1 The Art of Combining Religions

The Art of Combining Religions:


How I mix Wicca and Buddhism in my spritual life.




Well, a few people have asked me to talk or write about this, so here goes.

Most people don’t choose a religion (to say nothing of two religions). In fact, I would venture to say that most people simply follow in the footsteps of their parents. Well, I didn’t. My family’s involvement in Christianity became strong after I left home at 18, so I didn’t have a strong Christian upbringing. I began questioning early on, and not finding much satisfaction in Christianity, I sought elsewhere. Interestingly, the template for my ideal religion was established when I saw the film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Go ahead and laugh, but the Jedi path really appealed to me. It involved the structure that I wanted, but also represented a religion that allowed me to develop my own abilities. It also gave me a strong sense of justice.

Of course, there are no Jedi training centers, and so I was back on the search. In my early 20s, I started reading Joseph Campbell’s work, and around the same time, I became interested in Buddhism. (An interesting note: George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell – small world, eh?) My interest in Buddhism became more intense when I saw the monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery perform their Sacred Music Sacred Dance – The Mystical Arts of Tibet. This was around 1988. Seeing these monks and talking with them later in the lobby brought Buddhism alive for me, and hearing of their struggle for independence in their homeland (see my Free Tibet page for details about this), I became interested in the human rights issues surrounding the problem of the occupation of Tibet.

In 1991, after reading much about Buddhism and other world religions, and reading a few works by His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama (the spiritual and political leader of Tibet), I went to Ithaca, NY to see His Holiness speak at Cornell University. It was a wonderful trip. It was my first trip alone and for the purpose of doing something I wanted to do. But it was wonderful for more reasons than this. There were monks who performed their sacred music and dance, as well as constructing an intricate sand mandala for world peace. And of course, there was His Holiness. I knew from reading his books and reading about him that he was indeed a wise man. But seeing him in person was life-changing. I could not stop thinking that he was truly a holy man. During one talk on the lawn of Cornell, I almost took refuge. The taking of refuge is a ritual whereby someone new to Buddhism solidifies her or his desire to learn more about the religion, and become a practicing Buddhist. One takes refuge in the Buddha (the role-model), the Dharma (the teachings), and the Sangha (the spiritual community). In Tibetan Buddhism, one also takes refuge in the Guru (the teacher). There is a special relationship between teacher and student in Tibetan Buddhism that doesn’t seem to translate well into Western culture, where we tend to see an abuse of power in the relationship. At any rate, I almost took refuge on the lawn there at Cornell University with the Dalai Lama. This, of course, would have been a mistake. His Holiness does not know me, and thus would not take me as his student. This was not the only reason, though.

I knew somehow that this would be a mistake because I was not in a place in my life to pursue the Dharma. There isn’t a strong Dharma community in Tampa, and that was something I needed very much. The Dharma Center I visited in Tampa was very off putting (and became even more so later when I asked them if they would teach me Tibetan as part of my studies and they refused on the grounds that I wasn’t a solid Buddhist) and the members seemed to consider themselves above everyone else, despite the veneer of compassion and kindness. This is not what the Dalai Lama speaks about in his books at all. He exudes a genuine warmth that made me think that if I were to be allowed to speak to him alone, he would address me as an equal, as simply a fellow human being. In fact, although he is believed by his people to be the 14th incarnation of Chenrezig, a Bodhisattva of Compassion and the primary deity of Tibet, he has always described himself as “a simple Buddhist monk.” In a time when we see others advertizing their importance and their influence, it is so refreshing to see a spiritual and political figure say that he is no one special, but just has a good message to deliver.

At any rate, during that year, I did try to do more to educate others about the situation in Tibet. It was extremely difficult work. The perspective so many Americans take is that if Tibet has nothing but a non-Christian religion to offer, then they shouldn’t bother. Human rights also take a back seat to economics much of the time. Tibet has no gold, no oil, no vast supply of resources. It simply has a rich spiritual tradition that is in danger of dying. For me, that was every reason to work to preserve it. Now, I imagine that if a form of Christianity had been “discovered” in Tibet, and if the practitioners of this religion were in grave danger, there would be more effort placed in trying to save Tibet. But that is just my jaded opinion.

