Fuck the Buddha, My Pain is Political (!)

That is offensive to an entire religion but I don't even care. How am I expected to take seriously a man of privilege who one day up and leaves his family, especially when, in the style of the Bible, he names his child Fetter because he weighs the Buddha down as an earthly burden? What in the flying FUCK?

Collectively, I have had only four class periods of Buddhism and Mindfulness, but I find myself resenting its teachings and fighting its philosophies every step of the way. Through the use of useless metaphors like onions and arrow removals, I am learning that we are nothing. Zip, nada. We're constantly changing and impermanent, la dee da I like to abandon my family because as a male I'm privileged enough to do so la dee da. I spent the entirety of middle school and high school thinking I was nothing, sir, and I am never going back to that, thankyouverylittle.


Another useless metaphor is used to explain that we have no identity. Oh but wait, our identity is fluid, like a river or other moving body of water! Cause we are impermanent, hurr derr. Naturally, however, we have our own personalities (?).

Ack. My emphatic disagreement on this front stems from the feminist philosophy on identity politics--that is, our personal identity, experiences and beliefs inform how we engage (or don't engage) socially and politically. And you know, I think it is all well and good to be personally enlightened or whatnot--you big slut, good for you!--but how in the HELL is personal enlightment going to help the socically, politically and economically disenfranchised? Compassion stems from personal well-being and inner peace, but if you're not working on an instituional level to bring about social change, that compassion is doing jack shit for the whole of humanity. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I am all over the place here because I am tired, in pain, and extremely frustrated. And wouldn't you know, all my pain is stemming from my social location as female, lower middle class and young? Yet my pain (or suffering, as Buddhists call it) is entirely political--it gives me fire, the will to fight. Inner peace, I fear, would lead to complacency, and that is something that the rest of the world cannot afford. I may well die of stress-related diseases if whatever-the-fuck's-wrong-with-me doesn't kill me first, but goddamnit, I will go down fighting.