Buddhism????????????

[Been There]

You cannot stop your desire, passion, attachment or aversion. They never go away.

What DOES change is how YOU respond to these feelings. With time, practicing Buddhism, you are no longer "hooked", no longer pushed along, by what goes on inside you.
This is what generates our inner peace.
This is what generates our freedom from suffering.
This is what allows us to open up more-fully to live and especially to what goes on inside ourselves, so that we feel more fully and vibrantly alive .. without the suffering. We can even open up to our pain without it bowling us over ... most of the pain is caused by resisting the pain anyway.

Buddhism is not about escaping. It is about embracing, yet becoming free a the same time.
The one who does not practice Buddhism is the one who is into escapism ... always yearning for some distraction, for company of others, for pleasure, for anything that will allow them to run away from inner disatisfaction, boredom, restlessness. Buddhists don't try to distract themselves, don't try to keep busy so they won't encounter themselves.

If someone offends me (and I'm having a "good-Buddhist day" .. in other words, I'm being skillful) .. I observe my hurt flare up inside me. Then I observe the anger trying to cover up my hurt. And I open to both these feelings and relax into them. And like water in a stream, it passes over me and moves on away. It does not push me downstream, head over heels in a torrent of anger. This is true freedom.

If someone compliments me, I observe the gush of self-cherishing and excitement rising up in me, and it amuses me greatly. It took passes over me and moves on. And because I no longer get stuck on any given emotion, and because I no longer hide any of my feelings, this is where the feeling of being fully alive comes from, and this is what makes life so incredibly rich.

Ego? What ego? What we call ego is nothing more than a set of habits and patterns, both intellectual and emotional. Constantly changing. Just try sitting down and meditating for 10 minutes, and you will see for yourself that there is no constant there ... only a constantly shifting pattern, restless and pushing.

Buddhism is a journey into yourself, into discovering who you truly are. It's a very slow journey ... very slow.
The Buddhist “learns to watch changes occurring in all physical experiences, in feelings and in perceptions. He learns to study his own mental activities and the fluctuations in the character of consciousness itself. All of these changes are occurring perpetually and are present in every moment of our experiences. Meditation is a living activity, an inherently experiential activity. It cannot be taught as a purely scholastic subject.” (“Mindfulness in Plain English” by Venerable H. Gunaratana Mahayhera, a Theravadan Buddhist teacher)