Well, after I came back from Cornell, my efforts to educate others fell flat, and I began to wonder if somehow the Universe was telling me not to pursue this just yet. I began reading about another human rights struggle right here in the USA. This struggle was specifically regarding the case of Leonard Peltier, an Oglala-Sioux convicted of murdering two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; generally, the struggle was an ongoing one surrounding the human rights of Native Americans. After reading a book by Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, I had to ask myself why I would struggle for human rights in a country so far away when the same abuses were occurring right here. I also became interested in Native American religious practices. What interested me in particular was that the practices were grounded in the land. There is an amazing relationship in nature-based religions with the landscape. One becomes intimate with the cycles, moods, and capabilities of the land. One works with the land, instead of working the land, or working against it. The land becomes friend, teacher, confidante, and parent. I had so much respect for this perspective.

But again, there was something blocking me. The struggle for human rights was fine to pursue, but I did not feel welcome into the Native American spiritual life. I am a white woman of Irish and Scottish descent. My ancestors did not walk this land, and this is what held me back. There is much controversy over the legitimacy of white seekers adopting Native religious practices, and I felt, and still feel, that until we manage to create a liminal space, a space that is not White, not Native American, but something altogether separate, we cannot adopt Native American spiritual practices without express permission from those very people from whom we, as a culture, have stolen everything else. Unless a Native American teacher was willing to take me, specifically, as a student, I was not about to pursue the practice of this group of religions.

Shortly after this disappointment, I was reunited with my best high school girlfriend. She’d gotten married and had two children, but otherwise the three year hiatus in our friendship seemed to change very little. It was thrilling to get to know her again, and to get to know her kids. I’d known her husband before we lost contact with one another, but was able to get to know him on a deeper level.

These friends introduced me to Wicca. Wicca is a nature-based religion that is Northern European in origin. It is a revival of what is believed to be ancient practices of the Celts. Now this does not mean the religion survived in an unbroken tradition until the 1950s when the revival began. No, Wicca is a reconstruction of what we believe those practices to be. We have taken some anthropological and historical information to deduce that certain relationships existed between the primarily pastoral practitioners and their land. This relationship to the land has always been very important to me, and here it found expression in a religion that was a genetic match for my own. It was also ritual-heavy, which was good for me at the time. It gave me a sense of embodying the religion. In addition, Wicca recognizes that there are two aspects of Deity, male and female. There are masculine and feminine expressions of deity (Gods and Goddesses) throughout Celtic spiritual traditions. This recognition was refreshing to me, as I had never really considered worshiping a deity that came in the form of a woman. I still struggled with choosing a single religion to practice, though, feeling both Wicca and Buddhism compelling.

I continued to read more about Buddhist teachings and read many books by and about the Dalai Lama. When I finally chose male and female deities for my Wiccan practice, I chose (or perhaps was chosen by – it’s hard to tell) Green Tara, a female Bodhisattva of Compassion, and Manjushri, a male Bodhisattva of Wisdom, both worshiped (although that may not be an accurate word for this) in Tibet. Around this time, I began taking steps to enter graduate school in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida (thinking mistakenly that I would learn more about Joseph Campbell and his perspective on mythological systems), and I chose to focus my graduate work on Tibetan Buddhism. There was a professor there, Dr. Nathan Katz, who was the only specialist in this field in the state of Florida, and I was certain that I was destined to do this. During this time, I had The Dream.

The Dream



I am riding on a train, going through a forested area. The train breaks down and I must continue through the snow-bound forest by accepting a ride from a friend. She drives me to a house, where there is a party going on. She drops me off there and I enter the building. The place is filled with people and there is quite a lot of noise.

I cross the room and stand in front of a wall of windows overlooking a snow-covered clearing. The interior of the house is a sharp contrast to the landscape. Outside, it is silent, cold, and dark. Inside the lights are bright, the rooms warm from a fireplace, and people are laughing and talking. I remain on the outskirts of the activity. After a while, a friend from the religious studies department approaches and adjusts a thick belt I am wearing around my waist. The belt has a wide buckle, which was not centered but off to one side. He adjusts it so that the belt is centered, and then leaves.

