Buddhism

I think that it would be hard to live according to the Buddhist teachings in contemporary United States. We live in a capitalist society that defines its members by what they have and not have. Everybody is so busy wanting to get a piece of the pie that very few realize the rat race we are in. The more we have, we achieve, the more we want. While this is not bad in itself, after all who doesn’t want to see their goals fulfilled, it does go according with the theory of us eventually feeling empty once those desires are achieved.  Also, whether we want to or not in our society there are some basic needs that we must have in order to be contributing members of society. Every day we are pushed to work harder, earn more money, and spend more for things such as food, shelter. Now days even education has become another check on the long list of things one must have in order to lead a “successful” life.

I personally believe that it would be very hard for anyone to try to live according to the Buddhist teaching in a society like ours. We would first have to re-train our way of thinking and even our belief system. These type of philosophies are also usually shared with the whole community and are followed for the benefit of everyone. We, unfortunately, live in an individualistic society and the lack of support makes it that much harder for anyone to follow 100%. In my opinion, one way how we can start to let go of our own desires and illusions is by re-training our minds one goal at a time. Perhaps we could start by just simply being content with the things we have and who we are at the moment, then gradually we could work on detaching ourselves from the desires that keep us prisoners.