What's it like to be Buddhist in America? with Jon Reid

Jon Reid grew up Southern Baptist and is now a twenty-year practicing Buddhist. Hear him explain what drew him to the religion, and get a crash course in Buddhism as a whole.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I am your host, George Mason. I'm thrilled to continue this series called American Faith with my friend and colleague in Dallas, Jon Reid. Jon, we're glad you're here and thank you for joining us on Good God.

Jon Reid:
Thanks, George. I was very honored to be asked.

George Mason:
Great. Well, Jon, your story, I think, is of interest to people because, whereas, people tend to be born into a faith and stay in it, of course, the American experience, especially, is one of choice. And so you have made a choice having pursued and been reared in one faith tradition. And today you are a Buddhist. And, in fact, right now you're in Hong Kong studying in a master's level program about Buddhism. And so I wonder if you would introduce yourself to people, and tell people about your journey to Buddhism.

Jon Reid:
I'll be happy to, George. A Texan will always tell you that they're a Texan. And so I am indeed, was born and reared in North Texas. And that's an important part of who I am as a person. I was also raised and in a Protestant Christian family, specifically, Southern Baptist, and remained in that tradition all the way through attending Southwestern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth and serving on a Baptist church staff.

George Mason:
My alma mata, also, by the way.

Jon Reid:
Yes. That's right. I, even as a college student had my doubts about my faith. I was a very zealous Christian in high school and college seeking to proselytize, to convert, as was part of that faith tradition of the Evangelical tradition, but yet I still had my doubts. I sought out elders to talk to, and got guidance, and continued to reaffirm my faith until a point that in the Southern Baptist tradition there developed a great deal of conflict in the 1980s. And this was deeply distressing to me because I had never thought about the role of power in religion.

Jon Reid:
Of course, now it's very obvious to me in every religion, not just one particular one, but I continued on the path because I had been raised as a person of faith. I really appreciate that my parents did that. Being part of a religious community was really important to me, but as I encountered people from other faiths, my certainty that I was on the one true path began to crumble. It took me several years of exploring. I was, well, let me think it was roughly about 15 to 20 years ago, about 20 years ago, when I began to specifically read about Buddhism, and found myself deeply attracted to the emphasis on compassion, and the emphasis on wisdom from many sources, and not contributing to the suffering of others.

Jon Reid:
Now, those are not unique qualities to one faith, really all faiths include those. However, Buddhism, particularly the Zen Buddhism that I was introduced to about 20 years ago. Zen, by the way, is a Japanese word, and the Chinese word is Chan. That emphasized you don't have to give up your mind. You can use your mind, and you can think, and even the Buddha is reported to have taught test it out for yourself. And so that was really appealing to me as well. I didn't have to believe something just because it was in a book, or in the [inaudible 00:04:50] that I could test it out, and explore it. And so roughly around 15 to 16 years ago is when I began to say, I am a Buddhist, at least to myself. I didn't really broadcast that, but at least to myself, I'd said, okay, that's what fits me, and fits my path at this point in my life.

George Mason:
Right. So it's interesting that you made the switch to identify with a different religion, Buddhism. And yet Buddhism is a very interesting religion that many people do not make a complete break from their own religious tradition to incorporate certain Buddhist practices, or teachings, or spiritual exercises. Can you say a little bit about that because, for instance, one of my friends is a practicing Catholic and practices Buddhist meditation, and is very active in identifying both ways. How does that work?

Jon Reid:
Well, particularly that Zen tradition, which emphasizes meditation, and stillness, being open to see things as they truly are in itself doesn't conflict with Christian teaching, or Jewish teaching, or many others. I think we're probably talking about the same person who was my first Buddhism teacher as well. And, yes, integrates Catholic Christianity, and Zen Buddhism very well. A number of Catholic priests have written books entitled A Christian-Buddhist Dialogue, that sort of thing.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
An American Buddhist named Sylvia Boorstein wrote a book. I'm forgetting, I think it was about 20 years ago, or so, called, That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist. And then the subtitle was Being a Faithful Jew and a Compassionate Buddhist. I get the same thing that nobody looks at me and thinks, "Oh, he's Buddhist."

