A Post from the Archives.

The Buddhist Conservative Blog was born with the post below. I have been so busy helping one of my sons with a new venture, I have not had much time to dedicate to updating the blog. If you were wondering how it all began, this is the story.

I want to thank each of you for the support and encouragement you have given me.

Are We Really That Different? The Blissful Drifting of a Conservative in Dangerous Waters

I had not given much thought to politics when I signed up for a week long Buddhist retreat set to begin the day after the election. I had voted early allowing me to spend Election Day preparing and watching exit polls. The results came in and our side lost, time to move on and wish the new president elect Godspeed.

Pulling onto the road leading to the retreat center I began feeling the quiet set in when the first sign of danger appeared in my windshield as I hummed along with the sound of the wind rustling the brightly colored leaves of autumn, harmonizing with the gentle rumbling of the diesel engine in my pickup. Standing between me and the gatehouse were a Prius, a Mini, and a small car labeled “clean air vehicle.” Easing forward, my senses alert, I was greeted with a look as to say, “Are you running biodiesel?”

Discretely parked at last, I grabbed my bags and chose a path that would make it appear that I arrived in the Smart Car parked next to my front tire. Failing to consider the horn sounding when I locked the doors, my plan was nearly blown; luckily no one seemed to notice.

Settled in and already feeling hints of inner peace fill my being, I walked with a slow pace to the dining hall for the opening meal. I had done a little research a few days prior to make sure I could live without meat for the next week. Savoring a delicious meal of vegetables, salad greens and tofu, my worldly cares began to vanish… and then it happened! Terror gripped my insides as the retreat manager strode into the room and raised her apron revealing a shirt emblazoned with a huge picture of our next president.

The room erupted in a cheer worthy of a Superbowl victory as I made a quick scan of the crowd, hoping to see a kindred spirit in the fast closing space around me. There were none. As a small bead of sweat appeared on my forehead, I made an attempt to stay invisible for fear that if the joyous mob might chase me off the property if they knew I voted for the other guy.

The meal over, I kept my eyes low so the crowd would not sense my fear. I quickened my pace a little to retrace my steps to the dormitory making sure a stray bag of salted right wing nuts had not fallen out of my pocket exposing the possibility of an outsider. I quickly made sure that a stray McCain button had not been left on a shirt and carefully hid the one red t-shirt I had packed under the bed. Safe at last!

That same night in a Dharma talk, (Buddhist teachings, for my conservative friends), one of the instructors referenced a conversation where she caught herself and her friends contemplating how any thinking person could possibly be a conservative. I blushed a little as I reflected on how many times I wondered the same things about liberals. Earlier, before the silence of the retreat began, I had spoken to several seemingly intelligent people, the same ones who cheered for their victory! My mind was spinning with the idea that intelligence and party preference might after all be separate!

As a society, we are inundated with the image that there is a vast gap between liberals and conservatives. The reality is that mathematically, there are more people closer to the center than the combined fringe but it is the fringe gets all the good coverage. We middle folk are simply too boring to cover. Headline: “Man picks up groceries on way home from work”, details at 11! Our lives are just too real for “Reality” television.

The greatest single blessing we have in America is the chance to think as individuals. As surprising as it might sound, most of us desire many of the same things. We often, however, disagree on the best way to accomplish them. Ninety eight percent of Americans do not believe that is right to burn someone’s house down to protest the cutting of a tree. That same ninety eight percent is against putting a pillow case over your head and burning a cross in front of a black church.

Sadly, these are the images that are projected by each side. All conservatives are just war loving, gun toting racists! All liberals are just tree hugging, big government socialists! It makes good press, whatever that means, but it is simply not the case. We have the right to fight for what we believe but also the responsibility to respect the views of others. The world is an unhappy place and our own anger simply feeds suffering. We should try to seek the middle ground by accepting that we can disagree without fighting.

The next time you talk to some babbling idiot, deemed so because they do not agree with your views, try to lighten up a bit. It does not mean you have to agree with them. Of course if you really want to show how smart you are, always agree with me!

What's Stopping Us?

It has been too long since I have even visited my own blog, let alone write something. It's not that I intended to abandon something I loved doing, just an example of how our lives are constantly changing.

A little more than four years ago, I embarked on a new career path that began unexpectedly when one of my children asked me to help him start a political organization to shed light on issues he saw affecting his young family and everyone he knew. I had no illusions that the odds were stacked against us but listening to his ideas and seeing the enthusiasm in his eyes, I told him that we did not have much money, we did not have a single connection in the government power structure and we had no experience in building such an organization so... "what's stopping us"?

This blog is not about endorsing a political philosophy or trying to convince anyone to agree with my views. There is a much more important lesson that I learned since beginning this journey that speaks of what we as individuals can do if we refuse to listen to others telling us that anything is impossible. Having no perceived conceptions on "the way things are done", we focused instead on what we were trying to accomplish instead of getting caught up in how it was done in the past. How many times in your life have you stopped yourself from doing something because you thought it would be too
difficult or outside of your comfort zone?

Often, it is because someone has wrongly convinced us that we are not capable or we have a perception that we are just not good enough to try. Now, if your idea is to jump out of an airplane without a parachute because you think you can fly, let me be the first to tell you that you can't! Many things, however, are completely within our reach if we just take the first step and work hard toward a goal. Our past is full of success and failure but if we let failure dominate how we feel about the future, guess what, we are much more likely to fail.

