Statuettes

From Roman Catholicism, my father, who first converted, converted my mother, my grandmother, and my cousin to Baptist Protestants. I was in high school; I believed in science and did not convert. My little brother started in the kiddy section of the Protestant church. Such is why he is different from me and my elder brother who both had nominal Catholicism for at least a decade. My elder brother, who also believed in science, stayed away from the religious strife that my family was having. I went to Protestant church with my parents, but felt alien in there. Such is my confession. Statuettes of Buddha from my Philippine and Canadian childhood attracted me to Buddhism. My interest in biology was my natural inclination towards Animism since childhood.

As someone who grew up both in the Philippines and North America, I saw statuettes of the fat Maitreya Buddha in ceramic and wood. They intrigued me. I could not foretell then my future involvement with Buddhism in its multiple forms.