". . . And I know I'm never gonna dance againThe way I danced with you . . ."
"Careless Whisper." Seether, covering George Michael on my radio as I drive home from work. Will these burned and blistered feet ever dance again? Will the burns leave scars? Will the limp become permanent? Things I hadn't worried about before, but now the song has me in the mood to worry.
". . . There's no comfort in the truth
Pain is all you'll find . . . "
The First Noble Truth, as interpreted by the former lead singer of Wham! . . .
Last Monday, when I finally got my guilty feet back from New York, I knew that I probably shouldn't have gone into work and spend the day on my feet. I could barely walk, much less fit into shoes. I had my laptop with me and could have worked that day from home just as easily as I could have worked at the office, but upon looking at my email, I saw two ominous messages from my department manager.
According to the first, there was an "important organizational meeting" at 11.30, and all were encouraged to attend. I could blow that one off, but the second message was what really got my attention: my department manager wanted to meet with me before the "important organizational meeting" to first discuss some of those changes with me personally.
My mind immediately concluded that one of those changes was that I was no longer going to be part of the organization. So I dressed the burns as best as I could, forced on a pair of socks and shoes, and limped to my car, driving to work fully expecting to be fired.
I wasn't. But these are hard economic times, and business everywhere is struggling, and I was informed that senior management in the company had all already taken pay cuts, and that I was going to have to take one, too - 10% less, effective immediately. An adjustment to my salary more in line, he explained kindly and carefully, to the company's current ability to make payroll. It's better than getting fired, I realized, even though he had his math a little off- it was more like 12.5% less that I was actually being offered.
After that, I don't even remember what was discussed later in the "important organizational meeting."
The adjustment still leaves me with enough money to pay my mortgage and auto lease, as well as afford groceries and daily Starbucks and Internet access. But I will have to make some adjustments and fore go some luxuries that I have taken for granted in the past. But overall, I'll be just fine.
In my spiritual practice, I try not to attach to profit and fame, but to just do my work to the best of my ability and humbly accept whatever reward is offered. This salary cut affords me a better chance to practice that attitude of non-attachment. And also, along with my diminished home value, I am now once again politically in sync with the struggles of the American middle class - I take home less money now to pay full value for a house worth less than it was two years ago. I'm not merely sympathetic to the financial struggles of the middle class, I'm directly practicing those struggles.
And the hits just keep on coming. While I was home yesterday totally immobilized by my burned feet, the refrigerator sprung some sort of leak, and a stream of water keeps running out from the base. The fridge is working fine, and it's likely just a loose connection on the water line to the ice-maker, but I really can't deal with it right now. Even if my feet were healthy, I don't have the tools to pull the built-in fridge out from the wall, and I don't want to take more time off from work - especially now - to pay a plumber on my reduced salary to come fix it. But at the same time, I can't tolerate the constant pool of water ever growing at the base of the freezer.
Oh, and for some reason, my ATM card keeps getting denied. There's sufficient money in my account, but I keep getting "Denied" messages when I try to use the card. It's annoying, and tempting me to run up credit card charges as an alternative means of payment when I really can't afford that, either.
So I was complaining about all of this to one of my co-workers, and he surmised that my "faith" must conclude that there was some spiritual reason for this four-faced whammy of bad fortune: burned feet, diminished salary, leaking appliances and denied access to my own bank account. Was it something I've done to generate the karma that lead to this?
Well, yes, but not at all in the way he thought. I'm not being punished by some unseen deity or cosmic force for "sins" I've committed in the near or distant past. My body is experiencing suffering, old age and sickness merely due to the karma of becoming, of being born. If I hadn't chosen to enter this world of samsara I wouldn't have feet to experience being burned. If I hadn't chosen to earn a living, I wouldn't experience financial set backs. If I hadn't bought a house, I wouldn't have a leaky refrigerator. If I didn't have what is to some people a lot of money in the bank, I wouldn't be worried about access to it.
I tried to explain this to my co-worker, but he didn't understand and thought that I was merely describing guilt. He thought I believed I was being punished for living too well, which in his neo-con fantasy world, is God's reward for a virtuous life. In Buddhism, it's quite the opposite - a virtuous life is the reward for poverty. But he'll never understand, since his sense of well being is predicated on his not understanding.
But why is all of this happening to me at once? Surely, that must be a sign of something. Well, it is, but again not in the way you may be thinking. I perceive things to be this way now merely because I'm choosing to see them this way for whatever reason. If I looked at my life differently, I'd see that I awoke in a comfortable and lovely house, that I got to drive to work in a practically brand-new Lexus, and that I have a job that still pays well, well above the national medium, to sit around all day in an air-conditioned office and have clients pay me to write about what I think of their situations. But instead, when I see one negative thing, my mind becomes critical, and I only see the bad, the "half-empty" part of the glass, and obsess on all that's "bad" ("bad" at least to my current perception of my short-term interests). Who's to say what's good and what's bad?
So there, I got it all off my chest - the sunburned feet, the salary "adjustment," the puddle on the kitchen floor, banking, and karma. Oh yeah, and the barn's still damaged from the tree that fell on it last month, and I've already spent all the insurance money on trimming other trees and now have nothing left to fix the holes in the roof, thinking I was going to be able to afford to pay for those repairs myself.
