I was watching the Travel Channel, and they were doing a feature on Thailand. Part of the segment focused on Buddhism's influence on Thailand's culture. One of the hosts said that she thinks that Thai people smile all the time and seem to be so happy because of this Buddhist mindset. She said that Buddhists always seem content with the present and don't let worries bother them. And that's a pleasant way to live, to always feel content with where you are in life and what you have. But for those people that are just content to feel content - or rather no emotions or sentiments at all since generally Buddhists aren't allowed to feel attached to things, people, the past, the future, even themselves - isn't life too short to feel nothing rather than something? Whether it's sad, happy, angry, excited…doesn't it feel like you're living more when you allow yourself to feel something?
But then the problem becomes how much you should allow yourself to feel because the more you let yourself feel, the higher the risk of getting hurt, and the harder you can fall. So how high of a wall should you build around yourself to protect yourself from getting hurt, to keep yourself from being too attached to something? Or should you just go all in?
*Note: my generalizations about Buddhism are from what I remember from college...I could probably be wrong.
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5 years ago
2 comments:
travel channel is awesome except I don't have it any more :( no more samantha brown and her great hotels..depressing.
vulnerability!!! transparency!!! and the complications that result from their presence and also the lack of.
there, I ended my sentence with a preposition. eat me.
You're right in characterizing your discussion about Buddhism as vast generalizations. There isn't allowed or not allowed in Buddhism, and it also depends on whether you're talking about Chinese versus others. I think it's more about advocating a more simple way of life--not wanting to the point that you disregard what you have, not necessarily vast detachment from everything. Furthermore, Buddhism isn't about being content for the sake of it nor does it suggest that emotions are not allowed. At least from what I remember at retreats, it's acknowledging these emotions but not allowing them to consume you. Just clarifying :)
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