Being Buddhist Part 2 - Becoming
As I said it was 1999. It was the end of an unwanted marriage, and the beginning of beginnings. I was taking classes at a community college in preparation for transferring into a four year college. Partly because this is how you have to do things when you interrupt your college career and partly because I just needed to get started and it was the only college available to me where I was. I had been burning with the need to finish my education and I didn’t want to wait any longer for all the circumstances to be right.
I met RT during my World Religions class, the same class where I read The Four Noble Truths for the first time. Our teacher was the reverend of a local Unitarian church and a wise, gentle woman. She saw that a few of us were intensely interested in Buddhist thought so she arranged to have the director of a nearby meditation center come and speak to us. Most of us had lived provincial lives tucked into the mountains of Vermont and the idea that there was a real live Buddhist living close enough to pay us a visit kind of rocked our perceptions. RT walked in to the small classroom and sat in the middle of our U of desks. He was abnormally tall and watching him fold himself gracefully into a small classroom chair was a simple delight.
RT sat for a few moments before he began to speak. I couldn’t pretend to know anyone else’s mind, except that afternoon you could hear a pin drop as we waited for this elegant man to speak. Though we didn’t know why or how, this man was different from most folks we had come across until then. It wasn’t that he was tall, or elegant, or composed, or strangely self-confident. There was something more that made us hang on his every word even though he said nothing particularly profound. The truth is, I can’t remember a single thing he said, but I can see him, see him walk in, sit down, fold his large hands around the seat of the chair underneath him, and see his face and smile as clear as if he were sitting here now.
A bubbly mirth ran through RT. He seemed always on the verge of laughter as though everything were delightful and funny. That struck me. That I could put my finger on. I’d met plenty of happy enough people in my life, but not with this level of absolute ease. I looked for any hint of fallacy, any evidence of a facade. Nothing. He was just…there. Really there. It was so simple it was remarkable. Stunning really.
It was then that I knew I needed more than some text, enlightening as that experience was. I needed to become a practitioner of Buddhism.
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I had that experience with Buddhist monks chanting in a class in college. They had this peace and connection and living energy that I didn’t.
MPJ, yes. And when you see that firsthand you know that it’s right.
Thanks for this post. I would really like to find a text on World Religions to teach my children, that is comprehensive. May need to check out the college bookstore, or talk to some pals who are in theology classes.
Question, ever thought of having your blog save our info? I am lazy, I will admit it.
Hi Sassy Mama, I’m not sure how to make my blog remember your information. Do you know how to do that on a WPress blog?
I wish I could remember the name of the textbook we used. It was really quite good. If I find it I’ll email you.
Cheers!
A beautiful and elegantly written piece. I am so proud of you. I do so enjoy this aspect of you.
Lceel, thank you. I’m not sure why you’re proud of me exactly, but that’s ok.
I know, you enjoy this aspect of me so much more than the challenging aspect of me.
I am both soft and unyielding at the same time. There are too many things that matter, too many people being hurt and mistreated, and I long ago learned that people prefer not to think about those things, for if they do, they will feel compelled to actually do something. I want to be sure that as many people as possible get to that point. I have faith in humanity, but sometimes people need pushing.
But when I’m not being passionate about some cause, I’m really quite delightfully affectionate, friendly, soft, and happy.
Well, maybe proud is the wrong word. ‘Pleased’, perhaps. That you have so many sides and you’re so willing to expose each of them equally. ‘Pleased’ that I know such a person; at least to the extent one can ‘know’ someone when their whole relationship is online. ‘Pleased’ that that particular side of you even exists, because that’s the side of you I like most, and it so often doesn’t seem to exist in other women who would call themselves ‘feminists’. So maybe its ‘Pleased’ with you, and ‘Proud’ of me, for having gotten to know you.