Of course, I could just blame this whole frame of mind on that George Michael song.
"Careless Whisper." Seether, covering George Michael on my radio as I drive home from work. Will these burned and blistered feet ever dance again? Will the burns leave scars? Will the limp become permanent? Things I hadn't worried about before, but now the song has me in the mood to worry.
". . . There's no comfort in the truth
Pain is all you'll find . . . "
The First Noble Truth, as interpreted by the former lead singer of Wham! . . .
Last Monday, when I finally got my guilty feet back from New York, I knew that I probably shouldn't have gone into work and spend the day on my feet. I could barely walk, much less fit into shoes. I had my laptop with me and could have worked that day from home just as easily as I could have worked at the office, but upon looking at my email, I saw two ominous messages from my department manager.
According to the first, there was an "important organizational meeting" at 11.30, and all were encouraged to attend. I could blow that one off, but the second message was what really got my attention: my department manager wanted to meet with me before the "important organizational meeting" to first discuss some of those changes with me personally.
My mind immediately concluded that one of those changes was that I was no longer going to be part of the organization. So I dressed the burns as best as I could, forced on a pair of socks and shoes, and limped to my car, driving to work fully expecting to be fired.
I wasn't. But these are hard economic times, and business everywhere is struggling, and I was informed that senior management in the company had all already taken pay cuts, and that I was going to have to take one, too - 10% less, effective immediately. An adjustment to my salary more in line, he explained kindly and carefully, to the company's current ability to make payroll. It's better than getting fired, I realized, even though he had his math a little off- it was more like 12.5% less that I was actually being offered.
After that, I don't even remember what was discussed later in the "important organizational meeting."
The adjustment still leaves me with enough money to pay my mortgage and auto lease, as well as afford groceries and daily Starbucks and Internet access. But I will have to make some adjustments and fore go some luxuries that I have taken for granted in the past. But overall, I'll be just fine.
In my spiritual practice, I try not to attach to profit and fame, but to just do my work to the best of my ability and humbly accept whatever reward is offered. This salary cut affords me a better chance to practice that attitude of non-attachment. And also, along with my diminished home value, I am now once again politically in sync with the struggles of the American middle class - I take home less money now to pay full value for a house worth less than it was two years ago. I'm not merely sympathetic to the financial struggles of the middle class, I'm directly practicing those struggles.
And the hits just keep on coming. While I was home yesterday totally immobilized by my burned feet, the refrigerator sprung some sort of leak, and a stream of water keeps running out from the base. The fridge is working fine, and it's likely just a loose connection on the water line to the ice-maker, but I really can't deal with it right now. Even if my feet were healthy, I don't have the tools to pull the built-in fridge out from the wall, and I don't want to take more time off from work - especially now - to pay a plumber on my reduced salary to come fix it. But at the same time, I can't tolerate the constant pool of water ever growing at the base of the freezer.
Oh, and for some reason, my ATM card keeps getting denied. There's sufficient money in my account, but I keep getting "Denied" messages when I try to use the card. It's annoying, and tempting me to run up credit card charges as an alternative means of payment when I really can't afford that, either.
So I was complaining about all of this to one of my co-workers, and he surmised that my "faith" must conclude that there was some spiritual reason for this four-faced whammy of bad fortune: burned feet, diminished salary, leaking appliances and denied access to my own bank account. Was it something I've done to generate the karma that lead to this?
Well, yes, but not at all in the way he thought. I'm not being punished by some unseen deity or cosmic force for "sins" I've committed in the near or distant past. My body is experiencing suffering, old age and sickness merely due to the karma of becoming, of being born. If I hadn't chosen to enter this world of samsara I wouldn't have feet to experience being burned. If I hadn't chosen to earn a living, I wouldn't experience financial set backs. If I hadn't bought a house, I wouldn't have a leaky refrigerator. If I didn't have what is to some people a lot of money in the bank, I wouldn't be worried about access to it.
I tried to explain this to my co-worker, but he didn't understand and thought that I was merely describing guilt. He thought I believed I was being punished for living too well, which in his neo-con fantasy world, is God's reward for a virtuous life. In Buddhism, it's quite the opposite - a virtuous life is the reward for poverty. But he'll never understand, since his sense of well being is predicated on his not understanding.
But why is all of this happening to me at once? Surely, that must be a sign of something. Well, it is, but again not in the way you may be thinking. I perceive things to be this way now merely because I'm choosing to see them this way for whatever reason. If I looked at my life differently, I'd see that I awoke in a comfortable and lovely house, that I got to drive to work in a practically brand-new Lexus, and that I have a job that still pays well, well above the national medium, to sit around all day in an air-conditioned office and have clients pay me to write about what I think of their situations. But instead, when I see one negative thing, my mind becomes critical, and I only see the bad, the "half-empty" part of the glass, and obsess on all that's "bad" ("bad" at least to my current perception of my short-term interests). Who's to say what's good and what's bad?
So there, I got it all off my chest - the sunburned feet, the salary "adjustment," the puddle on the kitchen floor, banking, and karma. Oh yeah, and the barn's still damaged from the tree that fell on it last month, and I've already spent all the insurance money on trimming other trees and now have nothing left to fix the holes in the roof, thinking I was going to be able to afford to pay for those repairs myself.
Of course, I could just blame this whole frame of mind on that George Michael song.
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