How I Escaped The Spiritual Deadlock

I was sitting on a train on my way to Hanover, Germany. It was a dark and muggy summer evening a long time ago.

I was 16 years old and away from my home country, alone in the big wide world for the first time. It was exciting and, at the same time, scary.

I had nearly escaped the Jesus and the church and was on my way to discover the world. The suffocating pressure of the Christian narrowmindedness and judgmental approach lingering in the Finnish religious world those days was paralysing. But I was free and open for everything new to come and fill my tabula rasa – my hungry soul.

The fear of God and the punishment that was always more likely to hit you than any promise of getting to heaven were the building blocks of the Finnish religious school curriculum in those days. The only way to cope was to surrender and wait for the worst.

In that spiritual climate, you were the sinner no matter what you tried to do, think or say. The power was outside of you, controlling everything and deciding your destiny. Just swallow your pride and keep your mouth shut. You would be free and happy in heaven if you managed to get there, which was an unlikely scenario.

I escaped that hopeless and depressing atmosphere to Germany full of life and great expectations.

Since that summer, the idea of spirituality and life philosophy has been haunting me. Whenever I encountered them, the idea of being subject to an external divine force scared the living daylight out of me. At the same time, the abstract and confusing world of philosophy didn’t let me ask any questions but learn the doctrines of the different philosophies. They made me know constructs and concepts that had little application in my world.

Over the years, from a teenage seeker to an adult sceptic, I tried to learn as much as I could from different schools of thought. I tried yoga, meditation, astrology, iChing, etc., without real answers. I was asking all the wrong questions.

Then in 1990, on the Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, I saw a bunch of young people who were seemingly happy. I had been learning digital storytelling, and it was my last day before I had to fly back home to Europe.

It had been 17 years since my first trip from home to a foreign county, and many travels had been between. Those years were filled with curiosity, seeking and frustration.

In San Francisco, I saw several religious groups. It felt like I was like a weirdo magnet. And for the first time in 17 years, I thought I had again narrowly escaped some dogmatic spiritual prison.

I was jealous to see the people on the Telegraph Hill looking so happy. But I was alone in the world; I didn’t have any way to think about how to deal with my life and become happy. I was learning and exploring but spiritually going in circles.

There were also young men hurrying around the group. Those guys were neatly wearing suits and had walkie-talkies. They resembled some FBI guys, but these looked kind and gentle. So, I gathered my courage and asked one of them what they were doing there. This black guy with the eyes size of the tea plates and shining with unexpected warmth and intensity told me they celebrated the SGI President Ikeda’s first visit to the USA in 1960. And off he went, busy with his walkie-talkie. But his smile stayed with me like a beacon of hope.

One lesson I have learned is that there are no coincidences. When you search for something, you are likely tuned to find what you are looking for. In my case, it has always been discovering a breakthrough in a seemingly impossible situation.

From Telegraph Hill, I returned to my hotel, took a shuttle to the airport and waited for my flight to LA and Helsinki.

Feeling a bit disappointed that I had to leave the group from Telegraph Hill and had no time to ask more, I was sitting at the gate waiting for the boarding call, but instead of if, they announced that my flight was cancelled. I started to panic because I had to catch the flight from LA, and if I missed that one, I didn’t have the money to get another flight.

Luckily, the friendly crew member who saw my problem suggested that I board another flight about to depart in 10 minutes. She hastily did the paperwork, and I ran to the next gate.

As mentioned earlier, there are no coincidences. As I took my seat by the window, feeling hot and out of breath, I noticed that the Telegraph Hill crew was also on the flight. Across from me, on the diagonally opposite side, I caught sight of a friendly face who smiled and waved at me before turning to chat with their companion. I was stunned.

The plane took off, and I saw the last views of San Francisco disappear behind the clouds. The group around me were chatting, laughing and having fun. I couldn’t help but ask the lady next to me, who obviously knew them all, where they were going and what this group was.

And so I met for the first time real Buddhists. They didn’t have yellow robes or saved heads. Some drank some beer and had nothing against good old ham sandwiches. They were Soka Gakkai International members going to Japan to learn more about Nichiren Buddhism.

The one-hour flight was too short to discuss the questions that started flying around my head like mosquitoes. When we began to descend to LA, the lady next to me gave me a little flyer with Tina Turner on its front page. She wrote a number of some of their so-called culture centres in LA on the brochure and gave it to me. She urged me to call that number to learn about local SGI members in Finland.

As the plane landed, a rush of people began to exit. The group that the woman was part of headed towards their gate, and I hurriedly made my way to catch my connecting flight. In the distance, I caught sight of the young black man smiling and waving goodbye before disappearing into the crowd with his companions. It was the first time ever that a total stranger came so close to me: I could feel that he and the rest of the group would welcome me to join them anytime.

To cut a long story short, I managed to connect with a small local group of Finnish practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism. Since the 13th of October 1990, I have been one of the members of this global Buddhist lay organisation.

Why did I start so foreign, strange, and challenging Buddhist practice? It wasn’t because of glossy materials, esoteric and complex terminology, rituals or charismatic leaders. There were none of those.

The simple reasons were that the lady on the plane asked me before handing over the brochure: ‘Do you want to become happy and fulfilled in life as you are?’ – and that the young man didn't reject me but took me in his smile with a warmth that I had not experienced. I answered in my head, yes, yes, yes – I want to become happy, I want to be accepted and I want to belong.

Even after thirty years, my response remains affirmative to the same question. I have had the opportunity to encounter numerous smiles that lifted my spirits and made me grateful for being a part of something. Belonging became part of me and not something that escaped me at every turn.

I am still searching, curious, and spiritually hungry, but no anymore going in circles. My life has been filled with ups and downs, but every up has taken me higher than the previous down. And I feel happy and fulfilled.

There are no coincidences in life. That’s why I am a Buddhist. If you seek, you will find but be careful what you are searching for.

Life is bigger than your intellect is my favourite meme.

I learned to trust my own life instead of external divine beings or religious rulebooks. ‘Buddhism is reason’, said Nichiren Daishonin in 1277. And it is reasonable to expect that your spiritual practice or faith will bring you happiness, joy and fulfilment in life. If it doesn’t, then it’s not right for you, and you should escape like I did when I was 16, and Germany took me to the hottest, most beautiful and most exciting summers I have ever had. Go and seek, be open, curious and crazy until you find your spiritual home.

Then you are at home everywhere.