A jiyū shūkyō approach to creating my jiyū shūkyō

Since creating my jiyū shūkyō will be a long and winding process, it's unwise to treat it like a project. It's best maintained or supervised as a life area. Success in this endeavor isn't measured by finishing or reaching an end point but by maintaining a certain standard. In this case, my standard for my jiyū shūkyō is something I wrote in my mission statement:

"I'm engaged every day in a pursuit of wisdom, meaning, and beauty."

Specifically, success in my jiyū shūkyō area includes the following:

• maintenance of contemplative practices like seiza and walking
• maintenance of mindful reading, journaling, and studying through my talahardin
• maintenance of practices through communities and others
• maintenance of creative practices like writing, and photography

These all involve maintaining habits, routines, and reviews.

But how do I proceed with creating my jiyū shūkyō in a way that makes me feel that I'm not constricted—that I'm allowed to flow and follow my curiosities, while maintaining a measure of focus?

I need to let go of the desire for blueprints. Spirituality and answers to how to live are best left un-blueprinted. I should have faith that this process will result into something. As long as I follow my curiosities and authenticity, I will eventually focus. To do this, I think an articulation of some fields of focus and what to do about them is critical.

Fields of focus

My jiyū shūkyō (自由宗教) consists of the following fields of focus:

1. Western free-religion. Primarily centered around Andrew J. Brown's work as it is, I think, a nexus to all other free religions in this tradition.
2. Eastern free-religion. Primarily centered around Shin'ichirō Imaoka's work, but will also include Jōdo Shinshū, shintoism, and free religion in India, as also presented in Andrew's work.
3. Filipino free-religion. This is purely exploratory. It will be an application of what I'm learning from both Western and Eastern free-religions.
4. Creative expressions of free-religion. This involves my own research and experiments applying jiyū shūkyō in walking, writing, and photography.

To make sure that I'm moving with my studies in each area, at any given time, it is best to create and maintain my jiyū shūkyō reading list.

Some words to inspire the process

Finally, here are some words that could serve as a guide as I go through this exciting process.

From myself

Let my curiosities dictate each day's study. Trust in this long process. The talahardin is the intermediate packet. As long as you follow your curiosities, something will eventually happen.

Let go of this need to be efficient in your studies.

As long as you are being selective of what you read and letting go of diving into subject matter that will distract you (FOCUS AND AUTHENTICITY applied in my everyday studies), you'll be good.

It is one thing to say you want to reintegrate and another to really practice faith. You have to practice faith even in your work. Faith that the words will come at the right time. That words will come despite the meanderings.

From Andrew James Brown

Read what jumps to you.

Follow your intuition.

Develop a taste on what you're looking for.

I didn't choose a path so much as a path emerged by me allowing interest/chance at first to play the greatest role.

I remain completely committed to the idea of going primarily with the flow of what is happening, but now, thanks to the strong sense of gravity/orientation/way-of-organising-my-consequent-thinking-and-study that has been gifted to me by Imaoka-sensei, I mostly only put my efforts into properly exploring those chance encounters.

I do still continue to pay reasonably close attention to, and even now and then explore more deeply, the kinds of thinking that I do not naturally resonate with.