I just spent ten days silently learning the philosophy of Buddha. Over the years, I’ve read many suttras, stories, and texts which explain the path to enlightenment, but sitting in a gompa listening to a nun tell me how to put Buddha’s teachings into practice was a like listening to a whole new story. It was a Tibetan monastery, so the teaching focused on compassion, loving-kindness, and wisdom. Practices and exercises abound in how to cultivate a mind that can spontaneously exude these principles. The Venerable American nun who gave the lessons has been working for many years to translate the many stories of Buddha’s life that are written in Sanskrit. Stories of beautiful prostitutes who left their work to follow the Buddha and subsequently went on to excel in meditation and inspire bandits to give their loot in offering. Other women who lost their entire families one by one in separate incidents in the same day, only to find solace in the wisdom of Buddha.

But this is only one tradition of Buddhism. I’ve always been more attracted to the other tradition that ignores the stories and suttras that are written in Sanskrit. Theravada Buddhism looks only to the teachings of Buddha; those which are passed down in Pali. Theravada Buddhism also doesn’t focus so much on compassion for others as it does on cultivating ones own mind; on learning to be full present at every moment. Perhaps it’s my western sense of individualism that leads me down this path, but personally, I believe that if happiness comes from within, if suffering can only be brought to an end by expelling the attachments that I form in my own mind, then it’s only by focusing on m own mind that I will find enlightenment.

And just as a brief aside. Wouldn’t becoming a Buddhist only add to ones attachments. Buddha did teach that though his philosophy could act as a raft to get one across the river of suffering, it’s still necessary to abandon the raft and tread ones own path once the river has been crossed.