Cynicism

I pretended to be reaching out to a barf bag. I stuck my tongue out and imitated a violent throw up. Then I rolled my eyes as I shook my head. This was before face-time and this was my reaction to a friend who had called me up and couldn’t stop telling me how madly she was in love.

At the time, my washing machine had broken down. I had a baby and a toddler at home. My life was filled with diapers, toys, high chairs, Disney junior on my TV, endless nursery rhymes on my player, spills, leaks, throw-ups, tantrums and everything in the middle.

When my loving husband came back home in the evenings, I didn’t feel romantic. I felt relief! Relief to be around another adult, relief for another set of hands that could help me and relief to be able to shower.

Naturally I was cynical about love!

Well, the babies grew and my cynicism disappeared. Thank goodness for that!

Much of life is lived as if in front of a mirror. We speak to others telling them things that we wish to hear ourselves. We color our words with emotions that are true for each of our selves. We get frustrated at things that do not reflect that which we are experiencing as the truth in a given moment.

There is no absolute truth. It is something that is sandwiched between different perspectives.

I have never met the Dalai Lama and yet I reserve a great deal of respect and adoration for him. I have read many books with his teachings and I have watched pretty much all documentaries about him.

Thumbing through a magazine I came upon an interview of his that was published. The writer introduced pre-China Tibet, as far less of a Utopia than we assume it was and mimicked the Lama’s mannerism with cynicism. There were subtle hints of sarcasm – angry humor – throughout the article.

Needless to say I was a bit saddened. When a smiling monk tells us that we all simply want to be happy and that we each desire to reduce our suffering – instead of being curious we want to erase his positivity.

There was so much I wanted to say to the writer of that article. I wanted to produce proof, I wanted to provide reassurance and I wanted to pacify her felt anger.

I realized in a moment that I was desperately trying to hold onto faith in my own beliefs. All these messages of reassurance, pacification and proof were for myself.

I remembered my episode with the barf bag!

Perhaps the life of this young woman who wrote the article was too crowded for her to see her own inner beauty. Perhaps her washing machine had broken down, her kid was throwing a tantrum and her husband had called to tell her that he was working late. Perhaps she just desired to shower in peace.

I’m sure the Lama said to her, “may you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you know the beauty of your own true nature, may you be healed, may you be a source of healing to all!”

The Gift Of Hope

They barely have drinking water. Yet their hearts are filled with gratitude!

Keeping with tradition, I visited this small school in a tiny village that my father grew up in. This annual ritual of mine enriches my life in a multitude of ways.  

I love children! I really do! It makes me happy to see hardworking kids pursuing dreams that are placed in places far and beyond the spectrum of their everyday life.

They sit upon the bare earth in tiny classrooms where dedicated teachers equipped with nothing more than a few books and a blackboard teach them. They don’t have computers, calculators, sports equipment, extra curricular activities, school development funds or any other fancy frilly stuff. Yet they are filled with love and receive what they get with immense gratitude.

A few years back I had asked these very same children what their dreams were?  Very few had answers.  When one child annoyed by my persisting questioning, and largely out of frustration told me that she wanted to be a teacher – the others simply chimed in. They all wanted to be teachers!

But even then, I knew. I knew that it was important that they be asked what their dreams were. Not because it is imperative that a twelve or thirteen year old knows exactly what she is to do with her life but because its good to have dreams upon whose wings these kids can reach places beyond their own imagination.

This time when I visited them, I found that they had given my question thought. They each aspired to pursue professions and interests of their own and the listed variety brought joy to me. It thrilled me to see girls come up before the whole school and express their intent to become doctors, lawyers and government officials. 

I intend to continue asking them this question even at the risk of being disliked.

 Because I know that as they grow, some of them will forget that they too had dreams as a child. And I hope that those who forget will remember that annoying woman who asked them about their dreams and aspirations every year. And that such remembering will cause them to pursue what they have conveniently abandoned.

After all the last thing left in Pandora’s box is hope!