How Our Family Connected to Buddhism

In 2006, we had the opportunity to pack up our life and travel in Southeast Asia for 6.5 months. When we left in late January, 2006, the kids were all very young. Kiran was only 11 months old, Alizeh was 3.5 and Darius seemed old at 6 years old.

When we left, we left as a family of five people with one person practicing Buddhism. By the time we returned, Buddhism was something we shared as a family.

Each of us came to Buddhism in our own way. My path led to Buddhism before we left. Mitra found her connection through some very strong nuns in Vietnam. In spending time with these nuns, she saw an example of well educated and powerful women practicing Zen (in stark contrast to what she had seen in Thailand).

Alizeh developed a relationship to Buddhism through visiting temples.
She really enjoyed the ritual of the temples. When I took her to a temple, she asked me what we did there. I explained that we respectfully watched what happened while the locals went through their rituals. She challenged me: "Those people are doing something. I want to do something, not just watch them do something!" And so Alizeh learned the local rituals and made offerings at many temples across Southeast Asia.

Darius visited some temples, but didn't connect as much to the form as Alizeh. For him, it just slowly became a more visible backdrop of his life. I would typically put the older two kids to bed. I would read them a story and then sit in the room with them to meditate while they went to sleep. We had a lot less space when we were traveling than we have at home. The result of this was that it pushed my meditation practice to be more visible for the kids. Soon they were asking what I was doing and asking if they could do it too. Seeing his Dad meditate on a daily basis was important in building Darius’ connection to Buddhism.

Now for Kiran, it was different. He was quite young for the whole trip. He was only 1.5 years old when we returned home. By this point, everyone else in the family had found some connection to Buddhism and Buddhism became the water that he was swimming in.

As I write this, it is almost three years after we arrived home from our trip. Buddhism has stayed with our family, while each person has developed a different relationship to it.

I continue practicing with the Victoria Zen Centre. Mitra’s focus has been on getting her Masters’ degree for the past three years. Buddhism and the community stay close to her heart, even if she has had little time to go out to the VZC. Darius likes having a Buddha statue in his room, when he is feeling scared at night. Alizeh leaves letters for Kwan Yin (a female Buddha) behind the Kwan Yin figure in her room. In the morning, she enjoys reading Kwan Yin’s replies. Kiran likes to light incense, meditate and do prostrations. As a family, we enjoy going to the VZC Sangha Sundays and Buddha’s Birthday Celebration each year.

"If he discovers religion, he will become a TV evangelist!"

I grew up in a family without any formal religion. My mother was certainly a spiritual person, but we didn't belong to any religious group. I think that mom was skeptical of any organized religion. Dad wasn't spiritual at all. What spirituality came to us as kids, came from my mom.

So, I wasn't really exposed to any organized religion growing up, even though I was exposed to spirituality. I had only been to 2 church services in my life (not including weddings or funerals) before I started practicing Buddhism.

When I was a kid, my folks took this picture of me in my grandparent’s backyard in California. I am dressed in a corduroy suit (all the rage back then!) with a stern look on my face and my hands clasped in front of me. The photo became a defining part of our family's story. The story went like this: "In this photo, Eric looks like either a preacher or a gangster. We don't want him to be a gangster and if he gets into religion he will be insufferable. He will be like a TV evangelist. So Eric should never get into the mob or organized religion."

This story went on for years. I guess the photo was taken when I was 4 or so and the story was part of our family until I got involved with Buddhism and didn't become a TV evangelist.

Any time I would express interest in religion the story would come out: "well, you know what mom always said about you and religion..."

Fast forward to 2004… by this time, my mother had passed away, Mitra and I were married with 2 kids and I was very involved with the company that I had co-founded, PureEdge. I came home one hot day. I thought that something may be up as soon as my mother-in-law told me that she would look after the kids, while I should go upstairs to chat with Mitra.

I went up to our bedroom and Mitra told me to sit down. I sat down and Mitra told me that she was pregnant with our third child. This was not the plan! We had a boy and a girl. We were done. Or so I thought. The idea of another child scared me.

Mitra and I saw a counselor together who helped us to take a broader perspective on the child. She asked us to think about ourselves in the future and what we would tell ourselves to do now. The answer was clear to me - the future me would tell the present me to have the child. Yes, it would be hard, but it would be worth it. I would live to regret it if we didn't have the child (I have to add that I am very thankful for this advice. It was just what I needed. Also, I am very thankful to have Kiran in my life).

I could clearly see that I wanted to have the child, but I was still scared. In the moments between sleeping and waking, I would feel this horrible fear sitting on my chest.

I went to see a different counselor whom I had seen previously about my mother's death and various work-related stresses. She said that she thought that my fear was not to do with having a third child, but to do with something greater. The pregnancy was just the "straw that broke the camels back".

