I’m going to do something unusual. I’m going to try to make this post as laid-back as possible. I decided to write this without laying it out, without organizing it, and without trying to come up with some smug knock at religion. That said, I leave out a lot of what I’m trying to say. I usually write best when I’m angry (odd, right?), but I figured I’d give the calm thing a try. In a spur of the moment fashion, I wrote this post to promulgate my thoughts on something that’s been on my mind recently: Buddhism.

Since I was introduced to Buddhism in high school, I’ve never really let it escape my mind. As Theology was a requirement at my school, we were always forced to learn about the same, old Catholic teachings. It was not until my senior year that they began to introduce us to other religions/philosophies. I say “philosophies” because a lot of what is considered to be “religion” really isn’t; it’s more a way of life than an organized set of rules to follow or a list of restrictions by which to abide. But the class was titled “Comparative Religions.” Of course, this didn’t really interest me at first glance because for the past 13 years I had been learning about Catholicism and I really didn’t think there was much else out there. Not that I was completely oblivious to other philosophies, but I surely didn’t know very much about them. I knew that Buddhists dressed in orange garb, Hindus had dots on their heads, Muslims wore turbans, and Jews wore yarmulkes. I really didn’t know much else.

And it’s a shame that I didn’t know much else. If a kid is only exposed to one religion growing up, and is told that THAT religion is the only right one, why would anything else matter? That was my situation. I had only learned of Catholicism up until that point. I grew to be a very religious person. I never missed Mass, I prayed, I read the Bible. I was even an altar boy (forced in grade school; on my own volition in high school). The religion really grew on me and I actively partook in its practices. At one point, I was even going to a Bible study class voluntarily. I was the only one under 50 there (yikes). And that wasn’t too long ago. I think that was toward the end of my junior year of high school. But I really read into the meanings behind passages in the Bible. Often, I would over-think them and not know if what I was doing was right or wrong (I had taken a Christian morality class highly sourced in Thomas Aquinas my junior year of high school, so that just added to the problem). I was confused as to what I should be doing and feared some kind of repercussion later on, after death. This occurred nearly every day of my life from about 7th grade to 11th. But again, I got really into it starting in 8th grade, up until late junior year.

Looking back on it, that was one of the problems I didn’t realize I had — I felt horrible all the time. No matter what I did, I would feel guilty about doing something “wrong.” It got to the point at which I wasn’t even considering my well-being anymore. I would always say to myself (as lame and cheesy as it sounds), “how would Jesus act?” (Just typing that makes me cringe now). I cared too much about how I made other people feel and I totally disregarded my own well-being. The main point being that I didn’t take my happiness as a priority. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes a person can make.

Over the years, I’ve realized something: the key to life is happiness. Simple, right? And Buddhism teaches that as long as you have total control over your mind, you have the potential to alleviate all suffering. That is, you can become happy, because you and ONLY you can make yourself happy. The concept of impermanence is a great one. Things change, but if one has control over the mind, that shouldn’t matter. So many people get caught up in the smallest things. The world is full of worry and discontent. Nobody really seems satisfied. My question as of late is “why?” Why should you let yourself be unhappy? What’s the point? Think about it. What’s the benefit of being angry with someone? What’s the benefit of fretting over little things? What is worrying going to do? Nothing. All of these things do nothing but cause suffering. I’m no Buddhist, but it’s pretty clear to me. I understand there’s a lot more to it than this, but really, why should anyone allow him/herself to be unhappy? If one builds a strong mind and rids all delusions, happiness is the only thing left. That’s another thing: we are all very delusional. We let pride, jealousy, doubt, worry, anger, and much more get in the way of our happiness. Why even bother to deal with these things? Again, they serve no purpose but to cause suffering. It’s difficult, yes. But it’s common sense.

I’m all over the place with that last paragraph, but what it comes down to is being at peace with yourself. Do you see that happiness was the exact opposite of what I felt under Catholicism? You can call this the thesis of this post. Happiness is key. I suggest reading up on Buddhism a little bit. There’s a lot to learn from it. I had a rough time getting across what I wanted to say, but many others can explain it much better.

EDIT (12/18/09): Comments of entries like this tend to yield awesome results, so be sure to check those out, as I usually find myself discovering, clarifying, and sometimes even changing my opinion on some of the contents of posts. Consider them part of the original post!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 3:27 am and is filed under Happiness, Personal, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.