Being Buddhist

Hi. My name is William B. Turner, and I’m not an alcoholic, although some of my best friends are or have been. On Facebook, I’m William B. Turner. On Twitter, I’m wbtphdjd. I also have an account on Linked In and on Scribd, so follow the bouncing queer all over the internet.

I am an uppity queer historian and legal scholar and, need I say, Buddhist. By “uppity queer” I mean that you do your thing, and leave me alone. I’m neither quiet nor shy about being gay, not least because our culture so insistently and insidiously delivers the message that queer persons are damaged and inadequate that I want to send out the opposing message loud and proud, especially at a time when LGBT adolescents are apparently frighteningly vulnerable to our culture’s fucked up messages to them. This is a topic that leads me to have some of my most un-Buddhist thoughts and assertions, but I’m a firm believer in the principle that you have to have a stable ego before you can lose it, so I’m more than willing to be an engaged Buddhist to the extent of promising a withering stream of criticism for anyone I catch beating up on, rhetorically or literally, any LGBT person.

Indeed, one of my chief challenges as a Buddhist (we all have them) is that I have an impressive ability to scare the shit out of people, sometimes without even trying. I grew up with a father who has an explosive temper, and unleashes torrents of obscenities at the drop of a hat. Although I like to think I’ve never behaved as badly as he has, still I do have to work on not recapitulating the phylogeny. As my mother always reminds me, as I could forget, I’m just like my father in most respects, and there’s nothing I can do about that.

Here’s a copy of my resume if you’re interested. This is important to me as I take my scholarly and professional accomplishments seriously, not yet having conquered ego enough to let go of them. Also, my dharma name is Intellect Lord.

I hope you like my site and its content. If you do, please consider making a donation to help me pay for it, via the Pay Pal button below. Thanks.