In the early hours of June 26th 1957 I ceased to be an imagined person. I was now born, alive to the world outside of my Mother's womb. A naked infant, pure, untainted and, for a brief time only, a nameless son to my parents - June Margaret and Lewis Lumb.
My Mother thought Dad's name was too short, over far too soon, the alliteration more a word and its echo. As had often been the case, she got her way over our Christian names, like her I was given two, so my full name is Stephen Nigel Lumb. These Christian names were not indebted to passed family members, they were entirely my parents composition.
Stephen, means a 'garland' or a 'crown' and by extension 'reward', 'honour', 'renown' and 'fame' Its popularity arose from St Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death and is often depicted holding three stones and a martyr's palm frond.
Nigel, is derived from Nigellus, a medieval latinised form of Neil. The latin source word being 'niger' meaning 'champion' or 'black'.
Lumb, has its origins in an Old English term 'lumm' for a pool or lake. So the surname originally belonged to someone who lived in a clearing or dwelling by water. Lumb is also a hamlet in the Pennine Hills, and it is a very common surname in what was the West Riding of Yorkshire where I was born. My Father's family were originally Pennine farmers until his branch migrated closer to, and then into, Halifax from the late 19th century onwards. My ancestors apparently never moved far.
Despite my Mother choosing to spell Stephen with a 'ph' in an attempt to prevent it being shortened to Steve, this happened frequently. To be honest I have never minded. When people do call me Stephen, it does feel paternal and respectfully proper. Steve seems to me to have a more affable, friendly and companionable feel to it. Nigel remains quite rightly a secretive N on my debit cards .
THE PLAYGROUND NICKNAME
At primary school I would sometimes behave in a deliberately crazy idiosyncratic manner. Probably in a misjudged attempt by me to be funny or entertain, but mostly, I suspect, to get the bullies to like or lay off me. As a strategy this didn't work. Once one teacher referred to me as 'loopy' the likelihood of this word being paired with my surname became unstoppable, and I was soon taunted with it. I was stuck with this playground nickname of 'loopy lumb' for the next ten years. Only able to escape it once I went to art college.
For 43 years of my life these were the names associated with being me.
EMBODYING VIDYAVAJRA
It's early June 2000, the moment in my Buddhist ordination where I took on a new name and became a member of a Buddhist Order. At this point, spiritually speaking at least, I let go of seeing myself entirely through the lens of my old names. This didn't feel traumatic, my sights set on a higher goal, appeared to placate whatever feelings I had about no longer being referred to as Stephen day to day.
It is tempting to think of ordination as wiping the slate clean, but it does not. It's highly unlikely you'll completely let go of the identity views that cluster around your sense of who you are overnight. Made painfully apparent upon returning from four month's on the ordination retreat, as familiar ways of being reasserted themselves. Contained even within my new Buddhist name were confirmations of personal talents and qualities, some I currently possessed and others that needed to be cultivated further.
My Buddhist name - Vidyavajra, was to become as much a part of my self-view as any that preceded it.
Vidya - is quiet, subtle and suggestive, an aesthetic sensibility that is a more intuitive, instinctual and imaginatively felt form of knowing. In practice its an instinctive trust and confidence in your particular way of responding to the insights and revelations that emerge along the Buddhist path.
Vajra - provides the energy, determination and volition with which to train and pursue ones practice. The greater the confidence one has in one's vidya the more vajra you will have available.
Over eighteen years I learned to put greater trust in the name Vidyavajra as an invaluable guide to how to train myself through spiritual practice. Yet after so many years of involvement, I grew disquieted within me about being a member of the Order. I'd begun to experience strong feelings of no longer belonging there. There were a few years of prevarication and reflection prior to June 2018, when I finally submitted my resignation.
LETTING GO OF VIDYAVAJRA
I could have ceased using the name Vidyavajra right there and then. But at the time I saw Vidyavajra as a post resignation starting point from which I would move forward. Remaining Vidyavajra maintained some continuity as I passed from being an ordained person to a not ordained person. In truth I do still love the name.
Names define, and you can never really escape that, whether they are secular or religious in character. Fundamentally Vidyavajra was a name given to signify my belonging to a specific Buddhist Order. Though I am no longer physically or emotionally part of that Order, the name has its origin engraved upon its soul. I'd hoped to use the name to illuminate my way ahead, instead I've found it holding me in a position where I am backlit by it, as though it were my saintly aura.
Vidyavajra has turned into a cypher to represent twenty seven years of Buddhist practice to the outside world. So people understand I'm an experienced Buddhist, who was once ordained, without need of explanation. Without it I would be just Stephen Nigel Lumb of no fixed religious address. I've come to realise that that may just be a better place for me to be right now.
THE POINT OF RETURNING
Names overtime harden around you, making it trickier to move on to something else if you wish. These days Vidyavajra is used by friends from my old order, in the Soto Zen group I go to, and by my Husband and his immediate family. All of these because I chose to want this to be so.
On a practical level it's not possible to remain nameless. I could have invented a new name for myself, but that seems far too precious, indulging in another type of specialness, one that glories in the power to control and self-define what I'm called.
Returning to being Stephen seems the simpler thing to do. It doesn't have to be viewed as retrograde. I do spend most of my time these days in public contexts where I'm called Steve. Though there is also a balance to be struck, because Hubby and his family have never known me as anything other than Vidyavajra, so in this private context I'll continue to use it. Vidyavajra was a significant part of who I have been, how I became what I currently am. To let go of it doesn't mean I'm required to eradicate it completely in a sort of fundamentalist purge.
The unpicking of this will of necessity be patchy, slow and gradual, I imagine. I'm familiar with the stuff that comes with being Stephen. I've spent my Buddhist life trying to fathom or come to terms with most of it. Apart from it being a Christian name with a biblical origin, its holds no other religious baggage, so it can hold me and I can hold it in a lighter way.
Let me not make too big a deal out of any name I use. Stephen can be just Stephen, in the same way that carrot can be just a name for carrot, its a name for the person who is me. It's just one small step toward returning the nameless son.
