219 - Being the Only Buddhist in Your Family – Part 1

Many – if not most – English-speaking Buddhists (or Spanish-speaking! – there are Spanish translations of many of my podcast episode scripts available at zenstudiespodcast.com, thanks to one of my listeners, Claudio from Argentina) are converts to Buddhism. Even if you were raised in a Buddhist family, chances are good that as an adult you are surrounded by non-Buddhists, or that as an active Buddhist practitioner you are surrounded by people for whom Buddhism is largely a cultural matter. I discuss the challenges of being the only Buddhist in your family or intimate relationship, and ways to create more harmony between your spiritual practice and your close relationships.

Read or Listen to Part 2

Quicklinks to Article Content:
Tension Caused by Being the Only Buddhist in Your Family
The Religious or Spiritual Practice(s) of Your Family Members
The Depth and Extent of Our Involvement with Buddhism
Ways to Negotiate the Impact of Our Practice on Our Families
1. Thoughtful Explanation – When (Or If!) You Have an Opening
2. Normalize Your Buddhist Community Whenever You Can

Tension Caused by Being the Only Buddhist in Your Family

Recently, someone sent me this question:

I wonder what advice you have for people who are the only Buddhist practitioners in their family. Have you noticed practice taking a toll on marriages between Buddhists and (very-supportive) non-Buddhists, or family matters taking a toll on practice?

How much tension we experience in our family relationships depends on many things, but our answers to the following three questions are central:

1) What is the religious or spiritual practice, if any, of our family members, and how devout are they?

2) How involved are we with Buddhism? and

3) How do we do we negotiate the impact of our practice on our families?

We can’t do much about #1, the spiritual or religious practice of our family members, and hopefully, regarding #2, for the most part we are able to follow our heart and needs when it comes to the level of our involvement with Buddhism. This means #3 – negotiating the impact of our practice on our families – is where we can make a difference.

I’ll begin by discussing issues 1 and 2, describing some of the ways tension arises between our Buddhist practice and our family relationships. Then I’ll talk about six ways we can relieve some of that tension and create more harmony in our life – in this episode I’ll cover the first two ways, and in the next episode I’ll continue with the other four. Finally, I’ll wrap up the topic by talking specifically about being a Buddhist practitioner in an intimate relationship with someone who is not on the same spiritual path.

The Religious or Spiritual Practice(s) of Your Family Members

1) What is the religious or spiritual practice, if any, of our family members, and how devout are they?

Ironically, the most negative reactions to our Buddhist practice often come from family members who are either very devout members of a different faith, or are staunch atheists or anti-religious (particularly if they have rejected organized religion because of past negative experiences). Family members who are more or less indifferent to religion may not understand your Buddhist practice, but it’s less likely to bring up resistance in them based in their own beliefs.

Sometimes a religious family member will feel confused or hurt by your apparent rejection of the family’s commonly held religion. Why wasn’t it enough? Are you rejecting your family members as well as their religion? In some cases, religious family members will believe you, as a Buddhist, are going to hell, or will suffer some similar terrible fate because of your choice – even if you think of yourself as practicing Buddhism as well as your family’s tradition. These reactions can be very painful for all those involved.

If a family member or significant other is a staunch atheist or is anti-religious, your Buddhist practice can cause the person to question your sanity. Especially if your relationship formed before you were Buddhist, your turning to religious practice may feel like a betrayal of commonly held values or worldviews. For example, if someone believes, as Marx quipped, that religion is the “opium of the people,” it may be difficult for them to reconcile their respect for you with their low opinion of devout religious people. Also, although Buddhism is non-theistic, it is a rich tradition with all kinds of religious trappings like texts, clergy, ceremonies, special vocabulary, devotional practices, and – most confusing of all – altars and imagery depicting figures that look an awful lot like various gods. Family members wary of religion may be fearful you’ve been caught up in a cult or otherwise seduced into seeking solace in something false or even dangerous.

While family members without any strong ties to, or opinions about, religion may not have strong negative reactions to your practice, they may be utterly unable to relate to it. At least those strongly identified with a different faith understand the attraction to religious or spiritual practice and community, even if they are upset with which tradition you chose. Areligious family members may assume your Buddhist practice is just a hobby you’ve taken up to fill your time, or a technique you use to feel less stress, when your practice may mean much more than that to you.

Regardless of whether our loved ones are religious, anti-religious, areligious, or combination of these, it can be challenging if they do not share our desire to practice Buddhism. They may feel jealous of our outside interest or feel less connected to us because they don’t relate to our practice. We may feel sadness that our loved ones don’t understand, or aren’t interested, and that we can’t share this important part of our lives with them.

The Depth and Extent of Our Involvement with Buddhism

I’ll talk about how to we can mitigate some of these difficulties in a bit, but first I want to discuss how our answer to the second question impacts our familial relationships: How involved are we with Buddhism?

Familial reactions are, of course, going to depend in a large part on how much time we spend on our Buddhist practice (such meditating, attending Sangha events, volunteering, going to retreats, or studying), and how visible our practice is (for example, sitting in meditation at home while others are there, maintaining an altar, wearing a Buddhist vestment like wagesa or rakusu, filling your shelves with Buddhist books, or publicly identifying yourself as a Buddhist).

If we have family, particularly if we live with them or see them often, as the only Buddhist in the family we usually have to carefully negotiate the depth and extent of our involvement with Buddhism. It is not at all uncommon for practitioners to wish they could be more involved, or more visibly involved, but feel they need to limit the impact of their practice on family relationships.

