I'm taking a short break from work, and thought I'd spend a few minutes on this sunny afternoon rapping about one of the things I like about some Buddhists I've met. Despite what Nabby says, I'm not actually a Buddhist myself. I couldn't be, because I don't even agree with the first of its Four Noble Truths.
But I have met many Buddhists over the years (definitely *not* including the Rama/Fred Lenz guy, who only called himself a Buddhist), and one thing strikes me about the best of them is that they're pragmatic. The historical Buddha reputedly refused to be drawn into discussions of or arguments about the How and Why of things. He considered it a waste of time. His focus was on the What of things -- what is happening, right now, here, in the moment? In his view, it didn't really help to ponder How the events in this moment happened or Why they happened. Whatever you come up with will be only one view of the moment, and it won't really help you to deal with the moment itself. Better to focus, in his opinion, on the moment itself, and surfing it gracefully. I'm kinda drawn that way myself, which is why some aspects of Buddhism appeal to me. The cool Buddhists I've known don't really spend much time pondering theories of How or Why things happen. They just deal with the What of things, as they happen. And y'know, most of the time they're more *effective* at dealing with the moment than those who are off on the sidelines somewhere trying to figure out Why it happened or How. By the time they come up with an "explanation" that they can settle for, the moment has passed and they've lost their chance to deal with it at all. That's all. Now Nabby can go ballistic because someone mentioned "Buddhists." :-)
