Hardcore Dharma sings Jenny I Got Your Number
Thursday July 30, 2009
Categories: Hardcore Dharma
This is a story about my friend Jenny. Jenny and I attended the Tuesday night gathering at the New York Shambhala center. Jenny's new to Buddhism - this was the second Shambhala talk she'd ever attended. My normal tendency would...
Filed Under: bob thurman, great eastern sun, hardcore dharma, i need a hero, lovingkindness meditation, mixers, R. Crumb, sharon salzberg, singer/songwriters
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Welcome to One City. You've lived here your whole life, whether you know it or not. One City blog is an outgrowth of The Interdependence Project, a Buddhist-inspired nonprofit organization led by Ethan Nichtern, dedicated to teaching the insights of Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness, and interconnectedness in the 21st century world.
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"I do, however, still long for Jenny's blatant fearlessness toward the prospect of getting to know you."
vs.
JENNY: I'm always afraid that *I'm* going to disappoint other people. So then I want to prove myself wrong and so I want to talk to them.
Wanting to prove something to other people is not the same thing as fearlessness. It just looks the same, right?
Fearlessness = sharing intimate details about your neurosis and what you perceive as your "failings" on Beliefnet. Unless your just trying to scare us away or prove something.
Love the essay. you made me laugh out loud several times.
Jenny sounds super cool -- at ease with herself and her world. The news of her recent engagement crushed me. But I take comfort in the prospect of het becoming not just a good meditator but a great one.
I like how you said you “interrogated her”. That says a lot.
It’s great that your friend is willing to put herself out there to prove something to “herself”. I know the feeling. There are plenty of things I tried in just the same manner and I’ve found that it can be a positive thing to do.
I appreciate your candor about your judgments and the fear of disappointments. I’ve found in my own experience that my greatest teachers where gifted in areas they taught me but had flaws in other areas. When I really examined that I discovered I pretty much have the same situation going on. It helped me to be more understanding. Also, I discovered that the people who don’t appear to have much to offer or who I categorize as deficient or flawed (which is really my own stupidity) usually have an outlook that is unique and valuable. These days I enjoy the moment when folks open up and their wisdom reveals itself. When it happens I feel happy that I was blessed enough to witness it.
As for “shrinking” vs “smiling” at the homeless and seemingly unstable people. Smiling is the smartest thing to do. As a native New Yorker, I’ve learned the friendless works to prevent and sometimes deflect aggression from strangers (not to mention “friends”).
And the neutral people; well when I think about some of my intense life experiences. It was the neutral people who helped me. Strangers on the streets who asked for nothing and gave me everything I needed in that particular moment. No matter how low I go or how high I rise I know they are there and they always show in the nick of time.
Jenny's willingness to experiment, to test her own assumptions, in the act of connecting to another human is the hallmark of metta. I think we have a bodhisattva in our midst.
Ryan: I agree. Jenny is collasol.
Is she colossal like the still-insitu Buddha sculptures of Bamiyan?
Similar. But different.
You're climbing mountains, Julia. Jenny is not.
Everyone has the desire to climb high mountsins. Why? Because the mountain is yourself. If you know that the mountain is yourself, then you don't need to climb the mountain. You may know that the mountain is yourself, but as you cannot really be the mountain itself, then you still want to climb the mountain. So when you get very nervous in the world, you want to escape into the mountain and live there, because the mountain is yourself.
You're climbing mountains, Julia. Jenny is not.
Everyone has the desire to climb high mountsins. Why? Because the mountain is yourself. If you know that the mountain is yourself, then you don't need to climb the mountain. You may know that the mountain is yourself, but as you cannot really be the mountain itself, then you still want to climb the mountain. So when you get very nervous in the world, you want to escape into the mountain and live there, because the mountain is yourself.
Then, why was Tenying Gyatso the only Sherpa to go up Everest with Edmund Hillary while all the others truly wondered, "Why do civilized people want to go up there?" [He was worried about the English.] We are the mountain already, so why climb? We prefer our Yak Butter Beer and a night of celebration. Summer comes, and we go to the 'Central Mountain,' Kailash (Celestial Mount Meru). Holiness is everywhere. Meru the center of everywhere. "The Universe has no center and no edge."
(?).
Some climb because they take themselves to be a mountain to climb, in other words, an object, perhaps to be analyzed incessantly as some on this blog do. They do not see that there is no need to observe the world or themselves as objects. They affirm the world from the point of view of the small mind. What is remarkable about Jenny is that she very naturally acts from the point of view of absolute mind.
@Ryan:
What you said:
"Everyone has the desire to climb high mountsins. Why? Because the mountain is yourself. If you know that the mountain is yourself, then you don't need to climb the mountain. You may know that the mountain is yourself, but as you cannot really be the mountain itself, then you still want to climb the mountain. So when you get very nervous in the world, you want to escape into the mountain and live there, because the mountain is yourself."
is really great and full of wisdom. Amazing!
@Jerry: Jenny wrote me an email saying the same thing.
@Damaris: Yes, trying to shift the focus toward the good is the challenge. I do get better at it - it is just interesting to note tendencies pop up when they do.
@Ryan: Unless we're enlightened, we're all climbing mountains in one way or another.
@Ryan, are you quoting a zen master? It is better to provide a reference if you are quoting so much with exactly the same words.
@Your Name: Ryan is a Zen master, only he'd rather not be called one because of snake oil salesmen and charlatans like Merzel who calls himself Genpo Roshi. I've known and admired Ryan for years.
This Zen master Ryan cannot speak for himself? Why quoting someone else without giving a reference?
@Your Name: I'm sorry, anonymous person, you'd have to ask him that. He's kinda famous, you know, like has his own center. I'm sure you can email him if your impatience gets unmanageable.
I have seen too many fake Zen masters. So I just want to find out if this is another fake Zen master or a good one. Can you give his full name? I will check him out.
Your Name (aka C4Chaos), why don't you just email him instead of wanting your work done for you?
This certainly wins weirdest comment thread of the summer award on the One City Blog.
AGREED!
There was a big porcupine around my cabin last week. He would gnaw on the porch at like 4 am. It was so loud, it sounded like someone out there with a hand saw and much vigor. I would yell at him to go away and he would lumber off, real slow like.
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