Obviously, our time and attention are limited, and sometimes time spent with Sangha or on practice is time that might otherwise be spent with family. There’s no getting around this. I’ve definitely seen people damage their relationships because they spent all of their spare time and energy on Buddhist practice, but I’ve also seen people who have tragically cut off their practice because family members resented it.

Discomfort with the visibility of our Buddhist practice is of a different nature. Many of us find that our family members are okay with our Buddhist practice up to a point. As long it seems casual, like a hobby, it’s not a big deal. Once it leaks out of the back bedroom into the living room, or into dinner conversations, or once you formally become a Buddhist or refuse to steal internet access because you’ve taken the precepts, though… your family members may think things are starting to get weird and alarming. How far are you going to go? Who are you going to become?

You could argue that the visible aspects of our practice don’t deprive our family members of anything, and that it’s good for us to learn to live with the stares, or lack of understanding, or eye rolls, or whatever kinds of less-than-supportive reactions we get when our practice shows. However, maintaining healthy relationships involves give-and-take, so it doesn’t work very well to completely disregard the reactions of our family members, as if they were strangers.

Ways to Negotiate the Impact of Our Practice on Our Families When We’re the Only Buddhist in the Family

That brings me to question #3: How do we do we negotiate the impact of our practice on our families? I have six recommendations. I’ll talk about the first two in this episode, and then continue with the rest in the next episode.

1. Thoughtful Explanation – When (Or If!) You Have an Opening

Trying to explain our Buddhist practice to family members is the first approach some of us take. We figure that if they just understood, they would accept and support our practice and not feel worried, judgmental, upset, or confused about it. There would be harmony between our chosen spiritual path and our family relationships!

Sadly, explanation rarely seems to help all that much. Few people actually want to know about Buddhism or your practice, even if they love you. Even if you’re open about your practice, you may notice that no one asks you about it. Or, if they do, they ask a question like, “Do you guys pray to the Buddha?” And then, when you delve into the fascinating answer to that question, their eyes quickly glaze over and that’s where the conversation effectively ends.

I remember when I was considering ordination as a Zen monk and was trying to explain away the growing tension with my family surrounding the choice. I felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall. I wondered why they didn’t understand yet, or why I was unable to offer an adequate explanation. My sister finally told me something I have never forgotten. She said, “We don’t care about Buddhism. All we care about is how it’s going to affect our relationship with you.” I suspect this is the case for almost all the non-Buddhists we are close to.

However, every once in a while you get a real opening and are able to offer something helpful to your loved ones by way of explanation. When this happens, it can be extremely valuable to make it clear that Buddhism is a non-theistic faith – that while it has many of the trappings of religion, the practice of it does not depend on belief in a supreme deity, or in praying for redemption from a power beyond oneself. On the other hand, Buddhism is also not dependent on an atheistic worldview. There are many, many Buddhists who also believe in God, or in gods, and who practice other religions as well. Those other religions may not approve of Buddhism, but Buddhism doesn’t disapprove of them (as long as they teach and practice basic morality, kindness, and compassion).

For our atheistic or anti-religious family members, it can help to explain that you are not asked to believe or practice anything in Buddhism that you don’t choose to, and that you are meant to test and verify the validity and usefulness of everything you decide to embrace. You can present Buddhism as a practical, down-to-earth approach to living a happier life (even if it is more profound than that for you). With your explanations you are not trying to teach the Dharma to your family members, you are reassuring them about their relationship with you. As the only Buddhist in the family, you are letting them know that you can discuss your spiritual practice without defensiveness or preachiness, and that you’re still a rational, independent person.

2. Normalizing Your Buddhist Community Whenever You Can

A big part of the tension when you’re the only Buddhist in the family is familial suspicion or resentment of those people you do that Buddhist thing with. By its very nature, a Sangha is a group of people practicing Buddhism, so it excludes those who don’t. Even if a Sangha wanted non-Buddhists to attend, why would the non-Buddhists want to come and sit in silence, or participate in strange chanting rituals, or spend hours talking about obscure Buddhist teachings or practices they don’t even do? Boring!

Notably, Buddhist temples founded by communities which were traditionally and culturally Buddhist – such as Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai temples – tend to accommodate families much more than temples and centers founded by and for western converts to Buddhism. Culturally grounded temples, from the beginning, expect whole families, including children, to be involved. They have feasts and celebrations, dances and parades, activities for children, memorials and cemeteries, and beautiful grounds to visit.

Convert Buddhist communities, on the other hand, have usually adopted only the formal “practice” aspects of the tradition, like studying the teachings or meditation – traditionally the parts done mostly by monastics or priests. Some communities are trying to become more well-rounded and inviting to practitioner’s families, but the process is slow.

If you’re part of a mostly convert community, it can help if you take every opportunity to normalize the people in your Sangha to your family members. Invite family to any fun or social events your community might have, like potlucks or New Year’s celebrations. Find ways for your family to meet some of the individuals you practice with, and do “normal” things when you do, like eating a delicious meal or going to hear some live music. Talk about your Sangha members – mention their jobs, or pets, or any other aspects of their lives your family members might relate to. This can help your Buddhist community seem less exclusive or strange.

Buddhist festivals in Wat Trisirimongkon Buddhist Temple, Korat Thailand.

Tsukiji Honganji Bon Dance Festival, Tokyo Japan 2013.

Preparing Ok Phansa festival, end of Buddhist lent. Along the Mekong river, Luang Prabang, Louang Prabang, Laos

In the next episode I’ll talk about four additional ways to relieve some of the tension that can arise between our Buddhist practice and our family relationships, and create more harmony in our life. Then I’ll discuss the special case of being in an intimate partnership with a non-Buddhist, including the challenges that can present and ways to address them.