Al: Yeah, having left Christianity itself it took quite a while to let go of believe in wrathful sky fathers and such. I think when my beliefs in Buddhism got stronger after 2005, I think I just forgot about it. I probably should blog about that at some point in the future.

Jeannie: Certainly a good point.

It doesn’t matter one bit to me why someone practices Buddhism- they will reap the benefits.

Also interesting since the Tendai monks of Mt. Hiei continued to torment the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land School for another two hundred years up to about the time of Rennyo.

And yet he still felt he could not follow the other paths.

…Having to learn all of this from scratch with no cultural basis, that the opposite of my experience in the convert, non-ethnically Buddhist community.

Totally. Before I got into Pure Land about 3 years ago, I was definitely among this crowd in every sense of the word. I think it’s a natural outcome of leaving something like Christianity. I think thought that joining Buddhism just to get away from Christianity is ultimately missing something though, and part of a Buddhist’s path is to figure out what’s missing. It’s certainly something I’ve struggled with.

Yeah, my father-in-law, whose Japanese, complains a lot about Japanese Buddhism and its monks, so in all fairness the Asian Buddhist culture certainly has its problems too.

Why would I leave Catholicism and Christianity in general only to go sit in pews with a priest doing a service, etc. whether it was Buddhist or something else?

Reading Suzuki’s biography, Crooked Cucumber, an encounter between Suzuki and a BCA priest he knew is mentioned. In this encounter, the BCA priest admits that he isn’t sure that he could be a priest in America because he simply wasn’t trained to answer the kinds of questions that he was being asked here. Suzuki mentions having to improve his knowledge of Buddhism because he was being asked questions that in 30 years of being a priest in Japan, no one had bothered to ask. I’ve heard the same thing from people who have trained in Japan. Buddhist priests there are usually much more knowledgeable about the forms and structures of things but are not necessarily well versed in Buddhist history, doctrines, sutras, etc. the way that we would expect here. The prevalence of Buddhism seems to have caused some to take things for granted and only learn to a certain depth because “everyone knows all of this” or somesuch.

Having to learn all of this from scratch with no cultural basis, that the opposite of my experience in the convert, non-ethnically Buddhist community. Of course, that community has its own problems too.