How long have you practiced Buddhism?

About 35 years

How were you introduced to Buddhism ?

By a Buddhist friend who I shared a rented house with for a year or two (not a girlfriend, just a friend) who was on the point of becoming a Buddhist nun. I’d first been introduced to ideas of rebirth a few years earlier by another friend who was interested in theosophy. As well as introducing me to the basic ideas in many discussions, she was happy and a lot of fun, which rather turned around my ideas of Buddhism which until then I’d thought must be a dull and serious religion :).

Why is Buddhism important to you?

It just makes sense to me. I was a Christian before, and both my parents were missionaries. Later they attended Quaker meetings, which is perhaps the branch of Christianity closest to Buddhism. Christianity made a lot of sense to me also, and if I hadn’t met Buddhists I’d be a Christian to this day I think..

But when I met real Buddhists and talked to them, a lot of the questions I had about Christianity were no longer questions. It was a natural fit.

How does your Buddhism play a role in your daily life?

Nothing very obvious, except of course things like my answers to questions like this. As many Buddhists do, I make an offering of seven bowls of water to the Buddha every morning (when I can, and it’s easy to do, you don’t have to do it). It’s a simple ceremony, symbolic, and the idea is that you are inviting the openness and awakening of the enlightened mind into your life. Also recognizing it as something you have in yourself, that’s important, not just something outside of you.

We are surrounded by so many symbols - ad campaigns, movies, computer games, logos etc. It just is natural to work with symbols, so it helps to start the day with a symbolic gesture that connects you to the path.

What makes Buddhism unique from other religions?

You aren’t required to believe anything to be a Buddhist, not even to believe in rebirth. Although Buddha taught many specific things, they are like guidelines for discovery. Along the path, if you find something to be true which doesn’t accord with what you think the Buddha said, the truth is what you follow. I don’t know of any other religion that works like that.

If you could tell people with no knowledge of Buddhism one thing what would it be?

That everything is impermanent, and changing, much more so than one realizes. It can help to connect to that and realize that when you meet what seem huge insurmountable obstacles, or you get depressed and so on. Helps you to lighten up a bit. It doesn’t solve the problem in any obvious sense but you get a lot more spaciousness. Not just situations, also your desires, depression, joy etc, it all arises and passes.

It can seem a trivial observation, something that everyone knows. But there may be more to it than you’d think. Buddha’s central teaching can be summarized as “whatever arises, passes away”. The entire path is included in that statement. Really understanding that can lead you to see the truth of Nirvana, so it’s taught. In the sutras, they say that some of Buddha’s followers saw the truth of the path just by hearing that phrase (or some variant on it) from someone who had listened to the Buddha teach.

See venerable Somedho’s short piece about this: Everything that arises passes away

What is a common Misconception people hold about Buddhism?

Oh, so many, but perhaps the biggest one, that the aim of a Buddhist is to escape from the universe and disappear from reality, to either cease to exist, or to find a permanent happy existence outside of reality. Nothing could be further from the truth. The path is about gradually opening up to the truth, no matter what it is, in any form, right here, right now. As Walpola Rahula put it,

“It is incorrect to think that Nirvāṇa is the natural result of the extinction of craving. Nirvāṇa is not the result of anything. If it would be a result, then it would be an effect produced by a cause. It would be saṃkhata ‘produced’ and ‘conditioned’. Nirvāṇa is neither cause nor effect. It is beyond cause and effect. Truth is not a result nor an effect. It is not produced like a mystic, spiritual, mental state, such as dhyāna or samādhi. TRUTH IS. NIRVĀṆA IS. The only thing you can do is to see it, to realize it. There is a path leading to the realization of Nirvāṇa. But Nirvāṇa is not the result of this path. You may get to the mountain along a path, but the mountain is not the result, not an effect of the path. You may see a light, but the light not the result of your eyesight..”

For more on this, The Third Noble Truth - Walpola Rahula: What the Buddha Taught

What is your favorite holiday and why?

As someone who lives in a Christian country, then I have the same holidays as everyone else. I’m in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and I think the Tibetan new year would be their main holiday of the year. But I’m not involved in any Tibetan religious festivities.