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HENG CH’AU: June 19, 1977. Too much talk, too many outflows on Saturday. The woman alcoholic, the Christian at Jack in the Box, and finally the "bridge woman" all were tests and I flunked. Talking too much comes from arrogance. Thinking I have something to say when really I have no wisdom or perception to teach and transform. Can’t even save myself, yet I open my mouth trying to save others and end up just losing a lot of my own energy. I realize how much progress and change bowing once every three steps has brought to helping close down the outflows and let go of "states." But I have to be mindful each second; one step at a time is the key.
More police. Light frisk. Looked, talked, and moved just like Jack Friday--"Just the facts, monk, just the facts." Everything ok. "See you later fellas, sorry to interrupt your prayers." He said that twice.
The last four or five police encounters were preceded by my seeing a squad car inside my head. Did the thought cause the police to come or did the police coming trigger the thought? Or is it just happening so much I’ve entered the squad car samadhi and I couldn’t be wrong anytime I see a squad car in my head since it’s bound to happen anyway. Still it’s kind of weird. Offerings: Upasika--$10
Upasaka and Upasika--$20
Group of laypeople--30 razor blades, lunch, and food supplies for a week.
A steep hill leading north out of Malibu had no bowing space whatsoever. We decided to bow in the corner of a shopping center parking lot at the base of the hill and then walk up counting.
Suddenly we were set upon by this hoard of fun-loving boys with water balloons. They would ride by on their bikes and let us have it. I debated, "Should I try to talk with them or just ignore it and keep bowing. It’s only water. I’ll keep bowing and see what happens." Seven balloons were thrown; seven balloons missed. Just as the boy bombers were moving in for a blitz, a man came running out of the bushes yelling, "Hey kids, this isn’t very nice, what you’re doing." The kids stopped cold, split, and we never saw them again. Nor did we see the man again. Those kids are probably still trying to figure out where that guy came from and who he was. So are we. There was nothing but open freeway and bushes in the direction he came from. He couldn’t have possibly seen us from the freeway and he didn’t look like a bushman.
At the top of a long hill feeling flakey and pained. A car stops and a man trots over, "Buddhists, aren’t you?"
"Yes."
"I saw you in Beverly Hills, what’s up?"
I briefly explain and give him a hand-out.
"Listen, five years ago I went to India. I bought back a leaf from the Bodhi Tree. I want to give it to you as a gift. This is a wonderful thing you’re doing."
On the same hill as we were concluding the day of bowing, I hear a noise behind me. We are in the middle way. No houses or parks--just freeway and underbrush. I feel something weird behind me, hard to describe. Normally I don’t turn around and look behind, but this time I felt something was there, waiting, so I turned. The bridge woman! She was standing there in sweat clothes grinning a big smile right at me. How could that be? Where did she come from and why was she back? What did she want? I quickly turned around and started to bow. It was so hot and unreal out there, maybe I hallucinated her. No way. She casually strolled right around us, sat down in a meditation pose directly in front of us and waited. Rather than walk by her when we finished, Heng Sure suggested we circle around (she was between us and the van) up the side of the hill and avoid another encounter.
When we got to the top of the hill I looked back to see if she followed. She was standing right at the spot where we left the road glaring this awful piercing glare right at me. Suddenly she lost all her rosy color and beauty. She looked full of venom and ark. And although she was a good 75 yards away, I could see her cold, hateful expression as if she was across the table. It sent shivers through me.
As we are meditating, a couple of nightsticks poke into the van doors followed by the police. It’s the same two who put us through the heavy-hand a couple of days before. "Oh you guys, Jesus! How long before you are out of the county? Huh? How long?" He is fingering a mace club and obviously wants to do something but can’t. We have clearance from his supervisor. He refuses to make eye contact. "Another week! Pretty slow. It’s sure taking you a long time to get out of my area."
"Is it ok to camp here?"
"Ya, I suppose," he says grudgingly and leaves.
At 12:30 A.M. woke up by a voice blaring, "Private property. This is private property. You are illegally camped on private property." Spotlights are flooding the van like it’s morning already. We move and go camp next to the Sheriff’s office. We figure that’s the safest bet.
We are getting a gut level understanding of some things that were pretty academic to us before we started bowing once every three steps. Private property is one of them. By airplane or car or motorcycle this prt of the world looks pretty, idyllic, and inviting. On foot it can be forbidding and full of hassles. Poison oak lines the roads and is second in proliferation to barbed wired--the creeping vine of the private property plants. Ants, countless ants swarm on the road shoulders and most side roads are marked "Private. No Trespassing. Patrolled." Either by sentry dogs or private guards, often armed, or so the sign says.
Life is really very fragile and all of us know it. Private property, like cars, banks, insurance policies, electric ease and this van, provide the comforting illusion of immunity from the bubble bursting. But it is an illusion and living is a conditional bubble. So why is it taking me so long to let go?
At times I feel like a blend of crumpled beer cans and desert gravel--my mind is as together as all the rusty, discarded auto junk we bow through.
People seem to be picking up that Heng Sure isn’t talking. More and more they just let him be and approach me.