The end of another year (2020)

 

Winter blooms and 2020 ends.

In my location we are still not yet to 2021 at the time of this posting.

I have fixed feeling about the tradition of New Year's resolutions. They are often a form of wishful thinking that can actually depress people when the resolution fails, especially if it's made in black and white (giving up this, taking up that).

Fifteen years ago I recall a Buddhist teacher saying to a small group that the precepts cannot be broken. We can take them up or set them down. But the precepts themselves are still there waiting. The same person also compared that to the practice of staying and returning in meditation. If your mind wanders from focus, just return. No judgment. It's all a success. Just stay focused as long as you can and then return when you notice your attention has wandered.

Perhaps more New Year's resolutions would benefit those making them if they were approached in this way, whether it be losing weight or taking up a new hobby or building relationships.

This is a good time for reflection as societies are also reflecting, giving us some momentum. Also a good time to then look ahead. We can't know what will happen, but we can think about who we've been and who we want to be.

If you have any resolutions, I wish you success.

hello again

 

There is either quite a lot to say or not much at all.

This blog was much more active between 2005 and 2014. I was going to start writing more in again in 2016, then midway through the year I started a new job that took up much of my time and the political and religious environment started becoming much darker. When I logged on to write, criticism and frustration emerged.

There has been much to criticize the past four years, but I didn't want to be bitter or give an impression of bitterness to others. I also found myself just being very, very tired in many ways - physically, mentally, emotionally, socially. And, to be honest, I wasn't sure what to write beyond pointing out the hypocrisy and harm of those who substitute idolatry for faith.

When I became tinythinker many years ago, I was coming from a somewhat American fundamentalist Christian background. I had already left all of that behind and was still near the beginning of my graduate school days, studying evolutionary theory, cultures from the past and present around the world, and so much more. I started using the name for message boards back then, where I encountered some interesting Buddhists on forms otherwise full of Christian and atheists going at it. Sometimes with respect or some kind of boundaries, and sometimes not. So even before I brought my net handle to this blog, I had developed a curiosity in things like Unitarian Universalism, Buddhism, and even mystical Christianity.

I continued exploring such things to varying degrees between 2005 and 2014, as evidenced by the content from that period. But it wasn't just those thing in of themselves, though that was also intriguing, but also what they might mean for questions people tend to wrestle with and the answers that they fight over. Still, for me much of it was also self-image and construction, solving intellectual puzzles, and just finding out about different views that seemed so interesting.

Around 2010, having gotten into readings the preceding couple of years on contemplative and mystical Christianity, and with no Buddhist groups around, I tried attending a nearby church for a while. It was interesting, and I participated pretty well, but after a couple of years my curiosity and interest expired. So my attendance and participation drifted off. Still, I had been able to go beyond a lot of what I had previously experienced and known in my youth, through books and actual live services.

Which left a question.

What then?