The Buddhist way.

Life.
Is.
Suffering.

This may seem emo,
but tis true.
This is what Buddhism goes by.

Intro to buddhism maybe?

So yeah, we did Buddhism for religion last year.
We studied...
how Siddhartha yada yada yada...

But that's just stupid "how did it originate?" stuff.

Many of you won't know...
But I love my religion.

Because it gives me
the truth.

Life is not a field of daisies.
And going to the temple once a week will not improve it.
I like that they tell us that.

What I like about Buddhism is that there is a fix to everything.
And you're not asked to believe anything.
And there's no commitment or initiation into the religion so I don't feel trapped.

Being born is suffering.
Think about it, when you are born, did you come out smiling or crying? And if you weren't crying, you were slapped, right?
And those tears were the sign that you were normal. That suffering was a sign of good health?

Sickness is suffering.
Good health comes and goes.
One day you are "healthy".
Next day you could be on your death bed.

Everything is impermanent.
Is there a single thing in the world that lasts forever?
If you are born, you will die.
In the end, all that time we spend in front of the mirror is  a complete waste,
because the day will come when our bodies become one with the soil.
All that vanity and makeup and hairstyles and eyebrow waxing... one day that skin we work so hard to keep beautiful will wrinkle and sag. And though we work with creams and pills to capture eternal youth,
old age is normal.

So most people fear death.
What happens next, you wonder?
I don't.
Because if you are a good person, how can you possibly end up in a bad place?
That's something that every religion agrees on.

How to deal with death according to Buddhism.
Death is another method of proof that life is impermanent.
The proudest people fall the hardest.
My grandfather was apparently the most egotistical person you could ever meet.
He would never eat anything unless it was served from his wife's hands. No matter how busy my grandmother was, he believed her first duty was to him. At the end of the day, she was still wrong, no matter what she did.
He spent his money on creams and sprays and new shirts for himself. He didn't care about the kids.

I saw the way he died.
First he got dementia.
Then he was paralyzed for about 6 months.
He couldn't walk.
He couldn't talk.
He couldn't clean himself.
He just lied on a mat on the floor of his room because he made a mess of himself.
He smelt foul. Flies buzzed around him. We couldn't stand to be in the room too long with him.
I still remembered the way he stared at me before he passed away. He tried to talk to me, his lips moved but no words would resemble themselves.
When a Buddhist says, "Karma", it doesn't mean, "you deserve to die, b*tch". It means every action has a reaction.

In the exact same way, my proud grandmother died.

Death is a normal part of life. Life is not certain, death is certain.
So what you should be doing is not running from death, but preparing yourself for it.
By doing good, and eliminating evil from your lives.
The more attachment you have, the more the departure hurts.
And the dead find it hard to move on if you are too attached.
So let go. Love them, of course, but don't love with such strong desire that being apart kills you. Because it will just generate more suffering.

But who am I to speak? I only speak in theory. No one I have truly "loved" has died yet.
I was never close to my grandparents. They are the only people I know who have left my life.

Anyway Buddhism is comforting to me because it makes sense... all the time, not just when it can. It serves me and doesn't ask for anything in return.
It is so complex and I only understand a tiny tiny ratio of what the religion is about.. and what I have shared with you is only a very small portion of what I know.
Sorry if I bored you hahaha, but religion (any religion) is a very important part of life. :)