As a Buddhist, how does my faith play out in my life?
A few months ago I began the process of a year-long look at responsibility in my life.
Now, I’m starting to see that this journey has many implications. I’d previously made life choices in an ad hoc way, what makes sense at the time. What is a good choice for me, for my family. Now looking through the lens of responsibility I’m asking “How do my choices affect others (not just my family or close friends)” “ How can I serve others? Or perhaps “Which choice causes the least harm?”
One really important thing for me is to acknowledge I’m really busy. Busy with my everyday life.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by my life: work, home, volunteering, staying in touch with friends and family. I feel I don’t have time for one more thing. How can I add in questions about responsibility, about consequences, about taking a serious look at the choices I make daily?
For me the first step forward in this journey is a step back. Putting some breathing space between me and my busy-ness. Luckily I have a daily meditation practice that automatically gives me space. Thirty minutes or so a day of quieting my body and noticing my thoughts just makes the day flow more smoothly. Then, as I bring that sense of being present off the cushion and into the rest of my life, I can just do what needs to be done without angst-ing about what’s next.
If I’m just present in each activity doing it, I notice that I’m pretty happy, can handle the task-list part of life effectively, perhaps even with moments of joy.
OK now that I’ve got some space I can set aside times to think and feel my way into issues like “What am I doing that may be causing harm to others?”
This can get tricky very fast because if I think that I know the answers I’m pretty much doomed.
Have you heard the zen story about the boy and the horse?
A farmer and his son are surprised one day to find that their horse has run away. The villagers come by to commiserate “That’s bad luck!” they say. “Perhaps” says the farmer. The next day the horse returns bringing several beautiful wild horses with it. “Such good luck” say the villagers. “Perhaps” replies the farmer. The farmer’s son is entranced by the wild creatures and tries to ride one of them, falling and breaking his leg. The villagers come over to commiserate again “How unfortunate” they say. “Perhaps” says the farmer. A while later government recruiters come to the village to take the young men away to become soldiers, but they pass over the son with the broken leg. The villagers congratulate the farmer “What a good turn of events”. “Perhaps” says the farmer.
I think this famous old story points out that it’s easy and normal to have opinions about just about everything. Horse lost? That’s gotta be bad. More horses came back? That’s great. But the farmer shows true wisdom in acknowledging these thoughts but not adopting them himself. We can never know the whole story so what’s the point of holding onto opinions? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about denying feelings. This story isn’t about feelings, it’s about seeing clearly that we have a thought mechanism that generates opinions – often (as portrayed by the villagers) based on incomplete evidence.
It is possible to notice these opinions and let them go.
So, back to my life and trying to decrease the amount of harm I cause.
Picking a topic which seems to be one of the more urgent I look at how much oil we burn for heat and in our cars, and use for agriculture, and it looks to me like our Canadian lifestyle is not sustainable. I’m not an expert, I could be wrong (along with millions of others), but I think prudence has survival value. I think I can cause less harm by cutting down on my own use of petroleum products.
I can buy less, make my own, avoid plastics, take care of my things, repair, mend, repurpose, swap with others, and share what I have.
I bike or walk most places, rather than relying on a car, for several reasons, like inclination, love of exercise, feeling good, and also to try to balance the fuel oil we use for heat. Our house is poorly insulated and although we’ve tried everything we can to insulate, and have turned down the thermostat, we still burn oil. Oil that is irreplaceable and which is contributing to the greenhouse effect.
I don’t have answers to the big questions of how to decrease our use of fossil fuels in agriculture and the food supply chain (petroleum based fertilizers and fuel for transportation) . So I’ve simply been eating from the local food box delivered weekly by Shareorganics.bc.ca. By eating locally grown mostly organic food I’m supporting the food security of Vancouver Island, local farmers, the genetic diversity of crops and the lives of pollinators.
There’s a surprise benefit: I’m learning to like all kinds of vegetables that grow easily in Victoria. Next step is to learn to grow them myself.
This feels right to me, but again I don’t know if I really have decreased the amount of harm I’m causing. We just can’t know. And if one day there is evidence to the contrary, I’ll change my ways. In the mean time I know I’m doing the best I can at the moment in this one area.
But is it enough?
Soshin McMurchy is a novice priest with the Victoria Zen Centre, zenwest.ca, and serves as the Buddhist chaplain with the UVic Multifaith Services
You can read more posts from our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking HERE
