiz. I began mediating again. I reconnected with an Alan Watts source and ended up here shortly after being turned on to the writtings of Tich Naht Hahn. Thanks again for asking
Has it helped?
Yes. Also, I've learned to recognise and avoid many of my triggers. So, I'm feeling much better!