Have you ever seen the Morgan Spurlock TV show 30 days? The basic premise of the show is that it puts two people in the same house for 30 days. Usually one person moves in with another person (and usually with his/her family). The interesting part is that the two people have completely different views on a particular topic. A few of Nicki and I's favorites were the border patrol guy who was blatantly opposed to illegal immigrants who lived with a family of illegal immigrants and when Morgan and his wife lived on minimum wage for 30 days. It sparked a lot of cool conversations and really made me think about how fortunate my family and I are. It also made me realize that everyone on every episode was just trying to be happy and do what they felt was the best for their family. It was around that time when I started to think more about our community in Lexington and how I could get more involved.
It was also around this time I started reading more about Buddhism and found it very interesting. What I really enjoyed about Buddhism was the simplicity of it all, and what really drew me to actually practicing the teachings was the try-it-for-yourself approach to becoming a better person. The Buddha essentially taught to investigate everything, even his own teachings. If it feels good and helps people without harming anyone else...keep it up. If for some reason suffering is an outcome...stop doing it. The more I read, the more interest I had in other religions. I always felt there was something greater than us, but went through many phases on how to make it "fit" to my liking. I read the New Testament and shocked myself when I really enjoyed it. I have come to believe that love and compassion is "it", "the truth", or whatever else you want to call it. You may call it God, Allah, Nature, the Holy Spirit, mindfulness, common sense, non-sense, but none of it matters without love and compassion. I believe all religions point to it, but in different ways, and with different traditions.
I started to put my beliefs into practice and started to spend more energy being helpful, trying to cause less suffering in the world: I tried to only buy used things when I could help it, I started giving things away, I tried to be more helpful, I wanted to try and see things beyond what I have been told and taught my whole life. What I found was that I was much happier. Actually, I don't think I was "happier". I realized how grateful I was for the things I have, and that helped me realize that the things that make me unhappy don't have to. (disclaimer: I'm not trying to be holier than thou, in fact, I am honestly at the point where I can now see how my actions cause a lot of suffering in others, and am nowhere near the point where I have the ability to always abide by my own set of morals)
So how does community come into all of this? Like I said before, I have the feeling that most religions preach the same message using different messengers. I also see how people sometimes are blind to the fact that what they see as truth may look different through someone else's eyes. If we could get back to the basics of each religion I think we would find we could all be doing a lot more for each other. My assumption is that each religion calls for each member of the community to help lift up those who are in need. So instead of assuming, I want to find out for myself.
I am going to try to spend each month this year learning and living with a different group of people. The plan is to spend the next few months learning about different world religions by practicing each tradition for one month. My hopes is to spend the month doing some educational reading, participating in each traditions customs, and hopefully attending weekly meetings. What better way to understand how to help others than trying to see what is important to them and what they believe in? I want to start with the better known religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Atheism. My hopes is to spend the other months learning how to volunteer with other communities in town including the homeless, LGTB, and hospice. It's early in the year, time will tell how this year will pan out.
This month I will focus on Buddhism...specifically Zen. There is a weekly meditation group that meets in town each Sunday, followed by a group led Buddhist discussion. I plan on continuing my sitting meditation for the rest of the month, and will try to apply the principles of the teachings into everyday life. My goal is to blog a few times each month. It helps me hold myself accountable to the year long project and hopefully someone will find some of this information useful. I don't have big plans for the blog, but I have no doubts someone may take this (or something I write) out of context, or personal. My intentions are not to judge. I do have a tendency to get pretty passionate about things, and I have no intentions to sugar coat things, but hopefully it will lead to some nice discussions both on and offline. So please if something offends you, let's chat about it. If something I say isn't how you understand it, feel free to correct me. If you have any information to help me along my path, don't hesitate to tell me about it.
Namaste.
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