zenjones

Saw a new TV show against my better judgement. It’s called “Life,” and the premise is that this cop was framed and served 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he’s out, with several million dollars in a settlement for wrongful imprisonment, and he’s decided to go back to being a cop. The show hooked me when I watched the opening segment and it showed our hero, Charlie, being pummeled by the other inmates and then reading a book with “ZEN” on the cover.

So he’s the zen detective. He’s got a bit of that Monk-type wackiness, and the simplicity of the zen ideas is a little embarassing, but there are some good, fun illustrations. My favorite was when he buys a really powerful car (I don’t know what kind it is, I think a Bentley?) and he drives around saying, “I will not become attached to this car,” over and over again, but he’s having so much fun roaring around in it that it seems impossible he won’t get attached to it. Of course, in our practice, we would notice the attachment, not necessarily try to be unattached. And then, at the end (spoiler alert), his friend accidently drives over the car with a tractor and Charlie just smiles at the lesson. We don’t know whether he’s attached or not, but we do not know that he gets that this is his path.

Was aware of pity yesterday; noticed I didn’t feel much compassion for those I was pitying. Interesting how the two concepts sit side by side, but aren’t the same thing at all. Those near enemies are insidious.

But in being aware of pity, I also noticed the distance I placed between myself and people who I would have thought I pitied. I have a friend who’s been an alcoholic for ten years and I am so angry with him for taking away the person I think of as my “real” friend (him when he’s sober) that it’s all I can do not to sniff in disdain. I don’t know if he notices—he’s pretty much out of it all the time. But I have been noticing.

I was in San Francisco, walking around, yesterday, and so I encountered a lot of homeless people. I didn’t notice pity, but I did notice a lot of discomfort. There was an entire alley that looked like a homeless encampment. Sleeping bags and shopping carts overflowing with rags and bulging plastic bags lined one side of the street. A couple fought loudly. I mostly noticed ways I distanced myself from them—distaste, “not me” thoughts. But there was curiosity also. How did they get to this place? Would they rather be inside a home or an institution? It was a brightly sunny day; if I had a choice (and I don’t know that these people did), I’d rather be sitting on a curb in the sun than locked into a hospital ward. I saw a burly gentleman, in layers of rags, that I’d stepped over several times last week as he slept on a sidewalk. But yesterday he was driving a late-model car in good shape. It was stuffed to the gunnels with bedding and clothes, but he was driving it. All so interesting.

Today I’m going to notice light. This morning while I was moving around my yoga positions, I turned out all the lights. I was surprised how bright the room was—the little blue light on the stereo, the light from the computer monitor in the other room, and a night light stuck in a wall socket. My eyes acclimated to the tenebrous room, and moonlight made a pattern on the carpet through the window sills.