My Enlightenment

I intend to give everything to the Buddha, except that He eschews material possessions. Bastard. He should know that in giving I'm really receiving, and it's in a big way spiritually. So big. I will learn that in foisting off my stained towels and broken crockery on the needy, or the standing still (whichever,) there is liberation and release from the petty materialism and- I dunno- the unseemliness that comes with owning an entire decades' worth of "Best Of Kids Bop (Volumes 1 through XXVVIVILXVVIIIIXLX".) I wait for this slough of unseemliness, despite scripture's completely unclear position of giving unto the poor stuff they could actually use as opposed to giving them my vast collection of identical-yet-unmatchable black socks, or my Garfield vibrating head massager. (Too late, everyone: I gave it gratis to a passing five-year-old at a yard sale; it had attracted many a tester but not one offer.) I think it's all about the interpretation, because what group of broke peoples would reject such splendorous flotsam? Much of it is shiny, for God's sake!

I'll be casually walking down the street and I'll see someone with a shopping bag full of half-spent alkaline batteries, and my soul will get a little lighter knowing that I was the person who half-spent them, removing them from the remote the very second they falter and throwing them into the pile in the back of the fridge (note: that keeps them "fresher." This way, when you're done punishing them, you can take them out, blow on their little ends, and use them again. They learned their lesson.) I'll be eating my Thai food with my daughter at the nearest Thai place that still has lunch specials, and someone at the next table will be wearing the almost-lavender fleece half-zip with the unresolved grease spatter on it and I'll get just a bit closer to understanding the fullness of the universe. When I drive I might go past a person on their own quiet street, rearranging the cannibalized back issues of my favorite feminist magazine in the hopes that they might sell them for a few quarters- and I might rejoice in the weightlessness that comes with the shedding of one's long-held stuff. Finally I'll see, with initial disbelief followed with the appropriate amount of awe, a child with a pot-holder loom and three cloth loops and the long, potentially eye-poking bent rod that comes with it, and Nirvana will open its' doors (or I'll fall into it? Is there a swim involved? No one around here talks about how, exactly, you get into Nirvana. With Heaven there's a door, or gate, or horse jump, I think, and a big Soul that still looks like a person who judges you on the spot. I'll have to research it.)

In Nirvana, I'll walk up a golden flight of water lilies to a giant, happy Buddha with rosy gold cheeks and on one side of his head is a rosy gold lever (I'm at one with the Universe, now, so the lever could be on either side, or every side, or none...I can't wait!) When I grab hold of this lever- and it feels like grabbing hold of stardust or praise- I'll pull it down, and chunk chunk chunk! The Buddha's eyes will roll around and around until they come to a stop: three gold bars will glow contentedly in His three eyes (I know He only has the standard issue amount of eyes on his statues and all, but again: Me + Universe= Understanding. I am so stoked!) So, Big Buddha Head will open it's enormous smiling mouth, and I'll have to step back  and he'll have to say "Oh, sorry, didn't see you there-" before he begins vomiting money at me. I think it'll happen because He knows that I've renounced all my material goods (notwithstanding how good the goods may be) and so I'll be impervious to the power of all that cold cash. He knows I'll take it and won't want to immediately spend it on hair extensions for the cat and rare DVDs of depressing director's cut slaughterhouse documentaries or really nice confetti. I can squat down and rake up all the money pooling at my feet and put it in my shirt-bottom, apron-style, and wink at His Holiness, who will wink back and say "Come again tomorrow." I know he'll mean it, too, because he never invites random people to pull his lever because, on some level, it must hurt.

This will be fantastic. I hear that the outdoor markets in Cambridge are legendary for their assortment of T-shirts in subdued colors with "Cambridge" on them, and crepes because it's practically in France, and something called "bootlegs". I'm not sure what those are, but it won't matter; Buddha and I are buds and he will remind me while I'm negotiating with the nice man in the leather blazer for the Jabba the Hutt cookie jar...he'll let me know that it's OK to be collecting more stuff for my new home, because if I let go of my insignificant household items once, I can do it again.