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Aug. 26, 2006
Buddhist Christian Homeschooling
(This one's for rcelliot who asked how I reconcile the 2 religions in my life - I hope it answers the questions)
I was raised with a Catholic father and a Baptist mother. I mention this as my brothers and sister and I were all raised with the ideals of Christianity, but never attended church on a regular basis. We went to a foreign language Catholic church for Easter and Christmas, and had to sit thru mass in 2 different languages. As children, understandibly, we were bored. This leads me to my years in High School when I started studying Japanese language and culture. We learned about all kinds of Asian religion as well (Starting from India to show the spread of Buddhism).
At the time, I didn't put much stock in these foreign beliefs, but after spending 4 months in Japan, I realized there are many different ways to live, and thought to study comparative religion in college. After much deliberation, bible study, and reading many many books on both Christianity and Buddhism, I realized I was more comfortable in Buddhism than I was in Christianity. How did I realize this? I was dinking around on the internet and found a website called beliefnet.com. I'm not here to plug it or force any visits to it or anything, but there was an online quiz on there on what religion you are by asking your core beliefs and their importance (i.e. how important is reading the bible: I read it every day, once a week,...etc.) and it said my beliefs were 90% congruent with Mahayana Buddhism. That sparked a whole little research project for me on what exactly Mahayana Buddhism IS. Reading the texts and hearing "their side" of the stories made me realize that there is room for God in Buddhism, that there is an open dialogue for allowing for Jesus as a philosopher (where a belief that ALL people are part of the divine in Buddhism).
I believe the way to please God is to be present during every moment given to you. I believe in the eightfold path and the four noble truths. My Buddhist view leads me to be my own best moral compass. Always striving to be the best I can be, the kindest I can be, the most compassionate I can be, the most truthful person I can be, etc. helps me deal with my emotions in a more constructive way, and teaches me to see things from other points of view, rather than resorting to 'hating' something or someone. I do not believe in the resurrection as a factual event, which I know is something sacred to true Christians. I see it as a symbolic story, as I see the whole of the Bible texts. Not to say Buddhist texts are fact, either, but symbolic stories. I do not believe the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ, but believe it to be a spiritual moment celebrating the connectedness of ALL beings, from bacteria to God, and everything in between. I take that as a reminder of our connectedness.
I believe God exists, I believe that as people who are imperfect - we cannot possibly KNOW for sure what God wants from us. Therefore, we behave as best as we can, always striving to be kind to everyone and attempt to keep others from suffering in any way possible. We also try to keep from attaching to any ideals (who's to say what's "ideal" anyhow?) or believe in anything we haven't experienced for ourselves.
Look at it this way - For our entire lives, we were told Pluto is a planet, right? Now it isn't a planet anymore.
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Posted by your sis again 
Aug. 27, 2006 - Nice post
Terry