Why did I convert to Buddhism?

I grew up with Christianity – my mom was Lutheran, dad was Baptist, and we went to a non-denominational church when I was young. I always struggled with it though. I always had questions that no one could or would answer. While I don’t care for the term feminist, the rigid gender roles were constantly disappointing and confining. As I grew older I drifted away to the general “spiritual but not religious” world. But could never really define what that meant to me.

Seven years ago I started exploring. I started with Christianity because that’s what I knew best – or thought I did. I read (and audiobooked) about different modern forms of Christianity, then started working my way backwards in the history of the Catholic Church, including the canonization of the current bible 400 years after the life of Christ. I continued back to it’s founding several decades after his death. While I had a vague idea of this, learning about how many different sects there were back then was even more interesting than all the variations in modern times. While Catholics may disagree, I’m fascinated that there’s never really been one consensus about his teachings.

After that I started exploring other world religions and mythologies. I stuck around the Mediterranean and refreshed my (bad) recollection of Greek and Roman gods, I went north to the Norse gods, back south to Egyptian and what I could find about other African religions. I read about the First Nations of North and South America and then headed east to Asia.

By this time I had started meditating, but in a very Western and secular way. I found it so helpful for focusing, dealing with stress, and sleep.

Around 5 years ago I finally made it to Buddhism. Like the others, I approached it from a scholarly/secular view and listened to Buddhism lectures by Malcolm David Eckel on Audible. Before I finished, I knew I had found what I was looking for. It had all the “goodness” of other religions, but felt free of the dogma and rules of others. Even though it’s ancient, it felt fresh and modern as it’s evolved with the times while keeping the core of the teachings. Impermanence struck the biggest chord with me. At the time I was struggling with a few things in my life and it was so liberating to know that the bad times will pass, and I can just let them go.

This is where my journey begins.