Thursday, October 25, 2007

Why do I live here?




MONDAY - After spending a lovely weekend in a fare city, in a faraway land called Virginia, I landed at LaGuardia, to be greeted by a taxi strike. It cost double and took twice as long as it usually does to get home. I had to share the ride with three other disgruntled travelers who chose to take out all of their anger and frustration on the driver. After about 20 minutes of enduring their misery, I finally piped up and asked them to leave the poor man alone. He's just trying to feed his kids. My decision to stand up for this man was a risky one and to tell you the truth, it didn't pay off. Not only did the disgruntled travelers turn their frustration and anger towards me, but so did the driver. He didn't need no stinkin' woman defending him. Well, pardon me.




TUESDAY - I went to my usual deli to get breakfast. I was standing in line waiting, and just as it was my turn, a suit walked in and started ordering in my place. The guy behind me got all upset on my behalf and I told him not to worry. It's just breakfast. But then the woman who had been before me turned around and asked, "How can you let him do that to you?". She was outraged. Not by him. By me. I said the same thing I'd told the other guy - it's just breakfast. Clearly, the suit thinks he needs it more urgently than I do and I'm not going to pick a fight about it. She made that noise that people make in the back of their throat when they are disgusted - you know the one I'm talking about - ughcchchch. It was accompanied by a very dramatic eye roll followed by a look of pity that was mixed with more disgust and perhaps a dash of scorn. Well, excuse me. I'm sorry?




WEDNESDAY - I get on the bus to go home. At the next stop, an older woman gets on. She's not old old, but she's no spring chicken. She's probably a grandmother and she looks a little unsteady. So, I offer her my seat. Would you like my seat, ma'am? She responds with, "What, I'm too old to stand?". Deepest apologies, ma'am.




THURSDAY - I had a meeting at 10:30 with a woman who is a low-talker. Besides being a low-talker, she has the unfortunate affliction of not being able to match her facial expression to what she's saying. So, she asked me a question. I didn't hear her. I asked her to repeat herself. She asked me again. I was straining my ears to hear her, but it didn't work out. I still had no idea what she was saying, and her facial expression was giving me no clues. (If I could have trusted her facial expression, I would have guessed that she was telling me that she'd gotten a whiff of something awful) So, I apologized, and asked her to repeat herself one more time. She responded by yelling, " It's 10:30 in the morning! Time to wake up! What's the matter with you?". I only wish she'd been able to muster that kind of volume when she was asking me if I needed anything.




FRIDAY - It's pouring. It's cold. It's rush hour. Everyone is speeding down the sidewalk. Umbrellas are colliding, getting stuck one on the other. Owners of umbrellas are glaring at each other as their umbrellas collide. Control your umbrella, their looks say. The umbrella-less are glaring at the umbrella owners. Make your umbrella stop dripping water on me, is what their looks say. Walking through the streets of Manhattan with an umbrella is a blood sport, and I'm losing. These very same $5 umbrellas that we were all forced to buy from the guy on the street when we very foolishly left our houses without checking the weather forecast, will be scattered like dead carcasses on the streets and in the trash bins on the corners by morning. The wind will have destroyed them all. And then what will we glare at each other about? Huh? What?




Why do I live here?




No, seriously ... why?




Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Prayer




In his public talk on Sunday, the Dalai Lama mentioned prayer briefly. I was a bit surprised by what he said, which was essentially that prayer wouldn't change anything. It was said in the context of the war in Iraq and I believe he was referring to the need for action and not only passive prayer. It would be a mistake to only pray and wait for God to do something. H.H.'s point was well taken by this listener but it got me thinking about prayer. I began to wonder - do most people pray because it makes them feel better or do most people pray because they truly believe that God listens to and answers prayers?




I grew up in a house heavy on religion, light on spirituality. Prayer was a huge part of my life growing up. I had to pray before every meal (before a morsel of food touched my lips!, my mother would say) before bed, before during and after our weekly meetings, when I woke up, when I was anxious, scared, or sad, when I was happy or thankful. I was taught to pray continuously and to "persevere in prayer", as our good friend Paul wrote to the Romans. Not only did I have to spend almost every waking minute speaking to God in fervent prayer, but I had to be original. We were taught that it was sinful to repeat prayers. The Lord's Prayer was simply a model and not meant to be recited over and over again. Prayers had to be genuine and heartfelt. I spent many sleepless nights as a child and young adolescent worrying if perhaps the prayer I had just said was too much like the one I'd said the night before. Would God consider it a repeat? Shit! Maybe I'll only ask Him to take care of the widows and orphans every other prayer.




