eat mud, Buddhist!!

Many years ago, being "New Age" seemed to be all the rage, and everyone who was even vaguely bonkers would claim to be healers or shamans or psychics, they weren't blathering maniacs no no they were CHANNELING, and so it came to be that the phrase "New Age" and all of the beautiful wonderful things it encompasses, things I still hold very dear to me, were sullied by the terminology of their categorization.

I stopped using the term "New Age" and just referred to things as they were.

Recently, or perhaps the last few months roundabouts, it seems that "Buddhist" has begun to take up the slack where "New Age" became too worn out and transparent. And I sigh...

So many things Buddhism is and is not.

The trend that I find disheartening is the freaky whacked out weirdos that can't find a way to fit into humanity and the world around them, those who seek peace but cannot seem to find it within (and thus cannot find it without) tend to carry on about being hermits, finding silence, shunning the ways of the world (as a Facebook status update that is just so backasswards as to be pinch-ably cute), and talk loftily about themselves going out into the world but not being OF it, when in truth they would rather hide under a rock and poke anyone with a stick that bothers them, because in truth they are simply way too unstable to deal with the world.

*shakes head*

Really, I'm tiring of it.


Being a Buddhist, I know full well I am a blundering mess. I may occasionally quote something inspiring or beautiful, but for the most part, I like my Buddhism the way I like my life: growing up out of wet dirt.

If it were possible to take all these lofty ideals and fluffy nonsense speak these folks spout off and condense it into an applicable enema, I would love to see the expression of enlightenment pass over their faces as all of those pretty words they say fill their innards with the air of which they speak: they speak of nothing at all.

Wait, is this a koan? No. No, it's not.

It's just me ranting about people making themselves out to be pure and lofty and enlightened and just intellectualizing all of the confusion and muck in their lives because they don't want to or know how to deal with it. It's like they could shoot up smack and check out for awhile, or they could quote Buddhist sayings and talk all around the real issues that affect their lives without ever speaking of anything at all. Either way, it's still avoidance, but one doesn't leave track marks, one seems intellectual.

They aren't pushing the river but they won't stick a toe in it, either. Instead they sit on clouds of words.

Sometimes I just wanna mud wrestle people. Like, for real. Take those high falootin' Buddhist jabberwockies and push them into a mud pit, dive in after them, and rub mud in every freaking crevice they have. When they try to get out, I'd grab them by the foot and haul them back in. Be ONE with the mud. Be ONE with the Earth.



Life is messy. Roll up your sleeves and get on with it.