Religion and Life

I grew up with a father who was not religious and didn't have a strong base in what was beyond death. You lived and you died was the way he saw it. My dad grew up in a very dysfunctional family with alcoholic parents who saw religion differently. My grandfather was Protestant and my grandmother was Catholic. Beat your kids but go to church and God forgives your sins for the week. Not a good way to see life or be in it, for that matter.

My mother, on the other hand, is strong in her Buddhist religion but in a very spiritual way. Growing up during World War II affected her way of thinking, how she was treated and how she treated those around her. It made her kinder and gentle as she saw the devastation as a young child and she took that with her as she grew up into adulthood. She will be the first to admit that there was a period in her early adult life that she let religion go and material things became important but she realized in time that what was inside her heart and soul, how she lived her life was more important than what she owned. She said it was a good experience to go through so that she can speak from it.

She is an amazing woman and people love being around her. I don't say this because she's my mom but because people love how they feel around her. They tell me this all the time. My friends always tell me how much they love her and how lucky I am to have her in my life. She is kind, calm, caring, affectionate and at peace with herself and life so it extends out to those she encounters. She is stopped many times because people look into her eyes and are drawn in by the peace they see. She is a true Buddhist.

I have learned a lot from her the past ten years as I have stopped being ignorant about my surroundings and more aware of life in general and globally.

I grew up with multiple religions around me but with no true guide or teacher to give me the information as to what path I could walk. I turned to Wicca because it came close to what I believed as a 13 year old. The old adage "watch what you ask for" definitely was what I should have done but I met a witch who took me on the path to open my eyes to not just Wicca but all religions. It was easy to fall into it as it, like Buddhism, it is a pagan as well as a nature-based religion.

She taught me to keep my mind open as she knew I had a background in Buddhism and she noticed that I tend to use that in some of my every day living. Mom's influence, for sure. She told me to study all the religions and ask questions of their leaders. So I did.

I read the Holy Bible cover to cover several times and spoke to priests. I read the Torah, Koran and other holy books and literature and spoke to rabbis, ministers and preachers. By the time I finished what I thought was my learning of religions, I was in my mid 20's and life changed. I stopped religion for a while and concentrated on keeping my marriage working. That ended up being a bust and I got into the music business and went a different route with heavy drinking and partying. It became a way to hide what was inside of me; failed marriage, dead end job, selling my house and other hosts of issues I didn't want to face.

Then I got the shock of my life... a 23 year-old kid, high on a mixture of drugs, wanted to go backstage to meet one of the acts and was stopped at the back door. He had gotten his 4-inch Swiss Army knife into the show and was angry for being stopped so he pulled it out and threatened a co-worker who was at the door working. A friend who worked in production, Victor, happen to come out and saw what was going on, stepped in to help her. The kid and he struggled with the knife but Victor lost his footing, the kid had pinned him to the floor and started to thrust the knife into his chest. By the time another co-worker had gotten there, Victor was stabbed 44 times in the heart. He did not survive and died on the operating table. The kid is now spending the rest of his life in prison. That was 13 years ago.

It was a wake up call that I needed desperately and I got my head out of my ass and got out of the business. What kind of role model was I to my daughter? Hypocrite didn't even start to say how I felt. When she was older, she and I had a heart to heart and I told her of those days. She never knew because she said I always treated her as the most important thing in my life. She always was and always will be and I am grateful that I didn't destroy that.

I had continued to call myself Wiccan but when I came back to religion but it was more in a spiritual way. I found that Wicca was too dogmatic. What I realized was that I believed more in what is now being called Oneness, with a huge portion of it being Buddhist driven.

As I teach spirituality to kids now, I ask each one of them to bring their ideas and ideals to the table so that we can talk about it. It seems a lot of kids really like the concept of Buddhism these days. It is about peace inside and out. As I was taught, I am asking them to be open minded and read about other religions and take in only the things that make sense to them and leave the other stuff out. If you don't believe it, why incorporate it into your life? The bottom line is that how we treat ourselves and others is the most important.

Now, let me just say this. As much as we need to show compassion to ourselves and others, we don't need toxic people in our lives who talk a good talk but use people for their own end and don't walk the walk. Show them compassion by letting them find their own way and letting them go. It is good for your soul and your Karma not to get further involved in their drama or ill ways. They will never get it, if you continue to enabled them to be the way they are.

One component in all the religions is the afterlife. I think a lot of religions are too dogmatic and people are told if they don't believe a certain way within a religion, they won't go to Heaven. I think if you treat others well, show kindness and compassion and stand by your words, in the end, you lived a good life. I knew someone who didn't really believe in a God, per say or in the afterlife. He thought when we died, we went into a "forever sleep" as he called it. Great concept but I would like to believe that there is more to life than an abrupt end or sleep.

I believe in reincarnation and Buddhism is one religion that follows that dogma. Another factor I love about Buddhim is it allows for humans to make mistakes but you also need to know that you pay a price for the mistakes, which we all know as Karma or in a way for people to understand... what goes around, comes around. If you wish ill will towards someone, in the end, it will come back to you. In Wicca, it is believed that when it does return, good or bad, it is three times of what it was when sent out. That being said, I wish you all lots of love, happiness, laughter and light.

And a Japanese Buddhist prayer to you all...

なみょほれんげきょ (nahm-myo-hoe-ren-gay-kyo)

As always, the light in me honors the light in you.