I am an Indian. I was born a Hindu but today I am a Buddhist.
What does this mean?
Well, Hindu’s and Buddhist are similar in that the pillars of our belief lie in the concept of Dharma and Karma.
We are different however in how we choose to investigate the concept of Dharma or Karma.
Hindu’s, to make a long story short, do it by trying to “discover their self” while Buddhist do it by trying to “eliminate stress”.
So why did I “convert” from being a Hindu to a Buddhist?
Well, to put it simply, I converted because I found the Buddhist approach of “eliminating stress” to give me much more clarity and motivation than the Hindu approach of “discovering one’s self.”
This however, does not mean that I think that the Hindu approach of investigating the concept of Karma and Dharma by seeking to “know yourself” to be false or wrong.
If I were to give an analogy, I would likely say that the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism to me is like the difference between weight training and a calisthenic workout.
Just because I prefer callisthenics, it doesn’t mean that I think that weight training is wrong, or people who train with weight are ignorant, or that I will never touch weights as if it is an affront to my choice for callisthenics. It just means I vibe better with callisthenics, in the sense that it is when I do callisthenics that I find the most motivation and interest to workout. When I do weight training on the other hand, my level of interest and motivation tend to be lower.
In the same way, I converted to Buddhism chiefly because it is in trying to “eliminate stress” that I find it most interesting and motivational to investigate Karma and Dharma. Trying to “find myself” as a means of investigating the meaning of Dharma and Karma is all fine and well, but it just doesn’t have the same effect on me.
So, what happened when I chose to convert to Buddhism?
Well, outwardly, nothing happened. I didn’t change my sense of dressing style, language, associations or whatnot. I did not declare it to anyone or went to a government office to do some paperwork to make the conversion official.
As a matter of fact, I don’t think that anybody, except for one friend, who I sometimes discuss matters related to Buddhism with, even know that I converted to Buddhism. This article, as a matter of fact, is the first time that I am openly saying that I am Buddhist.
I am not saying that nobody knows that I am a Buddhist because I am ashamed to admit it – if you ask me, I will probably tell you , although sometimes I might just tell you that it is none of your business because I also believe in secularism, which is to say that my religion really doesn’t concern anybody else but me – but on the most part, I just don’t think that I have told anybody because the subject has never cropped up.
As a rule, with the non-Muslims in the country, which means the Chinese as well as the Indians in the peninsular, the subject of your religion almost never crops up.
All of us accept that everybody is probably doing something to find “inner peace” or “internal happiness”, as well as answer the question why they are born, what is the point of living and what happens after you die, but none of us insist that others must follow what we are doing, because none of us will claim that we are completely sure as to what we are doing.
If I had a kid, and my kid decides to follow a philosophy or a religion that is different from mine, because it gives him or her more “internal peace” or “inner happiness” , I won’t really have any objections to it.
I won’t, because in the Indian, as well as Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, Burmese, Laotian and almost all other Asian races, every individual will be assumed to pursue their own path in seeking their inner peace or internal happiness.
Because Asians generally allow individuals to pursue their quest for inner peace and internal happiness on their own, religious issues almost never crop up in mixed marriages between Asians of different ethnicities.
If an Indian marries a Chinese, for example, their marriage could have 101 problems, but religious problems tend to not be one of them.
If two Asians who follow to Asian religions or philosophy – be it Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Shintoism or whatnot – were to get married and later divorce, religion will not be a subject that will take a centerstage in either their divorce or marriage.
If a Hindu and Buddhist were to get married for example, and later they were to divorce, the question of what religion is their children to follow will not arise, because it will just be naturally understood that they will follow the religion of their mother when they are with their mother, and the religion of their father when they are with their father, until they are old enough to follow their own convictions.
There are those in the Asian religion and philosophies who are strict in their religious practices, to the extent that they have their own dress code, diet, habits and laws, but these people will generally sequester themselves outside of public life in order to practise their religion.
In other words, if there are those who wish to practise Asian religions and philosophies like Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism or Jainism in a strict manner, they will usually join a monastery or monkhood, and separate themselves from general society.
Practically speaking, what this means is that if two people from an Asian religion were to get married, and one of them later decide to pursue religion in a more serious manner, that person will leave behind all their worldly possession – including their children – to their spouse, before walking away from worldly life by joining a monkhood or monastery.
There is a difference between how those of us who come from an Asian tradition understand how religion should affect social relationships as compared to how those who come from a Semitic tradition sees it.
Semitic religions – be it Muslims, Christians or Jews – have a different way of seeing how religion should affect social relationship than Asian religions, and these differences tend to cause social tension when those from the Semitic tradition interacts intimately with those from the Asian tradition, through such arrangement as marriage or conversion.
The latest tension that this difference on point of view can cause can be seen in the Loh Siew Hong case, where the Perlis state government attempted to the very end to argue why the three children of Hindu mother Loh Siew Hong should be recognised as Muslims, despite their previous conversion to Islam being ruled illegal.
This sort of situation, where the state government tries to determine the religion of a child, against the wishes of the mother, is not something that Asians can understand. It is probably something that the Jews or older versions of Christianity, like Catholics or the Orthodox Church can understand, but this concept where state government and the courts are involved in determining the religion of a person is something that is completely alien to those of us who come from the Asian religious background.
We might not need a department or an agency to arbitrate the relationship between two people from an Asian religion or religious philosophy, because their religion will only affect them internally, while having negligible effect on their worldly ties, be it in their property ownership, marital ties, ties with family and other social association, but the same cannot be said with the ties between a someone from the Asian tradition and the Semitic tradition.
Considering that, in a population like ours where there are a significant number of people who profess to Asian religion as well as Semitic religion, perhaps having a non-Muslim religious affairs ministry to act as a go between, where there is close interactions between someone from an Asian and Semitic religious group, might not be a bad idea, to prevent any misunderstanding from occurring.
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