Ep. #14: Sid & the Buddha Deconstruct the Dharma.
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The Man Who Woke up the Buddha is the story of a guy named Sid who wakes up from a stroke and realizes he's the Buddha, even though he knows almost nothing about Buddhism.
Previously: Things got a little wild in the MRI machine at the midwest cancer center when Sid passed out, leaving the Buddha alone with one of the most murderous dictators in history.
“You meet the nicest people when you have cancer,” Sid told Marcus enthusiastically as they walked into town. He followed with a throaty laugh that combined a low rumble with a sing-song high note. “I’m practicing laughing like the Dalai Lama,” he said, laughing like the Dalai Lama.
“Pretty good imitation. Are you sure you’re not the Dalai Lama?”
“Oh, I think I’d know if I were the Dalai Lama,” Sid said, as if seriously considering the possibility.
You’re no Dalai Lama, the Buddha thought.
It wasn’t even seven a.m. and the two (or three) of them were walking the narrow twisty road that followed the shoreline to the harbor. Sid had started to do the walk every morning because the doctor told him to walk two miles every day and it was exactly a mile each way. Usually, he bought the paper when he got there. He didn’t need to buy the paper since he had it delivered to the house, but it was the only excuse he could think of for getting up that early and walking into town.
He tried to time it so he got to the general store exactly when the papers arrived, which was invariably 7:30, give or take 30 seconds. He wanted the first paper, the one on top, in which you could still see the dent caused by the strap that held the bundle in place.
“Sid, I’ll hold the first paper for you, if you want…” Shorty, the 6’6” storeowner offered every day.
“No need, Shorty,” Sid said, waving off the offer. “I need to stay on top of the 24-hour news cycle,” he explained in the Buddha’s inscrutable way.
“Just about everyone at that cancer center was a little nervous,” he admitted to Marcus. “But that’s understandable since they haven’t yet realized that death is kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Actually, there is no jail to get out of, the Buddha clarified for Sid.
“Even though, of course, there’s no jail.” Sid clarified for Marcus.
“C’mon, Sid, has it ever occurred to you that some of those people don’t want to get out of this so-called jail? Even though they are in pain? They love life, even when it hurts.”
“I know, I know, I know,” Sid said with un-Buddha-like impatience. “You’re missing the point. Have you ever thought about what cancer is, grasshopper?”
“Let’s not do the Kung Fu insect thing, Sid, OK?”
“We must, butterfly boy, I have many bugs to go before I bite the big one.”
Marcus sighed. “OK, what is cancer, oh Great One?”
“Let me think about how to say it…” Sid stalled, waiting for inspiration.
Cancer, the Buddha thought, is the process by which any or all aspects of a human being can be released like a butterfly from its chrysalis.
“You see, Marcus,” Sid explained, “Cancer is the process by which any or all aspects of a human being can be released like a butterfly from its chrysalis. Ouch!” he added, swatting at a deer fly that landed on the stitches on top of his head.
“Guess even the Buddha can have instant karma,” Marcus said. “You want a hat?”
“No, I want deerflies to keep landing on my stitches, swatting them, and yelling, ‘Ouch!’ Of course I want a hat.”
“You sure?” Marcus said, taking off his Yankee cap and handing it to Sid who began to act like he was choking.
“Marcus,” he said sternly. “You know that’s against my religion.”
Ahem, the Buddha thought.
“OK, give it to me.” Sid opened the band in back so it’d fit better, and put it on backwards. “This way no one can see who’s wearing it…”
Marcus soldiered on. “You talk as if cancer is no big deal. People keep asking me how I think you really feel.”
“What people?”
“People who care about you for some reason…”
“So, what do you say?”
“That I have no idea.”
“Well, if you find out let me be the first to know. Anyway, Mothball, why can’t you just accept the wisdom of the Buddha instead of always asking how I, Sid, know what I, the Buddha, knows?”
“OK, Master, then please elaborate on your cancer-chrysalis analogy.”
“As soon as I read the sports pages and obits and have my apple cider donut, I shall give a sutra and, as it was lo those twenty-five-hundred years ago, you will remember it incorrectly and write it down for all eternity in order to misguide generations of sincere devotees.”
