The Buddhist Santa Claus

Santa Claus gets most people's attention on Christmas Eve, but Chenrezig always gets mine. Somehow this particular night seems the most exquisitely perfect moment to pray to the noble Bodhisattva (aka Avalokiteshvara) who--like his East Asian female counterpart Kwan Yin-- sees and tries to heal the vast suffering of this world. At a time like this, it's so easy to conflate Santa's tossing packages of joy down chimneys to kids with Chenrezig's promise of happiness for all.

While kids are busy tracking Santa on NORAD, I with great enthusiasm always do Chenrezig practice. When I get to the mantra--om mani peme hung, may all beings be freed of suffering, I enunciate the words in slow singsong for the entire first round of the mala. The slow down gives me time to imagine pure white Chenrezig flying over the various people I know, delivering to each one hope for joy. Just like Santa. To hell with another purse or sweater.

My mind flies with Chenrezig over Europe and dips down for my two ex loves, my French friends, my German Dharma sister. We cross the Atlantic and swoop low over Halifax, home to two courageous young Nepalese women I know. We soar over Maine where I visualize so many friends and neighbors. We go down the East Coast, cross to Kansas, drop to Texas, glide over Arizona into California and come up the coast, continuing to Vancouver, Canada before crossing the Pacific to end up at Rinpoche's monastery in India.

I have 108 chances to visualize sanity and joy raining down on my chosen people. May they be calm and bright. I really love this part.  And then, even though the mantra rhythm is deliberately slow, my good intentions derail. Flashing the next face on the new Om becomes farce. It's a mess. I am already down in DC when I realize I forgot Brooklyn. I am halfway across the continent when I remember while whizzing over Maine I left out my protegé and her husband. OMB, I'm already on the Pacific rim when I think of the ex-monk and his family I passed over in Germany. Backtrack. Disgust. How can I be so stupid? Am I cursing whoever else I forget? Like the Passover Angel? Now, urrgh distraction!

Even worse, sometimes in the split second of Om, I visualize people who have been naughty instead of  nice. To me, that is. Wasting a perfectly good mantra on them pisses me off. My enthusiasm sputters. I apparently believe in this idea of the "deserving" just as much as all the smarting but not smart middle/lower class Americans pinning their hopes on the demagogue's tale of that jackass, Donald Trump. Besides, tossing blessings to bastards leaves less for the nice people I want to reward.

Still, truth told, since I do households instead of individuals, there always seems to be enough mantra recitations to go round my world. Sometimes I even end up with a few I can't assign. This year I gave the extras to faceless, nameless Syrian refugees who didn't ask to be bombed, poisoned, beheaded and shot--especially those beautiful children who are are now going to suffer forever. This last charitable giveaway--one year it was to all the long suffering people of Nepal who don't revolt against their abominable governors, always makes me feel particularly righteous. I really feel like Chenrezig. I feel insanely happy.

For a moment anyway. Frankly, when all's said and done, I end feeling ridiculous. Tricked again by my own delusions. There's a huge Dharma lesson right there when the naughty faces pop up and I'm stuck donating one mantra to them. There's a huge lesson when I run out of households or monasteries. I am praying for my friends, the nice people, because they're familiar to me. Notice family in familiar?  I'm happy to toss blessings to people I know. There are probably millions more equally nice people who deserve to be blessed by Chenrezig too. I just don't happen to know them. How narrow is my view! Eek! How judgmental I am: you but not you. What kind of Buddhist am I?

The Buddha said: everyone. He said "every single, last being." The Bodhisattva vow that makes Chenrezig Chenrezig and a role model says: "for all sentient beings without exception." My Christmas Eve Chenrezig ritual is actually anti-Dharma. Picking and choosing is the root of infinite suffering. Yikes. My midnight Christmas Eve ride is just an ego trip.  And I still haven't quit it. What a holiday ho ho no.




~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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