Mar 05

Pants and a Sandwich

Meditative Moments and Odd Occurrences (Part 4 of 4) – “Pants and a Sandwich”

One of the beauties of vipassana meditation retreats is how concepts come up in dharma talks, discussion groups and Inquiries and then work their way into better understanding of experiences. The concept explored here is my interpretation of dependent arrising. Please note I am likely mixing up multiple concepts and using inappropriate terminology. I am not even sure I am spelling it correctly, but none of that has ever stopped me before…

When something happens, let’s say it’s bad (because our dark sides all seem to like reading about tragedies rather than successes), we often blame ourselves, or blame another, maybe we share the blame, maybe we say there was no blame and call it fate. The Buddha suggested that all events occur simply because circumstances allow them to occur. It’s OK if that doesn’t make sense, it was just a rambling way of introducing two examples of random occurences, one favorable, the other a pain in the ass. Neither example is particularly deep or meaningful, so if you are looking for insights and wisdom, feel free to look elsewhere (inward is always a good choice).

A few years back (when I was still living in the City), I was preparing to teach an after work yoga class. As this particular class was on a Friday, I had taken the bus downtown dressed in the street clothes I was to wear out afterwards. My yoga clothes were packed in a backpack, or so I thought. When I went to change, I discovered that my shorts were not in the backpack. With only minutes left before the class, I ran upstairs to the shop and desperately looked for anything that would work. Among the limited selection was a pair of black “esprit” length (down to the calf for most of the male readers who have probably never cared what esprit means) yoga pants. They fit, they were on the “clearance” rack and my employee discount made them a steal (at about the price of two beers). So, it didn’t really bother me that I bought them with the expectation that I might never wear them again. The yoga class was saved, the pants performed flawlessly, made their way through the laundry cycle and were then deposited (and forgotten) into my seldom-opened bottom drawer.

As fate would have it (if Buddha’s teachings allowed for fate), the bottom drawer is also where my travel clothes live. Jump forward a few years to when it came time to pack for this trip. Packing is serious business (especially when 20% of my weight and space is alloted for an industrial strength yoga mat). So my first thought upon seeing the black yoga pants was, “those might be nice for the trip, but I don’t think there will be room.” They ended up being the last item packed: the final draft choice. If they turned out to be unnecessary, I would feel no guilt cutting them from the team (as other higher draft choices have since experienced). As it turned out, I wore the pants every day as I taught the morning yoga classes. I kept them on most days through my personal yoga practice. I washed them often and they dried quickly. They were very comfortable and the perfect length to be acceptable for the multiple conservative cultural standards of a Thai buddhist monastery in India. Basically I was getting away with wearing shorts in a no shorts environment because all the circumstances allowed events to occur as they had.

Unfortunately, this way of looking at things also applies to less pleasant outcomes…

On the way to Asia, I had a layover in Seoul, Korea. It was a few hours. I was hungry. I bought a sandwich. As I had no Korean currency (or even the awareness of what Korean currency is called), I charged the sandwich on my Mastercard. There is no reason to mention the name of the American sandwich company. They did nothing wrong and provided a pretty good sandwich. Chase Bank (a division of JPMorgan Chase and Company) does not qualify for the same imunity. Apparently, my purchase looked suspiciously like credit card fraud (surely every credit card thief’s first destination is to Seoul for a sandwich). Chase cancelled my card. I am still OK with circumstances allowing the events to occur as they had up to this point. I presume that Chase notified me by mail, but I didn’t know anything was happening until I checked my account on-line between retreats (I was curious how much my sandwich cost) and found that my account was simply gone. There was no mention of it when I logged onto the website. That’s when the adventure began.

I didn’t actually do anything until I was out of silence. In response to my first “secure” e-mail inquiry (each of which took me about a half an hour to get to in India’s archaic internet cafes; which did not feel like the safest places to be typing all my passwords to access my personal financial information). Chase instructed me to call them collect and directed to a website with instructions on how to do so from different countries. At that website, I was given numbers to call from India to reach either an MCI or an AT&T operator. All those numbers started with 000. My Indian mobile phone did nothing with 000. None of the phone vendors (local or international) could do anything with numbers beginning with 000. All of these vendors said a collect call from India was not possible.

My next secure e-mail was a little more animated and precise. I stated specifically, “do not ask me to call you with telephone numbers beginning in 000.” The response (which probably came from an Indian message center) provided two telephone numbers beginning with 000. While trying to maintain some semblance of minfulness, I begged, pleaded and escalated my “secure” online communications, but they would simply not tell me what happened to my card. Given no alternative, I bit the financial bullet and called directly. Here is when it was confirmed that my card was cancelled for suspected fraud. Though I finally had a reason, I was no closer to a solution. This did not really worry me, as my Mastercard was only for emergencies (not for cash). Then one day while meditating it dawned on my that my telephone and other bills were paid from that Mastercard. Let’s just say it ruined my focus for that sitting.

If you are having a good day and you want that to change, try to contact your phone company. Amazingly I found an even greater level of inaccessability. There is no way to reach AT&T from the web, unless I registered using your AT&T phone to receive a text with your password. I am sure my AT&T phone holds such a message as it sits safely in a drawer back home. Another international phone call, more waiting on hold while being assured that AT&Ts appreciaties my loyalty. Finally, I spoke with someone who confirmed my account was delinquent, but assured me that the collection vultures had yet to mount an assault on my defenseless credit rating. This was one thing I was confident AT&T could and would do with efficiency. All they required was the new credit card information and all would be well.

Chase had already issued me a new Mastercard (sent to sit in my unsecured mailbox for weeks). But no one at any level within Chase could give me the magic three digits on the back of the card. AT&T system would not accept a new card without the magic three digit number. Days went by. My meditations now regularly included visions of vultures circling, diving and ripping into my fiscal flesh and financial stability. Finally, after a few more correspondences and expensive phone calls, AT&T accepted Anna’s credit card.

All was well, until I attempted to withdrawl a sizable sum of money from a local ATM (to pay for my yoga retreat). The receipt suggested I had received 20,000 Rupees. The machine decided to keep the rupees instead. To my amazement, Bank of America and Canara Bank of India went to even greater lenghts to avoid their customers. I won’t bore you with further details of calling, holding, waiting and fuming. This issue still hasn’t reached a conclusion.

If all events occur because circumstances allow them to occur, maybe, we should allow a few financial institutions should fail (rather than being bailed out) and these non-communication circumstances might change.

…Keith