Date:
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Time: 5:16 PM
Explination of "Self"
I think alot of SBM people have been confused about what the post titled "self" was about. I didn't write it to be directly connected to any internal SBM matter. It was about another conflict in my life. However, that does not mean I'm going to take it down or say that what I wrote was written in a moment of frustration and anger. I meant and still mean every word I wrote. -.-
At the time of writing the blog entry I didn't have a full picture of the situation at hand... so I had no idea of knowing how perfectly what I wrote fit said situation. I wrote about my stand on certain aspects of life we are all bound to encounter... I wrote my values and feelings as I've come to see them over the years. From my reactions to past experiences, and how I've handled them.
Also ... my entry possibly made me sound a bit arrogant and full of my self. To quote my dad "Any one who has a blog... is at least a bit full of them selves". =.= So true. Someone who writes about their day and then expects people to take the time to come and read about it obviously thinks their day is worth reading about. If you didn't think people found your thoughts fascinating... you wouldn't keep a blog. You'd keep a diary. Something private that no eyes except your own ever saw.
I am no more self-less then the next person, no more "good". I am simply a person, human, and unenlightened. I'm bound to make mistakes, bound to do things for selfish reasons, and bound to hurt others through my actions.
In a sense my blog entry makes me a hypocrite. I say "If you lie, if you cheat ... you will have lost my respect for you". Its not an untruth for me to say that... I've lost faith in people before because of lying and cheating. But I have also lied and cheated my self. I've done things to hurt people, done things to "get them back". Lied to cover my own ass. I am no different from anyone else. No "saint among sinners".
But as a Buddhist we strive to not lie. It's one of the precepts that we chant. Eventually we want to be free of this impurity. So we must do out best not to "fall of the wagon" and to remain truthful in out actions and our conduct. And if we can't consider truth a virtue worth having... then do we still reserve the right to call ourselves Buddhist? We can not be Buddhist when we choose and not Buddhist when we don't feel like it anymore.
You either are or you aren't. There is no middle ground, only the middle path which we have chosen to follow. Right? =)
