Wash Your Bowl

A short statement

I am not a kind man. I had no compassion. Empathy eluded me. I followed my basest desire.. I struggled and suffered alone.

I was abrasive, unsympathetic, offensive, obnoxious, and rude. My untreated trauma I suppressed and buried deep. No tears were shed. Embarrassed and ashamed, I drank too much and spent years twisted on cocaine. The only thing I had was a sense of humor, but even that failed me.

Kindness. I failed as person from lack of it. Then I rediscovered cannabis. When I returned to Los Angeles in 2011, I lived in a roach and bedbug infested apartment in Koreatown. I was there for 18 months. During that time I started writing again, smoking weed from waking to bed. One day, I thought of the Zen story about the student with the dirty rice bowl. I never cleaned my dishes after using them. They would sit in the kitchen sink for days, unwashed. But on this one day I realized that when you are finished with your meal you wash your bowl. An epiphany, a revelation, a profound understanding enveloped me.

Lately, my health issues have occupied my thoughts. Still, I persevere. I try to be kind, but the old me comes out at times. I’ve been going to leftist meetings, trying to improve the conditions of the disenfranchised, the homeless, the poor. I found compassion that day I washed my bowl.

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