Suddenly, I notice something across the room, almost caddy-corner from where I am standing. I walk toward it and see an older woman on a table. The room is suddenly empty of everybody except me and the woman. She is lying in a pool of blood and I touch the blood. As I do so I realize that she is me. I look at the room again and notice that there are several statues of what appear to be Christian saints or Christian figures of some sort. The dying me says, “They could never do anything for me.” I look back down at her and feel a distant sort of sympathy, and a mild sort of horror. I know I do not want this to be my fate.

Then I notice across the room, right near where I was standing before, a Buddhist monk is sitting. I walk away from the woman on the table and approach the monk. He is chanting using the multiphonic technique that the Drepung monks use, and I realize that not only can I hear this, but I can also see swirls of energy above the crown of his bald head. I watch this, fascinated, for a few minutes. Then the monk stops and writes something down on a small piece of paper. He hands the paper to me. There are two long words written in Sanskrit. I cannot tell exactly what the words are, but I can see that they both begin with the word “Dharma.” I take the pen the monk used, and rewrite the second word, so that dharma is incorrectly spelled d-a-h-r-m-a. I hand the paper back to the monk and tell him that I cannot have two Dharmas. He looks at me placidly for a moment, then takes the pen again and rewrites the second word as it was originally, so that both words begin with “Dharma.” He then hands me the paper again, and continues to chant. The dream ends.

This was the dream that ended my struggle to choose. Now began a new struggle: to integrate.

Integrating these two religions isn’t as hard as it would seem at first. Both have a strong, even central, ethic of no-harm. The form of Buddhism I practice has, as a central figure, the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is different from a Buddha, or an arhat (an enlightened one). Imagine you and the rest of humanity are struggling toward a wall. The wall is very high, but you know that past the wall is something really good. You reach the wall and manage to climb it. If you go over and enjoy the wonderful stuff on the other side, you are an arhat. If you get to the top of the wall and decide that it would suck to be there alone, so you stay behind to help your fellow travelers get to and over the wall, you are a Bodhisattva. Now, a point that His Holiness made in one book (called A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) is that the Bodhisattva makes this vow to keep taking rebirth until such time as all sentient beings are released from the cycle of rebirth. But the sentient beings are infinite in number. This means that the Bodhisattva essentially realized that she or he is relinquishing the bliss of nirvana to help the world. This is quite compelling to me, and I have adopted the Bodhisattva as a model for living.

Now, my Wiccan sensibilities show up in other ways. I still feel very connected to the land, and I strive to bring myself into harmony with my environment. This is one of the goals of being Wiccan. I want to live the life of someone who has a sense of what’s going on with the planet, and in the world. Ignorance is an unhealthy state of mind both in Wicca and Buddhism. In fact there are many similarities between the two religions. Compare the general guidelines for living for each religion:

The Noble Eight-Fold Path The Thirteen Goals of a Witch
1. Right Understanding 1. Know yourself.
2. Right Thought 2. Know your craft
3. Right Speech 3. Learn!
4. Right Action 4. Apply knowledge with wisdom
5. Right Livelihood 5. Achieve balance
6. Right Effort 6. Keep your words in good order
7. Right Mindfulness 7. Keep your thoughts in good order
8. Right Concentration 8. Celebrate life!
9. Attune with the cycles of the earth
10. Breathe and eat correctly
11. Exercise the body
12. Meditate
13. Honor the Goddess and the God


So you see, I’m not having to work very hard to combine these religions. The hardest part is my pre-existing conceptualization of these two as separate religions. This difference between religions is an expression of something that Mahayana Buddhism teaches is ultimately self-defeating. In fact, the divisions and conceptual categories we create in our minds are the very things that keep us in the cycle of death and rebirth.

Historically, there are many instances of religions meeting, combining, and growing into forms or even new religions that incorporate both. Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism, and has elements of Zoroatrianism included within it. Santeria, Candomble and Vodun are all religions that are the result of religious Africans (primarily Yoruban) being forced to practice the religion of their captors, Catholicism. Depending of the type of Catholicism, these beliefs morphed into a new religion that has elements of both.

So, what I do is not all that unusual. I define myself as both Buddhist and Wiccan, and am comfortable in each. I don’t think that my practice of one compromises the practice of the other. For those of you who have asked me about this, I hope it clarifies something for you.

Blessed Be!
I wish you happiness today!



Here is a webpage that goes into the basics of Buddhism. 1