From the Shadowlands: Up the Mountain, Musing by Shadowdancer

I just finished reading and reviewing a book by Tom Swiss called Why Buddha Touched the Earth. It is a book on Zen Paganism.  As I was reading the book a lot of what I read seemed to correspond to what I believe to the point where I thought that maybe I too and a Zen Pagan. But not all of what he had to share resonated with me. There were points I flat out disagree with him. It didn’t stop me from enjoying the book and learning a great deal from it.

As he was talking about the Zen monks he met in Japan I reflected on the one I met while living in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. This was several years before I left the Episcopal Church and started on a Pagan path. The monk was teaching a seminar or series of classes, I can’t remember which now, not that it’s important on meditation.

That class was offered at a time when I was beginning to question my faith and I was interested in learning to meditate so I signed up. At the start of the class he explained briefly the difference between the way Buddhist see religion and the Divine, so to speak, as compared to other religions.

The analogy he gave was this. He said that Buddhist see the Divine, or god, or nirvana, however you wish to see it as a goal at the top of a mountain. There are many paths up this mountain representing many different religious or spiritual paths. It doesn’t matter which of the paths you walk. The important thing is that each person is walking one of the paths up the mountain. That philosophy helped me make the transition from Christianity to Paganism and Wicca.

For many years I have been trying to find a label to identify just what kind of Pagan or Wiccan that I am. I am a Solitary Witch. I don’t follow any one tradition, although I’ve explored many. There are some elements of Buddhism that I like and have incorporated as well as some from Shamanic paths. Over all I would have to say my path is at best eclectic, a blending of many different influences.

What struck me so profoundly as I read that book and thought back to the mountain analogy what occurred to me is that I don’t need a label. I don’t need to label just what kind of Pagan or Wiccan path that I follow. I am on the path up the mountain that I chose to walk. Sometimes that path my parallel that of another spiritual tradition before branching off in other direction. That doesn’t matter.

Actually I think I am limiting myself, putting obstacles in the path that I don’t need by trying to put a label on just what I am or what my path is. I need to focus on what is important. I am working on my path up the mountain. It hasn’t always been an easy path. I’ve made some wrong turns, stumbled down some blind alleys and had to back track, even gone in the wrong direction a few times. None of that really matters. All that matters is what the Zen Buddhist monk told his class so many years ago. I am on MY path; it doesn’t need a name or a label. All I need is to keep trying, to keep working my way up the path toward the top of the mountain. It doesn’t even matter what is at the top of the mountain, or how I perceive what is at the top. Simply my walking my talk, I am ever striving to make myself a better person and to try to leave this earth doing more good than harm.