Artist Statement:
It's hard to believe that the last time I was recognized for my writing was seventeen years ago and also at Illinois State University. The Young Authors book that I wrote in kindergarten, titled the Fruit Hat, was selected for the writing program's highest honor, to attend the regional Young Authors award ceremony at ISU. I have always loved to write, but until recently, I have never given much thought to the possibility of publishing my work. Therefore, I am thrilled that three of my pieces have been selected for the Spring 2014 edition of the Euphemism I'd like to give a special thanks my mother, who has always been my number one fan in regards to my writing, as well as my number one blog follower.
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."
--Dalai Lama XIV
Christians are ignorant. Jews are cheap. Muslims are terrorists. Mormons are weird.
Religions are stereotyped. Whether one wants to believe it or not, it is the sad truth. At this
point in my life, I’ve had little to no exposure to any other religion besides my own. Because of
my lack of knowledge and understanding about religion, I am often forced to resort to the
stereotypical portrayals that I have seen about them in movies, on TV, and in the news. I was
raised a Catholic. I was baptized in the Catholic Church. I had my First Communion when I
was seven years old and my Confirmation when I was thirteen. I went to church almost every
Sunday with my parents and I went to Religious Education classes every Monday at 7:00 PM.
After my Confirmation, when I was no longer required to attend Religious Education
classes on a weekly basis and no longer participated in church service events, I found myself
slowly and steadily fading away from my Catholic roots. In high school, I was overly busy with
sports and extracurricular activities. For this reason, Sundays became my one and only
opportunity to sleep late and do absolutely nothing for the entire day. My mom grew tired of
fighting the “let’s go to 10 AM mass” battle. She eventually gave up trying to drag my sister and
me to mass with her. As the years went by, my family gradually became one of those
stereotypical church going families that make their seasonal appearances at Christmas and Easter
masses, celebrate the traditional Catholic holidays, and don’t do much religious wise besides
that.
A Wikipedia search of the word ‘work’ includes several different definitions. The
common examples are employment and labor related, house work, and work that is done to
accomplish a task. Less obvious meanings include “working the system” and work in relation to
Physics. Work, as in Theology, includes two bullet points; Karma and Work (Christian
Theology). As a “Catholic,” I am technically a Christian too right? To be completely honest, I
have always been confused about the difference between the two. Being the awful
Catholic/Christian that I am, I have no idea what the word work has to do with Christian
Theology and I have no desire to find out. However, I do know what Karma is. I know this
because about four months ago I randomly decided to begin researching Buddhism.
Karma, in relation to Buddhism, refers to the good or bad actions that a person takes
during his or her lifetime. Virtuous actions will lead to happiness and non-virtuous actions will
lead to suffering. I am not sure why I decided to look into Buddhism. When I made this
decision, I had absolutely no idea where to start. Growing up in a Catholic household, I never
had to seek out my own information about religion. I was taught everything that I needed to
know, either during mass or during Religious Education class. After several random and
unsubstantial Google searches about Buddhism, I came to the conclusion that this was going to
be a lot more work than I had thought it would be. I purchased the book Buddhism for Dummies
on Amazon.com and decided that at least it was a start.
A very interesting consideration about religion, and an aspect that most people probably
overlook, is the fact that one is born into a certain religion. In most cases, it is not necessary to
consider, compare, and contrast all of the different religions options that are out there. Religion
itself is a strange concept. What if this “Holy Bible” that so many Catholics live by is just some
silly, made up story that was created by a random group of men thousands of years ago? Many religions have a distinct narrative and sacred history, so who is to say which one is the “correct”
one? As questions such as these rolled around in my head, I opened Buddhism for Dummies,
desperately trying to encounter some sort of answer to these seemingly unanswerable questions.
Alright, it’s time to get to down to work, I said to myself.
I was determined to dive into my Buddhism investigation full heartedly. I found the
sunflower notebook that I had written a few entries in way back in kindergarten. The six entries
included information such as “Me and Emily rare best friends” and “It was Thanksgiving. I hed
Turky.” I flipped through the six used pages and on page seven wrote in big, bold, capital letters
BUDDHISM. I began to thoroughly read, mark up, highlight, and take notes in Buddhism for
Dummies. My long forgotten sunflower notebook was brought back to life with my carefully
taken notes about all of the new and fascinating information that I was learning.
The more I read about Buddhism, the more I loved it. There were so many beliefs that
were very different from those of those religions, such as Catholicism. The Buddha constantly
encouraged his followers to question any concept and to make sure that it agreed with their own
experience and understanding. Buddhist teachers stress that one should not passively accept
what they read or hear, but should not automatically reject it either. They challenge the usage of
one’s own intelligence, just as I was doing in my exploration of Buddhism.
I began my investigation of Buddhism over the summer, when free time was abundant
and I was not preoccupied with homework and other activities. As summer came to an end, and
I began my senior year at Illinois State University, I was quickly swallowed up in a seemingly
endless pile of homework, appointments, and other things to do. My Buddhism for Dummies
book sat unread on my bookshelf and my sunflower notebook wilted away under my bed. Over Thanksgiving and Christmas break I tried to make it a priority to further research Buddhism. At
that point however, I felt like I had come to a standstill.
I have no idea how much time, work, research, and involvement is required to actually be
able to call yourself a Buddhist. Over Thanksgiving break I visited a Buddhist temple near my
hometown, but it was not what I was expecting. After talking with the head priest, I concluded
that at the temple they followed some branch off of Buddhism, which was said to be the word of
this man preaching “True Buddhism.” I tried to do some meditation, which is an important
concept in Buddhism. I couldn’t help but feeling like an imposter and a Buddhist-want-to-be
though. Sometimes I wonder if all of the work that I have put into learning about Buddhism will
go to waste.
I worry that in the end I will be just another non-committed Catholic, who raises her
children as Catholics simply to provide them with some religion to belong to. I know however,
that as long as I continue to work towards my goal of one day being able to call myself a true
Buddhist follower, I will always be one step closer than I was before.
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