The issue of service has come up. There are many things in this lifetime that I have identified as "not an issue", but the idea of service has been coming lately and red flags have been going up in my mind indicating – this is an issue.
Things like eating meat – not an issue. Entering a monastery – turns out not an issue. "Moral" aspects of suicide – not an issue. Etc., etc. But service . . . resonating recently has been the teaching, as well as a resonant sense, that karmic or negative obscurations can be cleared through service. Negative obscurations specifically being identified as an issue when I was at Deer Park.
Service, what does it mean? It means acting in an official capacity for the benefit of others. Service doesn't mean just doing good or being good.
Several months ago I was riding along on my bike when I saw an old man on a bike loaded with flattened cardboard tip over in the street, blocking some traffic. He might have been nudged by a car, no surprise there.
I didn't think, I just came around and started helping get this guy upright, out of traffic and on his way. Another woman who was also there helped out, too. The old guy was engaged with the person who might have nudged him, who was telling him it wasn't safe to be riding with his bike so heavily loaded.
No one paid me any mind, no words or looks were exchanged, but we got his bike upright and traffic flowing. I quickly discerned there was nothing left for me to do, and I took off without any acknowledgement, not expecting any or any gratitude. It's supposed to be a selfless act, sponging for gratitude would've been cheap.
I rode away disgusted with myself. So I helped this guy out selflessly, so I was supposed to feel good about myself? I'm such a good person? Negative obscurations. There's something right in all this, as well as something twisted. And that sort of so-called selfless help to one particular individual is not what service is about.
I'm still trying to work out what it is about, and I feel the resistance inside me. It's not my style, I just want to be alone, I don't want to serve. But service is the one way to help clear these obscurations. Furthermore, I'm constantly telling myself to cultivate breaking habits. Do what I automatically wouldn't do. Service is something I naturally am not inclined to do.
The pathetic part is that service is the easiest thing in the world. What I recently mentioned about being something to someone. That would be service. It's different from helping that one old guy because it's an ongoing commitment. Being a school teacher, a parent, part of the PTA is service.
All I have are lines running down the back of my legs, bleeding.
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| 7:07 p.m. - From my studio window. People waiting for the garbage truck. That's the way it works here. Garbage trucks come to collection points at appointed times and households have to bring out their own garbage. |
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| 7:09 p.m. - Oh wait, that's a recycling truck. Same idea. Long zoom, low light, blurry is alright when it's expected. |
