SELFISHNESS

 

I took my dog out for our late evening potty break but was unable to use my electric "mobility scooter" because a large car had parked right on top of the handicap ramp that is the only way to have access to the majority of the parking lot and walking areas. I had to fight back groans of pain while I hobbled with my cane instead of being able to USE the scooter. 

The ramp was OBVIOUSLY meant for disabled people - but whoever parked there did not consider anyone else's needs and desires but their own.

When I got close to the back gate, I noticed that someone had left a car parked directly in front of and completely blocking our one and only fire exit. There is a wide expanse of space where they could have parked instead - space that would not block our fire exit. As I passed, I wondered why they didn't consider anyone else's needs and desires but their own?

A little further on, I was unhappy to see that the movie company that is filming outside our gates decided to install their outdoor toilet right up against our fence,  two inches from the access gate the residents use to take their walks along the irrigation ditch and down to the dog park and just two feet from my neighbors' front door. Again, there are acres of room out there and they could have chosen to toilet themselves AWAY from our doors, sidewalks and walkways, but they didn't. I could almost SEE the stench rising from the latrine .  I wonder why they didn't consider anyone else's needs and desires but their own?

As I turned toward home, I thought about how life "themes" tend to strike me within the daily happenings, and I can see a string of meaning - a life course, of sorts. The last few months, I have been getting teachings about selfishness. It is easy to recall many examples of it For instance:

Last week, a visitor parked their car in front of my garage so I could not enter or exit - and when I asked her to move, three people joined her in some very frightening intimidation, screaming and yelling at me, calling me vulgar names and making reference to my being "old." They kept me prisoner in my car for 20 minutes, blocking me from going forward by moving the traffic cone in front of my car and then leaning over the hood while they screamed at me and made filthy faces and hand gestures. It was a nightmare.  Their belief appears to be that their comfort and convenience supersedes the rights and needs of everyone - even a disabled senior lady who pays rent for that space the interloper misappropriated. Their own parking space is just a few feet further away than the one they covet, and apparently this is of great insult to them, these newcomers to the building who drive a vehicle that sports, in LARGE letters, the motto, "F - - K THE POPULATION," an anti-social modern saying.

I had an experience recently in which other shoppers have been so absorbed in their own mental processes that they have banged into me, jostled me, reached across my body to get something they wanted - and all of this happened during a pandemic in which consciousness of one's proximity to other people is really important. When I asked one woman to stop touching me and to give me some space, she stood over me and glowered at me. She was awfully tall - at least six feet. Most women aren't that tall, and I remember wondering if her height had helped to turn her into a bully. She must have been an awful creature on the playground. She refused to get out of my space, so I had to leave and circle back later for the vegetables I had been picking when she accosted  me.

This is how gangs take charge of neighborhoods, I imagine. No one wants to go near these anti-social cretins, so everyone is forced to just give them what they want.

Something that happens as you progress in meditation practice is the ability to see the condition of other humans - the darkness and preoccupation of their minds - and how cut off they are from consciousness. Selfishness makes these people spin around inside their own minds, orbiting around the mania of the moment. Buddhists call this "monkey mind."  It is a terrible ordeal and torment for them.

Lately, I feel surrounded by these lost souls, as I have had to go to the doctor many times for a skin cancer that needs to be removed, and I am out in the public much more than is customary. In the process of getting my medical needs met, I have had to interact with some of these "monkey minds" including that of a very young surgeon I met with yesterday. She was manic and used hyperbole to mask her lack of concentration. The "conversation" was disturbing, as she repeated answers to questions I had not asked, ignored some of the questions I DID ask, and misinterpreted some things I had said - ostensibly because she was not paying proper attention. Recognizing the signs of "monkey mind", I have scheduled an appointment with a different surgeon.

I was very glad to interact with a man at the Cancer Center who DID seem completely present and conscious - the man who had been tasked with pushing my wheelchair around the facility. He took some time to show me some of the art on the walls, and then took me to my car. I was sad not to have had any cash to give him and made a mental note to carry some with me next time I go to the hospital. Their valet parking and other services are "free" but I am sure a tip would be welcome. It was a psychic relief to interact with someone who was present and selfless.

