I am a Buddhist Witch. As a Buddhist, I believe that life is difficult, and that the reason why life is difficult is because we are attached to impermanent things, I also believe that one can dissolve this attachment (which doesn't mean that you have no desires, you're simply not attached to the desire so that if it goes unfulfilled, you're not devastated).

As a Witch, I believe that there is an energy to life which is available for all of us to work with, to become more integrated and whole human beings.

I will pray and chant mantras quietly wherever I go, seeing the Buddhas bring blessings to all sentient beings that I can see. I sing these mantras to the trees and they sing them back, vibrating the essence of the chants to all manner of sentient beings.

I also use this method to purify spaces, banish unwelcome energy/beings (while bringing blessings even to them), and to welcome wanted energy/beings (and bless them) as well - so, I guess I also use sonic ether to summon as well.

I bow to others (slightly, because if I did a full-on Japanese bow, I would alienate people) to acknowledge their personal divinity, or Buddha-nature.

My sensory perception will clarify and heighten. Things will be brighter, sounds more clearer, smells will feature a tapestry of interplaying scents.

The air around me will feel bright, warm, and will vibrate with ether. My mind will start to perceive itself as the spiritual Sun (I adore the Sun, and I incorporate it virtually into every aspect of my spirituality).

People also respond to me in a more peaceful and understanding manner. My voice will calm and soothe, my words will garner respect. Because when I acknowledge and honor the divinity in something outside of myself, that divinity acknowledges and honors me back.

Witchcraft wasn't so much a choice, as it was an acknowledgement and acceptance of what was already there. I have always felt the natural inclination to work with the energy in and aroun myself, to draw up and shape that free-floating energy into something harmonious and productive. Spirits are as common to me as my own friends and family are because they've always been around.

I have decided to pursue Buddhism because it maintains a very clear view of reality and answers every one of my questions about everything from globalization, to what ply toilet paper I should use, with such clarity and insight. Buddhism emphasizes that one should not even believe in Buddhism 'unless' it agrees with one's individual findings.

"Do not believe anything simply because it is spoken of and rumored by many. Do not believe anything simply because it is written in a religious book. Do not believe anything because it has been done for a long time, and is tradition. But after contemplation and analysis, if one finds that things are conducive to the good and benefit of all beings, then believe it and uphold it."

Best advice I've ever received.

When I was very young (too young to remember), I would sit in my high chair (or whatever it is children sit in) and gaze at plants (any plant) and start talking to a being that I called "Gagan" (gay-gen). This being made a few brief appearances in dreams when I got older. He informed me that only children can perceive him, and that's why I haven't been in contact with him (I sent a question "out there" to him). In one of my dreams he saved my life. It felt very real, so I'm not entirely certain if it was merely a dream or not.

One night (when I was still quite young), I woke up to see a man dressed all in red standing in my closet, smiling at me menacingly. I quickly hid under my covers and did not come back out until the next morning. A few weeks ago, we were moving into a new house, so I went back to the old house and into the bedrooom where I slept (I moved out of that room a few months after my "vision"), and I was surprised to find that the entity was still there! He refused to disclose his name, or his purpose. He felt malevolent, but had never once struck out or caused harm to anyone. Which, to this day, has me curious.

When I was in Grade 5 in Elementary School, several of my classmates and I stayed inside one recess to play with a Ouija Board. We fooled around with it for a while ... until I began to ask it questions from my mind. I made these thoughts go "underneath" the board. Beneath the surface pretense, beneath the games and the novelty. My response did not come from the board ... we had all strung up origami on the ceiling throughout the classroom. The room suddenly became very cold, and the origami began to "dance." A sense of dread came over us.

When I was younger, I found the rosary that was used to baptise me. I proudly took it and eventually began to use it in rituals to talk to the dead. I didn't think anything of it; this was as natural to me as calling Grandma up on the phone. I spoke with a few gentle beings who had passed over. A few of them said that I shouldn't be doing what I was doing at such a young age. That I could run into something I wished I hadn't.

I also used to see tall spirits dressed in white walking through the hallways of my home late at night. They never entered any of the rooms, however.

After all of these, I went through a phase of being Christian before coming to the Occult. My experiences with spirits and beings never ended during my Christian phase. I was still visited by beings which I couldn't identify because I never took the time to talk to them (like I would have when I was younger, or like I would as I am now).

When I was in High School, word was circulating that someone from another school in the city had summoned a demon that they could not control, and not it was running amok. The physical affect of this demon's presence was cronic fatigue, and very uncharacteristic weather. My friend and I performed a banishing (which ended up destroying her cauldron, sadly). Several months after that, we found out that the banished demon had friends who were upset at my friend and I (I'm not sure why. If the demon didn't want to be on the Earth-plane, why would a banishing not be welcome?). Since we did not have the strength or skill to banish all of his little friends, we performed an imprisoning spell. Trapping all of his friends inside a quartz crystal prison. I still have the quartz to this day.

