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I have counted them up. More people are mad at me right now than have ever been in my whole life except for third grade where I won all the Friday spelling bees which meant I also won every rosary given away that year. Some people are really mad at me because I’m leaving Still Point at the end of the summer. Some are mad because I’m not leaving sooner. It is all three of the seminary students can do to talk to me they are so frustrated with my corrections and bluntness. One person is furious that I didn’t do anything publicly about Terri Shiavo. It wasn’t enough that my heart breaks for her family and that I continue to chant for her every day. My second sister is still mad at me for something I did over ten years ago and I still don’t know what it was.
It has been a long winter.
When I look around I see it isn’t just me. Last Monday at Target I saw a woman scream, actually scream, at the young cashier at the register because she had made some mistake that meant she had to start adding up the Easter goodies again. The couple in the next booth at Panerra’s on Tuesday morning were really having at each other over a misunderstanding about when they were supposed to have met for dinner the night before. Every patron in that section of the restaurant could tell you everything they yelled at each other. It wasn’t pretty. A man at the post office went ballistic when the post office woman gave him an incorrect amount regarding the cost of sending his overweight package somewhere. Ok, she was off by $50. It wasn’t like she sawed off his leg. He shouted at her in a way I have never heard before, and then started pounding on the locked door to the back workroom until a manager came out to speak with him. When I left, a few minutes into his rage, there were already two police cars pulling up to the post office.
I walked back to the abbey thinking that maybe all this hard spiritual practice is bullshit. Maybe we all live in hell and someone just needs to say it out loud. And then we can all stop kidding ourselves that things can get better. I considered volunteering to be first in the line of quitters.
Then I remembered the character Diamond Banner (DB) from the Flower Ornament Sutra. DB shows up in the middle of the sutra, just about when exhaustion sets in simply thinking of all the spiritual practice we have ahead of us before our last breath. He is a breath of fresh air, good old DB. When the other enlightening beings spot him they are so delighted all thousands of them pat him on the head in greeting.
And then the enlightening being lets loose. He starts shouting at all of us: never fear, we are here! He’s like the dad in The Incredibles. He can’t help but save us from our own sorry stories. “Children of Buddhas!” he shouts. “Great enlightening beings have made inconceivable great vows, filling the cosmos, (which are able) to save all sentient beings!”
Then he lists their dedications:
1. Dedication to saving ALL sentient beings
2. Indestructible dedication
3. Dedication equal to all Buddhas
4. Dedication to reaching all places
5. Dedication to inexhaustible treasures of virtue
6. Dedication causing all roots of goodness to endure
7. Dedication equally adapting to all sentient beings
8. Dedication with the character of completely real and sincere
9. Dedication unattached, unbound and liberated
10. Boundless dedication equal to the cosmos.
And they vow to keep them, no matter what, “without retreating, without ceasing, without wearying, and without stopping anywhere.” When they see us doing all sorts of unskillful things, they vow to keep their promises. When we are just plain miserable because of our screw-ups, they’ll keep their promises. When we are acting like maniacs, doubtful, confused, tired? They’ll be there.
Why?
Because the sun doesn’t choose.
Thank God.
