Far From Buddha

[_lauren_]

I still haven't made any progress as far as Buddhism goes. Unfortunately reading about it no longer inspires the desire in me to follow it. There are negative characteristics that have been developing in the past year that I really want to get rid of so I think I'll note them here before they get too big for me to handle and hopefully so that it

Comments

[siegementality]

What I'm saying that buddhism and other activities like that are fantasies in and of themselves. They are ways of digesting reality in a way that may seem more palatable than eating it raw. It's like having your food chewed for you, which I suppose is fine for children and old people. But then again people's mouths are incredibly dirty, you're going to pick up a disease. What I'm saying is that to be a mature, enlightened person you need to learn to chew your food for yourself, and not try to find easier ways to go about it. Reality can seem ugly, and some people do need others to chew their brains for them, but i doubt you're one of those people. Some people need religion or pseudo-religions to have any kind of control in their lives, and those things might help them, but it isn't because the religion/philosophy has any truth behind it, truth isn't what's important when it comes to that kind of thing, it's the stability they provide that matters. You often sound "lost" in your posts, where you're not content with how you see life, or live it, but need some outside set of ideas to guide you. So you have to ask yourself "am I one of those people that because they can't get their shit together has to look to others (mostly long dead philosophers) to give me clues on how to live my life?" Boy, that was an awkward awful sentence,I hope it made sense. If you're looking for religion to give you tips on morality you're probably looking in the wrong place. Those guys who made those rules, even in buddhism, were incredibly moral by our standards, and you really have to dig and pick and choose to find nuggets of wisdom that actually apply to our lives today. And you might notice that I'm not making too much distinction between religions, pseudo-religions, and philophies, because it may seem like your opening up the doors of perception, but you're just changing the colors of your blinders. Take the world for what it is, and figure out how you operate in it. Everything else is just a hollow over-chewed fantasy.

[_lauren_]

But you're missing the point. What you are explaining is what Buddhism does. They don't sugar coat things so its easier, they accept things how they are. They eliminate fantastical ways of looking and experiencing the world because they feel the only right way to go about it is to accept it as it is.

I'm aware of the reasons people need religion and I'm also aware that there rarely is any identifiable truth behind them. I am studying religion in school after all.

I'm not looking for tips on morality. I've found something that I want to be a part of my life because I see the potential in it to help me be a better person and most of all a happier person. (Yes I can be happy with out it, I said happier) Everyone has their definitions for being happy and thats great. Yours obviously isn't the same as mine so please try not to convince me that I'm going about my life in a completely wrong and delusional way.

My posts sound lost because I'm having trouble keeping my footing in what it is I'm dealing with. I make those posts because writing it down helps me organize my thoughts and also sometimes helps me to realize the incorrect way I may be thinking or going about things. I'm not using religion because I can't get my shit together with out it considering my shit doesn't need getting together and even if it was I wouldn't need religion to do it. I've chosen Buddhism because its a way of living that I am attracted to that can't be done without it. Its a preference, not a last resort for help.

Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[siegementality]

You're always going to have that feeling as long as you're following in other people's footsteps. So many of your journal posts are about the same thing and how your trying to deal with it. Buddhism might seem not to sugar coat things the way that say Christianity does (when you die you go to a magical land in the sky!), but you're still coating it with something (something a little more bitter). You're not facing reality, you're facing the reality of buddhism. They aren't accepting the way things are, they're accepting things the way a bunch of dead philosophers accepted things. I might be wrong, but I don't think that's going to be enough for you. I'm not trying to piss you off, but maybe if what I said really irks you, there might be something to it. I'm not saying that your quest for meaning is dumb or invalid, or that you're really going about it in the wrong way. I'm trying to give you some suggestions that might help you out. Everyone struggles with the same things in their life with a myriad of different outcomes. Please don't think I'm belittling you, because I'm not, really.

Re: Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[_lauren_]

First of all I do appreciate your concern even if it doesn't seem like it and I'm sorry for getting defensive.

I could be wrong, but I don't think you have a complete understanding of what Buddhism is or what it is about. You're right, I was getting irked by what you had to say and that was because I have a hard time dealing with people's comments that are full of misunderstanding for a way of life that I love and respect. I almost turned off the comment option for this post (and many others in the past) because I didn't want to deal with defending Buddhism to a person who doesn't understand it in the first place.

You say that I'm following in other people's footsteps which is true, but if you really think about it there are no longer any new paths for a person to create. Life and everything that comes with it has been dealt with in one way or another and as a result people are following others' footsteps whether they realize it or not. I don't see anything wrong with conciously going by another person's successful example.

