My earliest memory about religion was from my 3rd elder sister when I was about 4 and she was 14 years old. One morning she shared some of her lollies with me which she said was given by the church down the road of where we lived. I asked sister to take me to the church to get my own portion. But at the time we got to the church, nobody was there and its gate was shut. Sister told me something about Jesus in front of the gate. She said to me that Maria bore Jesus, and Jesus was crucified on a cross.We walked back home with questions in my mind, why people were so cruel as such that they dared killing a good man in a terrible way. I remembered I also asked sister to take me along next time when she went to church so that I can have my own lollies.
Apparently my sister hadn’t invited me to the church ever since that day because my next memory about religion was when I was in the junior high school at the age of about 13. In between these two encounters with new religion, I was taught by my mother to worship anything that was believed to bless people with their wishes.
I remembered that in a trip to mum’s maiden home in the village, mum asked a fortune teller to write my name and date of birth on a piece of red cloth. With that red “sacred document” in hand, we walked together to a big tree by a creek. The tree was said to be as old as over 300 years with twisting and intercrossing roots spread over a radius of about 3 meters forming many cavities on the ground. Each cavity was full of red cloth. Mum found one cavity that was not so full, and inserted my red “sacred document” in it. In front of that cavity, mum placed a plate of roasted chicken as offering to the deity believed to be living in that tree, and prayed for my rapid and safe growth.While I was growing older, I was gradually getting away from the polytheism. Though I had a chance to have briefly learned a bit of Buddhism during my teenage period, I basically believed that science explained everything, and took all sort of religions as superstitious. This had been so until the day when I watched a movie about how the Roman army persecuted Christians. When I saw how those devoted Christians were tortured or even fed to lions and yet wished God bless their enemy, my tears streamed down with blissful joy.
This unforgettable experience occurred in my early twenties. Then, on one Sunday morning, two graceful ladies knocked the door wanting to preach “Kingdom’s message”. They were from Jehovah’s Witness. They gave me two of their pamphlets and invited me to come to their assembly. I didn’t accept their urge of baptising me, but I had identified myself as Christian for about 5 years since then. During the one and half years serving as sub-lieutenant trainer at air force cadet training centre, I spent many Sunday mornings alone in a nearby school yard reading bible while my colleague officers enjoyed their free movie session in the cinema.
The process converting to a Buddhist, starting from around the year 1977, was very unobvious. But it could be due to the expectation from my parents for a son of me and my wife after our marriage in 1977. Year after year, my wife’s pregnancy just remained no hope. Though we had a lovely daughter in 1982, however, a son was so important to Chen family that the pressure was getting bigger and bigger.
Some enthusiastic friends and relatives offered their secret remedies of bearing a son. These included medication, improvement of the Feng Sui of our bedroom, walking under the lanterns on the night of Lanterns Festival, non-stopping herbal drinks and etc.
Finally came a good friend of mine who gave up all his possessions preparing to be a Buddhist monk, he suggested that I should chang to vegetarian diet in order to induce the birth of a son. He pointed out that having a mind of non-killing is the cause of giving birth to a good son. He meant vegetarian diet was equivalent to non-killing.
Not long after his suggestion, an Indian American, who was the foreign technician at where I worked, urged me to convert to vegetarian diet when he knew my wish of bearing a son. With these two coincidences, I pledged to practice vegetarian diet.About six months later, my wife was proved pregnant, and a subsequent fetus liquid dye examination proved it a boy. I had thus fulfilled my mission by producing a son for the Chen family.
But this should not be the reason I converted to Buddhism from Christianity. When my friend, who later on became a Buddhist monk, urged me to try vegetarian diet, he also presented me a set of books titled “弘一大師傳” (Biography of Master Hong Yi). This book sets out how the master achieved a highly respected status from being a less careful artist. The way and determination of how Hog Yi followed Buddha’s teaching to achieve enlightenment touched my mind. From reading his biography I gradually grew interest in reading other Buddhist publications and attended many Buddhist activities.
Everyone will have his course to become part of a certain religion. To my viewpoint, religion is a set of instructions which the believers follow to be happy. Everyone, depending on their uniqueness, will get into a course naturally to go through a journey of belief and eventually settled down on one which he will embrace till the end of his life on this planet.
All the five major religions are the same to me because they all teach the believers to love others. By theory, if all the believers touch their minds and completely follow what their religions have taught them, the world should not be as violent as today. What has gone wrong is a big study for the intelligent to sort out.
Buddha’s words about the various forms of saviours impress me a lot: “應以何身得度﹐即現何身而為度之” (meaning that the One will appear in the right form to achieve that follower’s wish if that is most suitable to him). So what? Don’t you agree that Jesus, Mohammed, Jehovah, Brahma, Buddha, etc are just the same One who will appear in the most suitable form to save the unique individual?
