My faith is very complicated because I come from a Buddhist background and Learned Buddhism and been a very good follower of it. I was born in Sri Lanka. Growing up in a Buddhist family in Sri Lanka, my faith was initially introduced to me by my parents. My parents claimed to be strong Buddhists and they practiced their faith very often. Because of them I was very involved in practicing and learning more about Buddhism. To me Buddhism is a way of life.
Buddhists believe that life is pain and suffering and that the way to end the pain of this life if through “Nirvana” also known as Enlightenment, a state of mind that is completely and permanently free of suffering. Enlightenment is achieved through the cleansing of sin and desires from ones mind. Buddhists also believe in afterlife and that one is born over and over again until they have achieved the stage of enlightenment.
They believe that the after life is affected by the way you life this like and what ever good or bad deeds you do will come back to you accordingly, for am example if you do help some one, something good to you will happen later, but if you commit a sin, then you will be punished later; in the same lifetime or in another. Buddhism was founded by a prince named “Gouthama Siddhartha” who later became Buddha over 2500 years ago in India.
Even though he has all the riches in the world he saw that there was pain and suffering in life no matter what, and one day he left his castle to go to look for an answer to be rid of the pain and the suffering in the world. He went to several different philosophers but he realized what all of them believed in was wrong and something that he cannot agree on. So he moved on and decided to go to the jungle and meditate to find an answer. After all his thinking and meditation he came to relies that the answer to sad ness is giving up desires because it was the root of sadness and to live life as simple as possible.
In order to achieve this stage of enlightenment, one needs to calm their mind through meditation and get rid of sinful thoughts and the desires. After achieving “Nirvana” he introduced his teachings to people that was interested in it and then he recruited some people as monks to help teach others about his teachings. Buddha preached about the truth and he also preached about how one should live their life as a good follower. His teachings were passed on by monk to monk and later were written in Buddhist scriptures.
Buddhism has been a very important influence on the construction of my faith. My understanding of what good conduct was engraved to my by Buddhism. Because I believed in Karma, even as a child I was afraid to do something that I considered wrong. I was afraid that I will have to suffer the consequences later. This encouraged me to become a good person. Another thing that Buddhism has helped me with in my faith is the ability I have to control my mind. Desire is a very powerful force and it can dive humans to do things that could end up being a sin.
The meditation and the ways of thinking that I have learned from Buddhism has helped me with this and it has help me a stronger person to not give in to my desires and be thoughtful before I get myself in to something that I have regret later. I think these elements in Buddhism are very good in building someone’s faith and making people do the right thing. Even thought Buddhism has been a key element of my faith, I was never satisfied with the way Buddha looked at life. Buddhism believes that life is pain and sadness and Nirvana is the solutions to true happiness.
But Nirvana seems like a stage in life where there is no Happiness or Joy at all. I always wondered what if there was any joy at all in a stage of life where there are no desires. There are the questions that drove me to leek for a faith that I really do want to believe in. When I came to Seattle Pacific University, I wasn’t sure what my faith was at the time. I claimed I was Buddhist but inside me I really was looking for an answer. I wondered what life is. How was life created? What happens in the end? These are some questions that even Buddha’s teachings have not mentioned about.
So while I was here at SPU I began to learn more and more about Christianity. Almost all my friends around me were Christian, and I was not one of them. But I am so thankful that almost all of them were welcoming me and they were very open minded when it came to talking about what my faith was. The discussions I’ve had with my friends have helped me a great deal in finding what my faith really is. So I started reading more and more about Christianity and started going to church along with my friends. I was amazed by the way of life that Christianity has showed me.
But in order to believe in Christianity I knew that I had to believe in God. Unlike for most Christians, believing in God was not something that I was taught from my early days as a child and it was not a label that I got from my family along with my family name. God was something that I had to find my self. I started to question my self, does God exist? Has he always been there in my life? I started to think about it more and more. It was not like I can just go around and look so I can prove that he does exist or not. It is something that I had to come to a conclusion based on the facts that was around me.
I go out side every day and look around the beautiful creations on the nature and wonder if life is just a coincidence, or there was some one who created it and some one who looks over us. Some times when I was all by my self and when I felt like I was all alone in this life, something told me that I wasn’t alone. I came to realize that he has always been there in my life. As I was finding god I came to realize that he was trying to find me long before, and he has always be there with me in my life; behind very decision I have made.
I also realized that I cant go on by my self and I needed him to help me get though this life. That why I wanted to become a Christian and believe in Him. So I decided to become a Christian and accept Jesus into my life. But just because I have started going to church every Sunday and have accepted Jesus into my life it does not mean that I don’t question some beliefs of Christianity or the scriptures. One thing that I have had a hard time in believing is the wrath of God in the old testament of the bible. In some occasions He has wiped out cities has also led men in to war.
I think these stories is some times hard to understand because to me God is a loving and caring person, but at the same time I believe that these stories are written in the bible to let people know how powerful and sovereign God is. But I cannot completely believe that all these stories took place in history just as they are mentioned. Another issue that I am confused about is God’s creation on the world in 7 days (Genesis). That’s because according to scientists that its proven the universe has evolved for a much longer time than recorded in the Bible. But I believe that God’s miracles are too complex for us humans to understand.