rishi
History
- Member for
- 3 years 24 weeks
Biography
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Posted November 26th, 2008 by rishi
My religious background is diverse. I was baptized,confirmed and educated Roman Catholic, but took a 25 year sabbatical from Christianity because I felt it was hazardous to my health. During that time away from the institutional church, I became a Buddhist monk in Southeast Asia.
About seven years ago, while participating as a monastic in an interfaith dialogue project with the Archdiocese of Brisbane in Australia, I experienced an epiphany that for a while had me thinking that, in their purest forms, the Buddhist path and the Christian path were, at some very deep level, the same spiritual path. Since that time, I've been consciously exploring the shared ground between the two, and at this point my understanding is that there is a third reality, which both are tapping into, and reporting on, each in their own way. That third reality is what I understand as my ultimate concern in life. But I find that these two wisdom traditions have become very important ways of getting experientially closer to that underlying third. I've also found that the two traditions can help one another with their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Because of all this, about five years ago, I found myself in the unusual position of having learned and experienced a lot within both of these wisdom traditions, Buddhism and Christianity, and not really being sure where I felt more at home. At that point in my life, it was clear that my spirituality had been formed by both traditions to an extent that I could very easily go either way. And it was clear to me that, whichever tradition and community I chose, the tradition not chosen would continue to be very influential, since it was at this point an integral part of who I am.