My mental circus, inside and out.

ex-husbands

It's a funny thing when ex-husbands suddenly turn up, after years of silence.  A quality of mercy and forgiveness.  Perhaps there are people who can hold a grudge forever.  Emma confesses that she does hold one, or maybe two, though she is struggling mightily to let go  But after twelve years it hardly seems worth it, and it is so much better to allow kind words, given and received. 

She knows he had been curious, had popped up in places she might have been, when she wasn't there.  And she kept thinking, I must get those photographs back from him, the ones of the children.  Now he has offered them.  He says he envies her a grandchild.  But she can't imagine that he would have been happy with one at home, with all the cares and demands of a toddler. 

Emma can do what she likes, including raising a toddler or cooking broccoli (a thing he hated).  And he can do what he likes, as far as she knows, though perhaps the third wife hates golf and cooks broccoli, too.

But here is the dhamma, offering a chance at letting go of any last vestiges of fear, resentment, or unhappiness between them.   She has made amends for the past with both her husbands, one now dead.  So for these, she no longer has to pay.   Another step towards liberation.

 

Posted by: EmmaPele at September 30, 2006 05:56 | link | comments (1)

the verdict

And so the thing is done.  Or at least, one phase of it is done.  The closing arguments have been made.  The verdict is in.  The jury could not convict Casey of aggravated vehicular homicide, because the judge would not allow discussion of his four-page driving record (including a DUI) or his suspended license.  The judge, the defense, and perhaps the law, had an odd interpretation of recklessness, that the recklessness has to be proven as taking place at the very moment of the accident, in the driving in that moment, and so all cause and effect is erased.   

And yet what a vast sea of cause and effect it was, several  lives, the laws of physics, the body's perceptual awareness or unawareness, all colliding in that horrific moment, when we had to hear of my brother lying on the ground, his eyes "like slits," jerking, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.   The panicked Casey, the horrified eyewitness who said, "He is in bad shape.  Is he dead?"

And the weirdness of the courtroom justice, as the prosecutor actually mentioned CSI in the closing arguments, as if fiction has a greater resonance than the everyday reality.  And rumors spreading that the judge was up for election, that the defense had supported his candidacy. . . . and that was why he threatened the prosecution with contempt, twice when they tried to talk about "reasonable doubt."

Standing afterwards in the Victim/Witness room with the prosecutors doing the post-mortem, angry members of the family, including my brother's partner Roy, stating that no justice had been done.  And the prosecutor, a very rational person: "Nothing that happened here would have brought him back."  So TRUE.

And then, the press.  Verdict in for death of popular high school teacher.  News at 11.

Of course there is justice, but in what way could we ever understand it as taking place in a courtroom?  How limited the understanding is in such a place. How narrow.   How caught in petty egos.  Under the guise of truth, how unconcerned with truth, compassion and wisdom.

And yet beneath it all, moments.  Like the bailiff who joked lightly with my stepmother, as if they had become friends over these many days.  The prosecutor who, though recovering from an injury that made him limp, came in to see the caes through and said, "This is one of the best families I have seen. I wish I had known you in other circumstances."  The people who showed up, who didn' t have to, just because they knew someone might be in pain.  That is what they don't show you on CSI.

Posted by: EmmaPele at September 28, 2006 08:28 | link | comments (1)

Dad

Emma's father must testify in court today.  He is a character witness for Emma's brother.  It all feels a bit odd.  Why should it matter who Emma's brother was?  Shouldn't justice be neutral in this regard?  But apparently if you accidentally take the life of a person perceived valuable to family and community, it weighs more than if you take the life of just some homeless guy.  Buddhist justice is more impersonal and equanimous, for how can we say that one life is more valuable than another, as wonderful and evolved as Emma's brother was?

Emma's father went out to the prison where the killer might end up.  He went twice.  He had to see.  He had to know what might happen to this man, who is the son of an alcoholic, with a tortured past.  This is the prison where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed.  Emma's father said, "I would not wish that on anyone."  Think of this man, Emma's father, who has lost a son, acting with such compassion.  That is an amazing thing.