It was a lot of pressure. Imagine having to be interesting all the time. And not just interesting to your friends or family, but to, you know, God. Surely he was getting bored of my prayers. And sometimes, I just didn't know what to say. I have a fear of flying. Well, not the actual flying bit, just the landing and taking off bits. Two necessary bits of flying, I admit, but not the speeding through the air at high altitudes bit. Well, back when I used to pray incessantly, flying seemed like a good time to pray and beg God not to let me die. What I wanted to pray every time was, "please don't let me die, please don't let this plane crash on landing or takeoff, please don't let me die, I don't want to die in a plane crash". But, as you know, I had to be original. That prayer only worked the first time. Every other time I got on an airplane, I had to come up with more original ways to beg God not to let me die. I didn't want to offend him by repeating my original plea - especially not when my very safety depending on him wanting to answer my prayer.




And so it was that prayer came to be for me an obligation. It was like eating, only less enjoyable. If I wanted to live, I had to pray. The issue was not whether or not I believed in God. I did. The issue was, why couldn't I just say what I was honestly feeling each time I approached him? What if my desires, wishes, hopes, feelings hadn't changed during the day, and so my morning prayer and evening prayer were the same? Or what if I didn't know what to say? What if I just wanted to pray to feel close to God? Why couldn't I recite a prayer in these moments when I couldn't find the words? Why did he create me to find comfort in ritual and routine, and then demand that my prayers to him belie those things?




The religion in which I had been raised kicked me out when I started asking questions like these. It was then that I realized that perhaps the world-view I'd been taught, including all my ideas about God and prayer - it was all probably a big stinking pile of mumbo-jumbo. I didn't pray for years. Belief in the existence of a Creator became a distant memory - a memory that was laughable and almost quaint. I started condescending to my former self - awww... isn't that cute? We used to believe in God. How silly and irrational we were.




The good times couldn't last, though. At some point, about two years ago, my mind started revisiting this maddening and provoking issue of "god". Two years later, this issue still falls under the category of Things I Don't Know, and under the sub-category of Things I Don't Know That Make Me Crazy. I do believe in some thing. I don't know what form this being takes. Is it Love? Is it Nature? Is it Us?




Without having an answer to those questions, I've managed to configure a spiritual practice that is both refreshing and satisfying. No small feat given where I've come from. My daily meditations are a type of prayer, I suppose, though they resemble in no way the prayers of my childhood. A few months ago I caught myself praying a familiar prayer. I was on a plane - it was my birthday - and I was saying, "please don't let me die in a plane crash on my birthday, please don't let me die in a plane crash on my birthday ...". It was unexpected, though not surprising, as by that time I had already determined that the prayers of my past were all about making me feel better. I knew God wasn't going to keep my plane aloft just because I asked him to. Surely the prayers of the people suffering from hunger and war and poverty were more urgent than mine. But I prayed then because it made me feel safe - the act of praying was a ritual in which I found comfort, if not the prayer itself.




So, to answer my own question - I think prayer serves the purpose of consoling us. It is easier to ask an all-knowing and powerful being for help than it is to ask ourselves and to tap into and to trust our own power. This is what I think. I, of course, don't know.




What do you think, dear readers? What is the purpose of prayer, and why do people do it?

The Dalai Lama says ...





A few years ago, when I was first discovering and investigating Buddhism, I read several books about and by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Much to the chagrin of, I assume, everyone I spoke to, I started beginning every other sentence with, "the Dalai Lama says ....". It became a bit of a joke among my friends. The subject didn't matter - we could have been discussing toupees or politics, or cheese. In my mind, the Dalai Lama had said something that somehow applied. What can I say? It was the beginning stages of love. Anything and everything he said was wonderful and amazing. Some time has passed now, and while I still occasionally whip out a "the Dalai Lama says ...", they are fewer and farther between.

The Dalai Lama was in NYC last week for several days of teaching. His talk on Sunday was about Peace (the inner kind) and Prosperity (the non-material kind). It was my first time in his presence and I was struck by his obvious humility and joy. He emanated both equally. At the end of his talk, his interpreter read him questions that had been emailed in advance of the talk. One of them made reference to how H.H. has said in the past that NYC is a wonderful place to practice compassion, tolerance, patience, etc. due to the many opportunities that present themselves on a daily basis. This person said they were having trouble with those things - what should they do? H.H. reiterated the need for practice, practice, practice and then finally suggested that if NYC was proving itself a difficult place to live, this person should consider moving. After all, "I think America is a big land, no?", he said. Another person asked what we could do to help the situation in Burma. After a brief, almost imperceptible look of pain crossed his face, he told us what he himself had done, but then readdressed the question and answered simply, "I don't know".


Of the many lessons that I will carry with me from this particular Sunday afternoon, the greatest may perhaps be that if the Dalai Lama can say, "I don't know", it's sure as hell okay for me to say and to feel and to sit with not knowing.




And thus, the name of this blog. This is where I will go on, probably endlessly as that is my style, about things that I don't know. It will be obvious to you, gentle readers, that I don't know. Perhaps you will know, and perhaps you will share what you know. That is my hope, though not my expectation, because as the Dalai Lama might say ... there is no blog.