Why am I a
Buddhist?
This is the
question I asked myself repeatedly for the past few years. For me, the
motivation behind me being a Buddhist is a drive for happiness, which in my
limited understanding of my own humanity, is the basic and most important goal
of being a human. In other words, being a Buddhist, to me, is being human.
There is nothing mystical, just the wish to be happy.
For the
better part of my life, I had been a free thinker interested in spirituality
and had spent the most part of my teenage and young adulthood, surfing through
different religions. Instinctively, I knew the journey to happiness had started
when I encountered Buddhism in my late twenties. It is not as if I didn’t
encountered Buddhism or the syncretic form of it in my younger days. In the
past, I had perhaps assumed a normative perspective of Buddhism as a religion,
with its focus on ritualism (or so, I had assumed at that point of time) and
that, didn’t appeal to the spiritual self.
I spent the
first few years as a Buddhist, learning the Dharma (teachings of the Buddha) in
its philosophical form, without much practice and although, I had knowledge but
that knowledge didn’t translate into spiritual growth when I encountered
setbacks in my life. I began to reflect on my understanding of the Dharma and
discovered that at the end of the day, the prevalent reason for my lack of
spiritual growth was due to my lack of practice. It was this lack of
experiencing the Dharma through practice that was impairing my spiritual
growth. To be a Buddhist is to be happy, to be a better individual of benefit
to oneself and the world. If I wasn’t experiencing any of the positive effects
of being a Buddhist, I need to evaluate myself.
The reason
that I discovered for myself through months of reflection was a glaring ‘truth’.
It was a lack of practice. I was ‘experiencing’ the Dharma intellectually but
beyond intellectual understanding, I wasn’t experiencing it. That revelation
led me to find ways to experience the Dharma in my life, practicing both in the
conventional and unconventional sense of the word. The Buddha had mentioned
that there are 84,000 ways to enlightenment and of course, the term, 84,000 is
a metaphorical figure for infinite. I believe that non-conventional and
interactive ways such as games and performing arts such as singing, dance and
theatre arts can complement the conventional methods such as Dharma classes and
meditation in our understanding of the Dharma, leading us to progress on the
path towards happiness.
Someone
asked the great Dharma teacher, Ajahn Chah, “What is Dhamma?” and he answered
“Nothing isn’t.” This had become a guiding principle for my own practice. The
Buddha had always encouraged his disciples to experience the Dharma for
themselves, embodied in the Buddhist concept of ehipassiko which mean “come and see for yourself.” When I
encountered an issue in my life, or experience an episode in my life, it is an
opportunity for me to practice. Instead of reacting habitually in anger at
issues and situations which sends warning signals to my ego to respond, I am
aware of the detrimental thoughts and negative emotions, and made a conscious
choice to react instead with compassion and loving-kindness. Instead of letting
my greed get the better of me in situations in which I find the opportunity to
exploit for my own gain, I respond with gratitude for others’ kindness and
contentment. Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight and I am still learning,
experiencing the Dharma in my life moment by moment. There are times that I
made mistakes, but it doesn’t mean that I should beat myself up or cut myself
too much slack. A mistake is a mistake; there is no argument over it. The
importance lies in understanding why did we make the mistake and how to avoid
making it again in future.
I don’t
profess to be a well-practiced Buddhist. I am just on the road, the journey
towards happiness and I think the road to happiness should be fun. In my humble
opinion, as a Buddhist, I want to make experiencing the Dharma in our lives
fun. Practicing the Dharma involves more than just sitting down on the
meditation cushion. The Buddha had mentioned to Venerable Ananda in the Upaddha
Sutta that spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual life. It is with
the objective of sharing happiness in a fun, interactive way through
interactive games, performing arts and the fostering of spiritual friendships
that I had joined the youth group. I hope we can walk together on the fun path
towards happiness.
[This post was written as part of publicity material for a youth group as a member of the committee. Don't think it would be published but then again, I thought I should post it here as reflection of sort]
