The Accidental Buddhist

I stumbled on Moore's book during a delicious quest through Barnes & Nobel one Friday evening last May. But The Accidental Buddhist by Dinty W. Moore sat on my night stand for most of the summer waiting patiently for it's time to come. Why did I pick this one up? There are a few reasons, one of them being that there seem to be quite a few Buddhist bloggers out there. But there are other reasons as well.

Over the last several years, I have found myself in the midst of more than one American Buddhist, the most notable one being the hockey mom whose husband, the cruise line piano tuner (and I tell you his profession only because I think it is a rather unusual and cool one), claimed she could meditate for hours. That notion fascinated me and also explained why we rarely saw her at the ice rink.

There is also my wonderful travel experience several years ago, when I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Narita, Japan where one can find the beautiful Naritasan Shinshoji Temple. This temple, which was founded in 914, is simply a magical complex where people bring prayers and incense to the gardens. It is a place that I would absolutely re-visit given the chance. (On a Google search, I was able to find one blog with lovely pictures that help illustrate what I mean.)

Finally, one of the regular field trips from my school is to a Buddhist temple in the city. One of these years I would like to con my way into going with that group, for I am really too shy to make my own visit there.

Though only still in the first third of Moore's narrative, I am drawn to his regular-guy voice, and I can tell that this book will give me a decent overview of what Buddhism is all about. Chapter 5, playfully titled "Why do Tibetans have such trouble with their vacuum cleaners? They have no attachments", explains that there are three main categories of American Buddhism: Zen, Theravada and Tibetan.

Here is a quote:

". . . Geshe-la is explaining that the source of our problems is our human weekness, and that weakness is our tendency to become attached. Attached to all manner of things.

Geshe-la explains it this way:

Though we often tend to blame them, it is not the external things like families, jobs or money that create problems for us in our lives. Rather, what actually makes us unhappy is our tendency to desire that these things bring us happiness. This expectation that family, job, money, a new car, whatever, will make us happy is what binds us and causes our discontent." (p. 42)

That sounds to me very much like the notion that attitude is everything when it comes to finding happiness. I guess Buddhism must be as much a state-of-mind as anything else.