Thursday, September 06, 2007
6th September 2007
I was due go meet a friend this morning, and I couldn't decide whether to wear trousers or a skirt.
This is a common enough dilemma; but today it utterly upset me.
When I got to my friend's house I was terrible company: I just cried as if with a broken heart.
Moving forward seemed impossible.
This evening I went to a Buddhist meeting for the very first time.
I didn't really expect anything, i arrived late, I had to ring the bell to get in, I felt terrible, and then I had to ask the kind man who'd let me in for a chair. I felt I had disturbed the silence and upset everybody.
and then in the sitting meditation I kept falling asleep.
No matter how hard I tried to stay alert and awake sleep, like a cunning infiltrator, slipped past my guard and I felt myself drifting off into dreams.
And then in the walking meditation i found it so slow! And I couldn't keep step with the man in front of me and I kept losing my balance.
However, something must have happened because at the end of that walking meditation I realised I felt happy.
At the end of the session we were invited to "dedicate the merit" to somebody. I don't think i can have acquired any merit at all., but I thought of a poor suffering woman in court today, accused of manslaughter.
Her son kept an exceptionally powerful and dangerous dog, which they generally kept in the garden. Earlier in the evening, her son had been maltreating the dog and now, late at night, it was at the door whining.
It was a cold night and she took pity on it and let it in.
It attacked her wee grand daughter and worried her to death.
"It's my fault" she said in court today. "It's my fault my grand-daughter died".
And I thought of her today.
And of her son, her poor lost son, who needed a savage dog to prove his manhood.
And then, still in his manhood, needed to mistreat it.
And of the desperate young man who yesterday jumped off the North Bridge, landed on Waverley Station roof, and is in hospital right now suffering multiple injuries.
Manhood. How cruel a god it has become.
The things it demands of us.
And the desperate, desperate measures it takes to escape.
I was due go meet a friend this morning, and I couldn't decide whether to wear trousers or a skirt.
This is a common enough dilemma; but today it utterly upset me.
When I got to my friend's house I was terrible company: I just cried as if with a broken heart.
Moving forward seemed impossible.
This evening I went to a Buddhist meeting for the very first time.
I didn't really expect anything, i arrived late, I had to ring the bell to get in, I felt terrible, and then I had to ask the kind man who'd let me in for a chair. I felt I had disturbed the silence and upset everybody.
and then in the sitting meditation I kept falling asleep.
No matter how hard I tried to stay alert and awake sleep, like a cunning infiltrator, slipped past my guard and I felt myself drifting off into dreams.
And then in the walking meditation i found it so slow! And I couldn't keep step with the man in front of me and I kept losing my balance.
However, something must have happened because at the end of that walking meditation I realised I felt happy.
At the end of the session we were invited to "dedicate the merit" to somebody. I don't think i can have acquired any merit at all., but I thought of a poor suffering woman in court today, accused of manslaughter.
Her son kept an exceptionally powerful and dangerous dog, which they generally kept in the garden. Earlier in the evening, her son had been maltreating the dog and now, late at night, it was at the door whining.
It was a cold night and she took pity on it and let it in.
It attacked her wee grand daughter and worried her to death.
"It's my fault" she said in court today. "It's my fault my grand-daughter died".
And I thought of her today.
And of her son, her poor lost son, who needed a savage dog to prove his manhood.
And then, still in his manhood, needed to mistreat it.
And of the desperate young man who yesterday jumped off the North Bridge, landed on Waverley Station roof, and is in hospital right now suffering multiple injuries.
Manhood. How cruel a god it has become.
The things it demands of us.
And the desperate, desperate measures it takes to escape.
Labels: manhood and the Buddha
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