Don't Judge Me!

The Dalai Lama needs a Blackberry.

Not in the literal sense of an actual Blackberry unit, with email forwarding and like daily prayer postings, but more of a moderinization of ideology. The blackberry serves as our corporate analogy. My thoughts:

We must first address the principle of spiritual leaders/religion ect. Personally, I see a few key aspects or "core" elements of what the ultimate goal of a spiritual leader should be. One, to aide and consult on the teachings of said religion...to act as a shepard if you will. Two, to promote and facilitate the growth of said religion...to act as a disciple if you will. Three, to actively practice and ideal (or as close to ideal) model of the religion...to act as an icon if you will.

Now, there are many cases of religions/ideologies where the above three principles seem to be lost or not even be principles at all (and hey, if that works for you by all means, rejoice...) To often when approached by some new, recently modified, or ancient ideology I feel like I'm trying to be sold by a used car salesman. For examples, turn on the TV on any sunday morning, or realllly late at night, one's bound to be inundated with some "pastor" in an ugly suit trying to sell me religion. Turn on the news and hear a story about corruption, greed and sexual abuse in the catholic church. Watch some religious figure chastize women for seeking abortions, nationally publicized jihad, and the list goes on. Almost instantly i'm turned off of any organized corporate religion. Now I know I've given extreme examples, but there are many other instances of utter disbelief at what constitutes common religion that just drive me mad. We're starting to delve into my disconnect with relgion.

Oh, and there's that whole Immaculate Conception thing...and that thing called science and all that other stuff....but that's a whole 'nother rathole.

So...back to the Dalai Lama and his Blackberry:

I've picked up this gross habit of going to book stores and buying obscene quantities of books, more than I could even imagine to read in my life. A formidable task, I say, to try and whittle down the queue before I happen to find myself in another book store feeding the addiction. I've picked up some titles in hopes of trying to better understand this crazy thing called Buddhism, and Eastern religion as a whole. So far what I've seen, I really like. Instead of smiting me for my past actions, the Dalai always seems to give a proactive solution or gameplan to getting on the right path. As a general rule, it seems the Dalai seems to offer tips on living a better life, becoming a better person (as opposed to the spiteful asshole that I am) and lots of other good stuff.

But Dalai, I'm still having issues connecting to your ideology. I mean, I can't give up my material goods (at least not all of them), and surely my boss would fire me if i spent hours upon hours of my day meditating in my blue/grey cubicle. So I propose we do a little modernization and promotion of your ideology. Friedman often talks about how increasingly "flat" the world is becoming as a function of globalization. The static distance between Bejing and Ocotillo is still the same distance, but virtually the distance is immaterial (granted, I don't have meetings from 9-11pm) but immaterial none the less. Adapting my life to ancient thought is proving to be harder than expected. It'd certainly be easier to quit my job at the lays factory if say, i knew how to make my own clothes or hunt or dodge traffic on the 101...

To the point...I've been straying I know...To maximize the impact of any religion one must accomplish at least the principles listed at the top of the page--at least in my eyes. Dalai, instead of following an ideology that rejects thought without dilligence, how can we promote and integrate the very same ideology into our growing and continually more difficult lifestyles (not implying that this is the status quo for Buddhism, but you know, roll with me here). I am interested in Buddhism, and I've been reading about it and telling people I'm converting and stuff, but I sort of need you to come halfway on this one. To really do a job of promoting and influencing individuals on your ideology we're going to need a significant amount of flexibility and guidance here. So, fire up that blackberry, compose some mandates or something and lets get this ball rolling.

I'll write a book with you...we can call it something like "The Executive Buddhist" or something, I don't know, lets kick some ideas off each other.

Thoughts?

Also, i didn't spell check or read this for grammatical errors(and it shows)...so get off me.