Socialization in Buddhism

I was just thinking of why it is that monks and serious practitioners avoid socialization. It has been stated that Buddhism is not about become more social but about become more reclusive.  At least for theravada Buddhism.  I think it has to do with ones inability to mindfully help others if they have not developed that mindfullness themselves.  It is difficult to develop any sense of deep mindfullness when you are busy helping and worrying about those you are helping.  This agitates the mind and makes it difficult to be mindful of what you're doing, unless you have previously developed some degree of mindfullness.  Therefore, before you can be very helpful to others you must first help yourself.

Thoughts on Faith

Listening to several dhamma talks over the past few days I have come to the realization that there are two main aspects of faith in Buddhism.  First, one must believe, or have faith, that the Buddha and his disciples along with countless monks and nuns since the time of the Buddha have achieved some higher mental state and have attained some level of enlightenment.  They have seen some higher truth about existence.  Second, you must have faith or simply assume that they are telling the truth about what they have experienced.  I have heard that even if you have trouble believing all of it, as long as you can suspend your doubt and admit that you don't know everything (i.e. open your mind to the possibility), then it is still possible to start following the Buddhist path. 

Of course, it is probably best to start with some of the more.obvious, concrete and practical aspects of Buddhism.  That is to simply start making yourself stop for awhile each day to meditate.

Modern Media Obscures Truth of Impermanence

It's a little after-the-fact, but I had a brief realization on New Year's Eve.  For some reason New Year's Eve makes me sad.  I think it's just the loss of the old year and the uncertainty of a new year.  It's a very poignant, yet completely arbitrary, sign of impermanence in the world.  2010 is gone forever and now we get to see what 2011 is like for the next 365 days.

I have to admit that I am a science fiction fan, so I was one of the folks watching the Dr. Who marathon on BBC America.  I did the same thing on Christmas, but that's another story.  The combination of the new year and watching one of my new favorite shows led to an interesting thought/realization.  Modern media, with all its fidelity and lack of generation loss upon copying, tends to obscure the truth of impermanence.  Of course, physical media (i.e. DVD, CDs, etc.) still wear out like their older counterparts, but somewhere there is now a digital copy of just about everything preserved somewhere in such a way that it will not degrade in image or sound quality.

I'm not saying that these media defy the law of impermanence (see Anicca), because eventually the computers will crash, data will be corrupted, or the media will simply be forgotten.  What occurred to me is that we can now watch the same thing over and over.  If you have a favorite movie that you watch on a regular basis (holiday movies are a good example), you may be very surprised when you see a current image of one of the actors or hear that one of the actors has died.  Due to repeated exposure to the same images we have a certain vision of what that person looked like and that they are alive.  Thus, the person and actions captured on film tend to obscure our sense that time has passed...

...or, I may just be the only one.  I do tend to watch a lot of the same things repeatedly.