... And then we'll Snuggle!"Happy Christmas!
If you are thinking right now: "Why is she wishing me a happy Christmas? Christmas isn't a Buddhist holiday". Well, you're right. However, at an SGI meeting we discussed the concept of Zuiho Bini. Pretty much, it's a teaching of the Buddha that says that you should respect the traditions of the land you are in. So, I can celebrate Christmas after all.
This hasn't been without its problems though. Christmas and I have been on rocky ground for a while. I don't take heart break easily, and man oh man, did I used to believe in the magic of Christmas. I mean BELIEVE. So much so that I wanted proof. When I was ten, I crept into my Aunt Gracie's living room, only to find the adults stashing the 'Santa' presents. I tried for a year to ignore it, or pretend that I didn't know, but I had felt betrayed and suffered a sever crisis of faith. Its funny to look at this now, because in truth, it was my problems with Santa which sparked me to find a tradition of my own. I was eleven when I first started tagging along to my various friends church programs, but nothing stuck until I found the buddha-dharma. Even when I finally knew I was a Buddhist, it still took me, well, really until this year to start to like Christmas again. I had felt oppressed by the tradition which I saw as propagating the 'lie' which crushed my belief in magic, and refused to take joy in anything based on a lie.
On December 12th, I celebrated my first 'Buddha-Birthday'. My one year anniversary since I received my Gohonzon and officially became a member of the SGI. This has been a monumental year for me, and I have broken through barriers I have been struggling with for nearly a decade. Christmas is obviously one of them. Something silly started happening to me since thanksgiving. I have allowed myself to watch Christmas movies.
It started casually with Elf. I know, your thinking this is just Will Ferrall being silly. I thought so too, and then three quarters of the way I just started to cry. Not just a little bit, a lot. Big, sloppy tears of faith and joy, mixed with a little sadness at the suffering I had felt all those years. I stopped believing in Santa, and stopped believing in myself. This month I have cried not only after Elf, but also after The Santa Clause 1 and 2, Love Actually (which normally just depresses me), Home Alone (I mean, come on the lovely old man that Kevin comes to see for who he really is! ah!), Sleepless in Seattle (it does have a Christmas scene, I promise...), and most recently The Muppet's Christmas Carol. I also came very close to crying at work yesterday when people came in to make holiday donations to the homeless animals, and when one of our amazing volunteers told me she and her husband were spending all day at the homeless (people) shelter.
I can't say I have had the complete transformation of a former Scrooge, yet. Tonight when I walked home from my aunt's house it was dark outside, and it still felt like it was very dark outside. However, I think our challenge as beings is maintaining a sense of wonder and loving-kindness eternally. I'm going to go chant for some magic...
as Buddy the Elf says: "I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU!",
janey
No comments:
Post a Comment