A New Year Story
For many months, I had a large white box store plastic bag gathering dust on my bedroom floor. It often tripped me, but I told myself I'd deal with it later. And of course I didn't or I wouldn't be telling you this.
The bag contained clothes that came from concerted closet cleaning. Finding myself short of hangers for new stuff bought during January sales, I decided anything not worn in two years had to go. It turned out the game of musical hangers was lost by what hadn't been worn in at least five years. Actually, what went into the bag was between 15 and 30 years old: shoulder padded jackets, a silk shirt with gigantic Elizabethan ruffles, heavy winter weights nobody needs in California, and of course party pants I would somehow zip and button again. No consignment shop-- not even ones that professed to be vintage-- wanted this stuff.
So it was now out of the closet, but evidently I didn't want it out of my life. I kept it on the floor. I didn't want it there, but I didn't want to toss away elegantly crafted, classic designer clothes not made in China. I couldn't bear to see the quality and integrity they represented so easily ejected. So I just kept tripping over them.
Two weeks ago, I got a Eureka! jolt. I saw a soft news story about dust mites, microscopic creatures that nest in dust fuzz and eat human skin. The timing was, as Tibetans say, auspicious. I had been suffering so many sleepless nights of mysterious unstoppable dry coughing fits, asthmatic breathing and strange little bites, I'd started to suspect the problem was not going to be cured by medical intervention. It was environmental. Something in my bedroom was killing me. And now the dust mite exposé in the nick of time. Reading it made me recall when I was a teenager tested for allergies and dust mites hit the doctor's very short list. I laughed at him, certain being allergic to dust or its imaginary mites was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.
I turned into a killer possessed. I spent a heave-ho Saturday moving furniture, disinfecting floors, wet wiping lampshades and window shades, stripping textiles and machine washing at the highest temperature anything not attached to anything else-- even a yak wool blanket and an area rug that said: Do Not Wash in a Machine. I was on a ladder. I was on my hands and knees. I was on a mission. I vacuumed, squeegied, squirted and strained to get to the high ceiling. Nothing was left unturned. I even wet-wiped the exterior of that white plastic bag on the floor and then for good measure kicked it out into the hallway.
That night, for the first time in over a month, I slept without waking to cough or catch my breath. It was miraculous. And all my own doing. I had destroyed a threat to my life. I felt cocky proud and powerful. I had become master of my universe. How clever I was. Then on the way to the bathroom, I tripped over the big white plastic bag of clothes still in the narrow hallway. Later, I told myself, I'll deal with that.
Later finally came this week, on Losar, New Year for Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists. Its run-up and rituals are essentially about getting everything spic and span to enter the new year uncontaminated by the past, all super clean for a totally fresh start. Like me cleaning the hell out of my bedroom so I could breathe again, on the eve, I took apart my altar. I washed the surface and the floor underneath. I wiped the photos and thangkha. I polished the brass statues with freshly squeezed lemon juice until they glowed. I cleaned the seven copper offering bowls and two candle holders. I left nothing untouched, nothing impure to infect the energy of my new year--a monkey year. I was on a mission. This monkey wanted--make that needed-- a banner year. Anything to crush obstacles piled so high, I can't seem to pass GO.
To emphasize my hope for help, I greeted the New Year day with cookie and fruit offerings on the shrine. I got daffodils. I filled the seven offering bowls with new enriched rice. I started to put the seven offering items back on top and realized I was putting "back." I was using last year's stuff, that was in truth the year before's and back even beyond that. I was hanging on. It was so easy. Besides, I liked those little things. How clever I'd been to have found such appropriate symbols, especially the little Christmas tree ornament apple for food and the miniature copper tuba as the offering of music. Now they felt threatening: yesterday polluting tomorrow. Quicker than you can say Buddha, I jammed that old stuff in a Baggie and took off on a scavenger hunt. With ingenuity and a few dollars at the handicraft supply store around the corner, I pulled together seven brand new offerings for a brand new year, including a fridge magnet pretzel for food and a paper thin wooden guitar for music. I sat in front of my new altar glowing with pride and power. Once again in challenge, I triumphed. I changed the world.
I said mantras and recited prayers to get off to a pure (as in undefiled by negative karma) start. I sat quietly, basking in thankfulness for this opportunity to start fresh and clean. I long ago discovered cleaning a closet or a bedroom or an altar is truly satisfying because you see the positive results of your effort right away. You won't die wondering if you made a difference. But by now I've been around Dharma long enough to understand cleaning closets, cleaning house, cleaning yourself and your clothes means you are clearing your mind. The physical work is just the manifestation of a mental catharsis that removes the cobwebs and vintage thoughts that always trip you up. Tibetan Buddhists are very clear that whatever is going on in your physical world--including illness-- is just the manifestation of what's happening in your mind. That's why it felt so good to seem so clean.
