BodhiDay

“3:30 A.M. I’m over in the Orderly Room. I couldn’t sleep. I put my coat on over my pajamas and came over here. Al Aspesi is G.Q. He’s asleep on the floor. I can stay here if I answer the phone for him. What a night. Mrs. Fedder’s analyst was there for dinner and grilled me, off and on, till about eleven-thirty. Occasionally with great skill, intelligence. Once or twice, I found myself pulling for him. Apparently he’s an old fan of Buddy’s and mine. He seemed personally as well as professionally interested in why I’d been bounced off the show at sixteen. He’d actually heard the Lincoln broadcast, but he had the impression that I’d said over the air that the Gettysburg Address was ‘bad for children.’ Not true. I told him I’d said I thought it was a bad speech for children to have to memorize in school. He also had the impression I’d said it was a dishonest speech. I told him I’d said that 51,112 men were casualties at Gettysburg, and that if someone had to speak at the anniversary of the event, he should simply have come forward and shaken his fist at his audience and then walked off — that is, if the speaker was an absolutely honest man.”

J.D. Salinger, “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters” (1955)

Let’s be perfectly clear: there are riots in the streets. And it’s a shame that good, honest folk are having their property destroyed. But whatever is destroyed can be replaced. The same cannot be said of Mike Brown. Or Amadou Diallo or Oscar Grant or Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner or the seemingly endless line of young black men and women who have lost their lives at the hands at those meant to “protect and serve.” I’ve wanted to say something about all of this. And all I can think to do is shake my fist at this country and walk off.

Today is December 8, a day when many Buddhists celebrate the enlightenment of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni. Enlightenment is nothing more than the removal of ignorance and delusion. And if we can’t wake up from the delusion of how our privilege and power — how our own actions — cause systemic and personal suffering, then I don’t know why we’re celebrating Bodhi Day in the first place.