Hong Kong Liberal Religious Forum

Bright Dawn Institute for American Buddhism

www.brightdawn.org

'Unitarian Buddhist' finds dream of retreat center, one can at a time
by Jeremy Gantz
May 09, 2007
Medill Reports
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chi ... x?id=36031

...[Richard] Brandon discovered Buddhism through an interest in meditation. He was raised Catholic but never took to it, dissatisfied with the catechism classes his family pushed him into in high school.

"I recall asking questions and not being satisfied with the answers," Brandon said.

And although he was baptized in his wife's evangelical church in Logan Square just before their marriage in 1955 – her family required it – a book recommendation quickly pulled him away from his wife's church.

Brandon's brother-in-law gave him "The Quest of the Overself" by a British mystic and philosopher Paul Brunton, and he began immersing himself in meditation.

"The Eastern way was not based on words, it was based on spiritual meditative practice, sort of a mysticism," Brandon said earlier this month. "For some reason that really appealed to me."

But rather than make a break with Christianity entirely, Brandon began visiting Unitarian congregations as he delved more into meditation while studying at George Williams College, then in Hyde Park.

"Unitarians respected the path that each person was on, whatever that path was," Brandon said. "And they were always on the forefront of social action – women's rights, prison reform. All kinds of social action issues."

Today, 50 years later, he is president of the American Buddhist Association, an independent spiritual organization dedicated to promoting Buddhist teachings and practices in a nonsectarian way.
...
Today Brandon describes himself as a Unitarian Buddhist and continues Kubose's mission to develop a distinctly American brand of Buddhism outside of the established Asian traditions.

"The two things – Unitarianism and Buddhism – seemed to address my spiritual path. And also my social activism, as far as the Unitarians. So those two things came together."
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Last year he became the first to complete the Bright Dawn Institute's lay dharma teacher and lay minister program, which was established by the American Buddhist organization to deepen individuals' knowledge of "the Buddhist Path" and prepare them to teach it.

"If you try to know anything, it's beyond knowing," Brandon said earlier this month. "The Buddha realized that everything's changing. Life is dynamic."
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