Buddhism

Buddhism stresses mindfulness, minding mind, and meditation as a way to calm and train our restless minds. Rather than worrying about sin and guilt, it teaches us how to eliminate suffering in this life and hopefully come to full awareness so that we can help others eliminate their suffering in this world.

Buddhism is about learning objectivity in all things. Clearing our lives of attachment and desire, we can go about our lives in peace and tranquility. Clearing the mind of clutter, we can see clearly what we were meant to do and the path to doing it.

With Buddhism there is no condemnation of others beliefs, no charge from the Sangha to go forth and try and change all of humanity into becoming Buddhists. There is a quiet sanity in Buddhism that seems to be lacking in other major religions.

Yes, Buddhism has undergone some of the schisms that other major religions have but the differing schools still teach minding the mind, compassion for all sentient beings, non-violence and meditation as a tool to focus on enlightenment.

I am of the Mahayana tradition, but I study some of the Theravada school teachings, read the Pali Canon and the Abhidhamma studies and it in no way interferes with my practice. My only desire in this lifetime is that I reach as high a state of awareness as possible and that I might be able to eliminate suffering for a few sentient beings.

By practicing mindfulness, we allow ourselves to accept others’ beliefs, frailties, and attachments knowing that we all suffer when we become mired in the muck of what we call reality. I tell people who ask me what Buddhism is about that it is mostly about compassion for all beings and holding everything with an open hand. (By this I mean not clinging to or desiring anything of this reality.)

I perform marriages for all different religious beliefs but I have very few people who have me perform Buddhist ceremonies for them. I think they prefer to promise that they will be together forever rather than answer “yes” to the following question:

When it comes time to part, do you pledge to look back at your time together with joy--joy that you met and shared what you have--and acceptance that we cannot hold on to anything forever?

Impermanence is the main belief in Buddhism, the teaching that everything comes into existence through cause and effect and ceases to exist the same way. So clinging to anything is futile and will in the end cause suffering in this lifetime and the next.

Karma is an effect of the causes of our ignorance and craving, so as we learn to relinquish our hold on the things that we think are important, we will we reap the rewards of our actions. Right action, right effort, and right speech, these are the ways we can accomplish mindfulness and create a better life now and in the next lifetime.

The quote from Einstein pretty much says it all: "Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."

Rev. Vicki A Bennett D.D.

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