I had just finished an hour of Yoga For Retards followed by an hour of stuffing myself silly at a raw food potluck and I was feeling pretty good, besides the obvious ache in my stomach and the thought of later sitting on the crapper and praying to God to remove this burden from me and also to make it a clean wipe so I don’t have to use up half-a-roll of toilet paper in the process. I was at the crowded bulletin board of the rental studio, where not only space but also pushpins are a prized commodity. I borrowed one pin that when removed didn’t cause anything to fall in order to put up one of my postcards.
“Swami X…” I heard Andre at the front desk say to someone. I came around the corner and said, “My ears are buzzing. Are you talking about me?”
The older white woman sitting on the chair near the desk with a set of top teeth that seemed to jut out an a forty-five degree angle said rather blandly, as if annoyed, “I don’t talk about anyone I don’t know.”
I paused. If I had gathered up my skates and jacket and hit the elevator button to leave at that point I would have left a happy, fat yogi. But instead I opened my mouth and let the flies out. “Have you ever talked about George Bush?” I asked her, implying that she didn’t know him but probably has talked about him.
“Anyone who hasn’t talked about him is an idiot,” she said.
“I find him so negative that I try to avoid talking about him altogether,” I said, feeling in a good mood from the yoga/gorging combination and just playing along really, my hands down and not ready for the full-body bitch slap I was about to receive.
“Well that’s good for you,” she said (Translation: Oh, aren’t you so great. Why don’t you just fuck off?)
I told her, “Actually, I am a Tantrist, I believe in using all experiences, good and bad, in order to learn and grow.”
“Well, that’s your philosophy,” she snapped. She was cold as a dead prostitute that you had sex with an hour ago and then strangled to avoid paying the $20 and then decided to have one more go at it.
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, did I do something to offend you?”
“I just don’t want to talk to you.” (Translation: Fuck off!)
I sat in the seat to her right and was putting on my skates, preparing to depart and cursing myself that I engaged with the bucked-toothed bitch in the first place. She picked up her black bag and slammed it down a foot or two to her left. I said, “You said you didn’t want to talk to me and we stopped talking. What are you still mad about, I mean, you just slammed your bag down?”
“I can slam my bag down if I want to!” she barked so fiercely that I thought her dentures might fly out of her mouth and take out an eye. I thought how it was probably a much safer activity to run with scissors than to cross this lady.
“Of course you can,” I said and I was done engaging.
I am reminded of a beautiful story of the Buddha. When the Buddha and his disciples arrived at villages, often the village people—as in the people who lived there and not the faggy 70s group that sang the famous song, “YMCA”—were happy to see them and showered them with food and flowers. This was not always the case, though.
One day the Buddha and his group arrived in a village and the people were yelling at him and cursing him and really giving him the business. Many of the Buddha’s close disciples were formerly of the warrior caste and you could see the blood boiling in these warriors, having to eat crow from these pee-ons. The Buddha just stood quietly and listened. When the angry villagers seemed to finish their tirade, the Buddha said, “Thank you for the conversation.”
The people were confused. “What do you mean, conversation? We just told you what a lousy person we think you are.”
“I am honored that you would share with me so truthfully your deep feelings without fear of how ugly it may make you look,” said the Buddha. He then said to the main antagonist in front of him, “We have to go on to the next village now where we are expected. If there is more you wish to share with us, we will come back this way after our visit and allow you to express whatever you feel you need to give you satisfaction. I want to ask you just one question before we go. At the last village we visited, they brought us food and flowers, but since we only eat once a day and had been fed at the previous village, we politely declined their offer. What do you think they should have done with the gifts that they brought for us?”
The man responded, “They should have distributed them to their own people, who could have used it probably more than you.”
The Buddha calmly replied, “Whatever is offered to me, whether blessings or curses, cannot affect me. I would suggest you distribute what you have offered us to your villagers.” The Buddha continued, “I am afraid I cannot offer you the fight you seem to desire. You caught me a little late, if this was ten years ago I would have cut off all of your heads.” And the Buddha and his entourage left.
On the way to the next village Ananda, the Buddha’s closest disciple said, “Man, I almost lost it. I wanted to kill at least a few of them!”
The Buddha replied, “For them I feel compassion, for they are asleep. For you I feel sad. You are supposedly on the path to awakening.”
Had it been ten years earlier, I would have told that lady that she was a stupid Bugs Bunny-looking bitch and where she could shove her slammed bag—and I would have enjoyed it very much. Today such action would give me no joy. Instead I felt compassion for someone who was asleep. And I felt sad as well, because I know that it takes just one step to be on the path to awakening and I would have loved to see her take it.
I loved that Buddha story!.. thank you;)
One of my favorite stories of the Buddha as well. That and the one of him winning the hotdog eating contest.