Hello Everyone! My name is Elmir Bratić and my Dharma name Shaku Hozan.
Allow me to introduce myself. I grew up in a non-religious Sunni Muslim household. Both my parents are not from the US, but from Europe. My father is German and my mother is Bosnian. They are no longer together.
I myself was always a spiritual person and always interested in religion since the time I was little. I remember having vivid dreams of Shākyāmuni Buddha. Once, when I was 5 or 6 years old I dreamed that Shakyamuni was in a forest together with other monks surrounding Him, and I was somewhere in the distance. Shakayamuni was teaching something and I don’t remember exactly what He said. I just remember seeing Him and explaining something.
I began my serious study of religion around late 2016 and 2017. I first studied the religion I was taught to believe in, and became a practicing Muslim. The type of Islam I did was Shia which is odd since most of the people in Bosnia were of the Sunni sect. As those two years went on I realized constantly that Islam wasn’t working for me and then, at the time I was in the 9th grade and we were doing a religious history study (it was a non-religious public school) I encountered Buddhism. I remember how emotional I got at that first encounter like I just saw someone I knew before and all seemed extremely familiar to me. That was in December 2017. Then came the summer of 2018 when I started my deep research into Buddhism and at the beginning I somehow mixed Islam with Buddhism which of course, is completely wrong, but at that time I didn’t know.
I first started as a Vājrāyanā Buddhist. I remember that my original teacher (Tsem Rinpoche) helped me a lot with Buddhism from prayers to offerings, etc.
As the summer came to an end I later left Vajrayana Buddhism and went to the Theravada school. After some time, I left Theravada and went back to Islam and stayed there from May of 2017 until March 2019. Then I had a dream in which I saw Amida Buddha who told me exactly this “Elmir, your time has come. You will finally be a Buddhist and die a Buddhist”. I remember I was very happy because Buddhism has always sounded right for me.
One day I stumbled upon Shaku Joshin’s YouTube channel and I remember the first video I saw of him was “Shinjin Means I’m Only Saved By Amida Buddha” . This video really touched my heart. In it he explained how Amida saved him. Later that day I went to an incense shop and on the way I just started saying Nembutsu over and over and over. That was also when I started to do my research of Pure Land Buddhism. I became a Jodoshu Buddhist but left that school after I found about Josho Adrian Cirlea Sensei on one of Shaku Joshin’s videos as he always offered information about him. Therefore, I contacted Josho Sensei on Facebook messenger and I told him how deeply serious I was interested in Jodo Shinshu. Since then (July 2019) I’ve been a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist under his guidance and I’ve had no desire to leave or go anywhere else.
Thank you all for letting me share my story. I can’t mention everything here because it’d take too long. Therefore, I only put the important stuff in. If anyone wants to know the whole story of my spiritual Path just message me.
Gasho Namo Amida Butsu!
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