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**Jannet.K** · 01-18-2011, 03:22 AM

Thank you guys. I'm always weary about getting info from the net and unless I get several good referals to a site I usually don't pay attention to them. Originally Posted by Glow Take stock of your motivation: why do you want to practice Buddhism?

I must say, Glow, you took me off guard with this question. My heart said Buddhism was right but I wasn't sure how to put it into words. I thought about it overnight and I realized I want to be taught how to live right and not told how to live right. Again thanks to all of you for your thoughts and helpfullness, much appreciated. It's a question my very first teacher asked of me several months into my practice. He did so because I was starting to have a lot of questions about the Buddhist life path and dealing with intermittent periods of blind dedication to the practice and periods of intense distaste for anything Buddhist. This man, a very wise monk from Bangladesh, was able to light my blind spot for me: what was I practicing for? Like you, it caught me totally off guard.

In my case, I was simply fetishizing Buddhism for its own sake. I was clinging to the practice with fervor as an opportunity to identify myself with something sacred and ancient and vaguely exotic. In short, I was full of it, lol. Since that point, I've been very careful to observe the workings of ego in my practice and keep in touch with the "suffering and the end of suffering" in terms of which the Buddha described his life path. It saved me from neurotically trying to shoehorn the ancient renunciant culture even when it wasn't something that made sense to me.

Originally Posted by Glow why do you want to practice Buddhism?

Glow, how would you answer your own question? My initial motivation over a decade ago was simply: to help deal with my anxiety and depression. That's still pretty much the case today. There are events from my past in which I was quite unthinkingly cruel,both to others and myself. Such memories motivated me to adopt an emotional "hygiene" of skillful thought, action, and motivation: to prevent myself to hurting others again in the ways that I did, and prevent myself from hurting myself through cultivating harmful mindstates like jealousy, resentment, or anger.

01-18-2011, 03:22 AM	#12
Jannet.K Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 517 Senior Member	Thank you guys. I'm always weary about getting info from the net and unless I get several good referals to a site I usually don't pay attention to them. Originally Posted by Glow Take stock of your motivation: why do you want to practice Buddhism? I must say, Glow, you took me off guard with this question. My heart said Buddhism was right but I wasn't sure how to put it into words. I thought about it overnight and I realized I want to be taught how to live right and not told how to live right. Again thanks to all of you for your thoughts and helpfullness, much appreciated. It's a question my very first teacher asked of me several months into my practice. He did so because I was starting to have a lot of questions about the Buddhist life path and dealing with intermittent periods of blind dedication to the practice and periods of intense distaste for anything Buddhist. This man, a very wise monk from Bangladesh, was able to light my blind spot for me: what was I practicing for? Like you, it caught me totally off guard. In my case, I was simply fetishizing Buddhism for its own sake. I was clinging to the practice with fervor as an opportunity to identify myself with something sacred and ancient and vaguely exotic. In short, I was full of it, lol. Since that point, I've been very careful to observe the workings of ego in my practice and keep in touch with the "suffering and the end of suffering" in terms of which the Buddha described his life path. It saved me from neurotically trying to shoehorn the ancient renunciant culture even when it wasn't something that made sense to me. Originally Posted by Glow why do you want to practice Buddhism? Glow, how would you answer your own question? My initial motivation over a decade ago was simply: to help deal with my anxiety and depression. That's still pretty much the case today. There are events from my past in which I was quite unthinkingly cruel,both to others and myself. Such memories motivated me to adopt an emotional "hygiene" of skillful thought, action, and motivation: to prevent myself to hurting others again in the ways that I did, and prevent myself from hurting myself through cultivating harmful mindstates like jealousy, resentment, or anger.
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