I think of myself as the Vulcan Buddhist.

Vulcans aren’t emotionless as much as they’re super control freaks. Recognizing the volatile nature of emotion, they chose to place emotion in the back seat and mutually agreed to get along for the better of Vulcan. Emotion is therefore controlled and in most cases suppressed.

A Buddhist doesn’t control his or her emotions, but he is aware of them. He lets them rise up and out of him, not resisting them. Imagine it’s like accepting the river, standing in the middle, and letting the waters pass you by. You feel each drop, see life teem around you, but you accept that it passes on down the river.

Humans hate being passive observers and we reach out, strike the water and watch ripples spread out from us. We eat the fish, because we must. We drink its waters because we thirst. We’re a part of the river and it shelters us. But we struggle with the current, decide the river needs improvement. It floods too often, has too many snakes, or needs a place to dock a boat. We decide it should flow to the left and then the right, not the other way around.

Vulcans struggled against their river of emotion, lost for a time, but found their way in ritual and science. Emotion was to be shunned, which is like struggling against the current instead of moving with it. They placed structure around their lives that permitted only the smallest of emotion to slip into their existence. The river was dammed and straightened until it could be counted on in every season, but it will not be held. Balance is hard enough on the personal level. On a global scale it’s trickier.

Imagine a Vulcan who used Buddhism to accept the raging river, let it pass around them. He feels the rage of the torrent, the chill of the depths, the stagnation of a hot summer day. It is his reaction to these things that is defined by the Buddhism. Having allowed them to pass through him he learns more about himself and the river remains. That is balance.

Acceptance isn’t acquiescence. Most things simply “are what they are” and aren’t personal. The river doesn’t flood because it hates you. And no amount of rage will change it. Don’t suppress the anger or lust, but let it flow out of you. Yes, sometimes they move you to action. We’re not stones, for goodness sake. But the fact is the fewer stones you throw into the river means an easier walk.

Let the river flow.