Enough

On today's holiday dedicated to the tradition of gluttony and the art of supersizing, let's give thanks for the Dharma which tells us to cut the craving and let go of that second helping. Your mind wants it more than your body, maybe because your mind doesn't gain weight and have to buy new clothes. I know we're supposed to be now in the moment, but frankly, now at this moment, not stuffing yourself can offer liberation from certain suffering.

Zen Buddhists even have a word for eating with restraint: oryoki, which translates as "just enough." Behind it is scientific theory, an ancient one, that says just enough is 2/3 full. In other words leave a little breathing room or spaciousness. So today offers a grand opportunity to practice Dharma by ramping up awareness of just how many helpings of mushroom stuffing or apple pie we are reaching for. Refraining from the all-American ritual of wretched excess followed by head bashing football on TV is a luxury akin to sitting stone still in the midst of city clamor. Inaction on third helpings can be meditation in action.

I'm saying this because this week non eating events kept pointing to this totally unAmerican idea of just enough. A suitcase, for instance, not super-sized because you packed just enough, can liberate you from suffering. I was, I have to say, quite proud of myself for being in Europe ten days with only a carry-on bag because somewhere along my line middle aged spread hit my packing. When in doubt, I took the whole closet. United Airlines tossed onto its baggage carousels a lot of suitcases with those dire orange tags that say HEAVY. but hey, I was ready for rain, snow, party, picnic, stains and just about any contingency a lawyer can think of. So it was a major miracle like modern science that I just went to Europe and carried on with only a carry-on in the season of heavy winter clothes, not airy summer frocks and shorts. Was this not the kind of progress that comes from Dharma practice?

I was, I admit, pat on the back proud of myself for squashing four pairs of trousers, four heavy sweaters, four tees and a blouse, plus two pairs of shoes along with lots of wool socks, clean underpants, camisoles and other necessities of female life into a dainty red wheelie. This, I also admit, turned into a two-day project, a frantic, experiment in scientific problem solving that absolutely had to work because my first trajectory was three planes and two trains. That, if I made it at all, was to be followed by more trains, subways, endless corridors and stairways, a three-block walk on Blvd St. Germain and a two flights up a narrow circular stair. Small was dutiful.

I thought letting go of a lot of clothes and the desire to have them handy was a high ranked enlightening achievement, but now that I'm back, I've had realizations. The main one is I took too much. If my wheelie had been, say, 2/3 full, my back wouldn't have suffered as much dragging it up and down all those public stairways.

But I was easily tempted by pet delusions. The main one is that I would never, make that never ever, wear the same thing everyday. I admire monks who don't have to decide before coffee what to put on but I am not ordained. I needed changes for weather, mood and occasion. Maybe Sunday I wouldn't feel like wearing black so I should pack something red. I needed to be able to make momentary choices. So I stuffed and stuffed my suitcase like people stuff and stuff their stomachs at the Thanksgiving table--out of some primal but inchoate fear. Yet in reality, I chose to wear the same pair of boots everyday and never once reached for either of the two pairs of shoes I thought I couldn't live without. Strike 1.

Surely white tees would dirty quickly so I needed four. Wrong: I got three days out of each and only needed two. Two tee shirts were never worn. Ditto one blouse: strike 2.

Every time I packed anew, I had to spend 15 minutes stuffing four sweaters into that little red carry-on and I don't want to think about the frustration of undoing all those zipper jams in their wool. And this only so I'd have variety and choice. But I never chose to reach for one of them because I was quite content with the other two. And wore the third only once because I'd brought it and was weary of pulling it out of those zipper jams.

i was so gobsmacked when austerity turned out to be excess--another practice in warped perception --that i am now cringing at my closet. It's another form of baggage. I need the guts to let go, to liberate myself from what's just hanging around there waiting to be chosen and just keep what I need. That's what I want for Christmas: that kind of clarity, those guts.

Getting down to the nitty gritty has become even more urgent now that I've moved momentarily into a friend's 6000 square foot house where there is not anywhere a clear counter, an empty drawer, a free closet. Everywhere the eyes are assaulted by stuff. what doesn't fit in all the drawers, cabinets and closets rests up against walls. And only two people live here among the 9 pairs of skis and four pairs of snowshoes, ten boxes of lightbulbs, 60 pots and pans, four televisions, 23 jackets, seven piles of magazines, 8 sets of dishes for 12, etc etc and so forth.

The house I am going to for turkey dinner is similarly stuffed. There is not even a space on a tabletop to put down your glass. The two-car garage is so full the cars are always parked outside. My friend's mind is similarly stuffed with concepts, all the should be's she gets from the culture and is perpetually struggling to turn into reality. I watch her suffer the frustration and physical burden of heavy lifting these carry-on preconceived prejudices and ideas.

I guess this is what "having it all" comes down to.

I want to tag these houses more than 2/3 full: HEAVY. Maybe others would give them medals of honor for supersizing and keeping the economy from sinking into Depression.In all its weirdness, this country actually depends on people overdoing it and having all these superfluous things. Emptiness, spaciousness is anathema: space has to be filled. It is no accident or mere coincidence that the great gluttony of thanksgiving Day opens the greatest shopping season of the year with its grand crescendo on Christmas Day. Then the year starts anew.  As a visual artist just put it in the New York Times: want it, buy it, forget it.

I want to tag these minds stuffed to the gills with manufactured must-dos and concepts--my friend gets most of hers from Dr. Laura and Limbaugh--HEAVY. What dead weight they lug up and down the steps of life.

So this is how Dharma kicks in, how perception purifies and wisdom dawns. Don't want it, don't buy it, forget about it. Don't buy in and think it either until you test drive it and see if it gets you where you need to go. Dharma did help me to empty and free up my mind; now onto my closet. How precious and revolutionary is the hard won understanding --at the table, in our baggage, in our houses and above all in our minds--of just enough.