in buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened one who chooses not to go to nirvana but to stay on earth and help all other sentient beings achieve enlightenment.
when all achieve enlightenment, as i understand it, then karma, the cycle of birth-and-death, will end, and suffering shall cease.
i particularly like the little i know of the mayahana buddhist tradition.
on sunday, in church, i heard a similar call like that: once you find the light in the person of jesus, help others toward the light.
as i leaned away from christianity in my 20s, i leaned towards taoism and buddhism. intellectually, that is. i've never been to a taoist or buddhist temple, never sat meditation.
there's a buddhist retreat centre not far from barrie, and at least three of my friends in midland have gone for 10-day retreats and have had marvelous, wondrous, challenging, soul-satisfying experiences.
so many paths to god, and yet they seem to be similar in many ways.
i'm not tempted to do a buddhist retreat; i don't feel it in me to be a buddhist. my culture, my upbringing, the myths deep inside of me, everything has a christian expression. it feels to be the most honest and integral part of me.
and it's not in my community -- this might be a different story if there were a buddhist or taoist centre here which may have drawn a different part of me out and nurtured it in a community, who knows?
reformation, metanoia, easter is a heady time. heady, hearty, soulful.
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2 comments:
Yeh, I mentioned that in explaining my choices to my mother... part of choosing Christianity is the fact that I live in Midland. My choices are Christianity or burning candles in a Wiccan's basement. Not to take anything from Wicca which is peaceful harmony from top to bottom, but there's no place to worship. Maybe I'm getting old, but questing alone in my head is not enough anymore. ANyway, I can't get all the answers from inside me.
I've recently got back in touch with my friend Stef who is a Buddhist nun. She used to be a lesbian, but now she's a nun. I never really bought the lesbian act-we were at high school together. I can see her as a buddhist nun though. We had some odd belief structure based on triangles and the colour green.
Good times......
re: "We had some odd belief structure based on triangles and the colour green."
sounds like a bottle of glen fiddich to me.
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