As a Catholic, I am forever cursed with guilt, but I like to think that with age Catholicism’s grasp on my soul gets a little less tighter and perhaps free-will even enters the picture at some later date. I am somewhat caught in a weird loop when it comes to religious matters. It is not that I don’t believe in God, it is that I don’t really think it matters. As part of Generation X, I tend to be pretty cynical in nature and just like everyone else I went through my whole depression stage (remember when everything in your closet was black?), but now I’m older and my biggest fight isn’t with God, The Catholic Church, parents, or even my own kids, it’s actually with myself. It’s always been about me! In a sense that is what religion is, it’s me!

However, I am not perfect, and the religion of me, is not that I am God, it is my connection to the world. What I feel, who I think I am, what I want to be. In this it is not that I have been searching for God at all, it is that I wanted to run away from myself. Most religion tries to fill a void and give you some direction and possibly some really strange believes, (like worshipping a guy who had his disciples drink his blood and eat his flesh doesn’t sound strange enough?), but for me personally the perfect religion for finding yourself is really Buddhism. It is the only religion that allows you to live your life in moderation, to have discipline, to know yourself. Now, I’m not saying you should be a Zen Buddhist tomorrow, and I for one find it incredibly hard to give up eating beef, however Buddha really made some great points about the human condition. I won’t go over any of them, cause you need to experience them for yourself in your own time. The only thing I’ll point out is that not all Buddhism is Zen, and in actuality Zen is a pretty strict version of Buddhism, so I personally wouldn’t start there.

I seem to remember Jack Kerouac saying something about how he was a Catholic Buddhist, and for the most part that is exactly what happens. You can’t totally change your religious upbringing, but you can get to know yourself better and Buddhism is one way to do it.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS