Buddhistian - A New Religion?

This evening my husband and I had a very interesting conversation with our eleven year old daughter, Maria.

Apparently she is trying to come to terms with what she should call herself from a religious perspective. She is not sure if she, when asked, should say she is a Christian or say that she is Buddhist. She is thinking of calling herself a "Buddhistian". A term she coined all on her own.

Both my husband and I posed the question to Maria, "Why do you feel the need to call yourself anything?"

It seems a couple of the kids at her school are vocal about their religious beliefs and she is just uncertain what to say when confronted. She actually overheard a student telling another student that you have to believe in God and if you don't, your are going to the H-word.

"At the end of the day," we told her, "You still have plenty of time to work through who YOU will decide 'what' you want to call yourself. If you even decide to do that at all!"

We warned her that words and titles can trap us if we are not careful and explained how.

More importantly we shared with her that she should not let anyone force her to make a decision nor should she be ashamed to say what she believes. But to make sure they are her beliefs, not ours.

Both me and my husband were raised in Christian homes and are now practicing Buddhists. We truly understand what Maria is going through and we saw this as a teaching moment for all of us.

We also conveyed to Maria, that even though we are practicing Buddhists, we did not stop being Christians. Nor have we stopped learning about other religions, for they all have many great qualities. (For me personally, Buddhism and Christianity compliment each other. I can say quite honestly, that I understand the teachings of Jesus much better through the lens of Buddhism. And Christianity has taught me just how compassionate Jesus was and is and continues to be in my life).

In the end, we are very happy that Maria is working through this and we want her to enjoy the journey she is on. We all have our own spiritual paths, but for us personally we made it clear to her that our true religion is Compassion.

For us, it matters not what you call yourself but how you carry yourself and how you treat others. What good is it to call yourself a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and not conduct yourself as one?

The real measure of who you are, we explained to her, is deciding what kind of a person you want to be not based on a religion, but rather on whether you can decipher between right and wrong and behaving accordingly.

Did she get it? We think she did. We look forward to many more discussions like these with both of our children.

As for our twelve year old son, Lawrence, well he's definitely Buddhist! We go to him when we get stumped for our dharma teachings!

You Know You Are Getting Old When...

You know you are getting old when your 11 year old child dumps all of their Halloween candy on the floor to be inspected and asks, "Mom, which of these candies were around when you were a kid?"

Snickers - check
M&M's Plain - check
M&M's w/Peanuts - check
Three Musketeers - check
Butterfinger - check
Baby Ruth - check
Smarties - check
Tootsie Rolls - check
Nestle's Crunch Bar - Check

As you look through all the candy, your answer is, "All of them."

And their response is, "Wow, these candy companies have been around a really LONG time, haven't they?"