Once I was ordained as a Buddhist pastor, I took the bodhisattva vow. The vows start with: Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to avoid wasting all of them. This was daunting. “I vow to avoid wasting everybody?” I believed. “Everybody?”
I may decide to the opposite vows: Dharma Gates are infinite, I vow to enter them and Enlightenment is unattainable, I vow to realize it. However the vow to avoid wasting the greater than seven billion individuals on earth appeared excessive. The quantity rises exponentially in case you take into account animals “sentient beings,” which I do.
“I vow to avoid wasting all of them?” I requested.
“Begin with a small circle, like your loved ones,” the Abbot suggested.
My ordination was an vital non secular step for me. I had been a training Buddhist for over ten years and was midway via graduate college in Buddhist chaplaincy on the College of the West. I, together with fellow grad college students, was supplied the chance to ordain via the Worldwide Middle for Chinese language Buddhist Tradition and Schooling (ICCBCE). Ordination appeared like the subsequent attainable step for these of us pursuing a Grasp of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy.
Popping out to my mom as a Buddhist echoed my popping out as homosexual, although she was extra welcoming of me being homosexual.
Turning into ordained was a critical non secular dedication. After a lot contemplation on whether or not I may decide to the vows and precepts I’d undertake, I made a decision to go for it. I used to be given a gown, a stole, and mala beads. Impermanence is a Buddhist idea, and if I felt I may now not preserve my precepts and vows, I had the choice of leaving and giving up my robes. I made a decision to decide to being an ordained pastor for at the very least 5 years, feeling excited and cautious on the identical time. I invited family and friends to be part of my ordination. The ceremony was to be held in a temple in Monterey Park, California. Three Venerable Masters had been going to participate within the ceremony, together with two flying in from Asia.
I knew my mom would come. She had been supportive of my different life decisions, however leaving Catholicism was not one thing she wished for me. Rising up, I thought of myself Catholic boy, which included singing Latin hymns within the church choir, however I didn’t really feel Catholic. Once I first heard in regards to the ideas of Buddhism, it appealed to me.
When my father was near passing away, he returned to his Catholic religion. I wouldn’t take into account him a non secular or non secular man, however upon confronting dying, he appeared to really feel the necessity to “get proper with God.” I didn’t need to be Catholic just because it was the faith I used to be born into. If I used to be going to be Catholic, I wished to be Catholic with my entire coronary heart, and as a lot as I attempted, I couldn’t get there.
There have been basic points that stood in my manner. The Church’s view of homosexual individuals and homosexual marriage was considered one of them. I wished to be in a faith the place I felt accepted and cherished, which I didn’t really feel within the Catholic church. In the future after mass, I prayed for a solution to my bereft emotions. I heard a divine voice that mentioned, “There are different methods to seek out me.” The voice I heard may very well be interpreted in some ways. Was it Jesus? My greater self? My internal psyche? Regardless, I listened and began visiting completely different Buddhist facilities.
Popping out to my mom as a Buddhist echoed my popping out as homosexual, although she was extra welcoming of me being homosexual.
“I knew you had been gay, I used to be ready so that you can inform me,” she’d mentioned, however once I instructed her that I used to be a Buddhist, she curtly replied, “Do what you need. It’s your life.”
The Catholic Church had introduced my mom a lot consolation and steering all through her life, as is true for a lot of Filipinos. Over 80 % of the Philippines identifies as Catholic, a faith imposed by Spanish colonizers who dominated the nation for practically 400 years. Christianity was additional affirmed when the People occupied the Philippines after the Spanish-American Conflict of 1898. For my mom, by my not being Catholic, it meant I might not be along with her in heaven.
Apart from the Catholic Church, my mom cherished the Philippines. It’s the place she was born and grew up. She has fond reminiscences of the nation and he or she instilled in me a way of pleasure and reverence for our tradition. Once I began writing, exploring the lives of Filipino individuals in novels and brief tales, she mentioned, “Don’t write something dangerous about Filipinos.”
My mom got here to my ordination out of respect for me, however not with an awesome sense of pleasure. At the start of the ordination ceremony, the Venerable Masters (an honorific to suggest senior standing), had been launched. It was at this temple, amongst these senior monks, the place we might say out loud our commitments to the precepts and vows.
To my full shock, one of many Venerables had flown in from Manila, Philippines. The Philippines has a small however thriving Buddhist neighborhood because of the inflow of Chinese language residents, a individuals the Philippines has had relations with for over a thousand years. Buddhist temples are dotted all through the foremost cities of the nation. I knew immediately that having somebody from the Philippines main the ordination ceremony would make my mom joyful. I turned and noticed her smiling face, beaming as if to say, “My son is just not some weirdo for being a Buddhist.” If there are Buddhist temples within the Philippines, then Filipinos should go to them. Buddhism is just not unusual, not international. It’s a part of the panorama of the nation she cherished.
As I said the vow Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to avoid wasting all of them, I couldn’t assist however suppose there have been at the very least two individuals saved that day: my mom and myself. With the presence of the monk from the Philippines, we had been free of the awkwardness of my new faith. There can be no attachment or aversion to me being a Buddhist, for it isn’t international. Being Buddhist can be being Filipino.
