April 2, 2013

• Why I Am a Terrible Man

  I write this, now, before the scab of rationalization lumps over my true sight. Lets call this sight from the middle of my forehead, the third eye, where Truth arises and the untruth falls away.

   

  I am a terrible man. My father, who is ill, disabled, has nowhere to go. I moved from my home, I had to foreclose on my condo because it was over 100k underwater and it was not big enough to accommodate my family and my father-his wheelchair etc.

   

  I am a terrible man because, after this first night, my thought struggle toward the alternatives. Adult family home, assisted living. We cannot afford it. He cannot afford it. Medicaid? I have seen these places. My mind races to rationalize it. To justify it. I won’t let it, or try not to let it overcome what I know to be true (perhaps my only saving grace). I went and saw him twice, thrice a week, at most, when he lived with his friend’s gardener-essentially homeless.

   

  I saw him everyday when he was sick, in the hospital, for almost two years, I tell myself.

  MYSELF shakes His head at such talk.

   

  YOU, in your mind when truth lay, begrudged it many times, did not extend your time, dropped in and got frustrated when he refused to do his physical therapy because it was ‘too much of a hassle’. You rolled your eyes, internally if not literally, when he said that he had ‘changed’ and that his mind was at rest. You, internally if not literally, frowned at the hypocrisy when he had not changed. Still, an overly proud, secretive, and often manipulative man-my father-who also was kind and generous to so many-which is so much more than I can say for myself.

   

  He falls at 5 AM and quietly calls out to me. He has been sitting on the floor for an hour because he didn’t want to bother me earlier. I come down, make sure my wife and kids are still asleep-haul him to his feet, tuck him in, make sure he is comfortable. My mind is irritated. I scold him, softly, that he has to be more careful for when I am at work my wife will not be able to pick him up.

   

  I am terrible, horrific man.

  I call myself Buddhist-but in such talk I am deluding myself-in such a pathway one must give of their very flesh, cherish any harm, exultant in chance to practice, at the lowest, generosity and patience (two of the 6 perfections). I cannot even, in honesty, give of myself in good cheer to a man that made sure I had enough to eat when I was a child, cleaned me, carried me, housed me, made sure I had access to medical care.

   

  I begrudge him in his infirmity. I hate this of myself.

   

  I remember when we first came to America, when we lived on an 8 by 8 houseboat with no water, where my mother used to carry in a huge copper bowl of water each day. My father wobbling home from work, his hands bleeding, and my mother soaking them in the water. The blood swirling in the water like red mist in a gentle wind.

   

  My friends tell me that it is ‘normal’ to feel such a way. They say, “you are a good person” with a slight twist-I can tell they don’t think it is a good idea. What of my wife? Yes, what of my wife. I don’t know.

  Her friends tell her, “you are such a good person’ and because she is better than I, more understanding, they will continue, “maybe he should be in a home?”

   

  Who would go see him then? My family has, for the most part, abandoned him and left only weak ol’ me. I have taken over every aspect of his life. His daughter does not come regularly. She has a new child. His friends stopped coming because he has been ill for over 2 years. They lasted six months, or so. He would be housed, shelved, left to rot until he died of some illness but mostly from a broken, lonely heart.

  “They say its Normal”
  

  I say, “who I would follow, who I would aspire to be, have never, ever, in any avatar spoken that the ‘norm’ of a time is what we should aspire to. In fact, usually, they are tortured and killed because they say exactly the opposite of that. I liken it to my schooling,” I say, “my mundane schooling. Where I grew up in America was poverty stricken, filled with drugs and alcohol, stupidity in some of its grossest forms run rampant. I eventually made my through college. Only through horrific effort, 100+ hours a week for 5 years (work and school-had to help mom keep her house), did I make it. Some of my old friends ask me, ‘how?’ and I pretend jokingly say, ‘I did the opposite of everything I wanted to do’. There is truth in this.

   

  What is normal?

  I know a woman who had an aged dog, maybe a hundred pounds, it got to a point where she had to carry him down stairs, up into her car, had to feed him with her hands, had to clean his excrement off of the floors, his urine off of the carpets, and she did it lovingly.

  I cleaned up after my cat, its litter box, its urine in the carpet, I fed it, I stayed home because I didn’t want to go on long vacations. I paid for her medication, doctor visits, out of my savings.

   

  And there, my Father, I see, and this world would say it is normal to pass him along and yet, for a dog, for a cat, we would do this? Not that the dog and cat do not deserve it. I know of a Monk that switched his clothing with that with a lice infested beggars rags. He did it because the beggar’s clothes were too threadbare to withstand the cold. His friends, co-monks, pushed him to get rid of the lice-he refused. Throughout time, he said, these lice were my precious mother’s and father’s and gave up their very bodies for me to live. What then is a bit of itching? This body is good only inasmuch as we use it, how would we use it? A poor verse comes to mind,

  
  The flesh, the body, only so much wood
  In this life, this whole life, so grindingly cold
  The mind the spark
      Love the inward breath
           Compassion the outward breath

                to serve: the act of correct motion

   

  In a desperate Winter
  with such tools at hand

  It is not even wisdom yet
  to build a fire-but preservation

  Who then can say its opposite?
  Who has examined this life?
  that is so ephemeral
  That even that which we cherish-our body-
  shall be the source of such woe

  And thus, those of us with time left yet
  what shall be our course of action?
  Shall we burn our wood for that which is worthy?
  Worthy of such an opportunity?

  For the ineluctable sands fall
  and The Lord of Death awaits behind each grain
  with this adamantine truth of impermanence

      Let us Remember,
  What is the compassionate Demand of our betters?

      let us forget
  the wayward teachings of that which is beneath

   

  I hope I can live up to what I claim to study. I say I am a terrible man not out of exaggeration or my want for the external demand that I am not. I do it to be honest. The man I want to be is not this man. He is a poor beggar, a greedy beggar, at the doorstep of the divine. I knock, I ring the doorbell, and they say, “it is open” they often throw the doors wide, “come in” and yet, and yet, I beg and beg, at the door. I cry and weep, at the door. But I have yet to walk in.

   

  I treat my father poorly. In some lights, not even as good as I treated my cat. Much less than I have seen people treat their dogs. For goodness sake, they regularly pick up their feces in bags and I am mad that I had to wake up a few minutes early to pick him up off the floor.

   

  My blessed Father. You are teaching me. Teaching me how far I have to go. Giving me the blessed opportunity to practice patience. Giving. And from this I will be a better man. even being a Man for the first time.

  Each moment of patience is practice for the models I would be.

  
  I love you.

  
  And perhaps I am not worthy to say that, but I feel it, and despite all this selfishness and sick self centered behavior-I will try, with the little I have, to be better and serve you.

   

  I love you

  
  G

  • 1:23 pm
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