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Why have you been drawn to Buddhism?
Dandelion
London Veteran
Hello Forum.
I have just begun learning about Buddhism. There are two people in my life that meditate regularly, and both of those individuals I have a lot of time and admiration for. One is a very close friend that began meditating after feeling quite poorly, and she has since been a non drinker and smoker for over two years and finds it benefits her life enormously. The other is my father in law who has meditated for many years and is a fountain of knowledge about meditation and many other things, and meditating completely changed the course of his life with regards to career. I did a short course in Buddhist meditation last year, and recently rekindled my interest by starting to read the book 'Change your mind' (which i'm thoroughly enjoying) and have begun meditating on a daily basis. I'm overwhelmed by how much there is to learn! But enthusiastic. I like the parallels to what I have so far learnt, between Buddhism and my own beliefs which I have formulated over time. This rekindling of the subject occured due to suffering severe migraines, and I do not want to take drugs for them. I have tried, but they give me terrible side affects, so I decided to try and approach the problem from a different angle - meditating. It seemed a little odd to join my local Buddhist meditation class, and not investigate about Buddhism itself, and so here I am, learning about it. What has your journey to Buddhism been? What drew you into Buddhism? How has it benefited you most?
Dandelion
I have just begun learning about Buddhism. There are two people in my life that meditate regularly, and both of those individuals I have a lot of time and admiration for. One is a very close friend that began meditating after feeling quite poorly, and she has since been a non drinker and smoker for over two years and finds it benefits her life enormously. The other is my father in law who has meditated for many years and is a fountain of knowledge about meditation and many other things, and meditating completely changed the course of his life with regards to career. I did a short course in Buddhist meditation last year, and recently rekindled my interest by starting to read the book 'Change your mind' (which i'm thoroughly enjoying) and have begun meditating on a daily basis. I'm overwhelmed by how much there is to learn! But enthusiastic. I like the parallels to what I have so far learnt, between Buddhism and my own beliefs which I have formulated over time. This rekindling of the subject occured due to suffering severe migraines, and I do not want to take drugs for them. I have tried, but they give me terrible side affects, so I decided to try and approach the problem from a different angle - meditating. It seemed a little odd to join my local Buddhist meditation class, and not investigate about Buddhism itself, and so here I am, learning about it. What has your journey to Buddhism been? What drew you into Buddhism? How has it benefited you most?
Dandelion
0
Comments
Meditation was a trial to get some island away from the suffering. The experience of the meditation was quite direct. The thinking and sitting with the programming to get up. I remember it being more tiring and I kind of worked through the situation, but it was definitely meditation and although I felt suffering through my meditation sessions, when I stood up I had a small moment of calm.
At that time I was not particularly mentally together, but I was very sincere about pursuing the dharma.
Meditation isn't about always being pure, but it is about sitting.
You are the cause of all your problems.
A friend's husband likewise eventually discovered to everyone's amazement that Red Dye #3 was the cause of his severe migraines (food allergen).
Meditation is very good for stress and pain relief, certainly, but also finding and working to eliminate the allergen and nutritionally strengthening the cell membranes can work wonders.
As for why Buddhism...
The Buddhist neighbors were the only adults in the entire neighborhood who didn't shame, silence, threaten, and damn little children to hell as heretics for remembering a past life. They were the only adults who managed to comport themselves as adults rather than as frightened children when confronted by a child with the issue of past life memory.
I eventually confronted even the "go ahead, ask me anything" pastor with the story of my former life at age 7. He looked at me with horror and ran away down the hall of his church like an idiotic frightened schoolboy, repeating "No no no no, we do NOT believe in such things, NO!" apparently to comfort and reassure himself of his belief system, severely threatened by the recounted past life memories of a 7 year old.
By contrast, the Buddhist housewife simply wiped her hands on a dishtowel and nodded with empathy:
"Yes, of course, a most traumatic death indeed. Buddhist teaching is that it is the traumatic death that makes you remember."
Just to clarify, so I am not misinterpreting what you have said; you believe you were a buddhist in a proir life, and chose to be reborn into your current life?
What made you come to this conclusion? How long have you had this realisation for and what prompted it, if I may ask?
