The sidewalks of samara
Really, if we have to be stuck in Samsara, Paris is the best place to be on the sidewalks. Paris has bookstores, brasseries and cafes, museums and an awesome Metro that carries 5 million people a day away from where they are to wherever they are going. It's a city of light, and small shops and big comforts to soothe the human condition.
I think of it as a lotus because half the time, I am underground. It's not just the awesome Metro, but fancy shopping arcades down there. And just about every bathroom in every brasserie is down under. There's even a tour of the sewer system, they are so proud of it. The French aren't fat despite the rich food they eat because they spend half the day going up and down steps, from the dungeon like depths below the living city to the light of day and monuments, only to fall back again into some cellar or other. We go into the underworld, then rise up without a stain, just like a lotus.
Paris is so old and so well preserved, it's possible upon coming up for air to sense just how far we've come as human beings, and perhaps just how far gone we are. The city is a melting pot, a rainbow. And seeing all the Arabs and Africans reminds me about consequences, that inescapable law of cause and effect: the French went there, the colonized came here. Sadly, there are beggars, but they offer a chance to chant Om mani padme hum and remember the constant reality of suffering.
History cannot be avoided either. Whether you walk down under by the thick ramparts of Medieval Paris or surface at the Arc de Triomphe or the Bastille or stare at the Revelations of the Rose Window in the Saint-Chappelle or simply stroll by a row of 17th Century houses as you window shop, the past demands to be noticed and digested. It's easily possible to look at Impressionist paintings--think: Van Gogh at Arles, Renoir in the bath, Seurat sur la grande jatte, all experimenting with the science of seeing after the camera was invented-- and 2nd C Afghan Buddhas in the same hour.
It's impossible to arrogantly uphold the narcissistic braggadocio of today's claim that our world is brand new, the best and brightest be all and end all. The past is so very present everywhere that at the Musee Guimet, an oasis of utter serenity that calls itself a Buddhist oasis, several ancient statues of meditators stopped my mind point blank. "We've been here before, been here done that."
Paris is softer and far less ferocious than New York, infinitely more polite than Hong Kong or anywhere the Chinese push and shove, definitely more forgiving than Berlin or any German place, and less self-conscious and self-congratulatory than shallow San Francisco.
A big bowl cup of cafe au lait with a croissant to start the day challenges your sense of suffering. Just being in a place so attuned and so accustomed to meeting without judgment all our petty human needs soothes the soul.
Paris is the place that reminds us life goes on, and as the French say, the more it changes, the more it stays the same. I think the Buddha had a similar idea in mind when he taught us about Samsara. So here's to the City of Light.
I think of it as a lotus because half the time, I am underground. It's not just the awesome Metro, but fancy shopping arcades down there. And just about every bathroom in every brasserie is down under. There's even a tour of the sewer system, they are so proud of it. The French aren't fat despite the rich food they eat because they spend half the day going up and down steps, from the dungeon like depths below the living city to the light of day and monuments, only to fall back again into some cellar or other. We go into the underworld, then rise up without a stain, just like a lotus.
Paris is so old and so well preserved, it's possible upon coming up for air to sense just how far we've come as human beings, and perhaps just how far gone we are. The city is a melting pot, a rainbow. And seeing all the Arabs and Africans reminds me about consequences, that inescapable law of cause and effect: the French went there, the colonized came here. Sadly, there are beggars, but they offer a chance to chant Om mani padme hum and remember the constant reality of suffering.
History cannot be avoided either. Whether you walk down under by the thick ramparts of Medieval Paris or surface at the Arc de Triomphe or the Bastille or stare at the Revelations of the Rose Window in the Saint-Chappelle or simply stroll by a row of 17th Century houses as you window shop, the past demands to be noticed and digested. It's easily possible to look at Impressionist paintings--think: Van Gogh at Arles, Renoir in the bath, Seurat sur la grande jatte, all experimenting with the science of seeing after the camera was invented-- and 2nd C Afghan Buddhas in the same hour.
It's impossible to arrogantly uphold the narcissistic braggadocio of today's claim that our world is brand new, the best and brightest be all and end all. The past is so very present everywhere that at the Musee Guimet, an oasis of utter serenity that calls itself a Buddhist oasis, several ancient statues of meditators stopped my mind point blank. "We've been here before, been here done that."
Paris is softer and far less ferocious than New York, infinitely more polite than Hong Kong or anywhere the Chinese push and shove, definitely more forgiving than Berlin or any German place, and less self-conscious and self-congratulatory than shallow San Francisco.
A big bowl cup of cafe au lait with a croissant to start the day challenges your sense of suffering. Just being in a place so attuned and so accustomed to meeting without judgment all our petty human needs soothes the soul.
Paris is the place that reminds us life goes on, and as the French say, the more it changes, the more it stays the same. I think the Buddha had a similar idea in mind when he taught us about Samsara. So here's to the City of Light.
posted by Sandy Garson @ 1:10 PM
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