For the last couple of years, I’ve subscribed to the Dhamma Wheel, a daily email with an excerpt of Buddhist scripture, a little reflection, and a suggested practice. I wouldn’t call myself a Buddhist. I’m more… Buddish. I go in because I like the idea of getting guidance on how to live from an “enlightened” guy who seems to have figured out a thing or two.
Lately, one teaching has been rattling around in my head:
“Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders healthy states, one has abandoned unhealthy states to cultivate healthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to healthy states.”
This one sticks with me for a couple of reasons. First, I’m still convinced our societal addiction to social media traps so many of us in unhealthy states. I’ve ranted plenty about this, so I’ll spare you (for now).
Second, for the last seven years, I’ve thought endlessly about masculinity and the state of boys and men today. Crisis. Toxicity. Loneliness. Violence. Death. A constant drumbeat driven by the question: what does it mean to be a man?
At some point it hit me that obsessing over the crisis might be part of the crisis. When we center the conversation on what’s broken, we train ourselves to look for brokenness. That’s not exactly fertile ground for building healthy men. Maybe the invitation here is to shift the pondering to spend more mental energy on what’s possible for men rather than what’s wrong with them.
Cumulatively, I’ve spent days (weeks? months?) of my life chewing on the question of masculinity, hoping some clarity would emerge that could help the guys who are supposedly so lost. And honestly? I think the only thing that truly defines me as a man is my XY chromosomes. That’s it. Every other so-called “masculine” trait like provider, protector, procreator make for tidy alliteration but read like ancient instruction. Those qualities only matter to me in the context of being a good human. And good humans come in all chromosome combinations.
So, I keep landing on qualities like conscientiousness, kindness, curiosity, intentionality, and love. These are ways of being that help anyone, male or female, live fully and with integrity. If the Buddha is right and our minds incline toward whatever we ponder, then maybe the work is to shift the pondering. To move our collective attention from crisis to possibility, from the mythology of Manhood to the practice of being fully, consciously human. What do you think?
