I Am What I Am

I became a Buddhist a long time ago. Or, as I like to endear it to my friends, a Buddheo-Christian. It's easier for them...I get that. For those of you who don't really know me, or for those of you who are rediscovering me from times long past, I am a typical, Southern white girl from Alabama. We are typically Baptists or Methodists, or something in between. Generally speaking, not Buddhists. But I have always been different. Different in how I dress, different in how I speak, and different in my structure of beliefs. And I have always needed this difference. I have always needed to have something that put me outside of the norm. Did I need it to be popular? Well, no. I was never popular. Did I need it to get attention? Again, no. I always got a little freaked out by attention. I know now, that the difference I was creating between myself and my peers was in a desperate attempt to fill a chasm inside of me. If people were always wondering, "what's up with Kate", then I was always relevant. Being relevant is important when you have been marginalized by the very people you were taught to trust. And that is just sad.

So. What has this got to do with being Buddhist? A lot, actually. I found Buddhism because God was lost to me. I found Him once, when I was much younger. I was awake one night, late, as I usually was, because I have always had trouble sleeping. It was always the same fear that kept me awake. I became an insomniac, because the Hell that was being exhausted was much preferable to the Hell that was sleeping...and subsequently, dreaming. So, one night, in my attempt to exhaust myself into a dreamless sleep, I saw some shitty, low-budget movie about teenagers and sex. Not quite what you might be imagining...But potentially interesting for a 15 year old, nonetheless. In this particular flick, the two teenagers in question were very different. The girl was older, less cautious, wanted sex from her much younger, devout boyfriend. After lots of cat & mouse bullshit, the boy took the girl to his church so she could be saved (cause that's what all horny girls want on a second date). She felt the call, but refused to stagger to the pulpit for her salvation. On the way home from the church, the boy and the girl died in a horrible car crash...I think they might have even driven off a cliff...Anyway, after the dramatic death sequence, the boy ascends to the feet of the Father, and the girl...well, she goes straight to Hell. Probably not even in a hand basket. Although the movie and it's message were over dramatic and grandiose, I found myself on the floor of my bedroom praying. I prayed that God would find his way into my heart and that he could help me to please, please forget about the things that kept me awake at night. I cried and cried until I found stillness. In that stillness, I thought I could feel God calming me. I went to church for a while after that, and continued to search for the source of that stillness for quite sometime. Although I did not find what I thought I was looking for, I continued to feel the stillness. I know now that it was God. Telling my mind that being still is okay.

As the years passed, I forgot about God. I never forgot about the movie and I never forgot about the stillness, but the dreams came back and the plague on my brain spread, and my search for the stillness I thought God had given me ceased. But my mind works in overtime. It never stops...It constantly churns out thoughts, both good and bad. I continued the struggle to calm it. One day, I discovered meditation. Through the course of my meditative practice, I rediscovered yoga, and subsequently, Buddhism. Meditation freed my mind. It allowed me to control the thoughts, so that they became little more than errant drops from an ever so slightly leaky faucet. I had learned how to create the stillness in my mind that I had once viewed as nothing more than a reneged promise. And I still cherish the stillness. I need the stillness. The chaos of my mind and all of its dark crevasses and secret places is just too much for me. And so, I chant "Ohm, Mani Padme Hum" every chance that I get, and my mind receives the peace. For I am the Jewel of the Lotus. And should I ever forget that, I risk losing the stillness of mind that I have struggled so long, and so hard, to achieve.

We all have our dark crevasses and secret places within our minds. Sometimes, they are so deeply trenched, we feel like once we have fallen into them, we may never get out. But in my searching for my own peace, I learned something really quite spectacular...You can get out of the trenches. Your mind doesn't control you. It resides within you, and feeds upon you, but like all parasites, needs YOU in order to continue it's function. You, and only you, can silence the loud voices within your mind. And those voices may have horrible, no good, very bad things to say to you...Fuck those voices, and repeat after me..."Ohm, Mani Padme Hum"...For I am the Jewel of the Lotus, and my flower forever blossoms on the surface of this pool of muck, and I can guide you to the stillness...

And for those of you who don't really know me, or for those of you who are rediscovering me from times long past...I did find God again. And he told me that it's okay for me to be broken, and it's okay for me to not be like you. But most of all he told me that it's okay for my mind to be still. In the stillness I can find Him, and for me, that is a turbulent journey indeed. But in spite of all the dips and jumps, I know that it is a journey worth contnuing...For the alternative is to allow the chaos of my mind to overtake me, and I will be lost to everyone...Even to God. And as little as I know about Him, I know I don't want to lose Him. So I continue to chant. I continue to heal. I continue to seek the stillness that will ultimately save me from myself.