Maybe this is a strange topic to address. Religion and politics are The Big Two, as in controversial, that we are taught never to discuss in polite company, for fear of starting rumbles, riots and estrangements. I am a Buddhist, yet I didn't start out a Buddhist. How did that happen? Thereby hangs a tale...
It's a long story -- you have been warned! I think if you hang in and read it all, though, you'll find a pay-off. And I will say from the get-go that I have no intention of offending anyone, but on her blog Claudia calls 'em as she sees and experiences 'em, and does not pull punches, so we got that straight.
Now, my becoming-a-Buddhist story...
I was baptized Lutheran, but we never were much for practicing. Although I can remember being taught to say God-bless-so-and-so prayers, and attending two different Bible camps by age 10 (probably more to keep me out of the 'rents hair and to delay the onset of my summer vaca for them as long as possible), but only remember going to church a couple of times with my aunt, uncle and cousins, and Auntie always sat beside me with her pink stick at the ready to whack me one, lest I even thought about fidgeting or breathed too loudly.
The extent of my childhood Christian education can be summed up by that, and by the reading of a set of Old Testament Bible stories, supplemented by a very easy-to-read New Testament, courtesy of our good neighbor, Ed Kassouf. If there is a heaven, no doubt Mr. Kassouf now resides there, for he was never to my knowledge anything but kind to anyone. And he was endlessly patient with a young Claudia who was hungry for positive adult attention, and who would chatter the ears off of any ten adults in as many minutes, and still will. But I digress...
So let's just say that God and I were, for the most part, not well acquainted until my senior year in high school, when I met a girl I'll call Beth. Beth was a Born-Again Christian. After she got to know me well enough to feel free to chide me, I would hear from Beth frequent pleas to also become a BAC. "The end of the world could come tomorrow, Claudia," she would say. "Do you know you're going to hell if you died right now because you haven't been saved? I don't want you to go to hell. I want you to be in heaven with me. Please! Get down on your knees soon and pray the Sinner's Prayer." I always demurred, feeling fairly uncomfortable during these discussions. I have never had a problem discussing spiritual matters, but someone proselytizing or attempting to convert me has always made me feel trod-upon, like they're crossing a boundary and invading something that is personal, private, sacred.
But Beth's seeds eventually took root. I was raised in fear of my stepfather, so fear of a patriarchal figure was what I knew. The Christian Coalition was going great guns at the time, and conservative talk shows all over radio and TV echoed perfectly the value structure Beth espoused. (Can one be Christian and liberal? Sometimes it's hard to find evidence one can -- the loudest mouths with a Christian brand seem to jaw distinctly to the right, don't they?) I began to believe Beth might have a point. Then one day our garage door broke, and my mother didn't really know where the money to fix it would come from. I prayed for a miracle. That day, I found an ad in a local money-saving paper for a garage-door repairman; we called him and he came over the next day. As he fixed the garage door, we talked, and it turned out I had gone to elementary school with his daughter. It also turned out he was a BAC. He had a very productive day as it turned out because by the end of it, he had fixed our garage door, invited me to dinner the next day to see his daughter again after all those years, and prayed the Sinner's Prayer with me that made me a BAC, too.
Interesting part about this family: They were very short on follow-through, that is, once my soul was saved, they seemed to have little interest in mentoring Claudia the new BAC. I suppose it's a feeling not unlike when you sleep with someone and never hear from them again. I felt like just another notch on their Bible.
Beth, however, was delighted, and gushed in a letter from her new Christian college: "Oh, Claudia, that's wonderful! I knew God would someday do a great work in you." (!!!)
In Claudia World, though, being a BAC was tough going. How does one clean up language as salty as mine so that one is fit to "fellowship" with those with sweeter tongues and (apparently) cleaner thought-processes? How many BACs does it take to convert recalcitrant, feminist Claudia body, mind and spirit to such a thoroughly patriarchal religion? Do people, especially those with IQs near Mensa-level, still believe that a guy stayed in the belly of a whale for three days and other such tales? And the burning question, never once competently answered by anyone or anything but my own experience, where was God when I was being abused as a child?
