There are many different types and lineages of Buddhism,
they say when you eradicate ignorance you are better serving yourself, so to
group all Buddhists under one category is silly.
The one I align myself with is Theravāda and it is supposed
to be the most conservative of all lineages and I find it to be the most free,
ironically because it has survived almost three millennia in the same doctrine
passed down from one master to another.
Truth is I wanted to be a monk my whole life, but later
found that I make a better lay monastic due to my challenges and my interest in
things like techno and the internet. I find the monastic lifestyle to be
incredibly intriguing but also very confining and restrictive, unlike catholic
monks, Buddhist monks only eat a meal or two a day and if you are lucky you get
a soup with vegetables for dinner instead of tea.
Also unlike monastics of other faiths, Buddhism offers a way
to cycle your energy so that it does not hinder your decision making process
like in instances of celibacy through various types of meditation practices.
Essentially the groups of Buddhism that I am pretty aware of
are Tibetian Bön, Mayahana, Pure Land, Theravāda, Indian Buddhism and of course
Zen !!
I think to group it all as a faith too is an understatement
because Buddhism is more than a religion it is a way of life, and it teaches
you to worship your own inherent desire to attain spiritual and financial
liberation.
Essentially all Buddhist lineages teach that there is
suffering in the world and that suffering is universal and experienced in
lesser or greater degrees on other planes of existence. But they also have a
concise understanding that an individual can attain enlightenment and release
this need for birth and death and rebirth and be elevated to higher realms of
pure energy after a life of sevice where you may continue to assist others or
you may embark on the highest pursuits open to somebody that achieves this
stature, while some may argue that it lacks in material wealth but has profound
spiritual, energetic, and metaphysical properties that are unknown to us in
this current incarnation nor are they even fathomable to the common human.
So essentially one does not achieve enlightenment to become
fabulously wealthy although to an enlightened person wealth and resources would
naturally flow in their direction, they are given that power because they
attain to enlighten themselves into the highest possible spiritual attainments,
mastery of meditation, forgiveness for their own karma, compassion for all
living beings… small and large and visible/invisible. Also people of this
aptitude tend to naturally be drawn to help others through teaching the mastery
of philosophical pursuits or meditation, and devote their lives to it whether
they receive any sort of material reward or not.
Loosely associated with Buddhism is Vipassana meditation and
this course which is offered at multitudes of places around the world offers
new and experienced meditators alike a non sectarian method to meditation, for
me personally it helped me stop in my tracks full force do a 360 degree about
face and I finally went ah ha so this is my soul, this is why I have been
suffering and I started to forgive myself and others for what has been done to
me. I stopped all addictions and criminal pursuits, however I found them
amusing at the time, I recognized the need to live a whole and beautiful life.
My outlook changed, I started to support charitable causes, saved every
disgusting looking insect I found, because they would want and need to live as
much as I would, it produces little changes in your heart and mind this level
of spirituality that drives to understand why you are here, to water some
bushes when it is dry out, to feed animals instead of shooing them away with a
nasty grunt and to have compassion for people like criminals, poor or homeless
and addicts instead of shunning them like they do not exist.
All in all it doesn’t matter where you choose, you could
find comfort in any faith, I am just advocating going with something you
believe in, something that you find fun and fascinating, something that you ‘get’
instead of bizarre rituals year after year and most of all something that
offers you answers.
-Shaun A. Delage
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