Disconnected from What?

Buddhists believe that you can only reach enlightenment through detachment of all things.  However, detachment does not mean indifference.  Detachment in Buddhism is associated with a determination to be free.  The “Four Noble Truths” of Buddhism are as follows:

1. Life as we know it ultimately is or leads to suffering/uneasiness in one way or another.
2. Suffering is caused by craving. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to self-hood, or to the things or phenomena that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness. Craving also has its negative aspect, i.e. one craves that a certain state of affairs not exist.
3. Suffering ends when craving ends. This is achieved by eliminating delusion, thereby reaching a liberated state of Enlightenment;
4. Reaching this liberated state is achieved by following the path laid out by the Buddha.

I am not a Buddhist (I don’t know enough about it to be), but I have learned a lot from the teachings of the Buddha.  My entire life I have followed a course created by my parents, peers, religion, invisible social expectations, the military, and even the women in my life.  I feel that I have accomplished all that is expected of me and I now want to be free of it all.    So…  free from what, specifically?  Oh, so many things!  I must clarify that I am not trying to disappear from the world.  If anything, I am trying to be a more productive member of my planet.  I want to be a nutrient in our ecosystem and not a gear in society’s over-consuming machinery.  No, I am not a hippie.  I just see that there are  many negative influences around all of us and it worries me.  I see all these things as a smog cloud floating over actual reality and nickname it “the matrix”.  Yes, I stole that from the movie.  Get over it.

This entire process is new to me and as time passes I will improve on my plan and adjust my path accordingly.  For now, these are a few things that I am trying to disconnect from or dedicate less time to (it’s a process!):

-Television

-Social Networking

-Internet (Non-productive use of it)

-Radio

-Gossip (in any medium)

-Negative Conversations

-Fast Food

-Magazines

-The Club Scene

-Advertising Influence

-Cultural Expectations (I am Hispanic)

-Material Possessions

-My Past

-My Expectations of the Future

Tagged: Buddhism, detachment, freedom, self-improvement, the matrix

Posted in: My Path