Not wanting to that feeling to end, I decided to make a day of it. Today would truly be a fresh start. I would stand at the door like a bouncer and let no old habits in. I sat at the altar in meditation, did a puja and then, no I wasn't going to sit around staring at the computer screen, no. I'd join the world. I'd go out for a walk in the park.
I'm sure I would have if, as I headed for the door, I hadn't tripped over that bag of vintage clothes. This day of all days. Maybe that's why I finally got the message. We all kick aside things we don't want to deal with, hoping they will somehow evaporate on their own: the tangled relationship, the unspoken job grievances, the person not taken, the life not led. They never do, do they? They just hang around to haunt and trip us, to make us choke the way dust mites do.
I grabbed the bag, grabbed my keys and left the house. I walked the same three blocks to the Goodwill Store I've walked many times, and was almost at the door when a tall, lanky, gray haired guy stepped out from the wall to ask me what I was delivering in my bag. "Nothing for you," I replied and kept walking. "Just some women's clothes."
"My wife could use some clothes," he said.
WTF? My trip to Goodwill had never been interrupted before. Was he a trick? Were those highly polished brass deities on my altar testing me? Was this day really going to be like all other days? Or not? I hemmed, I "ummed". I tried not to look at the man looking at me. I didn't like the thought of some stranger, some homeless woman wearing designer clothes I had been saving as valuable. My clothes. I didn't like the idea this guy was trying to get for free what he'd have to pay a few dollars for inside. Maybe he didn't even have a wife and was looking for stuff to sell to buy drugs.
Yoo hoo, Losar here, a voice said. What are you thinking? Why are you thinking? Get with the program.
To make this new start new--extra-ordinary, I could be extraordinarily generous. I could remember to be as unbiased as the sun that shines on everyone without asking questions. I could be the Buddha by not discriminating, just seeing equality-- the Buddha nature in everyone. I could let go judging a guy in need who wanted something for nothing. I could let go of clothes I considered valuable even though they no longer had any real use for me. Hell, they weren't valuable at all, just in thoughts of time gone by, time that was not here now. They were choking my mind like dust mites. With a WTF shrug, I tossed the guy the white plastic bag, u-turned and walked back to my sparkling clean altar to dedicate the merit.
~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/
Technorati Tags: Yours In The Dharma, Sandy Garson, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Spirituality, Religion
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Click here to request Sandy Garson for reprint permission.
Yours In The Dharma 2001-2010, Sandy Garson Copyright 2001-2010 Sandy Garson
The bag contained clothes that came from concerted closet cleaning. Finding myself short of hangers for new stuff bought during January sales, I decided anything not worn in two years had to go. It turned out the game of musical hangers was lost by what hadn't been worn in at least five years. Actually, what went into the bag was between 15 and 30 years old: shoulder padded jackets, a silk shirt with gigantic Elizabethan ruffles, heavy winter weights nobody needs in California, and of course party pants I would somehow zip and button again. No consignment shop-- not even ones that professed to be vintage-- wanted this stuff.
So it was now out of the closet, but evidently I didn't want it out of my life. I kept it on the floor. I didn't want it there, but I didn't want to toss away elegantly crafted, classic designer clothes not made in China. I couldn't bear to see the quality and integrity they represented so easily ejected. So I just kept tripping over them.
Two weeks ago, I got a Eureka! jolt. I saw a soft news story about dust mites, microscopic creatures that nest in dust fuzz and eat human skin. The timing was, as Tibetans say, auspicious. I had been suffering so many sleepless nights of mysterious unstoppable dry coughing fits, asthmatic breathing and strange little bites, I'd started to suspect the problem was not going to be cured by medical intervention. It was environmental. Something in my bedroom was killing me. And now the dust mite exposé in the nick of time. Reading it made me recall when I was a teenager tested for allergies and dust mites hit the doctor's very short list. I laughed at him, certain being allergic to dust or its imaginary mites was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.
I turned into a killer possessed. I spent a heave-ho Saturday moving furniture, disinfecting floors, wet wiping lampshades and window shades, stripping textiles and machine washing at the highest temperature anything not attached to anything else-- even a yak wool blanket and an area rug that said: Do Not Wash in a Machine. I was on a ladder. I was on my hands and knees. I was on a mission. I vacuumed, squeegied, squirted and strained to get to the high ceiling. Nothing was left unturned. I even wet-wiped the exterior of that white plastic bag on the floor and then for good measure kicked it out into the hallway.
That night, for the first time in over a month, I slept without waking to cough or catch my breath. It was miraculous. And all my own doing. I had destroyed a threat to my life. I felt cocky proud and powerful. I had become master of my universe. How clever I was. Then on the way to the bathroom, I tripped over the big white plastic bag of clothes still in the narrow hallway. Later, I told myself, I'll deal with that.
