We talk about how it may be impossible for most Americans to really accept Buddhism, having been raised in a culture that is so centered on the self, while not defining that as a necessarily bad thing. It just makes it very hard to see yourself as a transient being.
He says he once felt the same way, and discusses his own transformation. He lost his spouse, his dog and his job, all in a very short period of time. "That was a serious lesson in transience," he says. "So I left the country." He traveled, he studied, he found peace.
"Has it been hard to integrate back into American life after all that?"
"In some ways it has." Running the Buddhist center here helps him tremendously.
I ask if he has another job, and he says he's an oral historian. Oh man, I want that job. I'm a far better storyteller in person.
I finally get him home, which is an extraordinary place, up in the hills, with the grounds cultivated in just the right way to make them lovely and overgrown but not impossibly wild. Prayer flags hang overhead; wind chimes softly ring. The smile he gives me is worth more than the fare. Jesus and Mohammed probably had smiles like that.
Everybody got your NC checklists ready?
__Liberal Stereotype? Check. A positive one this time. The world-traveled, capitalism-reformed buddhist. Richard Gere, etc, etc, She misses the really juicy stereotype here: a buddhist trustafarian living in the low-rent West Hills...heheheh...
__Camouflaged Disdain? Check. "...having been raised in a culture that is so centered on the self, while not defining that as a necessarily bad thing." Cabbie's too sophisticated to be caught pointing a finger at anyone. Even nasty selfish ugly americans.
__Phony Humility? Check. "...I'm a far better storyteller in person."
__Hip location/low brow location (pick up/drop off. Can be juxtaposed)? Check. Pick up in a lousy garage, drop off in the West Hills.
__Worship of her own musical taste? Hey! WTF?? Oh well maybe next week.
__Framed Story? Check. Once again Cabbie tells us a story someone else tells her. I wonder if Fleetwood Mac's "Second-hand News" ever plays in her vehicle? Nah. She too cool for that.
__The Parting Shot? Check. "Jesus and Mohammed probably had smiles like that." In other words those who forsake the nasty American Capitalist Pig Dog ways become divine. And if this quote from the Koran is any indication, I don't think Mohammed would smile much on your Buddhist fare: The Islamic Sira proclaims: Ishaq:587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."
But we'll trust that YOU smile beneath the veil you'll have to wear under sharia law someday, Cabbie...
Cedric Marnetti is a natural born critic, with bad judgement on when and where to critique.
Night Cabbie, please tell us more, your stories tell of life in a city, in this time.
If you ignore them, they go away,,,, unless you want them to stay, that is. Never mind.