Buddhist Texan

“Harm no other beings. They are just your brothers and sisters.” Buddha’s Little Instruction Book, by Jack Kornfield.

I study Buddhism and practice meditation, but I don’t call myself a Buddhist and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because I resist being labeled. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to confuse people. Most people think of Buddhism as a religion, but I view it as a philosophy that one can practice with or without any religion the world has to offer. To me, Buddhism is more like exercise than faith. It’s a practice, and I practice it mainly to overcome bad mental habits (like anger and attachment) and replace them with good ones (like loving kindness).

One of the ways I practice is to read. The books that initially got me interested in the practice were slim texts from the Zen school of thought: Stephen Batchelor’s existential Buddhism Without Beliefs and Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Now that I’m more committed, I read and recommend the much fatter books by Tibetans: His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness and Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Another way I practice is to open Buddha’s Little Instruction Book every morning (after I’ve had my coffee) to a random page, and write down the quote that I find there. Then I meditate for five or ten or fifteen minutes. Then I think about the quote and how I plan to practice it throughout my day. This is relatively easy when it’s something like “The only way to bring peace to the earth is to make our own life peaceful” or “The more fully we give our energy, the more it returns to us.” But when it’s something like “Harm no other beings – they are just your brothers and sisters” I begin to grapple.

Maybe this right here is why I don’t call myself a Buddhist. It’s the same reason I don’t say I’m a Texan, even though I’ve lived here for nearly six years. It’s hard for me to call myself something if I wasn’t born into it. I don’t talk or sound like it and I don’t dress the part. Even though I may admire most of its tenets, I don’t subscribe to all of them. And deep down, I’m an all or nothing type of gal.

Being a Buddhist Texan would be a helluvan oxymoron, too, and problematic when striving to harm no other beings. Most of the time, I do a pretty good job minimizing damage. Where I fail is in the area of cockroaches and mosquitoes, which I tend to instinctively massacre using shoe heels and the flat of my hand. I’m also weak when it comes to brisket, chicken tenders and bacon-wrapped shrimp. Oh, and the occasional Whataburger. All of these things being particularly abundant in Texas make practicing Buddhism that much more challenging.

The other night my friend Winnie called my attention to an especially large cockroach in my bathroom and said, “What do you want to do about this?” I sighed, remembering my quote of the day. One has to be in a certain mood to slay a big bug, and when one has been meditating all day on harming no other beings (because they are your brothers and sisters!), it sort of kills the mood.

Winnie expressed a desire to liberate the insect, to in fact stomp him into his next life with her boot. This came as sort of a relief to me. Winnie’s way more Buddhist than I am – she eats Tofurky and textured vegetable protein and is never even tempted by fajitas. I’ve actually witnessed her gently fanning a mosquito out of her car on a humid South Texas afternoon so that it could join its 7,000 bloodthirsty sisters who were hovering just outside the car door, awaiting their chance at our juicy flesh.

We stood there, Win, the cockroach and I, and considered our options. With my Way Better Buddhist friend's approval, I could have easily smashed it and never looked back, quote of the day be damned. The bug must have sensed his peril because he began to skitter nervously around on the counter. I went to the kitchen, picked up a plastic cup and fished a big manila envelope out of the recycle bin. Using deft persuasion, I shepherded the roach into the envelope and twisted the top. It had a window, so I could see him scurrying around, looking for the way out. I rushed outside, heading far from the house, close to the compost. I squatted down. Before I let him go, I whispered, “You got lucky this time, little brother. Go do your job on that pile of rotting vegetables over there. Now git.” Then I opened the envelope and set him free.

Maybe this is Texas Buddhism, after all.