We talked about how I could figure out what the greater issue was. She mentioned a variety of approaches to figure it out. She mentioned hypnosis and I knew that was what I wanted to try. Further, I wanted to be hypnotized in my painting studio at home (otherwise known as my garage), instead of in her office.

The next Saturday I found myself in my art studio, settled in comfortably on a chair next to my counselor. She led me to relax and go to a safe place within myself. There I was greeted by two visitors - two parts of myself that needed expression. One was a child of me and the other was an older figure. It was kind of like a dream. At one point, this figure put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me. In a voice that you would use to talk to a child who just isn't listening, he said, "Find a teacher." His voice was frustrated as if he had said this to me a thousand times and if I would only listen, I would be so much happier.

I returned to my normal state, guided out of the hypnosis by my counselor. I knew that I needed to find a religious teacher. I felt that while I felt deeply spiritual, I needed to be involved with some group. It occurred to me for the first time that the spiritual struggles that I had were not unique to me. Many other people had gone through these before. I could either re-invent the wheel while repeating the mistakes of others or I could learn from them. I could learn from their mistakes and once I learned their path, I could then forget it.

I felt like my approach to spirituality had been one of forgetting all of the rules to have a direct experience with spirituality. However, I had never learned the rules in the first place, so it was hard to forget them.

I decided to learn the path of an organized religion. The question was which one?

I made two lists in my head. One list was all of the world’s major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.). The other was a list of things which I felt spiritually spoke to me. It included all sorts of random things including the original Star Wars movies (especially Yoda), the book Siddhartha by Hesse and some obscure sci-fi books. When I stepped back and compared the lists in my head, I quickly saw that 80% of the things that I considered spiritual had a Buddhist theme. This was a big surprise to me, but not to those around me.

Frankly, the fact that I read the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse almost every year since I was a teenage should have been a clear signal to me, but I had missed it all of those years.

Any ways, I went online and looked to find a good beginners book on Buddhism. I read several reviews and settled on "Buddhism for Dummies". I bought it and read it cover to cover. It was a great book to introduce me to Buddhism.

It was like a door opening for me. The first chapter explained the reasons that Buddhism is a religion and the reasons that it isn't a religion. I found the reasons for it to not be a religion very compelling:

- there is no god(s),
- the main dude (Buddha) said that he was just a person and he wasn't trying to teach a religion, but just a way to me happy
- there is no set of ways in which you have to act, otherwise you will go to hell. There are ways to act, but they are only suggestions and the intent isn't to avoid hell, but just to be happier. So if you want to be happy, then killing people probably isn't going to help.
- if something in Buddhism doesn't work, then don't do it.

The end of the first chapter concluded with the idea that it didn't matter whether or not Buddhism was a religion or not.

The next thing that got me was the description of the first teaching that Buddha gave. He talked about something called The Four Noble Truths. I was completely struck by these as deeply familiar. These were themes which I had been painting over and over again for the previous four years.

As I worked through the book one of the things that it suggested was to try meditating. Regardless of which form of Buddhism you practice, there is always a lot of meditation. So if you don't like meditation, then this path is not for you.

The book described a simple counting breath meditation. I tried it for 15 minutes (which is what was suggested). I found myself far more relaxed afterwards. I had tried many things over the years to relax and nothing had worked as well. Meditation had helped me to relax a lot, in only 15 minutes, didn't involve appointments or other people and was free.

Next, the book suggested that I find a teacher and a community. I went through the phone book and searched online for places to practice Buddhism in Victoria. Eshu from the Victoria Zen Centre answered my email.

Eshu and I got together for a tea. I was very nervous at the thought of meeting a real Zen monk, but I was quickly at ease. Eshu and I became fast friends. I went to listen to Eshu speak and met Ben. He seemed like a pretty good guy and I thought if the community was made up of folks like Ben, then it must be a good group.

In the summer of 2004, about two months after finding out the Mitra was pregnant, I started practicing Buddhism with the Victoria Zen Centre.

A few months later, Eshu, Niki and the kids came over for dinner. In the middle of dinner, Eshu turns to Mitra and says, "Eric is really into Zen. What do you think of that?"

I was immediately worried. I knew that I was enjoying my time with the VZC, but what did Mitra think? In that moment it occurred to me that I didn't know what she thought.

Mitra turned to Eshu and said, "It is great! Eric is so much more relaxed. He is easier with the kids. He is easier with me. He admits when he is wrong so much sooner. It has made a big, positive change in him."

Wow, I thought. I knew that I felt better, but I didn't know that I was acting so differently. I didn't know that Mitra thought it was so positive for me.

That was five years ago now. Buddhism has continued to be a very powerful and positive influence on my life. I am thankful for it, but probably not as grateful as those who would have to interact with me if I wasn't practicing.