push the button
On a recent layover in Chicago I was walking down the main drag when I happened to spy a Starbucks. My `caffeine low' light was blinking red so I made straight for it until I was stopped in my path. A beggar .... young, skinny black man, mid 20s to early 30s, in a wheel chair, with a speech impediment, beseeching everyone who dared pass. I noticed an uneasiness inside. `Oh no, NOT in front of STARBUCKS! There ought to be a law!’
Now, I'm not a great world saver. I don't sleep in the streets in my spare time. But I do give money to worthy causes from time to time, and I'm not averse to handing out cash to an honest beggar, someone who obviously needs it. And this guy needed it. "Anythin'....anythin....... Gawd bless ya..... gawd bless ya", was his constant refrain. I tossed some coins in his cup and asked him if he wanted a coffee. Without skipping a beat he looked at me and said, "Iced coffee, cream, no sugar." I saluted smartly and went inside to retrieve his order.
I stayed by his side as we sipped our shade grown, fair trade (or whatever the heck it is these days) drinks. I asked him about his life. He said he ended up this way because he was almost beaten to death. He admitted he'd been `bad'. Perhaps a drug deal gone sour, I thought. But now all he could do was beg. I decided to help out and would call out to passersby from time to time..."Heh! Won't you please help ...HUH! What kinda sick people are you anyway. The man needs money!" And then I toned it down a bit, mimicking him, "Anything ..... anything .... god bless you.... god bless you....." He seemed to enjoy me helping out. I wasn't making fun of him at all, but I was intensely interested in the faces of those that passed by. A few gave money, most didn't. A few looked at me in confusion. Most didn't. I stayed awhile, enjoying his company, the coffee, and everything I was learning.
Before I left him I pulled out a twenty and slipped it in his cup. He quickly yanked it out and put it in his pocket. It's not good business to let people see you with too much scratch. Bad publicity. I wished him well and walked away.
But the faces of the people who passed by us that day stayed with me and taught me something. Looking at them as they passed, I realized that none of them was any less compassionate than I. Certainly, many were uneasy about having to be approached by a beggar, and his bizarre white companion, while they went about their business on a lovely Chicago day.
But I know how they felt, because we all feel that way. It's pointless. My small act of compassion is pointless in a world that's zipping along at warp speed toward the precipice. I can't save anyone. I can't even save myself.
But do me a favor. For a moment, picture an imaginary button before you right now. If you press it, all suffering will cease. No more child abduction, no more war, no more famine, no more hate. All suffering for EVERYONE will end. Would you push the button?
I think even Hitler would have pushed it. What he really wanted was peace and security for the German people. His crimes, his hate, his evil arose from a variety of factors, not least among them being his delusion, his inability to appreciate the interconnectedness of all life, and it's most logical tenet; the basic law of, ‘What goes around comes around'. But if you push that button there will be no more misery for anyone. All beings shall in peace.
But Hitler's delusion is also ours. We don't realize that Heaven and Hell are eternally present and enfolded into THIS, and can appear at any time according NOT ONLY to circumstance, but also to our choice, our intention. It's not our compassion that fails us, it's our understanding.
In modern physics, past, present and future don't really exist. All that is real is the totality of spacetime. And just as we feel that all of space really exists out there, so physics insists that so does all of time. And it’s there to be viewed by some observer in a particular place and state of motion. It is possible that from someone's perspective in the universe, my past has not yet happened. And likewise, from another perspective, my future is already finished. And since all measurements of spacetime are valid for all observers, what does this tell us about time?
Our usual appreciation of time is that it flows forward, like a movie where a frame that was lit a moment ago is now dark. But Einstein said, ".....the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent." All that is real is the totality of spacetime. As Brain Greene said in his wonderful book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos, “If you were having a good time at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999, you still are...". Positions in space no more change than do moments in time. Positions may change, but they are no longer the same positions. Time may flow, but only to different moments in time. Dogen wrote, "Do not think that time merely flies away. Do not see flying away as the only function of time. If time merely flies away, you would be separate from time .... The reason you do not clearly understand being-time is that you think of time only as passing away."
Every moment is a permanent, indeed eternal feature of the fabric of life itself. Even a so-called small deed of compassion is far from a hopeless act, vanishing from any effective consequence more quickly than a fog of breath from a silver tray. On the contrary, each moment, each thought, each act is a an absolute permanent fixture in the totality of spacetime, it's cause reaching back to the beginingless past and its effect shining forth toward the incalculable future. It vibrates through Indra's net forever. So go ahead, push the button. You already have!
This is much more that spiritual whimsey. It's an absolute fact of the Buddha Dharma. As Maezumi Roshi once said, "There's no such thing as a small thing." I know that when a small child smiles at me, all my sins are forgiven.
Barry Kaigen McMahon, Sensei
©Three Treasures Zen Community 2005