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. READ MOAR »