I think my migraines are caused by light sensitivity. Roll on Winter! Today is a grey sky day with rain, so this is good for me!
It sounds like good Karma for you that you had Buddhist neighbours when you were growing up.
For the Pastor to have taken you seriously, it would have meant him having to readdress the fundamentals of his own religious beliefs. People are often too afraid to acknowledge something if it means having to admit their preciously held thoughts, opinions and beliefs may not be correct, especially if time has been invested.
You know what they say, if your life is wonderful,
you dont usually think about religion.
Good for you that you can come to terms with your father's death.
Ajahn Brahm's father died when he was 16.
He gives good advice regarding the issue.
That's a sweet story about your birth!
I understand what you say when you talk about the Christian Church being unable to answer your questions. About 9 years ago I joined an ALPHA course. At the time I had a boyfriend that was brought up in a strict Christian household. He always seemed to me to be very 'at odds with himself', almost like it wasn't quite the right fit... and would result in the most vicious outbursts (not at me, I might add), and he was left with a lot of anger which he could not really find an outlet for. Non the less, his beliefs that he had been brought up with did influence me, and I became interested in learning more about Christianity, but there were too many questions I could not get answered. In the end, I decided Christianity was not for me. There were things about Christianity that I did, and still do admire, but for me there were also too many 'holes'. Also, the Christians I met, I felt were very judgemental about my interest in astrology. I ended up attempting to reject astrology for a while (about 2 years) but it never felt right, and it felt fake to deny myself something that I truly do believe in.. I'm yet to see if this will be the case with Buddhism also. I get the feeling that there is less judgement going on though...
to check (the memories had some peculiarities), I read the 31 planes in access to insight. the plane that I lived in was devanamanarati. there, buddhist-like practices are much more common. I decided to come back to this planet (one of the practices is remembering past lives), and chosed this country due to a recommendation of my close friends.
there was something that triggered this memories; basically a sigil broke when something happened and the first "container" of memories (memories can be organized in nodes, in a hierarchical net... the experiences you want to remember first between lives are in the first containers) was opened.
of course, this is unreliable when I speak about it... because there's just one witness.
Blimey! How intriguing. It's not for me or anyone else to tell you that what you say happened, did not happen. I'm personally very open minded about 'experiences' of a spiritual nature. At some point, I think the individual that has had the experience has to bite the bullet and either reject it as some form of temporary insanity, find a logical (by logical in THIS context I mean not spiritual, logical is perhaps not the best choice of words but I struggle to find a better one right now, just to clarify) explanation or accept the experience and interpret it as insight and knowledge on a different level, i.e. not something that can be made into a logical 'conclusion', by most people's standards, by which I mean that these experiences are much rare than the things people experience every day in their lives... hope i'm making sense...
You don't need a witness to know that it happened, and I don't think you need a witness for it to be valid. It is not in everyone's Karma to have such experiences, but of course, not everyone believes in Karma, as it is not in their Karma to do so.
It sounds like you were (partly) experiencing a feeling of deja vu? Or do I misunderstand? I'm trying to put it into a context that can make me more easily understand, but it may well be the case that I can not find that context!
D :eek2:
thanks.
not really, a deja vu is more about circular time. using an example: it is as if you moved to another city, and after years came back to were you lived as a child and went to a place that made you remember something that you forgot.
I don't recall a single point when I was drawn to buddhism. I was raised as a mormon, but I haven't ever really been a spiritual person. Buddhist philosophy was always something that appealed to me, but I struggled with the "leap of faith" on the intellectual side of things. What I didn't realize at the time, was that I just needed to practice meditation more frequently. I wouldn't really gain that motivation until just in the past 4 years. There were two points that were crucial in bringing me to the practice.
First, was when I did magic mushrooms for the first time. I am not a visual or auditory hallucinator, so I don't tend to get distracted by those things when on hallucinogens. What I did feel was a feeling of everything being exactly as it should be, that fears was really a big cosmic joke. I felt bliss like never before. Out of all the things that I felt on that mushroom trip, I felt very comfortable despite never feeling such a sensation. I felt like I had been there before many times and I was just back for another visit. While my tripping companions were struggling to figure out what they were feeling (as was I), I knew that I should just accept it for what it was.
