Finding happiness within yourself by realizing your ideal sense of self goes against everything conservatives believe. They think life is about hatred, and winning at all costs.
You can’t just be happy and content with who you are, you have to chase happiness at the end of a crucifix, gun, and credit card. Pick your poison so long as you’re spending and supporting division. Anything else would collapse their true religion of capitalism.
Once I first read about the three poisons in Buddhism (essentially hatred, greed, and delusion) it seemed so simple and obvious. Then of course I noticed those obviously bad things in every shitty news story about the world.
For the three poisons, not really. Just DuckDuckGo it and see if you find a rabbit hole follow.
Their approach to meditation also helps with being able to analyze your internal thoughts almost like a third party. The monk this video explains it about half way through, but I liked this whole video. I find him super easy to listen to.
And around the same time I read some stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius is probably the first name you’ll run across. The really basic explanation is that things can only bother you if you let them, and it is within your power to improve your internal state without having to change the external world around you.
There is a common theme among both philosophies, essentially being more aware and in control of your own mind.
I am not religious about this stuff or anything. I’m a computer nerd atheist just like most of the people here. But using techniques and skills that markedly improve my life is what I’m gonna do regardless of who wrote the instructions.
Edit to add: I don’t mean to suggest this is the silver bullet either. It took medication and therapy too. It’s a lot easier to make progress on yourself if your mind hurts less.
