I Challenge You to a Xiaolin Showdown!

What is up, my Internet peoples. Not too much here. At work for another two hours, making sure the new guys doesn't majorly fux anything up. So basically instead of monitoring our systems, I'm monitoring the monitor...er. It's even easier and quieter than plain old monitoring!

So one thing that always bothered me about organized religion was it's followers. Like that saying, "Dear God, protect me from your followers!" They wouldn't practice what they preached, or they would appear to but in fact they were petty and false like all the other people out there. They would advise one thing, then do quite another. Very off-putting.

I guess when I became Buddhist I unconsciously assumed every other Buddhist would be the living embodiment of the philosophy. I don't really know a lot of other Buddhists personally and don't really make it a point to seek them out. I mostly enjoy just practicing myself and making my own way, so this unconscious assumption was never challenged.

Then I started hanging out on Buddhist forums. My oh my was I wrong. Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful Buddhists out there. Helpful, humorous, understanding, laid back, and fun. But there are some not so good ones.

For a way of life that teaches detachment some of these people are reeeeaaaaaalllly attached to their particular school of Buddhism, or just Buddhism in general. It's ironic and sad. My favorite is the type that quotes from the texts like a Christian priest would from the Bible: as the only proof you should need to be convinced. This is also ironic as the Buddha himself famously taught not to accept any teachings for any reason other than personal verification.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all, people are people and it is the Internet. "Confused" (read: dumb) people are to the Internet as sand is to a desert.

I guess it's because I see Buddhism as very simple and laid back. Some people seem to think it should be complex, rigid, and all "official". That was one thing I loved when I first started studying; there wasn't really an "official" way to become Buddhist. If you wanted you to have a ceremony done by a monk or nun, but it wasn't necessary. All you had to do was follow the teachings and you could consider yourself a Buddhist. You don't even have to follow them strictly or completely. But some Buddhists out there don't regard others as "real" Buddhists unless they took refuge under an ordained Buddhist and went through some kind of ceremony or other. Pretty silly if you ask me.

Buddhism isn't about rituals or titles or how many Sanskrit words you know or how many sutras you've memorized. It isn't about proving to others that you know more than them. It's isn't about all the complexity that has been heaped upon the various schools over the years. It isn't about jumping through hoops.

It's about taking a long, hard, honest look at your life and seeing that it is full of suffering. About realizing that you are the cause of your problems because you don't know how things really are and then finding a way to stop hurting yourself and others. That's it. Everything else is pretty much just reiterations of this simple teaching and even though they are intended to help, people get caught up these secondary (and tertiary, quaternary, etc) teachings and see them as ladders to be climbed and levels to be reached. This is wrong.

I think a lot of people need to get back to basics with their spiritual lives. Gain wisdom. Be still. Be mindful. Be compassionate. Be honest. Be at peace. If any of your thoughts or actions don't result in or move you towards even one of these, then of what use can it be but to cause you suffering?

What other teaching is necessary?

- BuddhaDave

Keep It Simple, Sanga!

P.S. That's not my cute image, I found it!