Why I Want to Be a Buddhist

I am a secular humanist (meaning that I believe in science and in the good will of people). I believe that through good will, tolerance, and understanding we might actually not destroy the world. Secular humanism has to be the most boring substitution for “spirituality” that there is. No ritual, no holidays, no statuary, robes or gilded pulpits, no prayers, chants, or OMing. There is no such thing as a secular humanist choir. Unless we tote around the Danish Manifesto of Secular Humanism there is no way to spot us in a crowd — no cross or Star of David, or symbol to make us visually part of a community. Most people have never heard of secular humanism and are happy to assume it is one of those New England branches of protestantism practiced by four of our early Presidents and then all but died out. There are no houses of worship. The closest we get to that is when we get invited to go to a Unitarian pot luck supper. There is no celebration of entering a spiritual kingdom or attaining an age of acceptance or ascending to a higher plane upon death (if you have been good). I once worked with a woman who cried when she found out I had not been baptized. I asked her if she really believed that Jesus would make me go to Hell over a technicality even if I lived a very good life and she said yes.

Being a secular humanist  is not satisfying. Intellectually it is tight, emotionally it is lacking. Sometimes I need to cave to a higher power. When one is downwind of the fan for long enough it is easy to make room in one’s life for something else. It is getting harder to stay with the  “good will and understanding.” I think about Iraq and 911 and Bosnia and see no hope.

Buddhists, on the other hand, can find enlightenment and then “burn utterly away”. They think about things like “the whole world is a single flower”. There are millions of them. I can’t imagine a spiritually lonely Buddhist. Buddhists meditate and find peace. They leave prayer papers in shrines that have been there for centuries. Their spiritual leader emerged from a Lotus flower. Unlike every other religion, I can’t think of a single nasty thing that has been done to propagate Buddhism.

When I die I want to be cremated. That is probably as close to “burning utterly away” as I am going to get. If I find enlightenment before then, it will be through staring at the stars in wonderment.