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Most parts of the world associate it with being Asian.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Even though plenty of Asians are Christian, or other faiths. Especially, Zen or Chan Buddhism really does integrate well with spirituality of Christianity and Judaism. I would think, also, Islam, but I haven't explored that a whole lot, so.

George Mason:
So Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the world. It originates back in the 4th century BCE. Tell the originating story a bit, and how it progressed from there, and what are key tenets, and things like that, Jon?

Jon Reid:
Okay. The Buddha as we know him, or know about him was born the wealthy son of a wealthy landowner on the border of India and Nepal. He lived a very privileged life. His father went to great lengths to make sure he never saw anything unpleasant. So he never saw old people. I don't know how they managed that, but he didn't see sick people, or dying people, or dead people, but this life of luxury was just not meaningful to him. And he wondered why, I guess, I have everything that's supposed to make me happy. Why am I not happy? And he snuck out of the palace compound with a trusted member of the staff there. And he saw the frail elderly, the dying, and the dead, and people who just were very ill. And this shocked him.

Jon Reid:
I mean, I really haven't thought too deeply about how would I feel if I had never seen any of that, and then just an adult who had saw, and didn't know it was there that would be shocking. And he desired to know what causes people to suffer. His wife had just given birth to a son, and yet he had determined that he needed to go search for an answer to what causes human suffering, and what can be done about it. And so he went on a six year journey. He tried starving himself. He tried denying himself any kind of pleasure out there because he had already experienced affluence, and that didn't make him happy. And then he tried, okay, I'll deny myself, which was a common practice in that part of the world to give away everything, and have no possessions, and beg for your food. And so he discovered the middle path.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
The answer isn't at either of those two extremes, that we don't have to deny things that are pleasurable, but that when we crave them it causes us suffering. And it causes a suffering because we try to make ourselves look beautiful and handsome, but age catches up with us, and gravity catches up with us. And just recently in many parts of the U.S. and in Texas people lost their lives because of the ice storm, and lost their homes if they burned down, and so forth. And even those treasured possessions that we think, "I'm going to keep this forever" that they're impermanent. And so he began to teach, as people said, what's the deal with you? You seem so peaceful.

Jon Reid:
He began to say, well, this is what causes suffering. Life is full of suffering. Some people think Buddhists think life is miserable and that's not what he meant. We have times of pleasure and joy and happiness, and those are real, they're just temporary. And so he said life is full of suffering. It's inevitable that we won't suffer in life. And that suffering is because we crave living forever, or having our loved ones with us forever, or our possessions. There's a way out of that suffering if we will identify, acknowledge our craving, and cease to not necessarily give away everything. He said we don't have to do that, but we need to practice generosity, and share and care about the suffering of others. And then he laid out an eightfold path of how a person can live, and practice the reducing of craving in life and clinging to things that are impermanent.

George Mason:
Right. The notion of attachment and detachment is a significant concept in this as is this question of the role of the self, I think, which you and I both know from Christian scripture in Jesus' words about we're told to deny ourselves, and to take up our cross and follow him, but this idea of denial of self seems in a Christian tradition to be more around the idea of denying that sense of self that is socially determined, that is somehow not your authentic self, but rather to deny yourself in order that you might receive the gift of self in a sense more genuinely from God that is not dependent upon things and people. How does that square with Buddhist teaching about self, and attachment, and detachment, and things like that?

Jon Reid:
My background in studying and teaching psychology includes an important theory about attachment. I struggled with that. Psychology teaches that we attach to our loved ones, and that gives us a feeling of security, and helps us be emotionally healthy. I mean, that is indeed part of how we develop as human beings, and not just humans, other species as well, ducks and geese, and dogs and cats, and so forth. And so the word attachment can cause some complications for people. Does that mean I'm not supposed to love anybody? Well, the answer to that is no. We are human. It is our nature to love, and to want, and to need others. And that really takes a lot of time to sort out what that means for an individual.