By 1987, about three years post-BAC-conversion, after working more, becoming less shy, and hanging out with people from a wide variety of faiths, I began to explore, studying Wicca (much to the horror of some visiting Jehovah's Witnesses), and settled on a loose New Age affiliation that lasted seven years or so. ("You've backslidden!" tsk-tsked Beth). Then the bombshell that won me back to Team BAC, at least for awhile...
My mum had a close encounter with some ice in a dark parking lot at her workplace in 1987. It took almost seven years for the resulting back injury to render her unable to work at her job, and for more than two years, any job. Suddenly, the mounting bills, possible foreclosures, having food to eat, were MY problem. Having lived with the stepfascist, I was no stranger to fear, but never had I experienced anything so pervasive, so all-encompassing. It is hard for one person working three or four entry-level, part-time jobs to replace the salary of one professional with 33 years of experience and the concomitant paycheck. Every ring of the phone, every vroom of the mail truck seemed to bring more bad news. When waking up every day seems to bring some fresh hell, it is easy to dread waking up. And then I started to notice something strange: every time some new bill came, or we needed money out of nowhere (doctors, lawyers working on my mum's worker's compensation or SSI disability cases)...it came. The form was ever-changing -- a surprise cleaning or baby-sitting job, some back pay my mother's workplace decided they owed her, whatever. Always something, always just the right amount and usually no extra, and always at the eleventh hour. I would've had to be blind not to notice a pattern and suspect an intelligence behind the happenings. Jehovah became a frightened young woman's new hero.
Somehow we negotiated that humongous hurdle. My mum finally won her disability on the second try, received some job (re)training and began to work again. I went down to one job as of 1997 when I got hired at The Plaza back in the good old days when the flagship restaurant was Bob's House of Roast Beef.
Those early days at The Plaza were great, in a way. My mother was working again and not constantly underfoot, and I worked the 4-11 evening shift, so, unless I was out with my piano-playing friend hawking his merchandise, I was free to cook and do housework from the time I got up till about 3 or so, when I'd change into my uniform and walk to work.
My morning ritual at this time allowed me to have time with God, and I availed of that time with prayer, Daily Guideposts books and the like. Since I worked Sundays, church was out of the question, but I spent my spiritual downtime watching Joyce Meyer. Joyce is like me, assertive, opinionated, forceful, and like me she was sexually abused as a child. I like Joyce's style as well as her substance and still consider her a soul sister.
My problem always was I could never similarly bond with the God of the Bible.
As I healed from my stepfather's abuse, I became aware of the extent and depth of the damage. Although the sexual abuse caused maybe some of the most glaring damage, it was the verbal/emotional abuse that, to this day, takes the biggest toll. My stepfather was very controlling; he had many rules and regulations that were often random, arbitrary, and ever open to change and refinement. I had no privacy. My room was frequently searched, my diary read, and my stepfather was not the slightest bit ashamed he did this; indeed, he bragged about it. At any time, my work ethic, actions, opinions, even my very facial expressions could be held under scrutiny, and were almost always disapproved of. It was like living with the Gestapo.
During my entire history as a Christian, I was trying to conform myself to a religion whose God seemed to be all about "thou shalt not", and it always seemed like everything I thought, felt, did, or was was a "thou shalt not". This God seemed like a patrol cop in the sky, with a humongous black book that he was ever busy writing down my legions of sins into. Yes, I was frequently told by other Christians that God loved me. But I was also told that His love was because of his goodness and holy name, and not because I deserved it, being like all humans born to original sin, as if I had very little intrinsic worth of my own. And THAT was the crux of the problem between me and Jehovah.
Take a child like me, born out-of-wedlock in the 60's when that just wasn't done. My aunt and uncle implored my mother to give me up for adoption, my father abandoned me for reasons unknown, and my stepfather abused me in every way possible for 12 years. These experiences led to a deep core wound of shame and unworthiness that's taking a lifetime to heal. Do we really expect someone like me to commit to whole-heartedly worship a God who reinforces her core wound, her unworthiness, her very sin in being born?
I tried, I really did. Not because I loved Jehovah, because I'm not the kind of person who can get close to anyone when I feel bad about myself in their company. Like most people, I want to be around those who value my intrinsic worth, and if I perceive they don't, I will quickly and unceremoniously abandon the relationship. With Jehovah, I tried unsuccessfully to love and worship him because I feared otherwise he would send me to hell. Fear of punishment, plain and simple. Way too many shades of the stepfascist.
