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The Smashing Mirrors Buddha Dog Walker
Feb. 12th, 2019 07:27 amThe Smashing Mirrors Buddha Dog Walker
Once she looked in the mirror and it said, “You’ll never kiss Leonard Cohen now”. She’d just gotten married and her husband was smoking a doobie with his best friend in the living room and she was crying in the bathroom. Her life was over because she’d tried it all and now she was done. She was like an appliance that met his required specs. He admitted that at first, he thought her lips were on the thin side, but now he thought they were okay.
Years later when she was in the hospital after a radical hysterectomy for cancer she had a small mirror that she used to draw her self-portrait. She would write notes for her children around the picture like “I love you” and “remember to look after each other”. The face she drew was not hers, it was of terror. It said “you’ll never see them grow up”.
He brought them only once to see her in hospital, the youngest, six months, sat next to her in the bed and gently touched her face; the other two kids crouched on the floor, fascinated by the rubber tube from under the sheet that was attached to a bag. They were fascinated when some urine went around the coiled tube into the bag.
“Dad said you’d have presents for us.”
When she got home she couldn’t find herself in her reflection. She’d look and only see a mask. Her husband would say, “When do I get my wife back?”
All her efforts to be the same failed. She felt held in the mouth of a monster and feared what she might do to escape from it. Then she found Soto Zen. Practising felt like constantly falling then getting up, or being so bored dust became elegantly diverting. Gradually she found she wasn't so afraid anymore.
On the pivotal day, tall windows splashed pools of light in the monastery. It seemed everything reflected positively her choice. She could feel with her bare feet the warmth left by the feet of the monks on the wooden floors as they silently hurried along the halls. There was a long mirror where she’d checked the folds of her robe. Looking at her reflection, dressed to take her postulate vows, she’d smiled.
Now, years later, her eyesight is poor and the mirror still berates her “you look like your mother with your fucking Irish face. Hey, Lenard Cohen is dead now, and soon you will be too but no one will remember you. Oh and EVERYBODY HATES YOU. The dog loves you but he`s an idiot.”
She glances in the mirror looking for any food stuck in her teeth then dresses and takes the dog for his walk. She remembers to pick up his poop. As she does this she recites quietly:
This is as the boundless sky,
A lotus flowering above the water,
Stainlessness is itself this mind,
In this awakening,
We stand exposed.
Once she looked in the mirror and it said, “You’ll never kiss Leonard Cohen now”. She’d just gotten married and her husband was smoking a doobie with his best friend in the living room and she was crying in the bathroom. Her life was over because she’d tried it all and now she was done. She was like an appliance that met his required specs. He admitted that at first, he thought her lips were on the thin side, but now he thought they were okay.
Years later when she was in the hospital after a radical hysterectomy for cancer she had a small mirror that she used to draw her self-portrait. She would write notes for her children around the picture like “I love you” and “remember to look after each other”. The face she drew was not hers, it was of terror. It said “you’ll never see them grow up”.
He brought them only once to see her in hospital, the youngest, six months, sat next to her in the bed and gently touched her face; the other two kids crouched on the floor, fascinated by the rubber tube from under the sheet that was attached to a bag. They were fascinated when some urine went around the coiled tube into the bag.
“Dad said you’d have presents for us.”
When she got home she couldn’t find herself in her reflection. She’d look and only see a mask. Her husband would say, “When do I get my wife back?”
All her efforts to be the same failed. She felt held in the mouth of a monster and feared what she might do to escape from it. Then she found Soto Zen. Practising felt like constantly falling then getting up, or being so bored dust became elegantly diverting. Gradually she found she wasn't so afraid anymore.
On the pivotal day, tall windows splashed pools of light in the monastery. It seemed everything reflected positively her choice. She could feel with her bare feet the warmth left by the feet of the monks on the wooden floors as they silently hurried along the halls. There was a long mirror where she’d checked the folds of her robe. Looking at her reflection, dressed to take her postulate vows, she’d smiled.
Now, years later, her eyesight is poor and the mirror still berates her “you look like your mother with your fucking Irish face. Hey, Lenard Cohen is dead now, and soon you will be too but no one will remember you. Oh and EVERYBODY HATES YOU. The dog loves you but he`s an idiot.”
She glances in the mirror looking for any food stuck in her teeth then dresses and takes the dog for his walk. She remembers to pick up his poop. As she does this she recites quietly:
This is as the boundless sky,
A lotus flowering above the water,
Stainlessness is itself this mind,
In this awakening,
We stand exposed.
Tom Tompson paints northern Ontario like nobody's business!
