I was always reluctant to refer to myself as a Buddhist. It seemed presumptuous. Based on my own background, comfort, and circumstance, my path into meditation was very secular. It was mindfulness meditation. Some of the meditation leaders and teachers I’ve gravitated to were ordained Buddhists, but many were not. The first place where I went to meditate regularly housed its meetings in a Friends (Quakers) meeting house. Much of the stuff that I was attracted to talked about neuroscience and living a better, happier life. It didn’t talk about past lives and rebirth. It didn’t talk about spirit and that suited me fine.
The five day retreat that marked a major turning point for me was led by someone who had served for many years as a nun at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village monastery in France. The experience was profound enough for me that I took the precepts at the end of it. They were not the then-current ones being given by Thich Nhat Hanh, but they were an earlier version of them. After that, I did made some intentional and ethics based changes to how I lived my life. Some people who know me may have noticed this, but other than talking about the experience of that week, this was not something I pushed publicly.
The oddest part of this journey has been the last year. I have felt very much as if the persona I have no longer fits me. It’s not that it’s not genuine. It is a series of long held habits of thought and speech that I continue to perform even though I’m often left unsatisfied by them.
I have been unemployed for four months. Instead of seeing this time as an opportunity, I just went into the grind of applying for jobs full time, almost immediately. I’ve never been unemployed for more than 3 weeks before. The last time I was laid off from a job, I was laid off on Tuesday and signed a contract on that Friday. I didn’t think I’d be unemployed for very long. At some point a couple of months into this, I started to realize it may last a long while. I was really worried about things like health insurance and bankruptcy. Those are still concerns, but they are no longer worries. I’m very rarely worried. I’m meditating 45 minutes to an hour a day. I’m still going to yoga. My well-being is probably better than it has ever been once you get beyond the circumstances in which that well-being is happening.
Recently, I have had some things that have let me walk out past my longtime comfort zone. I’ve been listening to some teachers who really are much more hardcore about being Buddhists. They are not only not secularizing the teaching, not making it about mere mindfulness and mental health, they are adamant that this is wrong. I don’t know how far I’m going down this path, but this is my path for now. I’m rushing headlong into the mysticism and it doesn’t seem woo-woo, at the moment. I’m seeing benefits and progression that I aspire to see lead me into places that I wouldn’t have believed possible in the first 50 years of my life.