Sunday mornings are a chance for all us sinners to reflect on the truly devious lives that we lead. Although God intended it as a day of rest, those who serve and think they own God all have their own assessments on how Sunday’s should be spent. Despite having been brought up Catholic and attending Catholic school, none of the Kenney children continued attending church as adults. And yet, there Sida and I were Sunday morning preparing for our morning of religion.
We arrived at the Kadampa Meditation Center and I could see the excitement on Sida’s face at her opportunity to share this place with me. More than the light in her house changed when she moved to Sarasota from the dreadful cold of the north, also a light within her seemed to be blossoming. And with this light she reached out and somehow found herself a home away from home in this Buddhist place of worship. Or rather, place to journey the self and worship the self and discover how to heal the self through compassion to yourself and others. http://www.meditationinsarasota.org/
Often times she had tried to explain this place to me and the feeling she’d gotten from it over the phone but I never really could understand what Buddhism in practice in America would look like. But there it was; a small white house from the outside and on the inside a simplistically styled couple of rooms decorated with Buddhist statues and books. Of course as we entered Sida was greeted warmly by this family of hers with hugs and laughter and stories. Then it was time to get seated and so we found our spot and got silent.
In walked this small woman with a shaved head, looking around my age but with a much more innocent face, dressed in the monk’s robes and gracefully taking her place in front of the group. Her name, Demo, or rather Buddhist nun Gen Kelsang Demo. And then she began. The teaching was comprised of various chants in Sanskrit at the opening and closing which it seemed everyone around me knew by heart but of course I couldn’t understand. With their eyes closed I slightly peaked my own open and glanced around me; what I saw was a room full of people who truly looked like this meant something to them, Sida most of all.
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| Sida with one of the other teachers at the center |
In the middle section Demo lead her teaching from one of the many books that sat by her side; today’s lesson: Our attachment to retaliation. I’ve heard said that when you are ready, the teacher appears. I’m not sure why this specific lesson happened to be the one I walked into, but I am one who believes there is reason in everything. And so I listened intently to her; while trying in my heart to search for any attachment I had to retaliation-- I realized my attachment is quite strong.
Here is my take on the lesson: On a small scale here is a simple example to help in grasping the concept. I was driving along when I saw in my rear view mirror two bikers weaving through traffic and then suddenly cut in on my left side between my car and the side walk to get past me. Now in front of me they start showing off and release their hands from the handles then suddenly pull U-turns. Without hesitation I reacted with what I thought was justified and I had my middle finger out the window screaming “You fuckin’ idiots!”
When someone—other than yourself of course—acts in a reckless, idiotic, thoughtless, or harmful way we judge THEM…not their ACTIONS. And we feel it is okay to retaliate against those actions because we assume they deserve our retaliation and are in fact asking for it. When it is our own ACTIONS that take over in the heat of a moment we know and can separate the action from who we are; we even desire and beg a bit of leniency from the people around us. Forgive me, I’m stressed, I had a bad day…exedra.
When others retaliate against us on our ‘bad days’ it does nothing but push us further into our negative behaviors. In fact it aids in the continuation of this damaging and destructive cycle and we think to ourselves ‘they just don’t get me’. We cannot know why people do the damaging, hurtful things they do, but lashing out at them does nothing to ease their suffering or aid in their self discovery. Instead it enrages them further and stiffens your development as well.
Far too often feuds last out of nothing more than pride. One party must be willing to drop out of the cycle and say, ‘forget it’ then move on. We see so many wars that have gone on for centuries; children picking up where their parents taught them to without ever really questioning, ‘what does this have to do with me?’ And so they fight on…attached to their fight, attached to being the one that come out as right.
We meet many people along our paths that suffer from these kinds of attachments in various ways; people who this aspect of their character has become what we see them as. They are constantly on guard—defensive—me against the world; entitled bitterness towards individuals and groups. It is easy to find ourselves feeling sorry for these people, easy also for us to judge them for it.
What if we could separate these actions as foreign to the person? What if we could view these destructive paths as disease instead of as a life choice? Powerful for our compassionate hearts this kind of thinking would be. Imagine a friend of yours is diagnosed with cancer or some such disease. You would see them with sympathetic eyes, you would support them in their ‘dis-ease’, you would keep some faith that this pain can be alleviated or fixed…defeated from the body.
What if we could view people with mental delusions, causing them to act in harmful ways, with the same sympathy and love—trusting this delusional behavior is foreign ‘dis-ease’ to the body? Essentially, each of us has collected years and years of ‘dis-ease’ and dirt around our perfect and pure hearts. And this dirt has grown into a bacteria that leaves us with behaviors that are not ourselves, behaviors that are not the person we know we are inside.
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| Sida in the middle. Demo the nun on her right. Another student giving her a kiss on the left |
Imagine a nugget of gold. You come upon it while digging around in your garden. It is caked with filth, but you don’t doubt for a moment how worthy it is. In fact you take great care in cleaning the dust off, you work hard to get down to the shimmering true beauty of the stone.
If only we took such care with each other’s filth—careful not to chip or hurt the precious heart underneath. Working with complete dedication because we have no doubt at all of how valuable that person is in the purity beneath all the layers of dirt that have accumulated over the years.
Demo asked us to meditate on this idea so that we could ease our attachments to retaliation. She asked us to recognize that when someone acts in a harmful or deluded way towards me that instead of continuing a cycle and looking dis-eased myself—instead to accept the dirt clouding around this person’s pure heart. Instead of fighting against them, is there a way for me to support the discomfort they are experiencing, is there any tool I can use to chip away some of their dirt?
Overall the message is this: Instead of approaching every person with the measured accounting of “LIKE” “DISLIKE” or “NEUTRAL” try to approach them with pure compassion. “LIKE” only grows my attachment to that thing. “DISLIKE” only fuels my own delusions and pain. “NEUTRAL” allows too much ignorance and may leave me with many missed opportunities.
I thought to myself and expressed it to the group…”If only I could approach everyone the way I do dogs—with such simple un-judgmental love. I’d walk around saying ‘Hey there Buddy.’ To everyone I crossed paths with.”
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| Me with one of Sida's Buddhism teachers. Notice the ring of fire around my head... |
After we left our religion for the morning we headed out into my own kind of religion…the elements. After getting changed we drove to St. Armonds Beach, another favorite area in Sarasota. St. Armonds has some excellent shopping and Sida wanted to look around so she dropped me at the beach where I did some reflective sunbathing and a purifying swim. With all the thoughts from the morning it seemed I was more aware and at the same time less aware of the people around me. It was…dare I say…peaceful at the beach on that Sunday afternoon.
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| At the Tommy Bahamma Restaurant in St. Armonds Circle a few years ago with my family and Uncle Ricky |
Back at the house Sida and I tried to explain the lesson and feeling to Gary, but it seemed not to get through. I understood. Considering Sida had tried to share it with me many times over the phone and it didn’t get through to me. I think some things have to be experienced and embraced to be understood and appreciated. But then not everyone is the same, so even if experienced not everyone would find the same peace that Sida has found in her home away from home. Non-the-less, it is comforting for me to know that she has found this place to help bring out joys in her life, to help her search for a deeper peace within herself and to have more compassion for those around her.
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