The following posting is not intended to offense any organisation, school of religion or anyone, and it is made solely for private purposes.
Over the last few years, I’ve been learning Buddhism and became a Buddhist. My family is not a Buddhist family and my parents are always devoted to follow the Chinese traditions and beliefs (I guess, it’s either Taoism or Confucianism). As a child, I never understood any tradition that we have to follow. I kept asking myself, why do I have to do this and that, until I reached a certain point that I had no interest at all to religion.
I didn’t want to blame my parents for not being able to explain the fundamental concept of their belief. Yet, I couldn’t be careless and just do whatever they do. It’s not right and never be right to blindly following something. I still believe that there is god somewhere up there, so I couldn’t call myself to be an atheist either. Then there I was, left stranded in a land of self-confusion. I had no spiritual life and couldn’t be bothered to follow my parent’s spiritual life. And so I became the rebel child and to make it worse, I’d been recalled to be the atheist child.
No trauma attached, I started to find my religion. I sought advices from different people that have different religion. I asked them the fundamental concept of their religion and tried to grab the understanding. And I couldn’t deny, the numbers sometimes win the situation. I started to consider myself to convert into a religion that has the most number of followers.
Fortunately, something happened afterwards. When I returned to Sydney, something really bad happened. I was so depressed at that time, so I decided to go somewhere spiritual and I picked on a Buddhist temple. It just happened that I met some friends who were visiting the temple over last few weeks. As I didn’t see any harm to give it a visit, I asked them to come along with me.
And so it all started. Met new people, joined the activities, listened to the talk & discussion, even joined the Buddhist youth conference of which I knew nothing and noone. Finally, I was ready to take the three refugees (a kind of first ordination in Buddhism). I found my religion and I was ready to take the Buddhist path. Until I realised that I was getting another self-confusion. Firstly, it feels so good when you can be friends with a lot of people, join a lot of activities, volunteering, etc. The activities seem to be endless for the whole year round. There’s always be something and to make it done, it would occupy almost all of your leisure time.
But then, where is the Buddhism?
While it emphasizes the importance of helping other people, I’ve still got a lot of missing pieces. Same question arises, why do I need to do all of these? These endless works really made me suffering even more. Felt no appreciation, much higher pressure to get it well done, and it even required the perfection of every single thing. I felt like being an employee working in a corporation (of which I less favoured) with no compensation given.
I believe the rules of karma, I knew that what goes round, comes round. But tell you what, it’s not that easy to understand when you face all those things (works, pressure, etc). Still, I tried to cope up with everything for few more months. I told myself, there must be something good to learn and to be practiced. But I’ve still got no answer to my question and once more, I was left confused and stranded. This time, I went to the expert for the answer and some advices. Same shit, different smell, I got no absolute answer. Even worse, I started to questioning this school of religion, ‘Am I in the right path?’
Yet, I didn’t give up for being a Buddhist. I knew there should be thousand ways & places out there and what I can do is just come and see it myself. So, I went to another place once, twice, three times, and that’s it. I found what I was looking for. From the first visit, I felt I was coming back home, to where I should stay, sit back and relax. I sensed the inner peace and silent mind.
Finally, I started to learn Buddhism in a way that I’m able to understand, yet I still had the uneasy feeling on my previous experience. I still couldn’t accept the concept of helping other people by keep working with 100% perfection (or even more). I couldn’t find the logical answer of why we have to make ourselves suffering and fully under pressure. Until I (sort of) found the answer on discussion with friends few days ago.
The answer is simply coming from the culture background of the organisation (of the temple). The concept of hardworking, under pressure, demanding a perfection, were simply the attitude and behaviour of Taiwanese people. Shortly speaking, it is the organisation’s culture, not the Buddhism concept.
It’s a shame of how it could be mixed up with the Buddhism knowledge while it’s only about the people’s culture.
And it’s another shame to know not only myself that has been confused. I knew some friends, especially newcomers, have got the same feeling. And I have another argument for this. While we are aware that the organisation comes from a certain country, would they expect that the lay people would recognise their culture? Should they expect that everyone knows how to speak and act according to their culture?
Does it mean they are ‘attached’ to the organization, while The Buddha said there should not be any attachment to anything at all?
Perhaps, you might think that I’m the person who is not open-minded. Not trying to accept another culture, learn it, and deal with it. But then, shouldn’t they also recognise that people might have different culture, including language? Again, my question remains, where are the Buddhism lessons apart from their culture? As I couldn’t see the benefit of persisting culture while people started to restrain themselves for coming and learning Buddhism.
It is another shame…
Moreover on discussion with friends, one friend wisely said, the organisation’s behaviour and discipline is actually bringing the most benefit to spread Buddhism worldwide. Their strict behaviour is required so that they would always be working at their best to help other people.
At the end, there is no absolute right or wrong answer as there is no ending to discussion about religion or spiritual life. And perhaps, a valuable lesson for me is to acknowledge the different culture before coming up with a conclusion.
