You are correct in the respect that Buddhism, like Stoicism, put the responsibility for your condition upon YOU, and doesn't provide the "outs" of blaming the Devil, or God, or some woman who ate an apple.
Buddhism, like Stoicism, gets a lot of things right. Even Christianity teaches that some types of suffering can be avoided through virtue.
I know things are going well for you now, you are crushing life. But it won't always be that way and it won't necessarily be because you did anything wrong.
You're a good dude, but no amount of charity, meditation or anything else is going to save you from suffering at some point.
Christ calls us to pick up our cross as a blessing, not something to be avoided at all cost. It's a tough thing to do. It's why so many are called and so few make it.
And Christianity doesn't guarantee that virtue brings worldly success either. Any religion that does is a flat-out lie.
ETA: I used to follow Lao Tzu, performing his health/spiritual practices daily for several years.
Tyrone, Happy Easter to you and all those you love.
Thank you for your kind words. Yes, in certain aspects of my life I'm crushing it, and doing better than ever before. In others parts things are.......interesting, I just don't share my drama's on The Fire or other social medias. I've had my struggles that were not the result of my own doing, and my primary tools for working thought these derive from core tenants of Stoicism and Skepticism, neither of which make any guarantee's to worldly success. Of course Buddhism isn't monolithic, but in general, it makes no promises of worldly success either. Actually, it's promises quit the contrary, that life is suffering and provides idea on how to mitigate how you allow this to affect you.
In my mind, Christianity's just another take on this same dilemma that adds an unnecessary supernatural element. (Now to be fair some forms of Buddhism do worship The Buddha as a God and include an origin story with super natural aspects, but I digress...) I take a more holistic approach to literature during the navigation of life's challenges. I don't limit myself to one philosophy, or one writer of one era, or one discipline, and don't consider any specific one as divinely inspired so I'm able to perform a less biased evaluation of the relevant text and idea.
You will noticed I included Christianity, because sometimes it provides very relevant idea. I'll give you a example. My daughter and her boyfriend were considering a move to another state. His father did not want them to leave for his own selfish reasons, so I sat down with them to discuss. And upon what did this discussion center? Genesis, Chapter 12, verse 1 and 2:
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
Sure, it's from the Bible, but on that day, it was the wisdom that best applied to their situation, but of course I skipped the part about Abraham whoring out his wife as his sister, because well, that didn't apply.
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
