About me, becoming Buddhist.

Becoming Buddhist, or really a follower of Sakyamuni's wisdom, is a remarkable journey of insight, clarity, realization, forgiveness, understanding, transcendence and releasing the fogginess of mind. I am grateful for this. That is, I believe, firmly on the path of discovering the true nature of myself. Of course, all this is connected to others as well which means understanding the way of others too.

Now, the first thing I have to make clear is that I'm not a Buddhist monk nor a Buddhist master. These are titles for the deep practitioner of one of the varied Buddhist traditions. Of which there are many, and many with different themes, and beliefs.
In brief regarding Buddhist "Masters". Most, from my experience are quite accomplished at what they have practiced. This is good. It can also be not so good. That is, there are good and bad teachers. Anyway like the Buddha said, "experience is key to knowing."
What I am is a deep believer in the Buddha's way. I truly believe that the Buddha's words, dharma, (teachings), however you want to describe them, are remarkable and useful words of advice. They are truly words of wisdom. Especially considering that he gave this advice more then 2500 years ago.
This tells me that the people back then experienced the same sorts of problems and confusion with life as people do today. In other words, not much appears to have changed with the human condition.
It is in this way that I consider myself a follower of the Buddha rather than a Buddhist. Being a Buddhist means to follow a Buddhist tradition of some sort. I prefer following Buddha's advice rather than a tradition's advice or way.
The intention here is that "Buddhism" has collected many different connotations since the Buddha's death. Yet, the Buddha's teachings have stayed the same. I think to some degree, maybe big time, Siddhartha Gautama was troubled and he figured out some realizations that set him free.
I became loosely interested in Buddhism beliefs a number of years ago. Later I started visiting temples and meditation centres to discover more. I discovered that I had to sort out the many differences in beliefs in order to understand.
I found that it was somewhat confusing. That is, there was some uniformity in the teachings, but not entirely. When the suffering in my own life escalated I sought answers. Those answers came from the Buddha's words, not the intentions of the Buddha's later followers. There is a big difference.
From this I started the process of separating the different beliefs. There seemed to be much confusion within the many and varied Buddhist teachings, even contradictory teachings exist. These pages are the result of my efforts of understanding the Buddha's intention. And this is what I believe to be important.
Second, I have to clear something up that seems to be lacking or is misunderstood in Buddhism all around the world but especially in the West. That is, there are monks and there are laypeople. And there is a big difference. At least to me anyway.
It is clear to me that the Buddha intended his teachings for both the layman and the monk. There are many Buddhist teachings that support this conclusion. I believe there is a difficult gap for many followers to leap when they are attempting to attain that of a monk when they are a layperson.
I'm a Buddhist layperson. The concepts of Buddhism are what convinced me to be such. The true, and original quotes of Buddha Sakyamuni are what also convinced me. It was the following quote that really struck me as real, and makes total sense:
"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances."
"Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion."
"Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good."
-Buddha Shakyamuni
To me, this quote really shows the tenancity of the Buddha's quest for truth. If you have to read this quote a few times before it sinks in then do so. But, it's pretty straight forward and clear as to what he intended.
From this quote (and others) I get the suspicion that some of the other stuff attributed to Buddha wasn't really what he said or intended. So, I began a major search and discover mission to reveal the truth, or as close to the truth as possible.
For example, scholars that study Pali and Sanskrit know there are translation errors. I believe context must be taken into account too. As well, there has to be additions by well-meaning monks and scribes (for various reasons). Anyway, in my search I found many different concepts and ideas that exist in Buddhism today and the past too.
Now, I believe that, for the most part, all the Buddhist traditions have or at least they think they have right intention. This is good, but it can be confusing. That's what I found. And, that's how I was at first. So, I started making this site help clear up some of the conflicts and contradictions for me, and thought it may help others too.
I couldn't see how the Buddha could say something very logical and sensible, yet later words attributed to him seemed to contradict him. I believe that he never did say some of the later stuff attributed to him.
I believe these are words of later, post Buddha, well meaning monks and followers that either tried to understand what the Buddha said or simply added to what he did say and teach (for many reasons).

Click here, Becoming Buddhist Continued to read more about my thoughts on the Buddha's dharma.

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If you haven't already done so, please take a couple minutes to fill out my Buddhist Beliefs Poll by clicking the link below. Thank You.

Buddhist Beliefs Poll

Some of the books and audios I have read in my quest for understanding Buddhism. Please visit and read my reviews.

Books I've read on becoming Buddhist, Reviewed and Rated.END=OM MANI PADME HUM.( 3 TIMES ).RESEARCH TIBET BUDDHIST DHARMA BY VENERABLE GESHE TESERING TASHI.VIETNAMESE TIBET NUN.( NHA TRANG ).29/1/2012.