Mantra a la carte

Well, it's been a couple of weeks and I can't say I've made a whole lot of progress yet on the Buddhism.
I checked out a couple of books from the library. First, Buddhism for Beginners by Thubten Chodron (2001; Snow Lion Publications). Then, the intriguingly titled Without Buddha I could not be a Christian, by Paul F. Knitter (2009; Oneworld (!) Publications.) [exclamation point, mine]
The second book interested me more, since it is written by a Catholic theology teacher. Unfortunately, it is very, very dry going and I have not made it through more than a couple of chapters.
The Chodron book has been more useful, supplying the basics for people who know nothing. The whole thing is a book-length FAQ. The opening question: "What is the essence of the Buddha's teachings?"
The answer is contained in this often quoted verse, says Chodron:
Abandon negative action,
Create perfect virtue;
Subdue your own mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

The line that caught my attention was "Subdue your own mind."
To be able to do that would be...awesome. Because if there was ever a mind that needed subduing, it's mine.
It's been more than a year since the big market meltdown, the cutback and all the other bad things that have been flung our way. Things have evened out. Yet I still find myself stuck in a sort of cyclical panic mode, with some horrible mood swing dips.
Layoffs rumored--stomach churning anxiety.
Layoffs pass us over--whew, now I can move on.
Fight with my daughter--no sleep for me.
Warm fuzzies with the family on Mother's Day--wow, I feel good.
Later that night--Oh look. Here's a rerun of the Tom Brokaw piece on boomers. Here's a guy who had a $200,000 job, got laid off and can't find another, and now he grinds his teeth and there won't be any money left in Social Security, cut to expert saying we don't have an answer and--for God's sake please turn off this channel!
So yeah, subdue this thing. Pronto.
The main thing I get from the Buddhism book, so far, is that you have to get rid of your desire for control and accept that bad things are going to happen, but they won't change who you are. Or maybe you have to be centered enough to not let them change who you are. Because clearly, people do change as a result of bad thing happening to them.
To stop that happening I guess you need to somehow stop the excess empathy. I think I'm going to be a while figuring out how to do that.
There's a lot of other stuff about Buddhism I'm not so sure about, though. For instance, the whole thing on rebirth. I'm not sure why all religions have to be so concerned with the afterlife. But it seems to be a central tenet. I wonder if I can just accept the things that help me and leave the rest.
If you try this with Christianity, you'll get a lecture about being a "cafeteria" Christian. I don't know if there's similar scorn about being a cafeteria Buddhist. I do know that it's a belief that, like Judaism, seems to encourage questioning.
So on with the questions.

It may be time for a change

I've been at this self-improvement plan for a year and to be honest, I don't feel all that much more optimistic. At least not in the long-term, change-your-life feel-good-movie-of-the-year way that I was hoping for.
The most hopeful signs for me, so far, have been occasional bursts of good moods, wedged between long spells of ennui (see last week's posts).
Clearly, it's time to step up my game. It's time for something of a world-outlook overhaul.
As luck (or maybe something more?) would have it, PBS came to the rescue last week with a special on Buddhism, which I taped.
Much of it was a history of the life of Buddhism's founder, Siddhartha Guatama. But the brief rundown of Buddhism's tenets struck me as appealing. (Watch the special here, if you're curious.)
Mainly, I like the idea that this is a religion (philosophy?) that doesn't dwell on blaming yourself for every bad thing that ever happens. In the religions I'm most familiar with, there's a constant drumbeat of blame. Why aren't we living in happy harmony with each other and with nature? Because we're bad, bad, bad. Women especially.
I don't know about you, but most women I know don't need anyone teaching them how to blame themselves. It's something we do very nicely all on our own. If you take it too far--as I've sometimes done--it makes your life unbearable. In fact, blaming myself for every misfortune that's befallen us is one of the top things that occasionally makes me miserable.
The usual Christian way of dealing with this is to pray more and think more about Jesus dying for us and about a rewards in heaven. I've gone along with this most of my life.
It isn't doing much for me now, though. When I look at what's been happening in Christianity (religion as power in The Family; the scandal in the Roman Catholic church) the religion of my youth seems more like a weapon to control people with. As a way of dealing with life's hardships...not so much.
So here's Buddhism, and after looking at an overview of it's central ideas, I think right away this is going to be something that might help me. I'm not so sure I can go along with rebirth or vegetarianism--even Buddhists disagree on that, apparently--but as a philosophy, it bears investigation.
And so I shall.