What Buddha Says

“Chaos is inherent in all compounded things.  Strive on with diligence.”
– Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism

I have a Buddha poster on my wall.

A good friend gave it to me a while back.  It sits on my wall so I can easily look at a list of quotes.

The quote above is from that poster and I always look at that one and think about it.

Chaos is everywhere, in every “thing” and you can’t get away from it, this quote seems to be saying.

Then it’s like “strive on player,” and the big smiling Buddha statue reaches out to give you a fist bump.

Diligence means “conscientiousness, hard work, concentration, effort, care, rigor, meticulousness, thoroughness.”

Notice how it doesn’t say “ignore” the chaos or drop a bomb on the chaos or destroy the chaos so it doesn’t exist anymore.

I grew up Christian, so it’s not always easy for me to understand what the “Buddha say.”

My cousin’s husband was in my place one time.  He’s a minister.  He said, looking at my Buddha poster, “They got almost everything right.”

Meaning they got everything right but Jesus? That would be a great bumper sticker.  “Honk if you like Buddha, but love Jesus.”  Etc, etc.

Yesterday chaos for me was some stranger, who I didn’t know, on Facebook, who made fun of me because I got my degree at a Buddhist/writing school called Naropa.

I didn’t engage because “sticks and stones,” but this whole idea of “destroying” another person through violence, whether words or weapons, really freaked me out for a good minute.

How do you strive on in diligence?

Meditate?

Pray?

Probably.