I feel like I’m juggling a lot of things right now- trying to be a Buddhist, moving, trying to find a place to move to, work, some kind of social life.  Standard gambit, I suppose.  I don’t have a whole lot of time these days, I fight for what I can when I think I need it and booking events on top of others because I have a bad memory.

Neglecting this space always hurts a little bit though, so here I am, at it again.

Buddhism has always resonated with me in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Perhaps I’m prone to romanticizing ascetics, holy men in robes who give it all up in order to find real contentment.  It’s a hard deal to make, especially when I now know that I really, really enjoy the little pleasures of this world.

Let’s start at food.  The Buddha tells us that real pleasure does not come from contingent things, from physical things, that one can train ones mind to find happiness in the moment, in any moment, without the need for extrinsic input.

All I have to do is think of sushi to want to ditch the whole thing.  Seriously, it would be great to be all content and in step with the world, but there are tomes and tomes of knowledge on how to prepare food, whole life times are spent in that pursuit, the fruits of which can be incredible.  In the face of this it is hard to take the proposition that this is not happiness very seriously.  More so with a mouth full of lightly seared tuna with a nice cream sauce.

This goes for anything else you will find in life- movies, art, writing, video games, wine, houses, clothing, anything that you can interact with.  We have spent an awful lot of time investigating these things, making them attractive and smart and fun.  It can be said that the enjoyment they bring doesn’t last, and I think that’s fair, but trying to see the wisdom in turning away from it all is difficult.

Quite difficult.