HOW?

Last night I kinda broke down. I was on my way to MC a buddhist meeting where I would also be giving a description of the basics of buddhism. I was excitted. Traffic was really bad though and I desided to take a short cut but I dont really know my way around that well yet. I got lost. It killed me. I was so so pissed off. When I did finally make it someone had taken over my job. My friend Tai was there and he immediatley went up and sat with me, but after a few minutes i had to leave. I went for a walk around the block. I became aware of two things: 1. I am so much more dramatic than most people I know. 2. I wasn't just mad about getting lost. I realized that I was feeling fed up with feeling like Im impossing on people all the time because I have to stay with them. This makes my already slim sense of center even smaller and I am therefore left craving a relationship. But I don't want to be in a relationship so I have to push girls away. Im also tired of defending this Buddhism to myself. These people are wonderful and seem very happy but so are Christians. I think that if we want to reach enlightenment we need a concrete approach to doing that. But the truth is I don't care about enlightenment or even being happy really, my goal is truth. I think to get to that truth we need to clear the mind. SGI just suggests chanting. They say it will bring forth your Buddha nature, but how? Does that make sense, I mean seriously? We can't call forth anything, we're not magic! I mean, does your sense of smell respond to a call? Even if it could bring forth your buddha nature, what would you have learned? Through meditation you restructure your brain. Monks have even regrown the lining of their myelin sheath. You beging to disassociate your true self from your thoughts. SGI talks about the importance of realizing this but I don't see a way to do it. Its all very nice to help people and to learn from that. Its also nice to get to a point where day to day stressors dont bother you as much, but it just seems to me that that is not enough. It is much harder to sit and meditate for 10 minutes than it is to chant for 2 hours, ive done both. Most people pass their basic math classes, but it takes alot of effort to take more advanced classes. You have to work hard at understanding the truth of those problems because they are complex. This is how our buddha nature is, how the lotus sutra is. Some of the people Ive met at SGI (although very sweet) have an acceptance of the pratice on a very superfical level, but truth is truth. If they are benefiting from what they are doing, great, but its not going to get them to enlightenment. If you showed me a calculus problem i wouldnt understand it. I would have to do more than just chant "I am part of the truth this math implies" to understand it even though the problems innate truth effects us all.

I am growing sick of feeling so alone in these questions. I resent the people at SGI that take all this at face value while i am plagued with this relentless need to live life in accordance with truth. I feel that it may be hard but if a path is right, one must walk it.

So please tell me how chanting is going to awaken me? How will it calm my mind until I can disasscoicate my thoughts from "me"? How?

Anyway, after the meeting my friend Tai spent time talking to me even though he had aa shitty day himself. He was all smiles as usual. Then I gave me ex a ride home and she poored her guts into talking to me. We sat in the car, in the rain for an hour or two talking about all this. I really have made some great friends in SGI and I pray that I don't have to leave it based on my values.

I feel very vulnerable now. Im waiting to hear about a job, summer is comming and things with the ex are getting more complex. I feel I need some answers soon. I promised the ex i'd chant for another month at least.