Thanks for the invite, first of all -- I've been reading everyone's comments here and find them absolutely fascinating! It's interesting to have someone talk about their faith in a public forum that doesn't erupt into religion-bashing or theological arguments of dooooooommm... . :)
Warning: This took me about an hour to write and I'll have to break it up into two parts. If it's tl;dr, I totally understand!
My personal spiritual beliefs have always been a source of struggle for me growing up and still moreso today. I never had any formal education in religion -- my family has Mahayana Buddhist beliefs influenced by cultural traditions (ex. ancestor-worship, not eating meet on the full moon). I'm an Asian-American who grew up in a mostly white, Catholic & Protestant community, and so in school I got a lot of mixed messages on what my religious identity should be and made strange associations between religious identity and racial identity. I was never discriminated against because of my family's religious background, though I had been discriminated because of my racial identity. Thus, I always felt awkward and isolated in terms of religion between me and my white friends, and many times it hurt knowing that they had a church community and different life outside of school that connected them together -- one that I was never involved in and didn't want to be. Internally, I felt like I was different because my family didn't believe in Jesus Christ, but I couldn't believe in him myself -- partly out of family pride and partly out of fear of betraying my own sense of racial identity by "giving in." As a child, I associated being Christian with also being Anglo-Saxon, and because I was Asian, I felt that Jesus was a "white person's" god and by believing in him I was betraying the core of myself. I suppose part of me still feels that way, though I know that is ridiculous.
When I was thirteen I had a nervous breakdown of sorts and dedicated myself into a full exploration in Buddhist doctrine. That was when I realized that while I agree with the basic tenants of Buddhist belief, I could not believe in the Mahayana & cultural traditions my family upheld -- at least in a literal sense. Deciding these things was a struggle in itself, because at the time then idea of heaven & hell were still floating in my imagination as a very real possibility, and in my understanding, Buddhist hell truly existed and was a million times worse than any Christian version I had read. I was debating that if I chose not to follow the exact religious beliefs of my parents, my soul would spend its next million lives in torment -- a lot for a kid to think about!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-12-02 05:28 am (UTC)Warning: This took me about an hour to write and I'll have to break it up into two parts. If it's tl;dr, I totally understand!
My personal spiritual beliefs have always been a source of struggle for me growing up and still moreso today. I never had any formal education in religion -- my family has Mahayana Buddhist beliefs influenced by cultural traditions (ex. ancestor-worship, not eating meet on the full moon). I'm an Asian-American who grew up in a mostly white, Catholic & Protestant community, and so in school I got a lot of mixed messages on what my religious identity should be and made strange associations between religious identity and racial identity. I was never discriminated against because of my family's religious background, though I had been discriminated because of my racial identity. Thus, I always felt awkward and isolated in terms of religion between me and my white friends, and many times it hurt knowing that they had a church community and different life outside of school that connected them together -- one that I was never involved in and didn't want to be. Internally, I felt like I was different because my family didn't believe in Jesus Christ, but I couldn't believe in him myself -- partly out of family pride and partly out of fear of betraying my own sense of racial identity by "giving in." As a child, I associated being Christian with also being Anglo-Saxon, and because I was Asian, I felt that Jesus was a "white person's" god and by believing in him I was betraying the core of myself. I suppose part of me still feels that way, though I know that is ridiculous.
When I was thirteen I had a nervous breakdown of sorts and dedicated myself into a full exploration in Buddhist doctrine. That was when I realized that while I agree with the basic tenants of Buddhist belief, I could not believe in the Mahayana & cultural traditions my family upheld -- at least in a literal sense. Deciding these things was a struggle in itself, because at the time then idea of heaven & hell were still floating in my imagination as a very real possibility, and in my understanding, Buddhist hell truly existed and was a million times worse than any Christian version I had read. I was debating that if I chose not to follow the exact religious beliefs of my parents, my soul would spend its next million lives in torment -- a lot for a kid to think about!