My Controversial Religion - The True Buddha School
I have been thinking about writing on this topic for the longest time and yet because I have so much to say, I didn’t know where to begin and hence I procrastinate. Before I start, I have to have my own disclaimer : This is MY blog and what I am going to write about under the category of Religion is my views, my life and my understanding of True Buddha School. Be warn that it will be totally subjective and perhaps not entirely orthodox according to general belief. However, it is not in my intention to propagate my religion. Heck, I don’t even have the slightest wish to convert anyone and so if I may seem offensive in any way, be reminded that you, as the reader, has the choice to stop reading.
The True Buddha School is founded by this guy called Lu Sheng Yen, a taiwanese. He used to be a Christian who upon "forced" by his mum to be a companion while she visited a local Taiwan temple during a festival, encountered some bizzare incidents which eventually led to his conversion to a Buddhist. From that time, he embarked on a spiritual journey of understanding the paranormal, our co-existence with the unseen, the various cults and religions and most importantly, a journey that led to Self Realization, in the Buddhist’s term, Enlightenment. He was already a proficient writer and documented his extraordinary journey in the form of novel - not unlike what most of us are doing, blogging our life.
It was through his books that my mum got to know about him in the late 70’s and early 80’s. When the fame of Lu Sheng Yen spread far and wide beyond the Taiwanese shores due to his ability in solving all sorts of problems for others, many people went to him to request taking refuge in him so that they might learn from him. Not too long after he started to accept disciples, my mum took refuge in him.
When I was a kid, okay, a toddler, I saw spirits. I wasn’t afraid of them and I particularly remember this very tall man (from a child’s perspective of course), wearing all white who would stand beside me and smiled and talked to me while I made "gaga" baby sounds and played with my toys. My mum could leave me alone for hours while she went on with her household chores, often wondering how in the world I was so well entertained with a couple of plastics. She thought I was just an introverted little girl and attempted to fill my world in subsequent years, with more toys. When I was able to talk coherrently, I told her about this man in white but she didn’t take any notice because she assumed it was mere child’s imagination.
In the process of growing up, I was very much engrossed in reading, especially stories of fairies, elves, goblins etc and Enid Blyton made up the bulk. My ability of seeing the spirits became less frequent as I grew older and as I came to understand more of what a ghost actually means to most people. When I was almost 7 years old, exactly one year after my mum took refuge in Lu Sheng Yen, I was sitting at the doorway with my mum beside me. We had a conversation and it went something like this :
Mum - Do you want to be a Buddhist?
Me - I don’t know, what’s good about being a Buddhist?
Mum - It is a good thing to be able to prostrate yourself before a Buddha, being a Buddhist will allow you to understand the mystery of life and death and the path to happiness.
Me - Ok, I want to be a Buddhist ( I was thinking, yes I want to be happy)
Mum - Do you want to take refuge in Lu Sheng Yen just like mummy?
Me - What is take refuge?
Mum - It means acknowledging somebody as your teacher in Buddhism. We call this teacher Guru.
Me - Who is Lu Sheng Yen?
Mum - He is someone who can be a very good Guru to you.
Me - Ok, I want Lu Sheng yen to be my Guru.
Being young, I was not very good at questioning the details and I was very trusting towards my mum, naturally! So that was how I took refuge in Lu Sheng Yen at the age of 7 years old. My mum took care of the rest, like entrusting a fellow Buddhist who was about to go Taiwan to meet Lu Sheng Yen, with my particulars for the processing of my refuge.
The introduction to my own journey with True Buddha School begins here and in later blogs, I shall write about my experiences in greater detail…
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