Class and Buddhism

So i write this blog post at 12:41 in the, well what would you call this, morning or night? Either way it is a Tuesday night and this is when i am writing this post (and yes i know i called this Tuesday night because that's what i will call it because i have yet to sleep) and i happen to be... a little under the influence.

See, it is a Tuesday night, and for me that happens to be a night when i go to visit a friend of mine and we hit up a bar along with a few other people she knows. Anywho this means that i have had two pints tonight before i came home early because i have a project to work on tomorrow. Meanwhile i know that this probably isn't the best time to write a post that will be around for eternity but it is something i want to write about, at least since this morning.

See, at 9:10 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings i have Indigenous studies 1000 lectures. I missed those two lectures last week because i had a job interview last week and in missing that one missed finding out that i had a second lecture Thursday.

So today was technically the third lecture of the course but for me it was the first one. The course turns out is taught by two people who each covered half of the course today. The first one wandered around many different tangents and made the lecture interesting enough for me to actually stay awake the entire time. The second prof, not so much... I managed to fall asleep every ten minutes like clockwork...

Anywho the first prof brought up the way that some beliefs of native societies match up with some eastern beliefs such as Buddhism. That got me thinking about the fact that i consider myself Buddhist but every time someone knowledgeable on the subject brings it up i become... well a little more informed on the belief system i follow...

Which got me thinking on explaining my beliefs and talking about them. See thinking about beliefs and considering them is what makes them valid, less than something to live your life by and more an unthinking guideline that becomes an inner prejudice. Sort of like people thinking that no matter what abortion isn't an option, or that the death penalty is always right/wrong when it comes to a murder.

When it comes to Buddhism one of the things that always sticks close to my mind is a statement from a book i read about it when i first became curious. It was that Buddhism doesn't say "this is right and this is wrong" but rather it states "this works for me, try it and see if it works for you".

So what i have taken from this is that my beliefs that interplay with life and existence are constantly changing and that to become attached to them is to cause suffering. To try and control anything else other than yourself is pointless and leads to suffering. These are the cores of my belief. These are the things that make me think about myself as a Buddhist. Whether it qualifies me as one to anyone else i don't know. But to me it is enough, and to me that is what matters.