Monday, March 12, 2012

Am I a Buddhist? Everyone else thinks I am

My therapist says I'm a Buddhist.
My room mate says I'm a Buddhist.
The Ino says "What is a Buddhist?"
I say, "I don't know."
And I don't know. Is it someone who meditates? Is it someone who bows to Buddha? Is it someone who seeks to benefit all beings?
What would it mean to call myself a Buddhist? Would I wear robes? Would I shave my head? Would I have dinner with everyone at the zen center? Would I line up on the other side of the counter to get my meals? Would I go to Tassajara? Would I become part of a community of really lovely people? Would I feel like I belonged?
Can I be a Buddhist who rides her bike to the zendo in the morning? Can I be a Buddhist who sleeps in her own bed? Can I practice outside the zen center and still be a Buddhist? Isn't that what the people at the zen center do? Aren't they practicing all the time, it's just that they live there? Am I really so different from the "people in robes?"
What would it mean to "wear the robes?" Who would it benefit? Who would it alienate? What would it mean and why would I do it?
Can I be a Buddhist teacher? Do I need to wear robes or practice intensely to manifest this practice throughout my life? Can I just take the parts of it that I need and leave the parts that don't fit in with my life outside the zen center? Is it all or nothing? It sure does feel like that, like the more immersed I get the more it becomes a part of me, the less it's a practice, the less it's trying and more just doing.
What do I have to give up to become a part of the zen center? Aren't I already a part of the zen center? Is this enough?
It's all me. I can come or go as I choose. There isn't a threshold over which I will someday cross and become a Buddhist. I don't even need to become a Buddhist. I just am. And I don't mean that I am a Buddhist, I mean that I just am. This is who I am. I can call it what I want to make myself feel better or worse. I can label it, judge it, hold it up as profound or spiritual, fear it for all that I associate with it. Or I can accept it, which is hard because it scares me because it feels so final, so constricting, so much an identity. But it isn't. It's just what the Ino says: a bunch of cool people who care about others. And still, I still don't know if I'm a Buddhist...

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