Tannishblog

I never know what I’m going to write about as I fire up the blank word processor template, yet I almost always end up sharing my philosophy. A few topics are taboo to me: my career frustrations; problems in the workplace; person minutiae, to name just three. Overall, when I find blogs that express personal sentiments I quickly click through; voyeur, I am not.

So that leave the impersonal from which to draw what inspiration I can. Politics, philosophy, religion… Of political blogs, mine lacks energy. I am neither so involved as to meticulously research my topic du jour, nor am I so rabid as to foam-fleck my keyboard. I try to be thoughtful, reasoned and circumspect. Religion, the eternal flame of issues, is a might dangerous, but I have dabbled. The ensuing scorn and put-off-ishness is anathema to the reasons I blog, so I’ve toned down a bit; in this arena I can get a bit wild-eyed.

So that leaves philosophy – or what I would prefer to entitle – Applied Philosophical Awareness. How pretentious! But that is the best moniker I can come up with as a secular translation of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. When I mention Buddhism to others, I can actually see and hear minds close. I think to myself during my writing sessions how to share the wisdom of Buddhist thought, to the small degree I am able, with blogsters and blog readers who reflexively recoil from such blatantly non-Christian ideas.

The beauty that is eastern philosophy, as express in the Buddha’s teachings, is not essentially a religion, as Theists would view religion. The most poignant description of Buddhism I found relates the practical application of “the way” as “a science of mind and a philosophy of ethics.” In this way people who don’t feel comfortable with religiosity, like myself, can approach the Dharma as a vehicle of self-improvement, of an understanding of the human mind, through which all phenomena must be filtered.

To view Buddhism in the Theistic definition of religion is akin to stating “all apples are red.” While most apples certainly fit this description, some very possibilities are neglected. Buddhism can be a religion, to those so inclined, but not necessarily so. The core teachings of mind and suffering are a definition of the human condition, and so it pertains to all, irregardless of belief and culture.

Why I bother to mention this subject at all, stems from my lifelong gut feeling that without individual effort, our civilization will enter a tailspin only to crash and burn. I’ve felt this as a vague notion since childhood, only to reform this hypothesis repeatedly throughout my life. It is this belief that spurs most of my writing; it is the story I’m somehow meant to tell. No matter how free-flowing my writing habits are, most of my prose eventually comes around to the following point: In order to change the world from its disastrous course, one must first change ones self. As Ghandi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If enough of us adhere to this, in ways small and grand, the world will have changed itself.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 24th, 2005 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.