Re: Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[siegementality]

You probably can't have a complete understanding of Buddhism unless you were raised in a Buddhist environment that's been around for generations. But in that situation there would be less novelty in the idea, it would be less appealing and more quotidian. I do get the gist of Buddhism, I'm certainly no expert. We covered it in basic philosophy, I took an eastern religions class, and we talked about it in my sociology of religion class, too. I know that a strong selling point for Buddhism is that is supposedly helps you cut through the thick sugary hide of how we see reality, but they're all like that. They just don't all explicitly say it that way. Every religion thinks that it strips everything bare, without candy coating it, and those that see otherwise just don't get it. For a lot of Christians the whole "believe in jesus get into heaven" thing isn't candy coating it, that's just how reality works for them. Scientology is the same way. Every religion insists on some of the same things, that there's a trick to it (it being life, the universe, and everything), but I think that's the problem. There probably isn't a trick, or secrets that most people don't understand.
Now there are some good things about Buddhism, just as in every religion, but you gotta pick and choose, and you don't need to get those things from any religion. At least five bits of the eightfold path seem like good ideas, but are mostly cultural common sense, the golden rule as it were.
It's strange how defensive people get when you criticize their religion. As if peoples beliefs about religion should be exempt from criticism. If you tell a baseball fan that you think that the sport is boring, they don't get super defensive about it, when you tell a Christina Aguilera (sp) fan that you think she's just one vapid pop singer among many, they don't get so pissy. No one kills over that sort of thing (usually). But religion is special, there's a stigma around picking apart that sort of thing that seems pretty absurd to me. It's like what Douglas Adams said (the hitchhiker's guide guy) and i'm paraphrasing and butchering this: "It seems odd that people can't nitpick religion, if someone has different ideas about politics, you can argue until your face turns blue, but if they say "i won't touch a lightswitch on saturday" you go "I respect that.""
Yeah, people more readily argue against christianity, since a huge chunk of the population would check that box on a census report, but the reaction to "I'm buddhist" is more often than not going to be "that's neat!" there aren't a whole lot of people here questioning Buddhist philosophy, there aren't many buddhists, it doesn't factor into politics, and it's really exotic and mysterious to most people. Some people may find a change to Buddhism pretentious, christian friends and family might see it as a betrayal on some level, but after studying these things in school, and out of school, I've mostly come to the conclusion that they're all the same. People do it for the same reasons, and it's all just a different flavor of the same thing.

Re: Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[_lauren_]

In my opinion saying you can't understand Buddhism unless you were raised in a Buddhist environment is like saying you can't fully learn a language unless you were raised with it. I believe that if you fully dedicate yourself to a religion or anything else for that matter then you eventually will understand it. I'm certainly not claiming that I know everything about it. I have trouble explaining it in the first place and that's part of the reason why I get irked by people's comments when they don't understand because I know I can't help correct those misunderstandings very easily.

I agree with you that religions all have the same ultimate goal. Its my opinion that the reason why there are so many different ones is because each one caters to a different kind of personality. But ultimately, like you said, they all are aiming towards the same thing.

It does suck that people get all defensive about their religion. Especially when they're trying to say their religion is right. I guess religion can get so personal for people that it feels like they are being insulted when another person is criticizing or questioning their religion. I suppose I shouldn't have said defending buddhism and should have said explaining it.

Basically my problem is that you think you seem to know that Buddhism or religion in general isn't what I should be involving myself with. You think I'm not understanding your point of view and that's not the case. You're right for yourself but I feel like everyone is different and some people do well without religion, most people need it, and then there are some who just enjoy and prefer it. I consider myself to be in the last group. That's all.

Re: Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[siegementality]

I think that the reason that people get so defensive about their religion isn't because it's so personal. Religions really aren't that personal at all. If you tell someone since they were a child that 2+2=Cat, and how important that was, they'd be defensive if you told them that the correct answer is four. It's hard to rise above what we've been taught, we get stuck in ruts.
And people don't want their beliefs picked apart, when you inject logic into a religious debate, the religious people tend to get pissy.
We've been taught that there are two kinds of faith, blind faith and true faith. And that blind faith is bad, and true faith is good. I don't think either is productive, but I think that the "true faith" is definitely the worse of the two. People of "blind faith" don't know any better. They're either ignorant, naive, or young. They haven't questioned things. Those with blind faith are innocent--either raised a certain way or uneducated. Those with "true faith" supposedly have had those questions, have tried to inject logic into their belief system, but the faith won out...somehow. They're choosing to remain ignorant, for whatever reason. And there are lots of reasons. Eh, anyways.

Re: Buddhism is 60% Cacao!

[_lauren_]

I don't know. I still think religion becomes a personal thing when you get down to the individual. I don't think you'd understand that unless you experienced it.