WWPCD Part 2 - The Search

I think I always figured that a life change would make spirituality,
specifically Christianity, more palatable.  I took a hard look when my
daughter was born and still did not feel right about Christianity.  Shortly thereafter I began working for a company based in Israel.  I had been semi-joking for years that if I did pick up religion as a part of life it would be Judaism.  I had even checked out several books on the subject and honestly it seemed much closer to the way i felt about religion and "God" than Christianity did.  But, it still never clicked...I just did not feel fulfilled thinking about it.


I have been a fan of the band Faithless for years.  Maxi Jazz, being older yet very hip, has been a constant fascination.  I am impressed not only with his skills as a musician, but his attitudes about life and drive to be a good and socially aware person.  I had not thought much about Buddhism, honestly, but when reading his Wikipedia entry and discovering that he is an active Sōka Gakkai buddhist I began to get interested.  I did some research on the web and one day headed to the library to see if I could find any books published by Sōka Gakkai.  I was disappointed to not find any, though I did find Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism.  Ultimately I shied away from Sōka Gakkai as it really struck me as more of a olitical movement than just being spiritual.  I have since opened my heart a little more to accepting that practicing the Dharma comes in many forms, but at the time it just did not mesh with me.

I headed over from the library to an awesome little store we have in Frederick, MD called Ten Thousand Joys.  I also did not find any books there on Sōka Gakkai.  Though one book did catch my attention.  However, now is a good time to share something else that was going on in my life.  My wife and I had been together for 13 years.  Right about the time it seems many couples have issues connecting.  She also has a lot of issues stemming from her childhood that seemed to come to a head right at that time.  When you add additional stress from me becoming estranged from my best friend of 12 years, our marriage was close to a breaking point.

I wandered through the "relationships" books and nothing caught my eye.  But I also did not want to leave empty handed.  Something was drawing me through the store.  As I wandered back to the Buddhism books again I semi-embarrassed looked at that book I had found on my first round.  I casually pulled it down and began flipping through it.  It was When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön.  I am not sure why I was so embarrassed to pick the book up.  Worse was looking at it.  But i could not put it down.  I was flipping through it reading maybe 1/4 page at a time and everything she said just made sense.  But this was not Sōka Gakkai, this was Tibetan Buddhism.  But, I bought it.  And I took it home.  And I began to read.  And I discovered Tibetan Buddhism, Pema Chödrön style.

With all the press etc related to Tibet I
initially felt a little like drawing away from Tibetan Buddhism as well.  But the
more I learned about Buddhism the more and more I kept coming back to
Tibetan Buddhism.

WWPCD Part 1 - The Early Years

I have had a empty space related to spirituality for years.  I was a regular church goer as a child, raised first as a Lutheran and then as a Methodist from the age of 10-13 when we lived in Germany.  My strongest memories of that time was the social aspect, from gathering in the basement to share in the wonderful food of the international scene we lived in, to the immense participation in an excellent church production of Amahl and the Night Visitors (I was a boy soprano Amahl!).  When we moved back to the US, for various reasons most of my family lost interest in church when I was ~13 and beyond a few attempts for 6 months or so we never attended church regularly as a family and for me virtually not at all.

My eldest sister began college about this time and had really gotten the Christian religious bug from our time in Germany.  In college she got involved in a church that seemed to use many cult like tactics, though I would not go so far as to classify them as a cult.  This was really my first introduction to the seedier side of religion.  Self righteous people who try and force their views on others through pressure, manipulation, and fear.  Trips that early on were really cool...staying up late playing role playing games with my big sisters cool friends...became times for another maybe well meaning, but pushy Christian to try and convince me to accept jesus as my christ and savior.  I have a vivid memory of one guys asking me if I thought I was going to heaven.  When I answered that I was pretty sure, he launched in to a 15 minute lecture about how he was 100% sure and if i just accepted these lines in the bible as truth I could be sure as well.



In general organized religion has not sat well with me for 25 years.... especially the "fear tactics" and "one path to salvation" which always exists outside of yourself and your relationship with spirituality or God.  And all to often seems to be tied with money.



But this did not mean that I didn't have a part of me that yearned for spirituality.

Meat Limited

I have always made fun of vegetarians.  Any time I heard an argument about not eating meat I would happily bare my canines and ask "what are these for"?  We are omnivores and not eating meat just never made sense to me.  "If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"  One of my sisters was a vegetarian until recently when she got pregnant and started worrying about enough nutrition for her baby.  I really made fun of her.  But I always semi-respected her reasoning.  It wasn't that she had a really strong conviction that eating meat is wrong.  Her justification was that you should not eat anything you would not prepare your self.  This included killing an animal, cleaning it and eating it.  She ate fish as she had fished and cleaned fish in the past and felt okay about it.

As I have opened my heart further to Buddhism and really began to feel maitri towards more than myself and my immediate cares I began to think about the food choices I was making.  I didn't decide to be a vegetarian.  I was already cutting way down on my red meat and meat intake to begin with.  Shopping organic, there are huge amounts of very tasty non-meat options.  I just decided that I would go out of my way to be even more meat free.  I had chicken and rice at my sisters house one night and the chicken was kind of tasteless.  It was blamed on the lack of spice added to it, but honestly I wondered why would i even bother to eat this piece of chicken.  I ate it as I was hungry and "that was dinner", but I did not feel that had I not eaten it I would have been missing anything.

This was my last non-fish and non-egg food from a slaughtered animal I have since consciously eaten.

I joke at my wife as she gobbles down  roast beef sandwich that "meat is murder" but I am not so sure about that.  I don't feel bad about people around me eating meat, I just don't feel I need it right now.  I eat animal products such as milk and cheese etc.  I also eat eggs pretty regularly.  I am strongly pro-choice  and truly believe that an egg is not a developed creature.  I try very hard to eat free range organic eggs from local farms, mostly because the egg episode on How It's Made on the science channel disturbed me.  (don't get me started on the chick production and chicken meat episodes...yuck)  I have also had fish on several occasions when a viable non-meat dish was not available.  I kind of feel like my sister did about fish, and honestly not having some animal protein in my diet scares me a little and fish has so many other nutritional benefits, but over several months I think this is maybe 3 times.

So here I am.  Newly Buddhist.  Newly vegetarian.  And, losing a little weight for my decision, and hopefully getting a few other health benefits.  I squatted down today to lift my 3.5 year old daughter up, and managed to stand right back up without to much trouble and my knees aren't sore now, which is nice change.  Maybe this is a permanent life change, and maybe not, but it is who I am for the moment and I feel content.