I’m a Christian so I asked Jesus first. He had nothing new to say on the subject. Just the usual, “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come He will lead you into all truth” and “My grace is sufficient unto thee,” and “Turn the other cheek.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear that but I just need something fresh, some new way to manage my inner world. I need something I can understand.”
“How about, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner, have mercy?” said the still small voice within me.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Been there, done that,” I said.
So I called up the Dalai Lama in India where he and the gang escaped from Tibet to avoid extinction by the Chinese and thus have been able to go on doing something useful in the world, and he answered on the first ring. He answers his own phone, you know.
I barely gave him time to say his warm, personal, heartfelt “Hello?”
“Dalai Lama,” I said, “You’ve got to help me. People are out to get me. They’ve formed a gang and they’re bullying me with behavior that excludes me and judges me falsely and it makes me feel really really bad. It makes me scared. It makes me angry back. It makes me want to hurt them big time. What do I do with all this feeling?
“Sweetheart,” said the Dalai Lama. “You are the pickle of my eye . . . like an apple but a little too much time in the brine.” He paused. I don’t know if he was gathering his thoughts or praying. But eventually he started talking and here is what he told me in his soft, clear voice:
All of those who are for you, and all of those who are against you, and all the billions of people who don't know you, never heard of you and could care less about you, have four things in common. Listen and take this in. It includes me and it includes you:
1. We all want to be happy.
2. We all want an end to any suffering we may be experiencing at the moment.
3. We all are only thinking about our own selfish selves most of the time.
4. In a fistful of years we will all be very very dead and every opportunity to support each other, love each other, accept each other, build something good and hold each other blameless will be over. We will be dust.
There was a pause while I took this in and made a few notes. “Dust” I wrote.
“Yeah”, I said, “dust. But what do I dooooooooooooooo?”
“Have mercy on me a sinner,” he said.
“What?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you. Listen,” he said, “and repeat after me.”
1. Do no harm. That means stop being angry back. That at least puts an end to the ugliness on your end. We are all connected.
2. Be kind to everyone. We are all connected. Trust me on this; it’s the only way to go.
3. Try to be still at least once a day and know that God is God. That God is for us. And that we are all connected.
“You’ve been talking to the other Guy, I accused.”
“Yeah. We chat,” said the Dalai Lama. “Look, I’ve got to say good bye now. I hear on NPR that six of my dear friends back in Tibet have just been executed by the Chinese. I need to meditate on love.”
He might have had a little break in his voice as he said that last part. Then he hung up.
I guess he did me no harm. And I’m thinking about what he said. We are all connected. I can’t hurt anyone without hurting myself. And vise versa. We are one.
So today, I’m feeling pretty unflappable. My thoughts, are sort of corralled, at least ocassionally noticed, according to type. I like my thoughts. I always believe they’re going to save me and they never do, and they still take up most of the inner terrain. But sometimes I can get a little distance on them, and I think that's what the Dalai Lama was pointing toward. He didn't actually say 'get over yourself' but that's because he didn't want to do any harm.
Today I've been sitting on the fence, so to speak, once in awhile, and watching my thoughts prance around. I had an image in my mind, and I think the Dalai Lama sent this to me, but maybe it was the other Guy, of my brothers and sisters and me sitting up here on the fence, their thoughts and my thoughts all in the corral stomping and shaking like wild horses, and we laugh. Now, when I imagine this, the Chinese are here too, AK 47's slung over their backs, a little blood spatter on their chests. And the dear Dalai Lama; he is with us.
Elegant? Well no but the view is pretty good from the fence. And I like sitting with my family, talking trash and watching the dust blow by. See it sparkle in the wind?
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