To Drink Like Men...In A Gay bar.

My friend Joe Mauricio (not his real name) and I went out last night to an Irish pub--in Chelsea. Which meant--you got it--place was filled with tall lads in soccer jerseys sporting a lisp. And boyfriends. Then again, Joe and I were there--which says, what? Say what?

Anyway, jealous as I am to admit it--Joe (again, not his real name) is a class A funnyman. He's an actor, working comedian and one of my dearest friends. So, over the course of a Guinness (whiskey for Joe, he said he's "on a diet") we talked about what it means to be living, scrapping and keeping our heads above water in NYC.

As we compared notes, one thing became clear. Its kind of tough doing the "right action, compassionate thing" in a city where people are elbowing each other on the subway. Turns out Joe (okay, okay his real name) and I are right there, pushing and shoving with the best of 'em. But aren't we supposed to be versed enough in knowing our minds to not believe the hype and get sucked in?

Maybe. Maybe not. So what's my point? I don't have one, I'm hoping like the next subway if I hang around one will show up. My non-point is maybe this city is just too hectic and no matter how much mediation you do, its not enough to keep from barely not elbowing that guy who just dug his in to your rib cage.

Or, and this is the embarrassing admission section--maybe I'm just not working hard enough at my own practice and using the energy of the city as an excuse to foster my own pent up frustration. Bit of an urban-spiritual chicken or the egg deal, in a way.

As I see it, my choices are: a. Don't hang out with Joe. He's clearly the Devil. b. Don't ride the subway. Its clearly the preferred mode of transportation for...the Devil. c. Put my money where my Guinness is and don't elbow back. Cuz elbows are...damn, the Devil thing doesn't work with elbows.

So, since Joe's the only friend I have and I can't afford taxi's, looks like I'm going to have to put on my big-boy pants and actually walk the walk I keep yapping about at those fancy classes I teach on Buddhism. So there it is. I have to stop looking for reasons to throw elbows and start making room for people, in my mind and heart. Either way, looks like its going to be a long trip.

Would've been so much easier if Joe were the Devil. There's nothing like a warm excuse to curl up with and ignore everything around you.

Suffering: Apply. Wait. Reapply.

Mi amiga Roberta once said "Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional", which I'll use as a clever segue to how I got in to an email fight with someone. Why is it that email is completely inadequate at capturing mood, tone and emotion--until someone writes and tells you to go *&%^$#! yourself?

So what did I learn other than getting flamed in an email is pretty much like getting flamed in person? I learned that NY State law restricts the possession of semiautomatic assault weapons that hold up to 100 rounds. In retrospect, probably a good thing. I'd been the victim of a an email drive-by and there was little I could do but suck toxic tail-pipe fumes as they drove away.

Problem is, while you're choking down someone else's anger-laced carbon monoxide, you tend to keep replaying the events in your head. It becomes one giant loop reliving itself, the ultimate inner, "He said, she said". And the next thing you know, circumventing the state mandated six month waiting period for a handgun seems, well reasonable. And that's when you better wake up and smell the karma.

Because the more I replayed the events, the bigger more life-like and real the whole thing seemed. I was feeding my emotions big double-handfuls of self-justified anger-kibble and they were quickly growing up and out of control. They had become Rage-Zilla, foot-stomping to matchsticks whole villages of reason and patience.

And then an ancient Buddhist saying came to me, "Dude--shut up". And I realized that it was up to me. To shut up, to stop replaying events, to seal up the bag of anger-kibble, to tear up my registration form for an assault weapon and to just, stop. So I did. And lo and behold Rage-Zilla tucked his tail and vanished.

I realized it'd be wiser to spend the next six months being grateful for a lovely wife, family and life rather then put on one of those semi-knit trucker's hats made from beer cans, waiting for my Fed Ex delivery of a semi-auto handgun. I mean, someone has to stop the madness, why not me?

There's a great quote from one of those old Buddhist Yoda's, about what not to do with one's thoughts. It starts out "Do not imagine, think, deliberate, meditate, act but be at rest...". This doesn't mean "Go zombie" whenever trouble arises, but rather, "...at rest" means to let mind rest in its own ability to be present, intelligent. Don't crank anything up. For that matter, don't crank anything down.

Oh, the other thing I learned is that email is probably the media-crack of the millennium marketed by self serving corporate interests to undermine the necessity of human interaction and create an unhealthy dependency on technology.

Then again, maybe I just need to learn to not type whatever comes out of my brain.

Karma: Not A City In Thailand....

Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म, from the root kri "to do") is an active verb. So you could approach karma from the p.o.v. of "What are/were my actions" as opposed to, "Why am I experiencing this or that effect?". According to Buddhism karma's a law, the enactment of a principle as opposed to any kind of moral governing.

The thinking goes, if we realize that the pain we sometimes experience is the effect of our own misguided actions, hopefully, eventually we'll stop creating those actions. In other words, if we can generate a little awareness in our lives, it might help us see that we're the ones whacking ourselves in the head with a hammer--its not the result of some unknown, mysterious force.

Speaking of blunt force trauma, time for another coffee...