Eventually, my only bonds with the Christian God seemed to be in terms of millennial-era catastrophizing and "left-behind" theology, and those are thin tethers; and our local Episcopal church, whose services I attended during this time period, trying to find something Christian to hang on to. In time I felt the futility that a person must experience in a very incompatible marriage struggling for common ground where there is none, and finding only reasons to divorce, not stay married.
Along about then, a couple of random events conspired to propel me to my current spiritual residence, with the kind of irony that makes true life sometimes stranger than fiction.
Sometime in the late 90's, I heard the sad news about the death of a friend I'll call Colin. I had known Colin since junior high. Colin came out to me as gay in the mid-80's after a rather devastating break-up with his boyfriend. Not long after, he moved to a city in the Bible Belt, a sometimes difficult location for a gay man. I visited him a few times there, always admonishing him to practice safe sex. We lost touch over the years, but I'll always remember his kindness and non-judgmental attitude toward others. He was fun to be with, and his easy-going nature always soothed and balanced my more tempestuous one. The last time Colin came to visit, unfortunately, I did not get to see him and didn't even know he was here, probably being at one of my four jobs. I was told later it was probable that Colin had been suffering from some complications to AIDS and that it was obvious at the time he didn't have long to live. Also that he had been estranged from his mother, due to her conflict between her Catholic faith and his sexual orientation, and that estrangement apparently continued until his death. Sad for both of them.
I had always heard extremely negative observations about homosexuals from BACs and other conservative Christians, very little Christian love or compassion ("Homosexuality is a gross sin in the eyes of God, and AIDS is the punishment!" -- Beth during a discussion of the AIDS epidemic, circa 1986). A lot of these opinions were very heated and vehement, with blatant discrimination, hate, even violence directed at gay and lesbian citizens. I was shocked to learn there are areas in our country where people can legally be fired from jobs and denied apartment leases simply due to sexual orientation. Every time I heard such ugliness I thought of Colin and other gays and lesbians I had met while working along the fringes of the local entertainment industry. We all know people fear what they don't understand, and that fear often turns people's words and actions ugly. It seemed to me that many times people tend to wrap themselves up in the Bible (or flag) when spewing their poison -- one of my friends called this "using Jesus as a malicious shield". I determined to find out what the Bible really says about homosexuality.
I investigated the true culture of the Middle East during biblical times, especially vis a vis the concept of hospitality; whether the Holiness Code is applicable to Christians today; the meaning of the word "abomination" in biblical terms. I made exhaustive studies of phraseology of the approximately seven times in the Bible where homosexuality is mentioned, in the languages they appeared in (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek). I strove to understand the biblical concept of the issue of homosexuality that was being referenced, which I understand to be much different than what we are perceiving today, because our culture is way different. I even investigated ancillary issues such as: How is the process of judgment for our sins carried out? Is hell a place of eternal punishment for those sent there? Did the ancient Jews and early Christians believe in a hell of eternal damnation? How did several disparate schools of Christianity evolve into the religion we are being taught today? How much politicizing was involved? The answers surprised me, and may vary greatly from what some of us have been taught.
I emerged a far different spiritual woman at the end of this analysis, which lasted several years, and as I now perceived everything much differently than I'd been taught, I became a woman without a religion. This went on a few years, until the other shoe dropped.
In 2011, I came across an obituary for Beth's father. I considered sending a sympathy card, but we had not communicated in some 17 years. Some gaps are tough to bridge, not just those of time, but of philosophy. I sensed that I was in the middle of a spiritual evolution that I didn't want to discuss quite yet, so I sent a prayer for Beth's welfare and peace to the Universe, as it were, and called it a day. A year later, Beth took matters into her own hands.
One night in March, I came home from work, stopping by the mailbox on the way in as I usually do. I was flabbergasted to find a letter from Beth waiting for me. It seemed her children were growing up, she had lost her father, she had some time on her hands, and wanted to re-connect. There were requests for forgiveness, questions a tad bit personal for these many years apart, frustration that I am not accessible via social media, etc. After mulling the matter over a day or two, I responded, offering the forgiveness she seemed to need, evading the more personal questions, answering some others, exchanging contact info. She sent me an email a few days later; I forwarded a few back. And then...nothing. (As it stands to this day, two years later). I assumed she lost interest and felt relieved. Lots of water, and changes, under the bridge. With the new spiritual direction dawning and the instinct to set up boundaries around it, I sure didn't want to discuss or listen to proselytizing at this point in my life, especially from someone who hadn't been there through the changes.
