Originally Posted by
disastermouse
Also, once one starts down the road of self-honesty, it is notoriously difficult to turn back.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Totally agree with that.
But returning to the main point, for me Buddhism functions as a search for Truth as well. I have this habit of being a 'big picture" type guy, missing details and connecting (with mixed results) dots that I can't see. When I practice Buddhism, I acknowledge it as a practice for my well-being only insofar as I am needed to be healthy to solve the larger problems of the world (famine, sickness, war, and death... the four horsemen, ah). What I mean by "solve" is unclear - in particular, I feel solutions lie not within me, but within the ways we allow ourselves to connect with others.
I'm reverse engineering a machine that was made to grind humanity up in its own infinite nature, figuring out what it means to be a part of that machine (while wondering what it means that this machine can reverse engineer itself :P). The idea being, if I can figure it out, maybe I can make myself into the oil for these gears, getting the infinite grind to be something a little less suffer-tastic for everyone.
Granted, my motivation comes from purely personal desires for happiness and well-being, but a lot of "Buddhist views" (whatever those are) align with mine, I think.