Jon Reid:
Okay, yes, I can love. I can marry. I can have children that's not going to conflict with Buddhism. In fact, Buddhism would stop like the Shakers faith would if you don't make babies. And so that's absolutely not forbidden. I mean, the Buddha was married and had children, and he stayed married. His wife died soon after the birth of the son, but his stepmother actually became one of his followers, and his son, and other family members, and so forth, but we often tell ourselves I am who I am based on identity, or faith, or family, and so forth. And those are the things we need to acknowledge and not crave, and that's difficult to do. It's much easier to talk about not getting the newest Apple watch, or the newest car, or something. We really can see that those things bring us temporary joy, but only temporary. That's really easy to say those are the things. We need transportation, we need to tell time, but I can live without those things.

Jon Reid:
Buddhism does not teach that we should try to live without relationships. I mean, there is what's called the Sangha, the Buddhist community. 2,500 years ago when the Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama, and became enlightened people began to gather around him. They formed a religious community. And the disciples went out to India, and Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. Anyway, just all over that part of the world and started their own Buddhist communities.

Jon Reid:
Officially in Christianity there's a conversion experience. It can be a sudden dramatic conversion experience, or it can be going through a confirmation process in many faiths. Part of becoming a Buddhist is saying, I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Buddhist teaching, which is the dharma, and I take refuge in the Buddhist community, the Sangha. So now there are Buddhist communities in the Dallas area, quite a few. Most of them are ethnic groups. Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, Tibetan, and so forth, Korean, but anyway, I've gotten off the path here a little bit, I think, in trying to answer.

Jon Reid:
It is difficult to think about non-self, but we can best understand it if we think about the me that I think of as me is dependent on causes. I mean, literally my parents and my grandparents. Also, the literalness of the food, and the shelter, and the clothing that I got that helped me develop. Also, the conditions. There's periods of time where a lot of babies die. And then in certain countries, even still in our world today where a majority of babies die, or we're facing half a million deaths from COVID in the U.S.

Jon Reid:
And so as individuals this self I call Jon Reid is dependent on causes and conditions. And those came together and made me. And so that's where we talk about the impermanence of self, or no self is that recognize that the you, you call you is completely dependent on many things that were outside of your control. And even now, although, I wasn't in North Texas during the big freeze recently, I remember years past of going without electricity for days.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
I noticed I have a very narrow comfort range. I mean, literally, of course, we have a range that we need to stay alive, but for me to identify myself as comfortable it's pretty narrow. And so that's a sticking point for a lot of people. How can you say there's no self? Are you saying I don't exist? No, that's not what it's saying. It's just that we're here dependent on so many other things.

George Mason:
The concept of Nirvana, that word is something that's come into common parlance, you might say, and I'm not sure people understand much of what it means except a feeling of maybe blessedness, or peacefulness, or something of that nature. I think some people perhaps wrongly identify it with the Christian notion of heaven, for instance. Help us understand when a Buddhist talks about Nirvana, what state has one arrived at when one crosses into that category of Nirvana?

Jon Reid:
So this concept has a long history back to 2,500 years ago and longer with Hinduism. We exist in this cycle of life and death. I was raised to believe that you just have this one life.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
And you die and go to heaven, or hell. Of course, I never met anybody in America who thought they were going to hell whether they were devout or not. Even their obituary connects them too, so that they can slip into heaven.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
In Hinduism and Buddhism, there is a belief that we are reborn, we have rebirth. We start off our beings in creatures, and then we have this wonderful good fortune to be born as a human being because we have a mind, and we can study the teachings of the Buddha, and also have life experiences that we're getting wisdom from. And then, hopefully, have a more favorable rebirth.

