Bengali Tea Boys, or working with the crazies

There was a great Indian teacher and master of Buddhism in the 10th century. His name was Atisha, and he is credited for bringing Buddhism to Tibet - and why lineages like those of the Dalai Lamas and Karmapas exist.

Atisha was renowned as the greatest living scholar, adherent and mentor in the teachings of the Middle Way. However, when it was time for him to go to Tibet, he heard many stories about the Tibetans - mostly that they were warm, earthy, patient, kind - and so he was afraid that they wouldn't push his buttons enough. So he decided to bring along a special guest. His little servant, who history remembers as the Bengali tea boy (Atisha was from Bengal, modern-day Bangladesh).

The Bengali tea boy was ill-tempered, annoying and just really drove Atisha nuts, presumably with his little sass mouth. So Atisha decided he had better bring the tea boy along, lest he become lax in his practice of patience or wain in his spiritual focus.

Well, ironically, he found the barbaric culture of warriors who awaited him in Tibet not in the least as ideal as he had feared, and so really had no need of the bratty little tea boy. The story of Atisha goes on, but for me this particular episode in his life is inspiring on a number of levels for my own practice.

Atisha, an accomplished and revered master, was still fully aware he had blind spots. He knew he wasn't perfect - and he admitted it. But he also knew he had a tendency to get lazy or feel like some kind of expert, so he made sure someone he couldn't stand was always there by his side to keep him on his toes, spiritually speaking. To make sure his ego was kept in check.

It is so helpful (when I can remember to do it!) to think of those annoying and seemingly psycho people that it feels so justifiable putting in the "Permanent Idiot Column" as little Bengali tea boys who have been specifically engineered to light my personal short fuses. As the mind-training slogan says, "Every situation is the perfect teacher." So it's almost like the whole universe has come together each moment to give us exactly the things we need; if that thing happens to be taken down off our pedestal a bit (for our own good) the universe gives us a manipulative co-worker or nosy mailman on whom to practice patience or understanding.

Now, this is not to say that no one in our lives ever means us harm or should be allowed to inflict constant pain on others. I think what the story is pointing out is the Habit of our reaction when we feel taken down from our pedestal, for me self-defensiveness and anger. Someone stepped on my foot and made me hop around like an idiot in pain? Well now I'll step on theirs! Take that!



In its most extreme forms, this tit-for-tat vengeful behaviour can turn into a war. Buddhist teachings about defensiveness and anger ask the question what are our other options? Can we forgive? Can we realize it was an accident? What else is there besides our own feelings of justification and anger?

Considering the difficult people in our lives in the slightly positive light of the Bengali tea boy not only takes some of the charge out of our anger, it also opens us up to grow. Because if we can at least be willing to work with the frustration, the blind spots that they point out (every chance they flippin' get) then it gives us the opportunity to really honestly examine ourselves and maybe learn a little bit about our own habits as well.

And through that knowledge, maybe we get a little space of liberation and relief. Plus, nothing pisses menacing tea boys off like smiling patiently right through one of their crazy episodes of drama entitled "me me me time" starring Me as Me. The best revenge is to be happy and have good life! Take that! (I'm still working on it)

Harvest Time, or my I'm Excited list

We are coming into my favorite time of year - Harvest time. Or, colloquially, fall y'all.
There are several things I am excited about right now. And I don't mean to go all Oprah on you, but sometimes Oprah has rad ideas and we all just need to check ourselves before we get sassy with her.


Here's my I'm excited list.

1. Fall!
   Seriously. Fall is like inviting a luxurious but kind of off-standish Leopard over to your house to stay for a few months. He's pretty snooty at first. Then, you both realize you like to let your Lucky Charms stand in milk until they get nice and soggy and before you know it, you're reading comics together while you tend your roaring fire and the Leopard is baking you raspberry scones and telling you about the time he opened for Grace Jones in Tokyo.
   
   I will be making my Leopard friend some pumpkin pies from scratch and taking him shopping with me for new kicks - check out these babies:
   
   Harvest Leopard, you truly are a wonder. And oh, the matching scarves!


2. This new movie by Darren Aronofsky called the Black Swan (more on that in a second)


3. This video by Wolf People. And the song, Tiny Circle. Yeah, this is the jam. And thank you, skilled bearded musicians, for finally incorporating more flute into modern rock. Not since Thick as a Brick has the flute been such a worthy accompaniment a slamming track. Slamming!
   
   

Okay, this Black Swan movie is serious you guys. I know everyone loves Aronofsky because of Requiem for a Dream and they saw it and it rocked their world and they cried themselves to sleep for a few weeks or whatever after that blah blah.

But my first Aronofsky movie was the Fountain. And I totally wanted to take it home with me in place of my dreamtime cuddle friend, Admiral Baby Pillow. It really had an impact on me, sort of like how you feel after you drink too much blue drank at a birthday party. A little sick, but a little nice & fuzzy, too. 40% pleasant, 60% inspired.

And that's how this preview makes me feel, too. Except more like 71% scared, 25% inspired, 4% physically ill. I'm sure Oprah feels the same way.

Battle wand!

So, I was just trying to think of the coolest Pretending game I ever played as a child. It was probably the Make Your Own Radio Station game (I have hours of tapes where me and 3 friends sing disastrously off-pitch Disney songs interrupted occasionally by commercials about farting and tampons - forsooth, the unabashed innocence!) OR the Flea Junk game.

Flea junk was what I (and eventually everyone else, by my own clever machinations) called the pods the fell off the huge maple tree in my yard. When my dad raked the leaves, he made a very tall pile, that eventually was big enough to have crazy jumping "Sears Portrait Studio" style fun.
But inevitably we rolled onto some of these pods, which were often oozing a thick white liquid and they stank (I guess they're sort of the embryos of the tree and therefore all fertile and hormonal or something). So I had kind of a strong adversity toward them and their constant attempts to tree-mate with my jacket.

Eventually, I set down some ground rules to what had previously just been a jumping and flailing game.
Flea Junk (this name was pure propaganda to turn everyone else against the pods) was an evil, poisonous, fully sentient entity that wanted to attack us, and we were the Utopian ideal of pastoral goodness just trying to live our lives in this big pile of leaves and always do the right thing, but the Flea Junk would always be there - the classic Trickster - to try and corrupt us from the inside out and make us do things like not recycle our bubble wrap or slouch.

So of course to counter this Machiavellian chicanery, I had to use magic.
But not just any magic. It had to be a righteous magic of bravery and honor and Air Jordans. And so I developed the Battle Wand.




The Battle Wand was a piece of bendy bark that I found in the pile of leaves one time. And it was miraculous because you see the Battle Wand is not so much a physical thing, but an energy. It can travel through time & space and will arrive precisely at the moment it is needed, in whatever form is convenient for the Battle Wand at the time (I've found the Battle Wand can be a little on the lazy side when it comes to assuming physical form).

First of all, it basically has Undo powers over all of the Flea Junk's deviance. And if I had to, I could do some pirouetting to really take care of business. That Flea Junk never stood a chance!

The Battle Wand changes form, but always remains a beacon of truthfulness and friendship. Should you ever feel corruption is at your heels, simply cry out in your heart for the Battle Wand and it shall disperse all fleak junk style evil forthwith!
Probably in the form of something like a steering wheel or an iPhone - the Battle Wand is not that high-ranking on the creative thinking spectrum, either.