MoogleFan

I’ve been in the process of learning about Buddhism since I was a teenager. As it is a subject that interests me, it probably isn’t a process that will stop, however there are some outstanding things that I would like to do that would allow me to feel that I have learned enough to decide whether I want to be a practitioner of Buddhism, or merely an interested and informed outsider.

This includes reading a few books I’ve been meaning to get around to for a long time. I’ve already read: Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs (Steve Hagen), Zen for Beginners (Judith Blackstone), Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (Jon Kabat-Zinn), Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living (Surya Das), Studies in Zen (D.T. Suzuki), The Healing Power of the Mind (Tulku Thondup), and Essential Tibetan Buddhism (Robert A.F. Thurman). I would still like to read: A Buddhist Bible (Dwight Goddard/Various; or at least a large portion of it – this one is available legally online in an earlier edition: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/index.htm), Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (Stephen Batchelor), and Queer Dharma (Winston Leyland/Various). With that, I think I will have developed a well-rounded understanding of Buddhism. Exploring more of the Sacred Texts archive (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/) and BuddhaNet (http://buddhanet.net/) would be a good idea too.

I don’t know if I would ever want to attend a more formal Buddhist gathring and/or practice in earnest on my own, but again, I think this further study will help me decide.

For anyone who is trying to beat this, I looked through various help sites for dermatillomania + self-harm sites and came up with this, hope it is of use!: http://tinyurl.com/cspfree

I’ve decided I might periodically write entries about this since it’s one of my top goals, plus there’s such a hopeless vibe about it out there – I don’t want to deal with this ‘one day at a time’ for the rest of my life, I want to eliminate it! Right now, I’m reading this book called ‘Changing for Good’ that has helped me a lot already; it’s about progressing through stages in order to break away an addiction / bad habit…I would highly recommend it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46680.Changing_for_Good I’d found a group on Livejournal about dermatillomania as well: http://community.livejournal.com/csp_support/

I tend to refer to it as CSP ordinarily though since thinking of it as a disorder of some sort seems to block me from actually changing it. I think it’s a blend of obsessive compulsive checking, body dysmorphic perception, and self-harm (at least in my case) – I’m sure there might be some genetic or mental predisposition towards choosing this habit, however I don’t think it’s impossible to stop – besides, even reducing the habit would be better than escalating it, which is what I am aiming to do. I’ve been dealing with this since I was 11 or 12 and I am 20 now, though I only found out there was a term for it around 17 or so, so I’ve not been actively working for change all that long!