The Presentation

Back to civic duties: today I participated in a presentation about the Beltline Advisory Board to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, along with about a half-dozen fellow board members. The presentation was televised on the community-access channel. The Board were in their chambers, sitting at their stations behind a large semi-circular desk, and we approached the podium before the Board like Dorothy and her friends as our images were broadcast on a giant screen before us. I slipped a thumb drive into a laptop computer that had been set up for us, and began the Power Point presentation that I had prepared.

Afterwords, since the presentation was in the morning, rather than drive all the way up to Marietta to work, I completed the Environmental Site Assessment reports on the two Long Island properties from the home office.

Zen Master Dogen once asked his followers what they would do if “someone comes to talk about his business, and asks you to write a letter to solicit something from someone, or to help him in a lawsuit, etc." If they were to turn down such a request on the grounds that they were not men of the secular world and that they have retired from mundane affairs, Dogen said they should then examine their deeper motivation. According to Dogen, if they rejected the request because they thought of themselves as monks who had left the secular world and people might think ill of them if they were to say something inappropriate for a recluse, this shows ego-attachment to fame and profit.

"If you reject his request being concerned with your reputation," Dogen said, "you are showing deep attachment to your ego. Although others may think that you are not a holy man and say inappropriate things, if you throw away your concern for fame and bring even a little benefit to others, you correspond with the true Way.”

Neighbors concerned about the Beltline's impact on our neighborhood had asked me to participate in the project's community involvement process, so I joined the Advisory Board - not a simple task as it required an appointment from governing bodies. So, for the benefit of my neighbors, I attended many community meetings and spoke at various groups until I finally got the required nomination. Once on the Board, other members asked me to chair the Communications Committee and prepare the Annual Reports and provide various presentations, and I did as asked for the benefit the Board.

Dogen advised “In each situation that you are faced with, just consider carefully; do anything which will bring even a little benefit to the person who is before you, without concern for what people will think of you. Even if you become estranged from your friends or quarrel with them because they say you did something bad and unbecoming of a monk, it is not important. It would be better to break off with such narrow-minded people. Even though outwardly it may seem to other people that you are doing something improper, the primary concern should be to break off your ego-attachment inwardly and throw away any desire for fame."

The challenge for me is to keep the ego at bay. As I take positions and advocate for various causes, the ego tends to attach to those positions and causes at the expense of equanimity. They soon appear more important than they actually are, merely because my ego has attached itself to them. And as I stand before our elected leaders and local celebrities, it is a challenge not to develop an inflated sense of self importance. The primary concern, Dogen said, should be to break off ego-attachment and throw away desire for fame. We can do this, I can do this, by just practicing beneficence to others and letting go of ego-attachment.