Later finally came this week, on Losar, New Year for Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists. Its run-up and rituals are essentially about getting everything spic and span to enter the new year uncontaminated by the past, all super clean for a totally fresh start. Like me cleaning the hell out of my bedroom so I could breathe again, on the eve, I took apart my altar. I washed the surface and the floor underneath. I wiped the photos and thangkha. I polished the brass statues with freshly squeezed lemon juice until they glowed. I cleaned the seven copper offering bowls and two candle holders. I left nothing untouched, nothing impure to infect the energy of my new year--a monkey year. I was on a mission. This monkey wanted--make that needed-- a banner year. Anything to crush obstacles piled so high, I can't seem to pass GO.
To emphasize my hope for help, I greeted the New Year day with cookie and fruit offerings on the shrine. I got daffodils. I filled the seven offering bowls with new enriched rice. I started to put the seven offering items back on top and realized I was putting "back." I was using last year's stuff, that was in truth the year before's and back even beyond that. I was hanging on. It was so easy. Besides, I liked those little things. How clever I'd been to have found such appropriate symbols, especially the little Christmas tree ornament apple for food and the miniature copper tuba as the offering of music. Now they felt threatening: yesterday polluting tomorrow. Quicker than you can say Buddha, I jammed that old stuff in a Baggie and took off on a scavenger hunt. With ingenuity and a few dollars at the handicraft supply store around the corner, I pulled together seven brand new offerings for a brand new year, including a fridge magnet pretzel for food and a paper thin wooden guitar for music. I sat in front of my new altar glowing with pride and power. Once again in challenge, I triumphed. I changed the world.
I said mantras and recited prayers to get off to a pure (as in undefiled by negative karma) start. I sat quietly, basking in thankfulness for this opportunity to start fresh and clean. I long ago discovered cleaning a closet or a bedroom or an altar is truly satisfying because you see the positive results of your effort right away. You won't die wondering if you made a difference. But by now I've been around Dharma long enough to understand cleaning closets, cleaning house, cleaning yourself and your clothes means you are clearing your mind. The physical work is just the manifestation of a mental catharsis that removes the cobwebs and vintage thoughts that always trip you up. Tibetan Buddhists are very clear that whatever is going on in your physical world--including illness-- is just the manifestation of what's happening in your mind. That's why it felt so good to seem so clean.
Not wanting to that feeling to end, I decided to make a day of it. Today would truly be a fresh start. I would stand at the door like a bouncer and let no old habits in. I sat at the altar in meditation, did a puja and then, no I wasn't going to sit around staring at the computer screen, no. I'd join the world. I'd go out for a walk in the park.
I'm sure I would have if, as I headed for the door, I hadn't tripped over that bag of vintage clothes. This day of all days. Maybe that's why I finally got the message. We all kick aside things we don't want to deal with, hoping they will somehow evaporate on their own: the tangled relationship, the unspoken job grievances, the person not taken, the life not led. They never do, do they? They just hang around to haunt and trip us, to make us choke the way dust mites do.
I grabbed the bag, grabbed my keys and left the house. I walked the same three blocks to the Goodwill Store I've walked many times, and was almost at the door when a tall, lanky, gray haired guy stepped out from the wall to ask me what I was delivering in my bag. "Nothing for you," I replied and kept walking. "Just some women's clothes."
"My wife could use some clothes," he said.
WTF? My trip to Goodwill had never been interrupted before. Was he a trick? Were those highly polished brass deities on my altar testing me? Was this day really going to be like all other days? Or not? I hemmed, I "ummed". I tried not to look at the man looking at me. I didn't like the thought of some stranger, some homeless woman wearing designer clothes I had been saving as valuable. My clothes. I didn't like the idea this guy was trying to get for free what he'd have to pay a few dollars for inside. Maybe he didn't even have a wife and was looking for stuff to sell to buy drugs.
Yoo hoo, Losar here, a voice said. What are you thinking? Why are you thinking? Get with the program.
To make this new start new--extra-ordinary, I could be extraordinarily generous. I could remember to be as unbiased as the sun that shines on everyone without asking questions. I could be the Buddha by not discriminating, just seeing equality-- the Buddha nature in everyone. I could let go judging a guy in need who wanted something for nothing. I could let go of clothes I considered valuable even though they no longer had any real use for me. Hell, they weren't valuable at all, just in thoughts of time gone by, time that was not here now. They were choking my mind like dust mites. With a WTF shrug, I tossed the guy the white plastic bag, u-turned and walked back to my sparkling clean altar to dedicate the merit.
~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/
Technorati Tags: Yours In The Dharma, Sandy Garson, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Spirituality, Religion
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.Click here to request Sandy Garson for reprint permission.
posted by Sandy Garson @ 8:30 PM
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