One Particular Harbour

I've been dipping in and out of A Path With Heart, by Jack Kornfield, for a ridiculous period of time (I borrowed it last year, but I haven't read it through yet and keep returning it so I don't have it out indefinitely). The book covers a number of ideas, but one of them has been sticking with me for a while.

He talks about "sitting in a room" and seeing what comes. That is, when you're feeling a little lost and challenged, spiritually, and you don't rightly know which direction you should be following, find a "room" (that is, a particular faith tradition) and just spend some quality time there to learn what you can learn before moving on.

As I shifted from one version of Christianity to another, and then out of Christianity into... well... not Christianity, I found myself not finding a place that felt like it was where I wanted to settle. Between cosmology, philosophy and practice, I could quite easily refer to myself as an Eclectic Neo-Pagan Buddhist Quaker.

This description is highly accurate, but it's also a mongrel of a thing. Too many directions all at once, really. I've been hoping I'd find something I could hitch a ride on, so I can say "Oh, I follow this faith" rather than having to admit that I'm pretty much making up my own. Besides, I don't want to be the person who invents their own religion. Not only is it too much hard work, it also rarely ends well.

But Kornfield's idea, from how I read it, is that you don't have to sign up for a faith for all eternity to simply follow it for a while to see what you learn.

You learn a lot from sailing around, seeing many ports, bays and harbours, but you learn a different range of things from weighing anchor in one particular harbour for a few seasons, and getting to know the place for a while.

This year I've been weighing anchor in Zen Buddhism. I was gravitating towards it last year, and it seems like a nice enough harbour to spend some time in. Like everything else I've been learning about, I don't agree with all of it, but I do like the cut of it's jib, and I am enjoying arguing with it (which is a very Zen thing to do, really). I'm going to stay here for a while to see what I learn.

So, just for a little while, I can say I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist, although I wouldn't say that I am a Zen Buddhist. Perhaps, more accurately, I'm a student of Zen Buddhism. I'll see what comes.