I'm long time lurker and thought I'd join in on the conversations that have helped me so so much. I have aspirations to contribute meaningfully to those and more.
A quick blurb about me: Born into a secular family in an Islamic society, to an atheist father, and agnostic mother who dabbled in Tibetan buddhism for a year or so when I was a teen. I grew up fairly faith-free and secular thanks to the conditions of my birth. I indulged in copious amounts of sensuality and aversion/anger in my younger life, until it started to become clear that such things only led to perpetual misery. I tried to break free but w/o success, until one day I spoke using extremely harsh speech to my father. Immediately afterwards I felt like I had swallowed hot coals - such was my anger and remorse. I knew I had to vanquish anger, no matter what. Researching anger and speech led me to reading about the precepts (on wikipedia of all places!) about 5-6 years back. Since then I became absolutely hooked to the Dhamma, as I kept on reading more and more. An unrelated chain of events in life had brought me to the DC/Maryland/Virginia area, and after some digging I found that Bhante Gunaratana's forest monastery was only a couple hours drive away, and the rest is history
My primary teachers are Bhante G. and the monastic Sangha at Bhavana Society, and Bhante Rahula, who recently returned back to the Maryland area to be the head teacher at a meditation center (Lion of Wisdom) affiliated with the DC Buddhist Vihara and Bhavana Society. I was just at Bhavana recently where I fulfilled a long time aspiration of taking the Lifetime precepts.
I am of an intellectual bent and throughly enjoy nerding out over the Dhamma. I hope to bring something of value to this community.
Mangalam,
Sam Vega
