THE HAIR APPARENT

.

Tashi Delek Benza Sato, or perhaps I should say, Namaste Vajrasattva,


Probably as the father, or is it god father, of confession, you’ve heard it all, the full monty of human foible. So I’m seriously sorry to make you have to hear this one again. I do hope you won’t go ho hum. After all, you are what a Buddhist like me has got at a time like this, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ho, when little kids of the Western world have been sitting on Santa’s lap to get right in his face about what they want. I don’t have to tell you how big desire for getting what you want is around here. Ho ho ho. It’s so widespread even the grown-ups are polishing their gotta haves for this week, all those must-dos parading as New Year’s resolutions.


So here's about getting what you don't want. Om fa la la. I confess that this is exactly what made me blow my Buddhist cool last week, and now I am worried sick about the residual impact on my karma. The good stuff I was counting on for my future, what's in my Individual Rebirth Account, could be evaporating as fast as funds placed with Bernard Madoff. That’s why what I want for Christmas and need for New Year is your purification. Especially since somebody’s just sent me a You Tube link to joyous photos of Malaysian dharma brothers and sisters who stayed on for a retreat at my teacher's newly consecrated Namo Buddha monastery.


Holy guacamole, blessed Benza. There they were, even the ladies, being happily what the English caption called “tonsured.” Hair today, gone today. They were grinning wildly —as if having their head shaved for a ten-day program was winning a $2 million jackpot! And there I was back home in San Francisco, going ballistic over some hairdresser whose ego maniacal mantra is: “I do sculpture, architecture, artistic creation”, showing his scissor skills by chopping off most of my hair. It disappeared like all the money in the mortgage market. At points on the back of my head, it is barely an inch long.


I know the French say "il faut suffrir pour la beaute" but this is ridiculous. I also know this feeling of unwarranted and unexpected loss puts me in sync with almost everybody in the world right now, but did we really need one more? And the most ridiculous part is that I'm a mess. I know I should immediately have jumped at this unexpected shearing as a gift, a reward for any merit I may have accidentally accrued for giving all I could to the consecration of that monastery. Here was an opportunity to let go of one big mother of an obstacle, this bodily fixation of mine that dams up my true intelligence. I should have accepted my loss as perfect practice to get with the Dharma, a step closer to saintly nunhood. But I immediately covered the mirrors in my apartment, cursed the costly creep and spent two days hiding before venturing out to buy a wig for $89 plus tax from a shop listed in the Yellow Pages.

Saintly Sato, what is it with me? I like to think I’m as devoted as all get out, yet when Rinpoche sends along this juicy chance to be even more like him than I ever could have imagined, I freak out and run for cover. Having been given profound instructions and done a little mind training, I keep preferring a lifetime of bad hair days to one low hair day. Even becoming a fashionable recessionista, saving money because I won’t need to pay for a haircut for six months, is no comfort.

Maybe it’s because winter has come, even to California, and it is unbearably punishing to feel the damp cold on the back of my head and neck. I worry about getting sick, and the wig at least keeps me warm like a hat. Besides, it’s so real, nobody knows. Maybe I wouldn’t be so irked if it were July when some women like to have shorter hair to keep cool or dry fast after swimming. But, hey, it’s Christmas when everybody’s all decked out and jolly for all the photos being snapped at all the parties. Everything’s piled high and piled on, fullness everywhere. Look at how wigged out that old guy Santa is! He’s got enough tresses and whiskers to sweep Fifth Avenue. Do you for a minute think Christmas would be merrier if he came down the chimney bald?

And really, Buddha Benza, how am I now supposed to imagine myself the deity? Do you see one of them on those thousands of thangkas, even with a thousand heads, buzz cut? Guru Rinpoche shows a dashing hairline and gets to keep his mustache. Where would Palden Llamo be without her flaming tresses? I know from reciting the text, Rapunzel-like locks flowing and swirling in long swoopy curls help create Tara’s splendor. I'm supposed to look like that! Well, by loudly complaining I couldn’t possibly see myself as Tara, or let anyone see me, if I couldn’t tame my messy wet mop with a hair dryer, I once actually got the head monk of Rinpoche’s monastery in India to stop everything and fix the dead electrical outlet in my room. This lookalike thing apparently calls for everybody's vigilant attention.


What then is a girl to do with this no hair obstacle as a handicap? My self image has been unexpectedly punctured like a balloon. It’s happened in the middle of the city in the middle of the social season. I am not in a nunnery or at a retreat making a meritorious sacrifice like the Malaysians. I am in California, the golden hair state where it all hangs softly, blowing on the beach or in the convertible. Having an air brushed mane is such a must-do here, only one in 76 females passing on the sidewalk or in the supermarket, during the eye to eye surveys I personally conducted this week, manifest this sort of emptiness. I want to look happy, not gay.


That’s why it’s disturbing that a guy with a pair of scissors can so aggressively trespass when I am sitting in the chair telling him over and over how I hate it when hairdressers go gaga over my thick hair and try to cut it off, telling him how much I can’t bear to have any hair shorter than my ears. It is outrageous that he is standing there snipping and viciously razoring, telling me how experienced he is, how talented he is and how admired, all the while selfishly branding my head. Deaf ego like that causes a lot of unnecessary pain, doesn’t it?



Ah ha Sacred Sato! I know Dharma says be grateful to everyone, so I convinced the Scorpio in me not to kill that expensive egomaniac. After all, attacking him won’t bring back my hair. And he did hurl me into this crucible for another fgo. (fucking growth opportunity), even if I’m kicking and screaming my way through it. Even though I am swearing I will never let a man touch my hair again, I have to admit he’s shown me how I am fixated, attached and suffering, and Rinpoche always says go right for the big defilements, head first. "Il faut suffrir pour la beaute."


I want to think I am going to get past this embarrassment, although, I have to confess, maybe not on the cushion as Rinpoche would intend. Yesterday after shampooing, I figured out how to blow what hair the bastard left me straight outward, sort of Laurie Anderson style. So what if I look like I live in a wind tunnel or maybe just stuck my finger in a live electric socket? I at least look like a deity. Okay, so it's Vajrapani. But Rinpoche always say one deity is all deities. Did you know some non-Buddhists say: if you can’t look beautiful, look weird; they’re almost the same thing.

Oy Benza Sato hmmmmm, what a perfect candidate I am for purifying.

Sandy Garson
"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.tp://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/

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