The Buddha

                Are you ready for it?  The four noble truths:  1. Unenlightened human existence involves suffering.  2.  Reflection, meditation, and direct experience all combine to help understand existence, 3.  It is possible to break free from wanting things we don’t have by renouncing materialism, and 4.  Through a combination of wisdom, ethics, right-mindedness, and concentration we can achieve happiness.

                I am basically stuck at number one.  I think most people are, actually.  Life tends to revolve around acquisition of STUFF.  Wealth, social position, power, and sex are what most people fixate on.  Even super-religious people are preoccupied with looking pious or hoping for some great “wealth” in heaven.   

                What I really like about the Siddhartha Gautama’s ideology is that there has to be a middle way – life isn’t black and white.  We should never accept things without question, nor should we wallow in skepticism.  Extremes are unrealistic and unnecessary.  If we want to find the closest version of enlightenment, or truth, then we have to avoid dogma. 

                I also love that he wrote nothing down.  His teachings were simply passed down orally for centuries.  I may be wrong, but I think I say a lot of valuable, insightful things throughout the course of my days of teaching, and if someone was just there to tweet my brilliance, I’d be set.  (Unfortunately, there’s a lot of irrelevant, irreverent, asinine, offensive commentary in my speech as well.) 

                And karma.  It’s a bitch, yes?  As I have said (ad nauseum), I was an asshole back in the day, so I am imposing karma on myself.  I suffer because I think I deserve it.  I put up with shit because I used to put other people through shit.  But I am done with that, because I have done my penance.  Karma has recycled, and it’s time for me to reap the benefits of my martyrdom and sacrifice.  (Doesn’t that sound ridiculously narcissistic and jihadist?  Maybe I’m still an asshole.)

                Anyway, I am going to try very hard to stop being a bitch to certain people, because it will not help me in the long run.  Even if I am totally fed up with and tired of these certain people, it doesn’t benefit anyone to be a bitch (even though it feels really good sometimes).  Kindness begets kindness, so I will try to be a better person and treat people with respect. 

                Is this a ridiculously overdramatic proposal?  Maybe .  But that’s okay, because I want to grow, and sometimes growth happens semi-accidentally.  I’ll try, and if I fail, that’s okay too.  At least I can say I wasn’t blinded by stupidity or arrogance.  And I absolutely believe that a person can be ethical and moral without subscribing to a religious doctrine.  Religion is just a way for people to feel like they are part of something and that their lives have meaning.  I don’t need a figurehead priest to affirm the meaning of my life.  I will either find personal salvation (happiness) or not; churches are just (sometimes) pretty places to admire (one of the rare things the Catholics did very well – build architecturally inspiring buildings).  Most of the people speaking for the church are other narcissistic assholes who think their opinion is somehow better or more relevant than other people’s.  (They are wrong.)

                Bottom line with the Buddha:  good actions produce good consequences and bad actions bad ones.  Yes.  Agreed, sir.  The stunning thing is how many times I have chosen the wrong path, knowing that it’s wrong and knowing that the consequences will be dire.  I can’t be alone in this humanistic stupidity.  People make bad choices sometimes, but I think that’s (maybe) the only thing that makes me interesting.  I fuck up all the time, and that’s the part of me I like.  I don’t like the anal-retentive part of my personality, but it’s the part that gets things done.  Once again, it’s not all black and white.  The combination of good and bad is what makes people conceivable and interactive. 

                If the Buddha was right, and life is like recycling, as of right now, I’m doomed to repeat the process, because I definitely haven’t figured it out.  I have not found my fig tree under which I become enlightened.  I’m still looking for it.  I will find it.