Jon Reid:
You're right that people think of Nirvana as heavenly, euphoric, but really it's a state where we're no longer having any feelings whatsoever because think about like, I'm having good feelings talking to you. And I want those to continue, but they won't, right? I mean, this conversation will come to an end. I know we'll have other conversations, but when we're in a pleasant state, we want it to continue, but by its nature it won't. It will come to an end for whatever reason. And so Nirvana means we're no longer in that cycle of being reborn, or die. We have no suffering. We seek out pleasurable experiences. It's just our nature to do that. And you bet I want more of those too, but they lead to suffering.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
When I'm outside and the weather is perfect, according to my definition of perfect, I want it to continue, but it can't, and it won't. And so even those wonderful experiences and feelings cause suffering because they will come to an end, and we were clinging to them. When we can get to a place of saying, I accept and appreciate where I am right now, or if I'm suffering I identify that I'm suffering. I know that this too will pass that suffering doesn't last forever. I mean, a state of suffering anyway. Then I'm not wishing for something to be different. This is the way it is and I accept that. I do need to offer a disclaimer, though, because the work that I've enjoyed being a part of, and you're involved with in Dallas is reducing suffering and oppression.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Especially modern Buddhism is very focused on social justice. They call it socially engaged Buddhism. It doesn't mean that that was never important. It just is much more dominant now in Buddhism. And so it doesn't mean that we accept injustice.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Buddhists have a responsibility to reduce suffering.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
So it doesn't mean that we just accept oppression as reality. It's like, well, if I'm really cold, I acknowledge I'm cold I acknowledge I'm cold. Well, like I have some back pain, periodically, many of us do as we get older, or if we thought we were football players, or something at one time in life. And I was at a meditation retreat many years ago, and my back was really hurting. And I was thinking, "This is not fair. I'm here trying to make myself a better person. I'm trying to practice my spirituality. My back hurts and I can't do it." And then I had awakening.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
I'm suffering in great part because I'm focusing on the pain. If I just acknowledge that, yes, my back hurts.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
I mean, I shifted to try to get a better position. And at the break time, I got a different pillow to sit on, but while my suffering lessened when I acknowledged, yes, my back hurts.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
And I didn't wish it to be different. I mean, I didn't think it's not fair or unjust. It's just, yes, it hurts. And the pain lessened. I mean, it was still there, but I wasn't focused on it.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
There's the literal cause of physical pain. And then there's the psychological pain that we add to it as I was saying to myself, this isn't fair.

George Mason:
Right. Now, Jon, Buddhism, I'm curious in that there's not a lot of discussion about God in the religion. For example, as Christians we might meditate, but we will also pray. And so there's a sense of a God to whom we pray, and a personal God in that sense, but Buddhism is more of a way of adjusting to reality, a kind of a way of life where if a concept of God is present it's more associated with reality itself. Am I right about that, or do you have a different way of putting that?

Jon Reid:
Well, what I've discovered is that there's Buddhism as taught in the books, the sacred scriptures, and there's Buddhism as people practice it. And that took me years to realize that a lot of practicing Buddhists also believe in gods. Not a supreme being God, but an earth god, or a god of money, but now those are not all powerful gods.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
They are gods with power. In one of his books, Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Master, said that according to Judeo-Christian-Muslim perspective, he said that I'm an atheist.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Because believing in a god, or gods is not part of Buddhism. The Buddha when asked questions about those things that we can believe, but that we can't prove. I mean, I certainly said, yes, I know there's a God when I was a practicing Christian, but that was a belief, and that was based on feelings and experiences, and so forth. I absolutely do not criticize that view, or any other faith for that matter. Just the Buddhists said, there's things we can't know, and we can't prove, and let's not bother with those questions.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Let's do what we can to reduce our own suffering and craving, and so forth. And so the world he was born into there was belief in many gods. There were celestial beings that we might call angels. People believed in those. Basically, Buddhism does not have God in it. It doesn't require a belief in God, but many Buddhists do pray to the Buddha, please help my son, or my daughter pass their SATs and ACTs. There's a whole bunch of that amongst practicing Buddhists. And even though the Buddha is technically, and according to the doctrine model of God, certainly many people treat the Buddha as God, or a god.

Jon Reid:
You mentioned earlier, and I don't think I ever got back to it that Buddhism has been adaptable in any context it's ever been in. Now we're in the midst in the United States of developing an American Buddhism, although there's a huge degree of disagreement about what that even means. Does it mean primarily mindfulness? I mean, you can't listen to the radio, or the TV without hearing someone say be mindful of the weather. That's, of course, not what mindfulness means, but I mean, okay, I'm supposed to be fully aware of the weather, and one with the weather is that what they're? Now, of course, that's just me. You pay attention to the weather, but that's not mindfulness. Mindfulness is, go ahead. Sorry.