Posted by: EmmaPele at September 26, 2006 19:46 | link | comments (1)

Dave

A year ago, Emma's brother, Dave, was killed by an erratic driver who ran a stop sign.  Dave, who was flying along on his bike, blind-sided the van.   He died within a few minutes.  This week, the trial of the killer is finally taking place after months of delays.  The judge appears to be uninterested and possibly incompetent. Emma will go on Wednesday to sit with the family.  Fortunately, the family was forbidden from going to the accident site with the jury, which happened today.  Tomorrow, her father must take the stand to attest to her brother's character, an emotional tug at the jury and deeply painful for him.   Dave's partner, Roy, will not be testiftying.  To have an old gay man testify about his deep love for a younger man does not go over well in these United States.  But they will try to pack the courtroom with family. 

Emma is now thinking that part of the reason for her general level of distress this month is the undercurrent of grief stemming from the anniversary, September 2.  In many ways, she still imagines Dave to be there, and perhaps he is, somewhere, in some other instance of consciousness.  He lived an exemplary life.  He was joyful, even-tempered, and a gift to his students.  In fact, the family was robbed of its two most loving and giving persons last year.  They went almost at the same time, Emma's brother and her mother, as if they had to go in tandem because of their good heartedness.  The rest are left to struggle along towards enlightenment as best we can.

Posted by: EmmaPele at September 26, 2006 08:51 | link | comments (4)

the Dancer

Check this out: http://ethicscrisis.com/.  Business people actually admitting all their sleazy behavior.

Last night, Emma took our young gay friend, the Dancer, out to the Buddhist temple.   The Dancer has been in Emma's life since he was a child, and now he has a substance abuse problem, a lifestyle full of vain and shallow people (according to Emma's daughter),  a creative personality, a sensitive heart, and a chaotic mind that he wants to tame.  So when he told his drug counselor that he has friends who are Buddhist meditators, the counselor suggested that he take advantage of this.

Emma wondered what he would think of it all, since the Dancer is so very young still, and a philosophy that speaks about suffering and transcending the passions seems to need the wisdom of a certain age and life experience.  Of course, if you buy the notion that we've all been around for aeons as ever-changing, flashing instances of consciousness. .. .well, then age becomes less of a factor.

Ajahn was in good form since he'd had a visit from a business ethics class at the local community college.  Visits by students always send him a little around the bend, since, having been trained by the rigorous monks in Thailand,  he does not like stupid questions, especially from those who have only curiosity and no interest in Buddhism.   Still, these visits always make him want to talk a lot.  Emma is not sure entirely why.  "They are going into advertising," he snorted.

So last night the lecture was on the jhanas, a classic sutta on levels of meditation.  The Dancer was fairly patient, given the complex nature of the lecture,  but he did a lot of stretching and twisting.  He is, after all, a boy whose body is pretty important to him since his profession really is dancing.  During the meditation, though, he sat very still after Ajahn's good instructions which are full of metaphors that describe the mind as kind of wild animal and the breath as horses at the gate.

Fortunately, the gay men were back, and seem to have settled in as part of the community.  Since they are also very good looking with their hunky bodies and leather and bead jewelry, they made the Dancer feel comfortable and in his element, so that the whole thing was not uncool.  The Dancer also liked the fact that he could run around in his bare feet, wear whatever clothes he wanted, and was under no real pressure to do anything at all, unlike any religious experience he had ever had. 

"This is kind of surreal," he said, looking out at the gilt-edged temple in the middle of the Michigan farmlands.

"I know," Emma said.  "That's why I like it."

On the way home, the Dancer told Emma that he couldn't keep his mind still during the meditation because he kept imagining the whole experience as a dance.  Emma is wondering exactly what the dance will look like.

Posted by: EmmaPele at September 24, 2006 19:39 | link | comments (1)