On the same line, if we measure everything from past successes, we set ourselves up for disappointment when our expectations don't meet the final outcome. This is why it is so important to focus on the present moment. Being open to what is "here and now" allows us to see each experience without judgment based on our own historical bias that in reality has nothing to do with the current situation.

When I started this new chapter in my life, I did not think the chance of success was very good. In all honesty, had it not been the fact that it was my son asking for help, I would have never taken that first step by myself. We learned amazing things about ourselves and each other as we took turns convincing one another to keep pushing when everything seemed futile. Life has no guarantees other than the simple fact that if you don't try, you will never know how something will turn out. It has taken me the last few years to find a little balance in one of the most negatively charged environments
I could ever have imagined.

I hope I never understand why politics makes people hate those who oppose their views rather than embrace the idea that we should be able to disagree and debate issues while accepting the right of others to think differently. What keeps me going is as I travel and speak to people from different backgrounds, experiences and political ideals, I see that in spite of this, we have much more in common than most would admit and some people are starting to wake up to the fact that this hatred is being used against us for political gain.

If we stay open to the possibilities that we can do what seems impossible if we are committed to working through the difficult times, the chance of success can turn into reality regardless of what our minds trick us into believing. If we believe that all things should be easy, disappointment is a certain outcome.

May we all drop any notion of how things "should be" and focus on how things "can be". This will only happen when we start treating each other as individuals rather than thinking that everyone should think like us. Think of how boring the world would be if we were all exactly the same.

Are We Really That Different? The Blissful Drifting of a Conservative in Dangerous Waters

I had not given much thought to politics when I signed up for a week long Buddhist retreat set to begin the day after the election. I had voted early allowing me to spend Election Day preparing and watching exit polls. The results came in and our side lost, time to move on and wish the new president elect Godspeed.

Pulling onto the road leading to the retreat center I began feeling the quiet set in when the first sign of danger appeared in my windshield as I hummed along with the sound of the wind rustling the brightly colored leaves of autumn, harmonizing with the gentle rumbling of the diesel engine in my pickup. Standing between me and the gatehouse were a Prius, a Mini, and a small car labeled “clean air vehicle.” Easing forward, my senses alert, I was greeted with a look as to say, “Are you running biodiesel?”

Discretely parked at last, I grabbed my bags and chose a path that would make it appear that I arrived in the Smart Car parked next to my front tire. Failing to consider the horn sounding when I locked the doors, my plan was nearly blown; luckily no one seemed to notice.

Settled in and already feeling hints of inner peace fill my being, I walked with a slow pace to the dining hall for the opening meal. I had done a little research a few days prior to make sure I could live without meat for the next week. Savoring a delicious meal of vegetables, salad greens and tofu, my worldly cares began to vanish… and then it happened! Terror gripped my insides as the retreat manager strode into the room and raised her apron revealing a shirt emblazoned with a huge picture of our next president.

The room erupted in a cheer worthy of a Superbowl victory as I made a quick scan of the crowd, hoping to see a kindred spirit in the fast closing space around me. There were none. As a small bead of sweat appeared on my forehead as I made an attempt to stay invisible for fear that if the joyous mob might chase me off the property if they knew I voted for the other guy.

The meal over, I kept my eyes low so the crowd would not sense my fear. I quickened my pace a little to retrace my steps to the dormitory making sure a stray bag of salted right wing nuts had not fallen out of my pocket exposing the possibility of an outsider. I quickly made sure that a stray McCain button had not been left on a shirt and carefully hid the one red t-shirt I had packed under the bed. Safe at last!

That same night in a Dharma talk, (Buddhist teachings, for my conservative friends), one of the instructors referenced a conversation where she caught herself and her friends contemplating how any thinking person could possibly be a conservative. I blushed a little as I reflected on how many times I wondered the same things about liberals. Earlier, before the silence of the retreat began, I had spoken to several seemingly intelligent people, the same ones who cheered for their victory! My mind was spinning with the idea that intelligence and party preference might after all be separate!

As a society, we are inundated with the image that there is a vast gap between liberals and conservatives. The reality is that mathematically, there are more people closer to the center than the combined fringe but it is the fringe gets all the good coverage. We middle folk are simply too boring to cover. Headline: “Man picks up groceries on way home from work”, details at 11! Our lives are just too real for “Reality” television.

The greatest single blessing we have in America is the chance to think as individuals. As surprising as it might sound, most of us desire many of the same things. We often, however, disagree on the best way to accomplish them. Ninety eight percent of Americans do not believe that is right to burn someone’s house down to protest the cutting of a tree. That same ninety eight percent is against putting a pillow case over your head and burning a cross in front of a black church.

Sadly, these are the images that are projected by each side. All conservatives are just war loving, gun toting racists! All liberals are just tree hugging, big government socialists! It makes good press, whatever that means, but it is simply not the case. We have the right to fight for what we believe but also the responsibility to respect the views of others. The world is an unhappy place and our own anger simply feeds suffering. We should try to seek the middle ground by accepting that we can disagree without fighting.

The next time you talk to some babbling idiot, deemed so because they do not agree with your views, try to lighten up a bit. It does not mean you have to agree with them. Of course if you really want to show how smart you are, always agree with me!