A 14-Year Old Finds Compassion for Her Parents Through a Buddhism Workshop at Teen Camp

This next story comes from Shira. She talks about how her camp experience helped her find a new way of living she had only dreamed was possible.

Shira’s story

“Someone the other day asked me what the correlation between who I am, who I want to be, and who I think I should be was. And I could confidently answer that they were all aligned. I am, in many ways, the person I always dreamed I would be. I can proudly say that I would not be this person if I had not gone to Odyssey Teen Camp.

OTC provided a container for me to heal myself. I was able to explore who I am, and at OTC, I was given the tools to learn how to do that safely. OTC has been so influential in my life that I actually wrote my college admissions essay about my experiences there, and I continue to reference OTC in programs and scholarships that I apply for. A story I fondly reference is when I took a workshop offered by one of the counselors at camp called “The Phat Buddha.” The workshop gave campers a peek into a Buddhist’s life and explained Buddhism’s basic tenets. I still have my journal from that workshop and reference those notes often. After leaving camp that summer, I bought a couple of the books the counselor recommended. That workshop planted seeds in my mind of the possibility of a new religion and way of life that I only dreamed of living.

I took that workshop when I was 14 years old… fast forward years later, and I am taking a Buddhist Studies course in college at the age of 19... I was already ahead of the class because of the workshop that I had taken, and at that point, Buddhism was all that I wanted to study and practice. I ended up studying abroad in monasteries in India, Nepal, and China, immersed in Buddhist studies and practice.

I currently identify as a Buddhist and have a lovely Sangha (community) that I practice with here in Los Angeles. I practice meditation every morning for at least 30 minutes, and my whole world has transformed since I began this journey at OTC. When people ask me what I love about Buddhism or what has changed for me since I became a Buddhist, I say two things: first, it has helped me to develop a deeper understanding of my parents as human beings, as people who suffer, and if I can’t find compassion for my parents then I can’t find compassion for anyone else; second, since I have become a Buddhist it feels like doors keep opening for me, one after the other.

This second realization I owe to OTC; since I became a camper at OTC, doors open one after the other. I believe this to be true because OTC helped me to cultivate a more open mind. It helped me to see that, as human beings, we could operate in more kind and loving ways. It showed me that I am enough and can do anything I set my mind to, but that things take time to grow. When I was 14 years old, I wanted to be the badass Buddhist I am today, but I first had to go through a ton of healing, processing, and growth fueled by sunshine, rain, mud, and muck. At times, I doubted that I would ever be where I am today, but I stuck through it all, and not alone, OTC also gave me a sustainable support system and friends who I still look to for guidance today.”

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