Being the common locus of an American, a Buddhist monk, and a resident of India makes me a very uncommon specimen in the eyes of most people.  So, high among the top FAQ’s addressed to me is, “How did you become a Buddhist?”

When reflecting on how to answer this question my mind habitually leaps back to the time I first learned of Buddhism.  From there it skips quickly through the memories pivotal to this story, like a child skipping from stone to stone in crossing a river until the far shore, refuge in the Three Jewels, is reached.  Usually one wants a brief and simple answer, not a tale, so I try to sum up all the experiences of that tale in a convincing line or two, like designing an attractive cover for an odd book.  Now I have been asked to give a response to this question yet again, and in writing no less.  Perhaps it will be more interesting for you just to have a glimpse at a few of the scenes from the memories this mind skips through and then draw your own conclusions as to why this one flew into the Buddha’s nest.

Sit in your chair, spine erect and balanced, eyes focused on a point on the floor one yard in front of you. Breathe naturally and watch whatever arises in your mind objectively, letting it pass away.  These were the instructions for our meditation during the last ten minutes of Zen Buddhism class, my second year in college.  As I watched carefully, my body felt more and more relaxed, lighter.  The classroom carpet and chair legs in my field of vision began to appear as if moving, kind of wriggling like live cells seen under a microscope.  The thought, “This is like tripping on psychedelic drugs” arose.  I had discovered a vast new land to explore.

About a year on in East Java, Indonesia as a student abroad I would spend long grueling days in a small sweltering classroom struggling to become conversant in the Indonesian language.  Trudging home feeling failure at my inability to grasp the language as fast as classmates do, I would be overcome with loneliness in an alien culture, separated by the globe from my family and friends.  Weaving through the neighborhood bubbling with voices to a rented room, I would sit on the bed facing a whitewashed concrete wall and simply watch the breath, the thoughts arising.  In, out, in, out, the brushing sensation of breath passing through nostrils continued rhythmic and natural.  Placing my awareness on just that again and again, letting all other thoughts, worries, perturbations, judgments, and criticisms go, I would find peace again.  Then, an hour gone, I could stroll out to the street market in search of dinner with a smile in my heart again.

Several years later, I lay in the basement room of my father’s condominium, my body racked with the pain, nausea, and debilitating exhaustion of being slowly poisoned.  Two months into a three-month regimen of chemotherapy to treat cancer, I was desperate for life and guidance.  Full of remorse that until then I had wasted my life in an egotistic self-centered manner, ungrateful, and harming those nearest to me, I feared terribly the prospect of dying, and that in the prime of youth.  Propped up on pillows in the dim room in the shadow of death I made a pact with whatever supreme forces of good that be, “Help me live and I promise that I will use this life to benefit others in the best way I possibly can.  Please help me to live and guide me to bring happiness to others.”

Around that time, my mother had returned from a trekking trip to Nepal during which she had taken a course in Mahayana Buddhism. While I was undergoing treatment, she continued studying with a Dharma group nearby. One day she gave me a photocopy of a chapter on tong-len (giving and taking) meditation from Sogyal Rinpoche’s book. This immediately became the basis of my meditation practice.  I tried to overcome the cancer in my body and the egoistic attitudes in my mind which I saw as the cause of my illness. In the stillness of late night, I would sit mentally surrounded by family near and far, friends, teachers and others with cancer, various other diseases and countless sufferings. Reflecting clearly on these other persons and my own life experiences until then, I could see no cases of people with real, lasting, reliable happiness but rather a vast mélange of problems thinly veiled with smiles. I found that mentally taking the sufferings of others into my heart and body thus destroying selfishness and cancer, then sending out rays of love and light giving happiness was the best medicine I could create.

A couple of years on, I had gone to Northern Thailand by then with the intention of training in meditation so that I could teach others of my homeland a direct method for achieving mental happiness.  At a small monastery, I had completed a month long intensive retreat on a meditation practice of watching the breath and physical sensations.  Afterward volunteering in the kitchen for a spell to integrate the practice with daily living I felt peaceful and more alert in the moment, yet a little flavorless and narrow.  Where to look for further training?

Around that time, I was introduced to an expat couple living nearby. The husband, an American, was author of several popular books on Taoism and Chi-gung. The wife, from Taiwan, was deeply devoted to Kuan Yin, a manifestation of the Great Bodhisatva of Compassion, Avalokitesvara. Over a couple of weeks of pleasant afternoon teas and conversations it came out that the wife regularly channeled Kuan Yin in trance states.  On such occasions, people would come to seek advice and answers to various questions. I went to one such session, my mind a mix of skepticism, open receptivity, and hope.

Sitting before the channel, I did not look up at her face. Her presence was powerful and palpable, stern though motherly.  I was overwhelmed with a desire to use this life to benefit others, and confusion as to how. Having posed my questions to Kuan Yin, or whomever was there answering, she inquired whether I wished to pursue the path of intellect or compassion. On responding that I felt more drawn to the path of compassion, she suggested I go to Nepal to study Tibetan Buddhism. So, I went to the monastery in Kathmandu where my mother had gone some years before.

During a ten-day course at Kopan Monastery many of the ideas I had developed largely independent of Buddhism about what things are meaningful in life, about why particular things happen to us, where we have come from and where we go after death, etc. found clearer expression than I had ever conceived before.  And the Bodhisatva ideal, the aim to become fully enlightened in order to free all sentient beings from suffering, just blew my mind.  Where else could an intention so vast, so bold, so noble, and a community of people actually striving to achieve that goal be found in the world!  I was hooked.

During the refuge granting ceremony at the end of the course, Khen Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup, whom I had never met before that, guided us slowly through a meditation on the entire graduated path to enlightenment.  From reflecting on the precious human rebirth, impermanence and death, the sufferings of all sentient beings, delusions as the cause of suffering, on up to selflessness, compassion, and the Bodhisatva aspiration, Khen Rinpoche blessed us to develop real conviction in and experience of each topic.  It felt as if every wholesome idea I ever had, and every longing for guidance, every disparate event which somehow pointed me toward virtue, were all coming to fruition in that moment.  I cried with immense joy and wholeheartedly took refuge in the Three Jewels.