S2/Ep. 1: Sid Gets His Ducks in a Row.
Welcome to Season #2!
A Gift (Actually 2 Gifts) for Annual Paid Subscribers! [See below.]
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.
In the final episode of Season One,1 Sid crashed into a daycare chain gang, which resulted in his receiving priceless blessings and words of wisdom from Raggedy Ann and her eponymous 3-year-old friend Annie. Then he sat down blissfully on a park bench while the Buddha continued to shake his head in amusement over his latest and strangest incarnation.
In Season Two, Sid will continue to deconstruct traditional spiritual assumptions—and, at times, everyday common sense—as he goes through a second brain surgery, radiation, and increasingly bizarre visitations from ancient pharaohs, philosophers, warriors, etc. Meanwhile, his family, friends, and the relatively eternal Buddha himself—will find new ways to deal with his ever-changing Buddha nature; and he begins to pass his eclectic teachings on to his grandchildren.2
Sid was at the park waiting for Diane to pick him up to drive to the hospital for his second surgery. Dr. Joras (a.k.a. “Dr. Jay”) said he had erred on the side of caution in the first surgery because he didn’t want to damage healthy brain tissue and didn’t even know for sure if the growth was malignant.
This explanation hadn’t made a whole lot of sense to Sid, since he had never erred on the side of caution in his life and had been damaging healthy brain tissue since his first experience with Boone’s Farm Apple Wine in the mid-60s. There was an urban (actually, college-campus) legend back then that the reason Boone’s Farm caused such a virulent drunk was that it was laced with formaldehyde. The truth was less insidious. Before wine coolers, it was simply the most lethal combination of alcohol and sugar kids could get their hands on, which made it a common gateway drug.
Which reminded Sid of another famous urban legend of the time: that they’d never done a longitudinal study of people over 75 who had smoked Lucky Strikes their whole lives because they couldn’t find anyone alive who met that criteria. That wasn’t true either, but it had scared Sid into switching to Chesterfield Kings, then Pall Malls, Camels, and Camel filters. He ended up smoking Carltons, a cigarette so filtered you could get a hernia sucking on the thing while blowing out enough second-hand smoke to get arrested on charges of child endangerment.
He’d quit Boone’s Farm by the time he was 19 and cigarettes by the time he was 40. Although he had, secretly, just bought a pack to celebrate his impending demise. It was back at his “office” at the local library waiting for the day when he he decided, “It’s now or never!”
It’s actually now and ever, the Buddha thought.
Sid walked over to the duck pond where he’d have a good view of both the ducks and the parking lot, while waiting for Diane.
There, the ducks were contemplating their good fortune as two little boys ran down and threw pieces of bread in the water before running back up to get more from their mom.3
Being the Buddha still kind of baffled Sid in some ways. Actually, being Sid kind of baffled the Buddha in some ways.
Like the “emptying your mind” thing, Sid thought.
Not my idea, the Buddha thought.
Why would you want to empty your mind anyway, Sid wondered. His mind was full of all kinds of really fun stuff. Thoughts of being young and girls and drinking and getting high. Then thoughts of being middle age and women and drinking and getting high. And now thoughts of being, well, elderly and women and drinking and getting high. Not to mention, all along the way, marriage—better not forget that!—children, grandchildren, making money and losing it, going to baseball games and rock concerts, traveling the country and the world, having fancy dinners, doing the business deals that made all this possible, and hundreds of other things, large and small that made having a body so much fun.
That’s what bodies are for! the Buddha agreed.
But, Sid had realized, this cancer thing was threatening to push some of those more fun thoughts out of the way, just like that big selfish duckling who kept shooing away its little siblings. Stuff like that’s always gonna happen, he thought wistfully. Otherwise the little ducks wouldn’t learn how to overcome adversity and become parents of another generation of ducklings, and people much like himself wouldn’t die and there wouldn’t be new little people running back and forth to feed them.
Sid had the feeling he’d skipped a few steps in there, but there was a certain elegance to the whole thing. It made him want to pat the universe on the back and say, “Good job, Universe!”
Very true, the Buddha thought, although it has a lot of help.
These characters—who are all family or friends of Sid’s—appeared in Season One. Fortunately, there’s a Family Tree to help you (and me!) keep them all straight.
By the way, don’t try this at home. It isn’t really good for ducks to eat a whole lot of bread. See https://maineaudubon.org/news/dos-and-donts-of-duck-feeding/
well, the best part of writing about the ducks was that it got me to read “Make Way for Ducklings” again for the first time in many many a decade. I almost had the headline be “Sid makes way for ducklings.” But I'm hoping to bring those ducks back in the future episode and maybe I can use it then. Thanks as always for your comments.
Sid is back! Terrific! Loved your note and link about feeding bread to ducks as that as a “No-no”also crossed my mind when I read it.