George Mason:
I was going to say that the Buddha is probably the original woke person in today's language. Mindfulness, awakening, and enlightenment. So, Jon, I think you're getting into now the American experience a little bit, and that takes us toward the end of our conversation now, but to the point of this series of our conversations is what is the American experience of a Buddhist? That is we have a deliberately pluralist country constitutionally, but on the ground Protestant Christianity has for the duration of our country been the sort of default culture you might say, civil religion. So when you go about having known what it's like to be part of the dominant culture religiously where are those points of challenge for an American Buddhist in the American experience?

Jon Reid:
So I've had the unique experience like you say of being, well, it's not unique to be in the religious majority, and then into a religious minority, but I don't look Buddhist by anybody's definition of Buddhism of what it looks like. And so in the U.S. when the conversation comes up about faith, people are shocked, or stunned, or they say cool when I say that I'm a Buddhist because of that serene Buddha statue image of being peaceful, but what I was getting to with the unique experience of when I'm in Asia, nobody expects me to be Buddhist either. They assume I'm Christian.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
I've taught psychology and English in Mainland China several times. At some point in the conversation of my teaching I feel like I need to disclose that you probably would assume I'm Christian, and I was, but I'm a practicing Buddhist now. And once again, there's a lot of shocked looks, and then there's more one-on-one of why? I don't get into the why part in class.

Jon Reid:
So I had this privilege and I really didn't like that word when I first heard it. I'm a white male and I was Protestant. I'm the first born male in my nuclear family, and I got some privilege from that. I grew up not realizing I had all these privileges because we were not a rich family. We weren't even hardly middle income at that point, but over time as I've been willing to see the way things are it's like, wow, I've gotten a lot of privilege. I'm also taller than average, and I get some privilege from that, but not from the airlines though. That is not a place of privilege if you're tall, or big. And so eventually as I began to learn more about other faiths.

Jon Reid:
I was in high school when the Vietnam War ended. I graduated in 1976 and I saw all these Vietnamese immigrants, and Cambodians, and Laotians. I mean, a lot of Vietnamese were Catholic, and still are, but I began to realize that they had a very different world that they had come from. I wanted to learn more about that. It took years and years for me to develop the ears of the immigrant. My ancestors were immigrants way, way, way back when, but once again, I've been in the majority in so many categories of my life that it took me a while to hear what a woman's ears hear regarding male privilege, or what a person of color hears with regard to white privilege. When all your holidays are Christian, you just think that's normal and the way it should be when you've grown up Christian. It took a while for me to hear all these words on our calendar, and our public speech are geared towards Christianity. And radio hosts probably think nothing of talking about going to church this Sunday.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
As if that either is what people should do, or are predominantly doing ignoring that a lot of faiths don't call it church, and that they meet on Saturdays, or Friday evening, and so forth. I'm not offended. I mean, America has this wonderful ideal of religious pluralism, but that's a constant battle.

George Mason:
It is.

Jon Reid:
Faith Forward Dallas, and I've also been a part of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance. I just treasure those opportunities of meeting with people from different faith traditions, the love and respect, and the dialogue. I was just thinking that to me is like a vaccine, which I need regularly a vaccine against the pain of the hatred that we hear.

George Mason:
Right.

Jon Reid:
Every time I gather together with those groups, it's like, okay, there's hope for this world. There's hope for this country because these people with very different beliefs can focus on what they share, what they have in common without pointing a finger at whose right or wrong, and what they believe.

George Mason:
That's the point of our American Faith Good God series is to become better versed with one another so that we can overcome those differences. Not to diminish the differences of different things, but to find those places where we can see the humanity of one another, and celebrate our life together. So, thank you, Jon Reid, all the way from Hong Kong, but really North Texas, sharing life together with us in this American Faith experience. God bless you.

Jon Reid:
Thank you so much, George.

George Mason:
Thank you. All right. Take care.

Jon Reid:
Take care. Bye-bye.

Speaker 3:
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