Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Beeps and Seeds: Two Vignettes

Two Beeps

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.” 
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

The other day I was leaving the yoga studio out of the side driveway, and trying to make a left on a busy highway. It was morning rush hour, and traffic was thick and fast from both directions. I waited for an opening. And waited. I could've jumped into the turn lane in the center of the street, but there just wasn't (what felt to me like) a safe opportunity. I noticed that there was a car behind me, and I began to feel a little anxious, as there seemed to be no break in the flow of traffic. Then the driver behind me honked his horn. Two short honks. Beep beep. In that moment I felt a huge wave of anxiety, anger, and embarrassment wash over me and fill my entire body and car with heaviness. I started talking out loud to the guy behind me (who definitely couldn't hear me), "What do you want me to do? Jump out in front of moving traffic and get hit??" Enraged, I slammed on the gas and turned right (I have turbo so it was very dramatic), and then slammed on my brakes at the light as I waited to make a U-turn. "THERE! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, A&#H%LE!!??" I yelled at my rearview mirror. 

Silence. Nobody yelled back. The other driver was no longer behind me—he'd gone his way and I'd gone mine. I heard the silence. I felt that silence. And then I realized something very important. 

The only thing that actually happened in reality, was that the driver behind me had honked his horn twice. All the rest of it, the injustice and unfairness of it, was my creation. I had created a huge and powerful supernova of suffering-energy around an assumption. I had taken the facts—two beeps, that's all they were—and spun them into a crisis. 

With this realization came the sweetest and most precious joy. I started laughing. It was the best joke ever, because I saw it so clearly….

…. all of my suffering is two beeps. 

All of it. 




Seeds

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh

There is a yoga teacher, in another city, who posts things on Facebook that I find offensive. She doesn't post very often, but when she does it is often a scathing criticism of western yoga, yoga schools, yoga teacher trainings, actors, men, and gay men in particular. She uses derogatory language and accuses male yoga teachers of being gay, as if being gay would somehow disqualify them as yoga teachers. This morning she suggested that gay male yoga teachers should go be dance teachers instead.

(I'll just go ahead and admit that I have a lot of friends who are gay, male, yoga teachers, dance teachers, and/or all of the above. But I don't think I'm biased.)

I wonder if I should've unfriended her a long time ago. Over time it's been interesting to see her occasional rants come through my news feed. I tend to keep my opinions to myself when people say things that don't match up with my personal values. I do this because I don't like conflict, and also because I don't feel it's my business to go around policing other people's values. Nobody died and appointed me the defender of gay yoga teachers, for crying out loud. 

But if I don't say something, who will? Can I look my gay friends in the eye and be like, "You know what I do when I encounter homophobic hate speech? Nothing." Ugh. No way. 

Recently I've attended a few car auctions with my husband. Car auctions are not really my thing. I understand that it's a somewhat rougher crowd than the yoga/kirtan set, and I take the language and behavior I encounter with a grain of salt. Who am I to judge other people's values? I tell myself. I have enough of my own issues to worry about. 

The auctioneer who works the local auctions is obviously experienced, and uses a wealth of clever one-liners to make what would otherwise be an intolerably dull experience mildly amusing. Only his jokes are sometimes so off-color that I find them downright offensive—he talks about the cars as if they were women, only because it's a car he feels that he can publicly say things to it that would be completely unacceptable to an actual woman. "Back that ass up." "She looks so much better with her top down." And then there are the gay jokes. He loves to tease his male coworkers about being gay. Every time it makes my blood boil, but I then I feel stuck. Am I going to be that girl? The one that they all resent because I politically-corrected their sense of humor to death? Is it my place to say something? Nobody else is saying anything. Why don't I say something? 

I have to get real here. I want to live in the Truth. I want to stand up for what I believe in, not keep silent because I don't like conflict. I don't have to start a war, but I can calmly, mindfully, speak my Truth without taking personally how it is received or interpreted. No one else is saying anything—to the yoga teacher or the auctioneer. Why shouldn't I?

So I responded to the yoga teacher. And one of her friends responded with some statements that I could not relate to. I responded to the friend. And then the yoga teacher removed that post, and I removed the yoga teacher from my Facebook.

Instead of silently complaining to myself when I witness what I perceive as an injustice, I am completely free to speak up. I can only experience it as conflict if I believe that "the other" should change their views, and they don't. If I speak up and say what's in my heart, and I'm not met with agreement, so be it. I don't need everyone in the world to agree with me. Isn't that refreshing! I need myself to agree with my Self. Then I can look at my own thoughts, words and actions and see if I am sowing seeds of violence, or seeds of peace.

This post is dedicated with love and gratitude to Thich Nhat Hanh—great friend and teacher to all who seek to create true peace.