Prisoner of Circumstance

I am helping a friend move, and just unloaded a bunch of stuff outside his car and was waiting for him to come out. A red faced Russian man, smoking a pink wrapped long slim cigar, comes over to me blowing out smoke to the side, “Can I speak to you for a minute?”

Without time for me to answer he launches into a tirade about being locked up overnight by some kind of altercation with his woman. I really did not have any choice, but to listen, standing by all my friend’s things on the ground. So, I just tried my best to just hear him out. .. .a prisoner of circumstance. He offered me a "cigar-rette", which I kindly declined, but noting he was somewhat civilized. His accent was to hard to get it all, at his rate of rant or maybe it was the after-effects of drinking and no sleep… and I am good with accents. I began to day-dream about how he is a good character study, fighting his remorse by trying to engage me to commiserate. Of course, I agreed and nodded my head at appropriate times feigning interest. Wanna hire me?

I think it came down, when she did something dumb(it is always someone else’s fault), and he being drunk, rasied his voice and hand …not to strike her(he says) just to set her straight. And the cops were called. With statements about his 5 million dollar company, and how he would never hit for fear it would jeopardize his business. Is he bragging or is that ego talking? But he was still pissed by the cops that took her side and threw him into the drunk tank. And how he could get Shapiro (you know, the lawyer, he says) to close down this station.*&#_(@)#! Which just so happened to be 10 doors down from my friend’s new place.

He was on a roll after being cooped up, and finally my friend walked up to rescue me and the Russian from Odessa offered to help. I guess out of feeling guilty from unloading on me. I was the first person he encountered after his release…lucky me!

Under Buddha’s Eightfold Path right intention falls under wisdom. Wisdom that comes from a commitment to have good will and avoid anger and aversion. I have found in my practice, it is a little bit hard to maintain right intention in the heat of the moment, and I came up with this while in meditation. Before you say something truthfully or you feel your temperature going up before you jump into an issue that may seem warranted…look carefully at how you see the future of this incident. That seems to be easier to do, because it takes you out of immediate. Are you causing it to drag on longer and get further away from your goal? Being right in every instance might cause you to back track, apologize, or just throw good will out the window.

Shared View

I have been a bit busy, but never too busy to ponder ideas. Some ideas are fruitful for my business and some are just random desires and fears. I do wake-up with creative ideas of how to solve minor problems, and I wish it would work with major ones, as well. Can’t get too greedy. So my question is, does experience one has alone have any less importance than a shared experience? Looking at my solitary door to the ocean, it is as if was all a dream of mine especially now that it is past tense. Now shared, it can enter into your dreams whether directly by looking at it, or subconsciously later in nightly dreams. But, are we really looking for someone to share in our dreams and experience to bring meaning into our life? I chatted today with a client, about shared life experience and I am sure, if I felt as validated as she then I guess I hit on this. And this what we both wanted: to share pain, frustrations, humor and finally wisdom. Sure it goes back to my idea that we never really operate in a vacuum from an earlier post. That our human life is so important, especially when we relate to one another. This allows us to help others, hopefully. If we were more compassionate and open to the idea of being kind to others in listening and talking, we can share in their dreams. Thus doubling the occurrence of magical moments and lessening of the painful, disturbing ones.