Buddhism

What Buddhism is (and is not) to Me

It's not shaving your head and donning a robe. It's not leaving all of your belongings and family behind to meditate in the Tibetan mountains. It's much more than that. To me, that's taking the easy way out.

That stereotypical, long-bearded guru hidden in a cave at the peak of some obscure Indian or Tibetan mountain is taking the easy way out. He is foregoing the application of Buddhist principles in order to simply study them. In Christianity, if someone spent all day sitting in their room praying, would they be considered a good Christain? I would think not, although some may disagree. In essence, meditation, is akin to a deep level of prayer. Where instead of asking for, or thanking God for something or someone in Christian prayer, in Buddhist meditation you reflect upon yourself, an event, a thought, the world, or yes, even God.

Buddhism doesn't have a godhead to worship. It doesn't necessarily have a set of dogma to follow and a set of consequences should you break that dogma. This allows it to complement religions that do. My faith is a mix of Christianity, which I was raised on, and Buddhism - which I've come to on my own. I found the unquestioning and feudal nature of Christainity unfulfilling so I went looking into alternatives.

I hit a rut in my spiritual growth in my early teen years. I had a lot of questions about the religion that until that point, I had been following unequestionably. I wondered what worship really was, why we had to do it every Sunday, if praying actually did anything, what happened to sinners before the crucifixion, the existence of hell and heaven, and so on. I received very few answers to these questions, outside of pointers to Bible verses and references to faith alone. I came to the point where I didn't know what to call myself. I didn't know what religion I really was. One night I explained my beliefs to a devout Baptist friend, and she said I sounded like a Buddhist.

That was a shock to me. I wasn't bald for one. I still believed in a god for another. After looking into it however, I found out that Buddhism really was a good fit for me. Maybe I really was Buddhist. I researched the 4 Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the life of the most famous Buddhist, Siddhartha Guatama. The thing that really stood out to me in all of this was that your fate lay in your own hands. There's no devil prodding you behind the scenes to commit evil and there's no Final Destination for you set in stone. The path of your spirit is entirely up to you.

If Buddhism has taught me anything, it's to think about how I think. I'll cover that in more detail on this page and how I perceive Buddhism. Maybe it's not for you. Maybe I'm wrong, but that is entirely up to you.