A friend of mine once asked about what Buddhism was all about. I wrote this up for him. Hope you get a few laughs:
There was this guy named Buddha. He realized that people can be really selfish and sometimes really absurd. They get upset because their lives are unsatisfactory and all they did was blame other people for their problems. He felt bad and tried to figure it out. Aside from the inevitable like, birth, growth, illness, and death, he figured out there was a way to not be so affected by the situations that life presented. He presented four absolute (noble) truths and 8 ways to realize them.
4 noble truths:
- life can be have suffering.
- Reason is that we get attached to the stuff that we imagine makes our selves “unique” and “special.”
- There is a way to not be affected by the suffering.
- If we open our eyes and follow eight simple methods, we can be freed from letting the suffering affect us.
8 fold path:
- No one is absolute nor omnipotent. We’re all pretty ignorant.
- If you don’t learn to stop and say, “hey, i don’t know” you’re not going to change yourself in a way that’s going to free you from the suffering.
- Don’t open your mouth without considering it’s going to sound like to the person on the receiving end.
- You’re not the center of the universe. Your actions not only affect everything around you, they can affect everything around the people around you. Don’t do stupid shit that’s going to hurt other people or yourself.
- Don’t take action that’s going to give suffering for other people at your benefit.
- If something makes you suffer, figure out if you need to fix yourself first. Otherwise, Know the consequences of your actions. Moreover, everyone has their own reality and their own right to their own level of ignorance . When you make a mistake (you will), don’t be proud, admit it, and be open to remedy yourself and the situation. And when in a group take care to not act unless it benefits the group in someway.
- If you don’t pay attention to the task at hand you’re going to have a bad time.