What is a philosopher?

What is my calling, and what is it that makes my existence what it is? I would answer this by asserting, ‘I am a Mahayana Buddhist philosopher.’ But this sentence, like many other answers that we all attempt to give, contains more questions than answers. The question of what it means to be a philosopher has become such a common question that everyone now has different answers. But what does it mean to be a religious philosopher, or more accurately, what does it mean to be a philosopher who has allied himself with the movement of Mahayana Buddhism? To the very first question, one might initially think, that it implies some level of qualification for one to call himself a philosopher in good intellectual honesty. The happy fact is that this does not, and should not be the case, because a level of qualification should only be assumed if one wishes to be an academic teacher on the subject. Fung Yu-Lan, in the most poetic manner, summarized the endeavour of philosophy as one that every person should take. ‘According to Chinese tradition, the study of philosophy is not a profession. The purpose of the study of philosophy is to enable a man, as a man, to be a man, not some special kind of man.’ A cynic might accuse Fung, like many other higher-level philosophers, to be committing the unforgivable crime of upper-class, academic snobbery. In fact, the word ‘philosophy’ is misleading as a discipline, because it is common to mistake philosophy as a profession similar to something like medicine or law. Now, one learns to be a good doctor through studying medicine. One becomes a barrister by training in the discipline of law. But to study philosophy is far more than simply becoming a good ‘philosopher’. Strictly speaking, all a philosopher does is think. Do other people like doctors and lawyers think for themselves? I  imagine they would like to believe so. Therefore, a ‘philosopher’ is only the description of a certain state of existence: the state of a thinking and reflective existence. The study of philosophy is the process of becoming a better human being.