Buddha Ruse

I was watching a program about The Buddha the other night, and I really admire the basic way of thinking by Buddhists. I would hear something so incredibly obvious, that I would say to myself "I should start paying attention and following some of these teachings." Then just a second or two later, I my other self would say "No WAY! You are an activist! You get mad too easily and worked up and feel like fighting to death for your beliefs!" The two me's were throwing punches inside my head all night. I want to be at peace and enjoy life and nature and all it's miracles...but so many people are destroying it that I have to fight for it's right to BE!...but life is going to happen the way it is going to happen, and I have no control over this, so why not sit back, breathe deeply and take it all in...BECAUSE I have a job to do! I have a purpose for being on this earth! Not just to sit back and relax, but to fight to make it a better place!

It gave me a headache! All this fighting, one of me wanting desperately to do what I (believe) was put here to do! And my other me, finding so much logic in Buddha's teachings, nodding in agreement. Is that what he is so smug about? Because he KNOWS how much it makes sense and how HARD it is to practice such peace? I looked over at my Jade Buddha, with his fat belly and big grin, and wondered until I fell asleep.

I've read a lot of the bible, as much as I can, and continue to learn about the bible, not for the sake of enlightenment, but just for entertainment. It fascinates me. Such wild stories! But I NEVER feel like any of it applies to me. I've opened my mind to other religions and beliefs and some of them are sort of understandable, and some are simply bat-shit crazy, and others are so far from everything I believe in, I avoid it like the plague. I've never felt like I've been searching for any spiritual guidance. I feel like I have an agreement with nature, or god, or whatever...and a lot of it is so similar to Buddhist teachings...but the activist in me, the one who is going to Africa to fight against people trying to destroy such beauty, cannot just sit back and accept it. I think that might just be the point. That is why Buddha is so fucking smug...because I HAVE to find my own enlightenment. We all do. No one can tell us what we NEED to know to get to enlightenment. No man, no deities, no texts. (As you may have noticed, I have just figured this out NOW, as I write.) Ok then. Off I go.