Am I… Buddh-ish?

By Kevin Shen | He/him/his | Southern California, Dharma Seal Temple

Cover photo: Tian Tan Buddha in the fog. Hong Kong. Photo courtesy of Hai Anh Le.

My parents and our fluffy family maltese visited me one fall weekend. Together, we drove through the winding mountain and valley roads to Ojai and back, listening to the melodies of Vietnamese pop, the Carpenters, and even a cover of Wrecking Ball playing from my mom's phone. My mom talked enthusiastically of YouTube synopses she had been listening to about Plato, Socrates, and gurus. She even kept a little journal of her favorite quotes and reflections from each philosopher.

I brought up how I had found a larger community of Asian American Buddhists, and how we had all been reflecting on what it means to be Buddhist. My mom asked, "Do you know what Buddhism is? Because I'm not sure I do! I don't even consider myself Buddhist!" Part of this is that my mom personally dislikes labeling herself. But another part, my mom explained, is that even after listening for decades to so many Dharma teachers talk about the Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, precepts, form and emptiness... for the longest time she never could articulate clearly to herself what Buddhism was. 

My dad perked up and jumped in, "Buddhism really is simple!" And he quickly broke out a couplet of mnemonics, "信，願，行" ("faith, intention, practice") and  "戒，定，慧" (precepts, stillness (of mind), wisdom). 

To which my mom replied, "that's exactly what I was talking about!" Whereas my dad found those six characters profound and laden with meaning, to my mom they were just signifiers of six more ideas she had to keep track of. Instead, she explained, it wasn't until she encountered one of those YouTube videos that Buddhism finally clicked for her: Buddhism is about rebirth, karma and how to break the cycle of unconsciously following past karma.

"That's so complicated!" chimed my dad. "Look, Kevin, Buddhism, like any good religion out there, is just one of many paths you can take to truth, compassion, and a good life." 

Here my parents were, enthusiastically speaking over one another to share all the Buddhism that they had breathed and absorbed over the decades. The irony is that, like my mom, my dad doesn't exactly identify as Buddhist either. You see, he's a generalizer – for him, Buddhism provides language and wisdom to express greater truths tying all religions and people together. To him, it's unimportant to identify with any particular religion, because, in his view, we're all on paths to the same place, and he's happy for anyone who's found a path that works for them. Reinforced by years of emergency relief volunteer work alongside people of other faiths, what matters to my dad are a person’s actions.

Buddhism has nevertheless been a constant backdrop in our lives. When I was around 10, my parents started taking me to a local Buddhist youth group. My parents both volunteer for the Buddhist group Tzu-Chi. My aunts and uncles often attend 法會, or Dharma talks. We held a weeklong Buddhist chanting service for my grandma when she passed. Despite all this Buddhist practice, neither my mom nor dad identify as Buddhist. I found this juxtaposition highly amusing, and wondered, if my parents don't self-identify and felt no need to label themselves as Buddhist despite being steeped in Buddhism, then what are they?

Many of us are asking ourselves intimate questions of identity right now: What traditions and historical realities do we come from? What does it mean to be Buddhist? How do we create a caring, gentle space for all, while honoring our traditions?

I ask myself: what would be most appropriate to call my parents, and by extension, me? A word I'm playing with is Buddh-ish. As in Buddhist, but not quite. Perhaps I take after my mom -- the more I've been exploring the nuances of what it means to be Buddhist, the less I can articulate the entirety of what it means to identify as Buddhist, lest I miss something important. And, what if someone alleges that I am appropriating Buddhism and infusing alien, Western views that I have invariably absorbed (just ask my parents)? The more I reflect, the less clear the boundaries of identity appear. There are distinctions and gradations somewhere, but they're fuzzy, just like notions of the "self."

The word "Buddhist," by its nature as a label, brings up feelings of duality. It is a category implying a yes/no, in/out answer. But "Buddh-ish" redirects my attention towards subtlety and fuzzy boundaries, that there are many aspects of Buddhism and that things can be varying degrees of Buddh-ish.

In English, "Buddhist," like many other words, is overloaded -- it is a noun, an identity, an adjective, and its daily usage implicitly mixes all of these aspects together. In Chinese, there is no perfect translation for the word "Buddhist.” Used as an identity, you might say you “信佛" (believe in/take refuge in the Buddha), or that you are a "佛教徒" (follower of Buddha), but both phrases are bound to verbs and things you do. "Buddhist" as an adjective can take many forms: "佛教的" (pertaining to the teachings and religion of Buddhism) or even simply "佛" (Buddha). This is by no means perfect or exhaustive of all ways to talk about Buddhism, (e.g. using “佛” as both adjective and noun can conflate ideas in the same way "Buddhist" conflates identities and adjectival descriptions in English), but it does offer complementary meditations on how language shapes our reflexive perspectives.

Calling myself "Buddh-ish" is a reminder to myself to be gentle. Gentle on myself: I can let go of my tendency to get lost in "getting things right" and concerns that I might not faithfully represent what the Buddha taught. Gentle to others: by not strongly claiming what Buddhism should be, I am not appropriating, invading, or misrepresenting other people's Buddhisms. And it is a reminder to myself to be open, to all the idiosyncratic ways that Buddhism is unfolding in each and every one of us, whether we identify as Buddhist or not. 

For every 25 years of our lives, we'll have witnessed roughly 1% of the history of human expression of Buddhism since Gautama Buddha. That this number is fathomable already boggles the part of my mind that thinks of Buddhism in relation to timeless truths. But the fact that it is small also reminds me that although my experience can never be all of Buddhism, it is still a unique expression of Buddhism over its long history. I am participating in the history of Buddhism as an earnest Buddh-isht with my own Buddh-ish Buddh-ishm.

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Note 1: While I am suggesting that we need more words to talk about Buddhism, and have proposed "Buddh-ish" as one such word that is currently neutral, I am also very cognizant and nervous that as people use words over time meanings can change, and "Buddh-ish" may be used pejoratively as "fake Buddhist" (i.e. “look at that Buddh-ish garden pot!”). This is a reminder that the meanings of words are impermanent; even if the word “Buddh-ish” used as an identity only has a finite life, it can still be an interesting object of meditation.

Note 2: “Buddh-ish” is not a new concept. There are strong parallels to Jews grappling with the complexities of their identities, discussed for example in Jake Cohen’s cookbook “Jew-Ish” or the Matt Greene’s memoir “Jew(ish)”. And then there is also the recent scandal where George Santos claimed to be “jew-ish” while trying to mislead people into thinking he is “jewish.” Oh the dangers of linguistic ambiguity! 

Note 3: Perhaps to move even further away from identity and towards things we do, perhaps what we should really say is, “I am Buddh-ing,” indicating we are in a process of/we are practicing towards awakening. Although someone who knows Sanskrit or Pali should correct me, and make sure that “Buddh-ing” indeed implies something more along the lines of “awakening” rather than “already awakened”!

Note 4: Identities are useful, which is why we have them. I hope this piece doesn’t come across as me wanting to abolish identities and say “we are all one” – we just don’t have enough words to delineate the rich nuances of life. Real differences exist. But sharp boundaries are more dubious.