all exist in this crazy samsaric realm

Hildebrand Road has inspired me to share some ghost stories. Now I cannot promise anything freaky or bone chilling, or, I hate to say it, even remotely macabre or eerie - but I think I have a tale or two to share this weekend. Before I do, I think it only makes sense that I share my position on ghosts, angels, demons and the like.

As many of you know, I "converted" to Buddhism (took refuge for us Buddhist folk) and I have aspired to weave this into my blog every once in a while (and not as much as I'd like either!) Let me first say that it takes quite a bit of time to let it all bleed together, to blur the boundaries between the way I look at the world, and the way I want to look at the world. There were a number of reasons why I took refuge. The most obvious being that Buddhism makes the most sense to me - and in some ways I was able to put a name to an orientation to the world that I always seemed to hold.

I was raised in a predominatly secular household. My parents christened my sister and I when we were infants (mostly due to family obligations I suppose) otherwise, we spent very little time in church. I did recieve a treasury of Bible stories - and I had the same book read to me every morning in grade one before classes begun. I fondly remember that actually. I went to Vacation Bible School and some youth groups. When I was older I attended church with neighbours. I never felt at one with things. Jesus was always a little distant from me, and then there were those areas that my parents and I explored at home that clearly did not fit: magic, ghosts, reincarnation, spirit possession.

When I was a teenager my dad, of all people, encouraged me to read Shirley MacLean's Out on a Limb. This was a decidely important thing he did - I spent most of that summer journaling what I had read there and how it really made sense to me. Although Out on a Limb was not anti-Christian in the least, the questions that the book raised, and the perspective that it took about the Bible and Jesus did not fit with the traditional theology that I encounted in my community. That incongruity resulted in a good deal of bitterness towards contemporary Christianity (And what I am now able to label as Right Wing Fundamentalism).

It took me a long time to learn that Christianity encompassed much more than that. Through the writing of Bernard Lonergan, Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Aquinas and even Iris Murdoch I uncovered theologies I could resonate with. Being an intellectual Christian is hard to sustain I figure. It did not sustain me (and nor did I choose to work on it).

I still feel an intense amount of tension and sometimes anger towards Christianity. I work though it - at least trying to be hyperconscious of it. Its accomplished wonderful things, and uplifts amazing people. I try not to lose sight of that. What made my transition to Buddhism all the more possible for me is that I did not have to deny the worldview that I was already steeped in. Being a Buddhist still affords acknowledging Jesus and God. I do not try and abolish it, or deny that these beings are pure fiction. I am not trying to adopt and accept a new cosmology while simultaneously working to deny another. They all fit together very nicely actually. So, when it comes to ghosts and spirits, I am in fact very open to this. God, Brahma, Jesus, Avalokitesvhara, angels and demons all exist in this crazy samsaric realm. I dare not go any farther than this - for it is certain that I have little understanding of how beings in this universe are ordered and organized.

But that is a mere taste of how I come to understand these things...