Thankfulness: November 9, 2007
Nov. 9th, 2007 08:33 pmToday, I'm thankful for the abundance in my life.
Nov. 9th, 2007
In Which I Am Not (Yet?) A Buddhist
Nov. 9th, 2007 08:42 pmA friend (ex-friend? He seems to have dropped out of their tai chi circle.) of my mom's, J, has a pizza party every Christmas Eve. He makes a bunch of crust and sauce, and has bowls full of toppings. You tell him what you want on a pizza, and he'll make it for you. His wife, C, makes a huge batch of Christmas cookies with a Jewish friend of hers, and so there are lots of dessert options too.
Last year, when I said I was a vegetarian and so wanted something with no meat and no shrimp, I explained why I became a vegetarian: I stopped eating meat because I didn't eat it very often and I felt physically unwell when I did, so instead of eating it more often (which probably also would have taken care of that as my body adjusted to it), I stopped eating it altogether. At first, I was still eating fish, but then I thought about it and realized that if I feel guilty when I accidentally kill a bug, then I certainly can't continue to eat fish.
C asked me, "Are you a Buddhist?"
I've been thinking about that question ever since. When I was in college, a member of Di-Phi gave a speech about Sylvia Boorstein's That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, and I've been remembering that, too. So in August, I checked it out from the library.
There were some really nice things in the book, and three that have stuck in my head: Her chapter on the holocaust was so moving it left me crying at the lunch table. She talks about getting permission to pray, and realizing she doesn't have to pray strictly inside the liturgy, which had me mentally singing prayers for days. She talks about an experience sitting behind some chatty older women in synagogue, and turning to a loving practice instead of annoyance; I find myself repeating "I love you, eighty-year-old women" in my head to remind myself to love humanity in all its forms.
What I hoped to find but didn't is the answer to my biggest question about being Buddhist and Jewish: How do you reconcile Buddhism's First Noble Truth, that life is inherently suffering, with Judaism's absolute joy in the experience of living?
I'm not sure if the answer is that they're not going to reconcile for me or if the answer is that I don't know enough about Buddhism.
Last year, when I said I was a vegetarian and so wanted something with no meat and no shrimp, I explained why I became a vegetarian: I stopped eating meat because I didn't eat it very often and I felt physically unwell when I did, so instead of eating it more often (which probably also would have taken care of that as my body adjusted to it), I stopped eating it altogether. At first, I was still eating fish, but then I thought about it and realized that if I feel guilty when I accidentally kill a bug, then I certainly can't continue to eat fish.
C asked me, "Are you a Buddhist?"
I've been thinking about that question ever since. When I was in college, a member of Di-Phi gave a speech about Sylvia Boorstein's That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, and I've been remembering that, too. So in August, I checked it out from the library.
There were some really nice things in the book, and three that have stuck in my head: Her chapter on the holocaust was so moving it left me crying at the lunch table. She talks about getting permission to pray, and realizing she doesn't have to pray strictly inside the liturgy, which had me mentally singing prayers for days. She talks about an experience sitting behind some chatty older women in synagogue, and turning to a loving practice instead of annoyance; I find myself repeating "I love you, eighty-year-old women" in my head to remind myself to love humanity in all its forms.
What I hoped to find but didn't is the answer to my biggest question about being Buddhist and Jewish: How do you reconcile Buddhism's First Noble Truth, that life is inherently suffering, with Judaism's absolute joy in the experience of living?
I'm not sure if the answer is that they're not going to reconcile for me or if the answer is that I don't know enough about Buddhism.