Namo Myoho Renge Kyo -- Rohatsu 2010

I'm not the most religious person.  There was a time when I tried really hard to be the Buddhist equivalent of the Christians I did volunteer work alongside a few years back.  It's all a part of the path, I guess, and there was value in that experience.  With time, the real me reasserts itself, and I realize that... I'm not the most religious person.

My faith, as people call it in these here parts, but more accurately my practice, is the Namo Myoho Renge Kyo that I learned with Rissho Kosei Kai (RKK).  Though I'm no longer attached to a local RKK group, I'll always consider RKK 'mine' when it comes to where I belong... ah, spiritually.  Yeah, that sounds wonky to me too.  But there you go.

I don't have anything significant to say vis a vis Buddhism or my experience as a Buddhist.  I don't really believe in anything.  Here, in America in the aughts, Belief is where it's at.  But, me, I just don't believe. In anything.  Either I am wired wrong and can't see the truth apparent to most, or... well that's a scary thought.  I can consider that we live in a created universe.  It is a bad prospect, all things being equal: to find one's self in an artificial world designed to look as though it were very old and naturally evolved.  It is a much better prospect to take it at face value and presume we exist in a natural universe unless contrary evidence presents itself.

I don't define myself as Atheist or Agnostic.  It is seems odd to define yourself by what you don't believe, and plus, those labels carry negative connotations about one's character.

I'm Buddhist.  There is no god at the center of Buddhism, and I didn't have to believe any such thing in order to test the waters.  In the West, the idea of religion with no god is crazy talk, but this tradition has existed longer than Christianity or Islam.  It's nothing new.

I have no sympathy and give no quarter to the religious who turn their religion into political force.  I do have respect for people who have found something to get themselves through the night.  Because it's a cold, unknowable darkness that we're hardwired to fear.  So if you hold onto a religious notion for these deep personal reasons and needs: I get that.  In Buddhism, though it's not about believing XYZ, sometimes it is understood that belief is the raft that gets us to the far shore.  Now, letting go of that raft can be a challenge.

I'm also interested in the experiences people have that they define as spiritual or religious.  Weather a person understands the source of that experience to be Other or Self, it is a real experience and I suspect that to turn one's back on it is just as foolish as believing the world is six thousand years old because the bible told me so.  You might start to see why Belief is just... stuff we believe.  Whereas experience holds truth, and practice might lead one along paths that are more useful than ascribing to some static dogma.

And that pretty much sums up my thoughts in honor of December 8th, Rohatsu, celebrated in honor of the Buddha's enlightenment.  The only worthwhile religious notion that exists is this...  That you have value, worth.  That your experience has meaning, for both you and for me.  When I have the clarity to see this truth in you, and you have that same clarity to see it in me, that is a moment worthy of us both.