Sid stood in front of the weathered bulletin board that was hanging on a weathered hook on the weathered clapboard side of the weathered general store. The board was trimmed in simple weathered black molding with an unnecessary header that read: “Official Notices”. Next to it was a much newer bulletin board set into a fine wooden frame with the words: “Post All Bills!” It was literally littered with announcements of everything anyone in town wanted anyone else to know about: art classes, music classes, and meditation classes; plays, concerts, and circus performances; lectures, conferences, and support groups; CSAs, BYOs, and VFWs.
“Hey, you want to rent a house on the lake for a week in late August? Just $3000!!”
“Why would I do that? We stay with you.” Marcus said, coming out of the store with Sid’s newspaper, two coffees, and two apple cider donuts. He settled himself in one of the Adirondack rockers in front of the store.
“Wanna learn how to play ukelele?”
“No comment.”
“Bingo this Thursday?”
“Less comment.” Looking back over his shoulder, Marcus saw Sid removing all the little pieces of cut paper with a phone number, at the bottom of a poster.
“Don’t do that! Other people might need the number. What’s it for?”
“Great price on a really fancy treadmill. I don’t want anyone else to call before me.”
Marcus sighed. “More karma.”
A few minutes later, Sid was yucking it up over the obituaries. “Aww, she liked gardening and the Red Sox! And…oh no…they sang ‘The Rose’ at her memorial service. Don’t you dare, by the way…”
“‘Some say love, it is a …’” Marcus began singing.
“Stop it deerfly.” Sid threw his papers on the deck, balanced his coffee precariously on the arm of his rocker, folded his hands on his lap, closed his eyes, and began rocking. Marcus settled in to drink his coffee and read the paper in peace. But his peace was short-lived.
Cancer is the path through and beyond the eight-fold path, the Buddha began. It is the path beyond right and wrong. Sid began repeating the Buddha’s words as they appeared in his mind like streaming headlines in Times Square.
"There is no right view," Sid continued, "because there is no wrong view. There is no right intention because there is no wrong intention. There is no right speed, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, or concentration because there is no wrong stuff like that."
“Stuff?” Marcus objected. “You can do better than that. And stop mumbling.”
Sid and his muse rushed ahead in a voice that rolled between the two like waves in a tank. Separating, merging, creating focal points, chaos, and then somehow righting themselves to begin the process again.
Remember the first noble truth: “Life is suffering.”
“Is that a downer or what?” Sid added.
Remember the second noble truth: “Suffering is caused by craving and aversion.”
“Yeah, but suffering is also caused by believing in the first noble truth.” Sid pointed out.
Sid was finally getting out of his own way. The Buddha was exhilarated and he threw Sid another softball from his deep well of compassion.
Remember the third noble truth: “Happiness and contentment are possible if one lives each day at a time.” Take it away Sid!
“And so it is that two days at a time mean more happiness and contentment.” Sid said. “For it is no more preferable to live in the Now than the Not Now or Beyond now.”
The Buddha began transmitting again before Sid’s own thoughts started making a mess of things: Remember the fourth noble truth: “The 8-fold path leads to the end of suffering.” While, as heretofore mentioned, it is the path of cancer that leads through and beyond all suffering.
“That, and painkillers,” Sid pointed out, tiring of the Buddha’s holier than thou attitude.
I am holier than thou, the Buddha pointed out.
While Sid and the Buddha were pontificating, two locals named Donny and Lonny walked up, leaned against the deck railing, and looked at Sid reverently, while listening closely to every word.
Donny and Lonny always wore green t-shirts and brown corduroy pants and, like Sid, lived by the bay year-round. They were collectors—a pretty word for hoarders—who had virtually eliminated the town’s need for garbage collection. Born multi-millionaires, they collected anything that wasn’t rotting. They were especially fond of the refundable cans and bottles that the entitled renters put out by the non-existent curb.
When the Sutra was complete, Donny and Lonny bowed down before Sid, until he reached out, placed his hands on their heads, and gave them noogies.
“Now Donny and Lonny,” Sid said, “Marcus here doesn’t understand why you collect so many things that seem worthless.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Donny asked.
“You can’t have,” Lonny pointed out.
“Too much,” Donny added.
“Of nothing!” They said in unison, before materializing trash bags from their back pockets and walking over to a dumpster in front of an apartment building across the road that was being renovated.
Ah, welcome to my world.
Next Episode: While doing research at the local library, Sid and the Buddha discovered that they hadn’t been given credit for many of the books they wrote; were almost run over by an oblivious teenager pushing a cart full of books; tried to determine the difference between "Idiots" and "Dummies"; and eventually deconstructed and reconstructed four of the famous Eight Realizations.
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