half-baked Buddhist

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Funny, in spiritual life there can be this drive to improve -- to get better, to become, in my environment, a "better Buddhist." Buddhist or Christian or Jew or Muslim or... well, pick your poison.

Nagging gently or with overt insistence is the notion that "I am a half-assed Buddhist," someone who has not done or achieved what needed to be done or achieved. Whatever meanings I have found are half-baked and not at all as profound or wide-ranging as they should be. I can strike a pose and make it look as if I had a handle on things, but the fact is, I haven't got a handle at all. In the world of Buddhism, students can chortle as if they knew something, "There is no handle." But this handle too fails and disintegrates... a nice pose, but just more bullshit.

What a half-baked Buddhist! If I were a full-fledged Buddhist, people would listen to me or write prayers around me or build temples in my behalf or I would be serene and firm as the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammad or something, right?

But did you ever stop to think: Knowing you are a half-baked Buddhist or Christian or Jew or Jain means that some aspect of your being already knows what a fully-baked Buddhist might be. How could you know that if it were not true? And if it is true, why are you fuss-budgeting about being a half-baked Buddhist? Just because things are OK and you are likewise OK doesn't require applause or halos or light exploding from your forehead or some kind of agreement from elsewhere. Wouldn't it be wiser just to sit back and enjoy the ride? Sure, correct what requires correction, but lay off the endless 'half-baked' chatter.

Hang out with good friends, recognize fools ... just enjoy the ride. Aside from anything else, it will save money on self-help books and profound lectures.
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