Reacquainting Myself With my Religion.

Hey Chikas,

I know a lot of people who, when feeling particularly lost, turn to religion. It's a sort of comfort, and well I don't really know how I currently feel . I am sort of at a loss. I'm almost done with my first year of university. Here at Bucks, we only do the 2 years, and I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the thought that in one year I'll be searching for a job, 6 years and I'll be getting married, 8 years or so until I'm popping out children! 

I'm beyond freaked out, and I feel like I need to take a step back and evaluate life right now. I'm not ready to give up the safety of my childhood, to say a final goodbye to certain people, to lose that excuse of childhood. 

So here I am, accepting adulthood, completely fearing the outcome. For once I can't predict what will happen, I can't rely on my family and teachers to help me out when times get tough, I'm totally vulnerable, but I know my faith will keep me protected. 

In my last post I explained how I never felt connected to my Thai half, but I always considered myself Christian. When I was a baby, I was blessed into Buddhism, my father who was a Christian agreed that he thought Buddhism was a good religion for me to be born into, for my mother it seemed a natural thing to do as she and her siblings were blessed as babies too. But why did I choose to ignore that path, why am I seeking it now?  I now find myself wondering why, there was nothing wrong with Buddhism, in fact it's an amazing religion, why was I trying to distance myself? Was it my blatant childhood rebelling against myself? The fact I never found myself connected to it? In my childhood, I was constantly surrounded by the "Thai community" and their children with masses of food. But we hardly ever went to the temple, unless it was Thai New Year, even then as I previously said, It was 5 years ago since I last went (not counting this year).

So I decided to research into the religion to see if Buddhism was something I could connect to, or would Christianity the right path for me, here are some of my favourite quotes I found:

"Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation.

"Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it."

- Ray Bradbury

"You only lose what you cling on to"
-Gautama Buddha

“Purity or impurity depends on oneself,
No one can purify another.” 
-Gautama Buddha.

“It is not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for all of mankind.” 
― Mike Norton

"You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross.” 

― -Dave Eggers, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?