My Birthday was Yesterday (Taking of the 3 Refuges and 5 Precepts) Part 1

Yeap. That's right.

For the people who know me, they'd say that is not true. 'Coz I was born on Nov 27. However, we are "born" many times in one lifetime, right?

And what do I mean by it?

We're all born one and the same when we were birthed by our birth mothers. However, aside from that time we also feel we're born when we get married, or re-marry, or we have a new relationship with someone, or we join a community, or we learn something new from life and we have to re-make ourselves, or when our hearts break, we change our hairstyles, we put on some make up, we go to the gym 'coz we need to rise and get back up again. We become "born again" 'coz we joined a new religion, or a new movement, or a new career, or... yeah... it's usually us forging a new relationship with someone, or something.

On the other hand though, some of us just decide to be born once, twice, or thrice in our one lifetime. It really depends upon the person and how he/she views himself/herself, being re-born, and life.

From the time of our life until our last breath there would have been many times that we would have felt renewed and re-born. And that's the kind of "birthdays" I have been talking about. For me, I think I have decided to be "re-born" at least 7 times now. 1st when I became an official human being (was born), next was when I decided to become a born again Christian, and then took the  The most recent was yesterday.

Yesterday marked a new life for me. I took the 3 Refuges and 5 Precepts which what they call in buddhism.

I am formally a buddhist now.

3 Refuges is taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

5 Precepts are:

1. No killing.
2. No stealing.
3. No sexual misconduct.
4. No lying.
5. No intoxicants.

At first I was afraid to take the 5 Precepts because it means to say that I will have to police myself every single waking moment and should I fail, it will be a heavier bad karma for me AKA I'll be such a woeful sinner. I was afraid to take the 5 Precepts because I don't trust myself, etc. I was afraid of failure. There were many things going on my head.

- What if I killed an ant?
- What if Pabs (my partner in life) comes back from being aboard the ship, how are we going to enjoy ourselves together especially if we would want to have fun and drinks?
- How am I going to taste those poppers anymore? The promised ecstasy I've so been telling myself? Or what about those rare instances of good ole MJ with good ol' friends?

And then I had to stop. Told myself, hey, are they really THAT important? Really? The 5 Precepts could be something that I've always been looking for to improve my self and my life. To take the vow of the 5 Precepts mean that I would have to always decide to stop "sinning" and eventually preventing to hurt myself in the long run. Taking 5 Precepts could actually help me become a better person.

In my head, the main reason of taking these Precepts is to start doing better at my life and work. Because I think I am not exerting 100%, and I was just plain sick and tired of doing shortcuts. Yes, taking this vow may put an end to my frustration and put more pressure in myself to do the right thing and not even think twice. Especially at my work, my frustrations at work. Since they changed the business flow so that we're all gonna do an end to end process, I sincerely resented taking interactions/work that required to do end to end. So much so that I didn't like it, I started to do really bad. My metrices looked awful, my attendance got worse, my productivity score was horrible. I was already in my work for almost 5 years but I was really bad as compared to the new hires who looked like they were soaring like eagles ready to snatch food for their young. I was a burden to my Team Lead, which added to the frustration and guilt. I was just a mess and I needed to do something to change the course of my employee routine if I wouldn't want to let my work go and slip away from me.

Don't get me wrong. Despite my horrible scores on some areas, I get numerous commendations from customers. But, I just didn't want to be good at one and bad at others. I want to do well on all of the spaces in my office, in my part time jobs, and in my life.

I want to do very well with my role as a mom, as a partner-wife to Pabs, as a friend, as a team member, and as a daughter.

Someone said that by taking the vow to do 5 Precepts means I'm actually already doing something right. Because nothing gets done unless I, or we, make a vow. Now.

And by promising to do the 5 Precepts, I'm not making my life difficult. As a matter of fact as per the VP of Chung Tai Chan Monastery and Shifu Jianshu of Ocean Sky have mentioned, I am actually protecting myself from bad karma and more harm. Plus, they say that there are 36 bodhisattvas looking after me when I take the 5 Precepts.

Karma basically means cause and effect. Not the Filipino term or understanding which "the vengeance of the universe."

So, I then realized I was just plain afraid of the unknown. Who isn't right?

We're very much used to living within our comfort zone. However, comfort zone may also mean living in mediocrity. Mediocre zone means boring and lifeless. It means a continuous routinary run on the same place. It means stale, dry... tigang.

Being in the mediocre zone is actually scarier.



How about you? Would you want to take the 5 Precepts anytime soon? Or would you like to know more about Filipino buddhism first?