Monday, December 27, 2010

Another End and Another Beginning

Couldn't get much more cliche than that title but its just a blog anyway. This months ends one of the most influential years of my life. I took my refuge vows, began this blog, attended 2 teachings by HH the Dalai Lama, received my first emplacements, lost my grandfather, struggled through position changes at work, and survived the great Atlanta Christmas snow storm of 2010. Actually a pretty busy year! It all gets wrapped up this week with a week long Vajrasattva retreat at Drepung Monastery. This purification practice is by all accounts one of the most powerful practices for our busy lives. I'm really looking forward to it.
I still haven't gotten a complete grasp of what I want to do with my blog. that explains the lack of postings lately. I'm not a writer or even particularly creative but I wanted to just put something out there. So if you stumble by and see something you like leave a comment. I promise I'll stay out of the fray of the "Buddhist Blogosphere" controversies. I've been an "online" person for a very long time and have seen many a flame war. I was actually naive enough to believe that Buddhist sites and forums would be above that but I was quickly returned to reality. Buddhist bloggers are just as attached to their opinion as any Linux zealot, Apple fanboy, or Windows Weirdo. (I would be the Linux zealot writing this on his iPad). I tried doing the twitter thing and wow what a mess of dueling egos. For every cool informative tweet there seems to be an avalanche of name calling and denigrating. I know just unfollow them, but I found myself caught up in the soap opera that is twitter.
So in an effort to not be one of "those" people, I am going to concentrate on one nice post a week. Maybe a poem or haiku, picture, or just a diary of what's up, that'll be my new beginning. My own pledge to try to bring something pleasant or interesting to the 2 or 3 readers that stop by and in the process create some positive energy from all of us.