FreedomPosted by simon on July 22nd, 2008
So I’ve picked up another book on Buddhist Philosophy. I know I’m a sucker for the stuff like soccer moms are for tabloids. Oh and I did just finish the Omnivores Dilemma which is awesome but I’m not going to talk about how awesome right now. This book is called The Backdoor to Enlightenment. No, it’s not about how to get your girlfriend to try anal sex. It is however about how too look at your life in various view points and try to improve your understanding of yourself and those around you. Not only that, but it was written by the Tibetan Monk, Za Rinpoche, I periodically attend guided meditations with.
Needless to say the guy already had my respect which is something I don’t hand out to any religious yahoo. So, this book talks about all kinds of stuff I’m sure I’ll be writing about all over the place. The concept that I was enjoying today was….
I’m free to think and feel whatever I like.
I read this and was just like, why yes I am and how the hell did I ever begin to feel like I couldn’t? Then of course it goes on to explain how you begin to think you can’t. We have opinions, religions, teachers, bosses, parents, friends, family all inundating us with their thoughts and opinions. Sometimes this makes it hard to remember that…. I’m free to think and feel whatever I like.
To some of you, I’m sure it sounds dumb that I even have to be reminded of this, but I feel it just goes back to my blog about how we are so inundated with all these things we are told to do and think. We just simply, lose ourselves. That line between my ideas and my parent’s philosophy is so interwoven that I couldn’t honestly tell you where it exists.
So what do you do about it. We all obviously have all things steadfast steady pieces of ourselves that we believe makeup our steady conscious selves. We will happily take bad ideas and make them our core belief system. Just look at people who sign up for cults, or become any kind of fanatic. Society looks at them like they are nuts. But they are free to think what they like right? Where is that line where people are thinking for themselves and where they are being told what to think?
All I know is the more hard and steadfast things that I say I won’t EVER EVER in a million brazillion years do, I begin limiting how much I can freely think and that is an interesting concept. We begin to weight ourselves down with all of these ideas and philosophies and concepts that may offer us some more stability in our life, they also limit our ability to react to things. How do we balance these things? You got me, but becoming more aware is always the first step.