And then, about a week or so later, I had it. The Dream That Changed Everything.
In the dream, I stopped by the little house where Colin lived. It seemed he was ill. I asked him what his temperature was, but he didn't know. Apparently he didn't have a thermometer. Concerned about him, I swallowed my usual lecture about "civilians" (people with the average layperson's knowledge of medical matters, which Claudia the nurse's daughter always urges those in her personal sphere to exceed), and told him I was going to the mall, and I would pick one up for him, but I had another stop to make, too.
The next thing I saw, I was at Beth's childhood home. Apparently I had promised I would stop by and visit a bit. As soon as I got there, I was overwhelmed by a sensation of heaviness, of feeling stultified, depressed, oppressed. I really didn't want to be there. Beth's stepmom and sisters were there; they wanted me to stay to dinner. Ugh!!! I tried to think of an excuse to leave. All of a sudden, I saw something moving in the top of my vision. I looked up, and to my amazement, a black bat had flown out of a square hole in the ceiling, and was dive-bombing us. I hate bats. They rank up there with snakes and rodents as things to be feared. As scared as I was, Beth & Co. were even more frightened. They screamed for me to do something. I finally got them to hook up a hose to the kitchen faucet and I shot a torrent of water at the bat, who dutifully flew up into the square hole and out of sight. Whereupon I dutifully made my excuses and flew the hell out of there to Colin's house.
When I arrived, Colin appeared much better than earlier in the day when I had seen him. I took his temperature and though elevated, it was not worrisome. He had a fire lit in the fireplace against a chilly September evening, which made his small house feel quite cozy. A very relaxed and homey environment. I couldn't resist mentally contrasting it with the sharp discomfort I had felt at Beth's childhood home. Colin suggested we go outside and enjoy the early evening.
Colin's backyard was spacious, though it was hard to tell where his property ended and his neighbor's began, as the backyards flowed into each other. We sat down at his wooden picnic table and looked toward the lowering sun. We must have talked a bit, though I don't remember the conversation, only that at some point we stopped talking and I looked directly into his blue eyes. Suddenly, there burst upon me the certain knowledge that Colin was dying, and sooner rather than later. I looked closely at him, noted that his shoulder-length hair was snow-white. When did he get old, I wondered. It struck me then that when I had seen Beth and her family, they appeared no different than they had been in the 80's when I had first met them, as if they'd been frozen in time. Meanwhile, I felt the age I was at the time of the dream, 46. But although Colin's hair was white, his face was unlined, and startled, I noted little aging, as if a young man had dyed his hair white. Our eyes met again, and I mutely rejected the thought of his death. Colin continued to regard me silently and, as if he had read my mind, I felt him confirming wordlessly his imminent death. Yet, looking at him, I saw nothing but acceptance, peace. His countenance radiated profound wisdom and goodness, no struggle, only joy. Being with Colin, I suddenly felt as if I was in the presence of a mystic sage.
Sounds from the adjoining yard revealed Colin's neighbors, a single mother and her young children, out playing tag. I couldn't help smiling as I watched them. Seeing us watching them, the mother waved, and as he waved back Colin said, "I come and watch them every night when they're out. It does my heart good." I agreed, noticing squirrels and chipmunks playing in another corner of the yard, and nearby, a deer moved stealthily to a salt lick. Birds twittered and busied themselves above us. I sighed, contemplating the winter creeping up, and the metaphorical one the man across from me was facing. But I looked at him and felt again his peace in his simple life and rustic home; even the prospect of his death left him nothing but serene. He was dying but not suffering. I didn't envy what would be Colin's early death, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't envy his mindset.
