I need to be the Buddha more often

As a Buddhist, I know how I’m supposed to Be: let things go, trust that all is well just as it is, stay present, don’t blame, and know that everyone is doing their best.

Right. But I can’t always achieve that state of non-judgment, allowing, and forgiveness. Editors who delete all the wrong parts; staff making far too many errors that I have to spend precious time correcting; crazy, abusive people I have to spend a small fortune suing to get them to do the right thing; colleagues who change times at the last moment; vendors who get things out too late. Even my long-standing hairdresser left the salon! Everything around me seems to be going wrong.

Somehow I seem to be in the middle of mayhem. I know, I know. I’m supposed to laugh and not attach meaning (any meaning is what I attach to it), let it go, and realize it’s just the play of life and has nothing to do with me.

I think I’m a rotten Buddhist. Oh, I can get it right occasionally – especially when it’s calmer, or when just one or two things go wrong. But frankly, when the mayhem is this pervasive, I just want to have a tantrum, kill everyone, and take all stress out of my life – make my life easier. Just for an hour. No, forever.

Sometimes I dream of sitting in the market in my favorite village in Peru, or in an ashram in India, or on top of a glacier in Alaska. Ah. Quiet. Calm. No stress. No craziness. I can be the Buddha.

I think I’d make a great Buddha. I’m just a lousy Buddhist.

sd

4 thoughts on “I need to be the Buddha more often”

  1. Devorah Winegarten

    If you “were” the Buddha, though, we’d have to kill you. (If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him), and as a practicing Jew, I’m doing my best to follow the precept, “Thou shalt not kill.” So, just go on being Sharon-Drew — I like you better that way, anyway.

  2. Sounds like this Buddhist philosophy of life isn’t working out so well? At what point would you consider another philosophy of life that would provide answers your current philosophy can’t give you? What information would you need to consider a different philosophy of life, one that gives meaning and actually helps you put into practice a peaceful way of life, despite your varied circumstances?

    1. I notice that you are attempting to create Facilitative Questions but instead have made me defensive and feeling like you are right and I am wrong.
      The ones above are not Facilitative Questions. They are misworded, in the wrong order, not creating structure for me to change, and do not help me recognize my own criteria for change, but attempt to lead me through your assumptions, beliefs and biases.
      If the time comes that you ever want to learn how to formulate Facilitative Questions, you may want to go to http://www.buyingfacilitation.com and look up the Facilitative Questions module of the Learning Accelerators.
      Interesting that you made that attempt, tho. Kinda like making a chinese meal for someone just over from Beijing 🙂

  3. Pingback: We can never understand a buyer’s buying environment | Sharon-Drew Morgen

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