Hey Dude
Toronto, Ontario
“Hey Dude, how’s it doin’?” Remarked one of the two fellows seated at their home. This was not the language of someone I would meet in India nor South Africa nor Mauritius. It was more like the talk of someone from Canada, and that’s just where I am.
“Great,” I responded.
“Peace and love,” he said as I moved on.
I had slept a good one, catching up on jet lagged doldrums. I woke up at 1 am to catch the fresh airs of Canada and start moving my legs. I was on Jarvis street which as you go south on Bloor tend to be a humbler sector of people, and which is a neighbourhood that is slowly, if not moderately being encroached by towering condo culture. Some of the heritage buildings around here, impressive Victorian homes, will undoubtedly become dwarfed in time by squarish glass giants. Our old temple, a century old rented house, was in this neighbourhood where I joined to become a monk 40 years ago. Nostalgic strings were pulling. They call this area Cabbage Town. Irish immigrants flooded here after the potato famine or failure and established urban gardens of cabbage patches. I was walking and chanting. And I was thinking about something one of my students had told me of what happened at work. He’s a bank teller. Someone had come into the bank the other day with rolls of toonies (a toonie is a two dollar Canadian coin). The client just wanted it in cash. He walked away happily with his converted bills. Once the paper rolls were opened up it was discovered at the end of each roll there were indeed toonies, however, inside the rolls, there were stacks of circular metal washers. The client was gone and bank tellers were surprised at the trickery. A little embarrassed I imagine.
Maya, the world’s illusions, are a bit like that. Whatever you think is being offered as “real” in this world, is actually a deception. Watch for those deceptions.
7 KM
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