I once bought D.J. Conway's "Dancing With Dragons" and after reading some ... disturbing material, I actually summoned a Dragon and asked his/her opinion of the book. The Dragon exhaled a potent breath of astral fire and consumed the book, saying that you never, ever ask a Dragon to "frolic in your energy."

I created several egregores who I eventuall sent out into the world to accomplish good, and to grow stronger and more skilled. A few of them actually went to other dimensions after they were done here. Some of them have stayed around. Among them is a large, red dragon; an irridescent blue baby bear; an elegantly dressed white-robed humanoid spirit; an orange rabbit who has an affinity for casinos; and a flat, pink, cardboard cut-out spirit who adores shopping.

The deities Hecate, and Kali have consented to coming to my aid if I ever need them. Dargen, a dark god who is not found in any of humanity's mythology is also one of these deities who has consented to overseeing my protection.

The fourth deity (well, actually, the first), Anubis (INPW), came to me when I just starting out in the Occult and said that he was going to be my patron deity and that I had no say in the matter. When I went from Wicca to Buddhism, he said that no matter what religion I chose to pursue, I could not get rid of him. Not that I would want to. So far, I don't know why he's paying such close attention to me. I'm very flattered, but a little warry at the same time.

Good, I would say. If they are intelligent beings who respond well to honesty, respect, and wit/sass, then we'll have no problem. If a being tries to mess with me, then I flare up my aura like the Sun's corona and I give them a piece of my mind. I'm very sassy when it comes to malevolent/unwelcome beings. This includes ghosts who have nothing better to do than to frighten people (although, it took a while for me to work up the courage to address the gory spirits of the dead in such a manner).

I'm learning more about the Celestial Bureaucracy, and with this understanding comes better relations with the spiritual hierarchies and houses. For complex spells, rather than call on elementals, I'll call on their superior (Paralda for Air, Djin for Fire, Nixsa for Water, and Ghobe for Earth).

See # 6. My mundane and spiritual lives are not separate from each other. They are one in the same.

Like mosts Buddhists, I reject the concept of duality. I believe that life and death are the same thing. Actually, I believe that since death is part of life, there's no point in seeing death as being a separate or distinct phenomenon from life.

There is Life (capital "L") which is both life and death. For Life to exist and continue, there must be a dynamic cycle. There are no beginnings, there are only changes. There are no lines, no "shades" of grey. All is as an ocean. Temperatures, depths, currents all run into each other and are an integral part of each other.

Time, as a quality which lacks spatial dimension and in which event seem to succeed each other from past to presennt to future, does not exist. Time is relativity. We judge how much time has passed by looking at how much things have changed relative to something "fixed."

But nothing is "fixed." All things change. The reason why it "appears" that time flows in linear succession is because of the way our minds sequence our memories. Our view of time is nothing more than a memory trick. The past is remember, and the future is anticipated from one place only: the present. There is only the present. The infinite, and divine "now."

They are human ideas imposed upon a world which is empty of such qualities. "Good" and "evil" stem from evolutionary psychology. When humans were primitive and fighting for survival, they needed to have a ranking system. They needed to know what was important to survive, and what to stay away from to avoid early death.

Those things which progressed and sustained life were "good" and those things which made life more difficult became "evil." These ideas are bred into us, but they are purely psychological, which means that these limited concepts can be transcended.

A woman shoots someone, and they die. Is the woman evil? Many people would say "yes." But what happens when you introduce the complex elements of the situation which resulted in the shooting death? The woman was being raped by another man, who was also threatening to kill the woman after he was done. So she shoots him and he dies.

Good and evil are outmoded concepts. They are useful tools for people who are trying to get a handle on non-dogmatic morality. However, they are just tools. They are relative. They are illusory.

With as little subjectivity as possible. We have a great power within us. We can create a golden box, give it a name, and a history, and suddenly it has such great power in and of itself that we fear the golden box. It's silly that we forget that it was humanity which created the box, its history, and gave it its power. Yet, we have done so.

The same is true of any religious tool, relic, temple, land, et cetera. We can imbue anything with such profound and divine properties that even we fear it.

They exist. No religion has a complete view of the world. The Dalai Lama once said, "if you pick a religion, follow it through to the end. Because once you reach the peak of the mountain, you can see all paths below leading up to it."

The new field of science is a wonderful thing! Science is providing answers and making amazing discoveries about our here-and-now world. This is an ideal in the Buddhist view.

Science, like any religion, however, has acquired some dogmatic thinking. I know that not every scientist perpetuates this attitude, but it still exists nonetheless. The attitude of "if I can't imagine it, or see it, then it can't exist." It is better to not know something, than it is to know that something isn't true.

Quantum physicists seem to be the least dogmatic of the bunch. They never use the word "impossible," because they know that nothing is impossible. There is only probability.

I think that ancient paganism inspired modern paganism. However, I think that the two are quite dissimilar.