There is no way to overstate the impact this dream had on me. It continues to this day. When I lose my focus or perspective, all I have to do is return mentally to this dream to re-center. I still want what my friend had in this dream, all of it -- the house, the yard, the neighbors and animals -- but most importantly, the wisdom, peace, joy and goodness. And in the days and weeks after I had the dream, it haunted me in a good way. I wondered what I needed to do to get there. My very aura felt pregnant with a new spiritual direction; it was only a matter of time before it would be revealed.
Fast-forward about three months. Early afternoon Saturday, July 1st, Canada Day. I had just eaten lunch and was taking it easy after a busy Friday, the prelude to the American Independence Day coming up that Tuesday. I was kind of daydreaming, but definitely awake, (and I want to emphasize that), when out of nowhere, I began receiving some rather lengthy insights. These came through me, not from me. And two things I will go to my deathbed believing: 1. These revelations were as true as truth itself. 2. They came from the all-knowing force of good in the universe, who we might call God. And although I will not at this time go into all that I learned that day, these are some of the highlights:
Love is the sun -- bright, shining, eternal. Everything else -- fear, anger, envy, etc., are clouds temporarily blocking the sun. They mean nothing. They are here today, gone tomorrow. Pay them no mind, let them pass like mist.
We must live in love. God is not a white-bearded guy, patrolling from the sky, ready to thunder down on us. God is love. He only wants us to treat each other with love. Anything that is not of pure love is not The Way, The Truth, and The Life. It is literally Anti-God, Anti-Us, and Anti-Life. We must never dehumanize or devalue anyone. The true state of grace occurs when an individual operates solely out of love, because when a person operates out of true, pure, unselfish love, (s)he is literally unable to make a mistake.
Organized religions gave us laws, rules to live by, in order to preserve us and the earth and to keep us from hurting each other. Most of these laws are common-sense and helpful, and very essential for those aforementioned purposes. We make a serious mistake when we build worship around these laws, however. They were intended as rules for the road, no more, no less.
What we frequently interpret as God punishing us for our sins is actually no more or less than cause and effect, which is the precise definition of karma.
There was much more, but you get the idea. I don't know how long I sat and received these communications; only that as I did, I felt the most amazing bliss. And when my head was spinning with the volume of information, and I could take no more bliss, I begged for (and received immediately) a time-out and promptly rushed to write everything down before I forgot it.
I subsequently received a shorter message 6 1/2 months later, with much the same tone. By the end of the first session, if you will, I was anxious to figure out if there was any already-established religion that espoused what I had been taught. When I tried to describe the experience of receiving messages from The Universe as I had, the phrase that sprang to mind was "pure knowledge". Googling that phrase, I was intrigued to discover that I was not the first one to use it. Indeed, the phrase had been used to describe experiences just like mine by practitioners of Hinduism and Buddhism. And that was what led me to begin to study Buddhism.
Now, because I dislike proselytizing so much, I will not do it here. If you want to learn about Buddhism, here are few good places to start:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/basicshub.htm
In the time since the pure knowledge experiences, I have done a lot of studying. I officially declared as a Buddhist late last fall when I went to the Triple Gem for refuge, and undertook my training vows. I am at this time probably no better of a Buddhist than I was a Christian (I'm working on it!), but I am much happier and more comfortable with my choice, and that counts for a lot.
I am not what you'd call purely a Buddhist, either. Since I also studied Taoism over the years, and since the two philosophies share so much common ground that resonates with me, I actually call myself a "BudDaoist".
There is actually a lot of discussion and disagreement over whether Buddhism is a religion. After all, it is non-deistic (no God to worship). Yet, as I indicated, I believe I received pure knowledge from God. But this God was not the God of the Christian Bible, for many reasons. As a result of my two sessions of pure knowledge:
I no longer believe God experiences emotions such as anger, jealousy, etc. My impression is that is merely a human/animal métier. Nor do I believe that God expects us to be on our knees worshiping him.
I no longer believe that God judges us.
I no longer believe there is a hell, except the one(s) we make for ourselves on earth.
I now believe God's only desire is for us to get a clue.
"Getting a clue" means learning how to live in true, pure, unselfish love.
That once we get a clue, we will join him, not in a physical place one might call "heaven", but literally our energy will merge with his, and we will become part of That Which Is ALL;
That as many times as we must go around until we get there, we will ALL get there eventually;
And that he's got all the time and patience in the world until we do.
I'll see you there...
Claudia