Tonight, while I walked and prayed and thought, I held the dog's leash with one hand and the recently purchased cannister of pepper spray attached to my key chain in my other. I am idealistic, but I am also practical. Now that people have started aggressing on me, I need to be prepared. I had no idea that some disabled and senior folks are routinely faced with abuse simply because they aren't vigorous enough to defend themselves. It's a sad commentary on human nature, and one that gives me great pain to observe.

Cherishing the delights of being able to help other human beings, and mourning the loss of this ability, through disability and its resultant poverty, makes me very sad for myself but especially for these people who apparently are ignorant of one of the most dazzling pleasures that being human provides.

Of all the memories I cherish in my old age, it is the memory of the handful of times I have been able to help other sentient beings get some need met or some long cherished desire realized. I can't imagine a life in which this is not experienced, desired or pursued.

The beauty of selflessness, of loving one's neighbor, of kindness and consideration, is sublime - exquisite - and supremely satisfying. I pray that everyone gets to experience its pleasures because it changes one's outlook on life entirely. I am betting that all my readers are well aware of this, as you all tend to be highly evolved people, I have observed. Please join me in my prayer that the bullies of the world get to experience and be transformed by selflessness, something Jesus talked about more than any other topic.

Silver Rose
Sannyasini Kaliprana

THE PLEASURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

"Art Student" - 1997

Silver Parnell

Layers of consciousness pervade creations, whether a sketch, a story, a crocheted baby blanket, or a piece of jewelry made by hand, they are all steeped in experience, feeling and relevance, especially for the creator, the artist.

We aesthetic types are driven to produce beautiful things. Some artists produce stark and sometimes even ugly things, but those creations have a dark beauty that comments upon and reveals the dark aspects of our lives and our world. It all shakes down to some kind of beauty in the end.

Capturing a moment in time, and placing it onto a canvas or a sheet of paper (such as the one, above) merges the moment with the beautiful object produced. In this sketch is the inspired feeling of throwing myself back into the two dimensional art during a period of heartache, the end of a short marriage in which I discovered that my new husband was actually a con artist, though not a very ambitious one. He had lied about everything except his name, then rushed me into marriage on the pretext that he was so keen to have me, when the truth was considerably more modest.

The man was in financial ruin and had to hop onto someone - anyone - who would keep him from becoming homeless and thereby looking bad in the eyes of his parents. It was a disaster, most particularly because, while I had a rather good job as an office manager and litigation secretary, I had no money to speak of. At any rate, I got out as soon as I could, vowing to never go near another man as long as I lived. I have never been and would never be "lucky in love." It made me feel very little to have been used so badly for so pedestrian a reward.

So I furiously sketched out my disappointment and regret, channeling that energy into my classwork. I had never been so prolific. I remember the day I sketched my fellow artist in class, but it is more than intellectual recollection that is fused with the image. The energetic wave created while begetting a picture without looking at the paper feels something like doing a high wire act. At times, tears came to my eyes as I risked the daring trapeze - depicting without a net.

Birthing art into the world, even when fueled by despair and heartache, is a glorious thing because it arises out of body and mind and then returns to body and mind, gifting the mind with pleasing line and shape that strikes a chord in the brain. Consciousness of the object, in first the creation of it, and then the appreciation of it, is its own reward. If you can sell your work, that's really wonderful, but it's almost beside the point.

Today, I am disabled, in chronic pain, and am very slowly going blind and, although cheated out of an inheritance promised to me for 50 odd years, and living an embarrassingly mean existence on Social Security alone, I revel in the pleasure of consciousness. The drama and color of it all is remarkably pleasing, in the same way that a really good movie or Broadway play would be. Movies and plays would be dull, if not for considerable conflict. Books about writing will often counsel budding writers to be sure and include big conflict over which the hero prevails.

We are all the heroes of our own little dramas, and the degree to which we rise above our cares is the degree to which we 'succeed' in life. The weight of the cross that each of us carries through our own drama is a testament to our dignity as human creatures and, even when someone is discounting us or demeaning us, we are dignified by it if we can view all of it through the lens of gratitude for the consciousness of all of it. The greater the conflict, the better the story.

Today I am taking great pleasure in my perceptions of life and my own peculiar story, experiencing the movement of the Lord throughout, and I hope that all of my readers may likewise take great joy in the pleasure of the gift of consciousness and self reflection, today and every day.

Silver Rose