I’ll never forget it – it was the Sunday after Vince’s car accident in March 2017 when my friend Stephenie invited me to go to a local Buddhist temple with her. I knew where this place was. Located off of Hoffner, I used to live not too far away and distinctly remember thinking someone had dropped Mulan right slap dab in the middle of South East Orlando.

The first service I attended was, fortunately, the once-a-month English service with a 15 minute silent meditation. Now, I thought I had a handle on meditating – after all, I have mala beads, I have mantras, I have had epic emotional breakthroughs while meditating – and I also thought I knew about Buddhism given how much world religion I’ve studied. But it turns out I had no idea what Temple or Buddhism or even Meditation could really be about.

• First, I was confused that this Temple was Buddhism,… in Chinese. I thought Buddhism was Indian? Tibetan? Mixed with Hinduism?
• Second, no one was using mala beads – I thought these were standard issue in Buddhism.
• Third, the monks were actually Venerables and they are all female (!?!?!)
• Fourth, we. sang. EVERYTHING. Like, EVERYTHING was a song. In English or phonetically spelled Chinese. And thankfully there’s a giant screen with everything displayed on powerpoint so you can keep up.

Despite a LOT of confusion, rapid Chinese sung in front of walls of ancestors buried in the mausoleum, almost an entire hour spent singing / chanting the prayers, and more bowing than I did at Catholic church, I left Temple that day in March feeling like my entire life was changed. And looking back, I now know that it was.

Which brings me to May 2018.

I’ve now been going to the Temple for over a year. I can’t say I’ve been every Sunday but I can say I’ve attended both the English services on the last Sunday of every month *and* a few Chinese only services. And I have done so much studying to shed myself of my ignorance… which I am excited to put down here on this blog.

• First, yes Buddhism is also Chinese. Thousands of years ago Indian Buddhists traveled the Silk Road to China to spread the Dharma and many lessons of the Buddha. When they got to China they found Taoism was so dominate in Chinese culture that the best way to explain Buddhism to the Chinese people was by using Taoist concepts, which ended up spinning off a separate but very similar branch of Buddhism in China that is strongly influenced – and even similar to, in many ways – Taoism. But the story of Buddha(s) is / are the same and much of the Dharma or Sangha is the same (from what I know so far).
• The Chinese-school of Buddhism is called Chan, Pure Life, or Mahayana and the specific school / branch of my Temple is Humanistic Buddhism which places an emphasis on integrating Buddhist practices into everyday life through humanism, altruism, spiritual practices as part of daily life, joyfulness, timeliness, and the universality of saving all beings. From these principles, the aim of humanistic Buddhism is to reconnect Buddhist practice with the ordinary and places emphasis on caring for the material world, not solely concerned with achieving delivery from it. (Yes, I borrowed that last bit from Wikipedia b/c it is succinct)
• The word “Zen” comes from Japanese Buddhism, which is different even from Indian, Tibetan or Chinese sects. In Chinese that word is “Chan.” But “Nirvana” is applicable to all sects / schools.
• Mala beads are also universal but they look different across the spectrum. Mine are decidedly Indian-looking.
• Indian and Tibetan Buddhism – Theravada – are BY FAR the more popular and widely adopted in the East. That’s why most of us think of India when we think of Buddhism, which was heavily influenced by Hinduism and explains why Ganesh or other Hindu deities are popular / mixed in. Or even Tibet (prayer flags, prayer wheels, singing bowls, etc.) because those are the cultures that, for many different reasons, have made their way East. In fact, I have had a really hard time learning more about Mahayana around books and the internet because Theravada is so much more popular.
• Humanistic Buddhism actually has the highest ratio of female Venerables than any other school. I, of course, love this.
• Meditation is SO incredibly important to all Buddhists.

I think the easiest way to explain my specific Temple and adopted school of Buddhism is like this: Buddhism is like Christianity. Mahayana is like Catholicism. Humanistic is like going to St. Mary Magdaline Episcopal Church (where I grew up in Coral Springs). Was it Catholic? No. Was it still Christian? Yes. Was it super close and we learned the same lessons as Catholics? Totally.

Which brings me to the topic of this post – I think I’m officially Buddhist now….

Steph and I decided to go to the April English Service together after not attending at the same time in awhile. A few days prior I got an email from the Temple talking about the Triple Gem ceremony but didn’t really understand what it was. I was planning to go either way, so I figured I could learn while I was there.

So after about 10 minutes of silent meditation, the Venerable started to discuss what it means to take refuge in the Triple Gem and went through an FAQ of sorts. Steph and I sat there in the dark shrine room and independently decided it was something we absolutely wanted to do – take refuge in the three gems of Buddhism: The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Admit past transgressions and, going forward, commit to learning, practicing, and embodying the virtues of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

Does taking refuge in the Triple Gem mean you quit other religions? No. Does it mean you can’t practice other religions? Not at all. Does it mean you’ll go to hell if you practice another, non-Buddhist religion? Nope. In fact, “the idea of punishment by a divine power has been employed by religious cults as a means to control people. This notion is not a part of Buddhism. Buddhist faith is established upon our own free will…”

Long story short: It can’t hurt to take refuge in the Triple Gem, it can only help.

So there I was last month, sitting in silent meditation and having possibly the most life changing religious experience of my life, when the Venerable gave us the opportunity to take this first, and incredibly meaningful, step toward becoming Buddhists.

And, I did. 🙂

Steph and I bowed so much (and had such a hard time understanding when to bow that the wonderful Chinese ladies who attend the temple were helping us know when to go into half bows or full bows) that we bruised our knees. We took refuge in both English and Chinese. We chanted and sang and I clutched my mala beads the entire time. I low-key cried almost the whole time and my face almost broke from smiling.

When it was over, we got bracelets from the Venerable and we’ll receive official certificates as well. The next step would to commit to the Five Precepts but I am NO where near ready to do that. My personal next step is to keep attending Temple on Sundays, make stronger friendships with the ladies who attend and manage the Temple, volunteer for events, and next month I’m attending meditation classes led by a Venerable on Wednesday evenings from 7-9pm.

So yeah. I think I’m officially Buddhist now. And the ceremony was so wonderful and so meaningful and so pure that I felt like my entire soul had been reborn. I can’t wait to go into the world to find my Buddha-nature with compassion and empathy with others and the world around me.