The second, and arguably the most important event that pushed me toward buddhist practice was when I did DMT. DMT is basically a very special molecule that I would suggest reading about if you haven't before. It is basically the active molecule in Psylocybin mushrooms and LSD (with less excess atoms), and is a slight variation on your body's natural neurotransmitter/neuromodulator of tryptamine. I fasted, meditated, and focused my mind on letting go for 24 hours before smoking this substance. Needless to say, it was a very ineffable experience.
After that experience, I knew that I needed to follow the path my life seemed to be showing the whole time. Luckily, I have no attachment to drugs; but they did show me aspects of myself that I never knew I had (namely spiritually). I am now in the practice of meditating regularly and focusing on being aware when I am not meditating. I have a had a serious anger issue in the past (learned from my father, perhaps of a bit of genetics), but I have been able to overcome a lot of that anger by simply practicing buddhism on a daily basis.
I must say that I am thankful that I started with the buddha's suggestion to analyze each of our actions before, during and afterward to see if they are skillful. This really helps with the ignorance and prepares you for everything else.
similar, but the containers are organized by relevance not chronological order.
of this life, I remember practically everything...
It's interesting for me to hear that - my experience of drugs (including smoking and alcohol) has been the opposite in one respect, but the same in another. Different in the sense that I have never experienced the state of 'bliss' that you talk about (although admittedly I have not taken mushrooms but I paint them almost on a daily basis, not quite the same though, I know!) I become very aware that my body does not want me to be taking/ingesting drugs, and I have MASSIVELY cut down on my alcohol intake the last 6 months or so. Ideally I would like to quit completely, but I have the whole 'oh I've had a hard day so I'll have a glass just to help me unwind and take the edge off' thing going on... Buddhism is so new to me that at this point it would be something of a miracle if I had already quit drinking, which is what i'm aiming to do in time. However, I can relate to what you are saying on another level, that level being that part of the reason, infact a massive part of the reason I have been drawn to Buddhism is because of drugs, i.e. alcohol in my case. I'm not an alcoholic and never have been, but have become increasingly aware over a number of years that I will reach a point in my life where I do give up, because there MUST be a better way of exisiting, and dealing with life and everything that entails. I don't tend to go out socially much anymore, being drunk, and being around drunk people has become boring. Don't get me wrong, this really is a judgement i'm making only for myself. I would never tell anyone they are bad for drinking. It is just not right for me anymore. So, like you, drugs have played a part in getting interested in Buddhism, but in different ways. I remember being in my early 20's, and at the time I was very sociable, and very much enjoying the vino on a regular basis. It was a very happy time in my life, but I distinctly remember just somehow knowing that I would one day quit in an effort to search for something much healthier to replace it, and find healthier ways of enjoyment. Healthier in terms of physical, emotional and mental health. I'm now 30, and I feel as though i'm on the wind down from alcohol phase. This is coinciding with finding different ways to find social pleasure, such as walks, flea markets, non alcoholic lunches with friends, etc, and of course seeking out other people that do not drink and allowing that to influence me in a positive way. I strongly sense that drugs do not mix well for me with creativity. I know a lot of people can find that taking drugs enables their creativity somehow, but for me the opposite is true, and I no longer get so drunk that I have a hangover, because not being able to paint the next day because I feel poorly is actually really upsetting for me. I need to be creative, I like the sense of FLOW and I think it's conducive to getting in that state when also pursuing Buddhism. Maybe I took too many drugs in a past life and that affected my creativity in a negative way which is why I now have a sense of being 'clean' with regards to what I ingest, who knows!
Thankyou very much to everyone that so far has told me, and other people on this forum your stories, i've enjoyed reading them!
:thumbup:
Dandelion
I guess this just says that there are infinite paths to the truth. We are all destined to get there, it is just how long it takes I guess. We just need to stick with it
Good luck, and stick to what you believe in. It doesn't sound like you are judging the people around you for what they believe in, at any rate you're not on a mission to make them believe what you believe in, it sounds like you just want to have the freedom to explore you're own beliefs without hiding them, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's funny isn't it, how so many religions talk about 'tolerance', yet not many people seem to really grasp what that word means.
Dandelion
:rarr:
You're welcome, fingers and toes crossed for you that it helps.