The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [31]
I knew very well I wasn’t enlightened. And the day I screamed at the kid, I finally understood that I was carrying my surfboard around on my head and it wasn’t getting me any closer to freedom. In fact, it seemed to be making me into an asshole.
So I let go a little. I surfed once a day instead of twice. I got my grades back up. I even did my own weeklong silent retreat up in a little cabin on the volcano. And I got a job.
And amid all my studies of world religions, each with its own strengths and pitfalls, I saw that Buddhism, though it too had its flaws, was still a pretty good raft, at least for me. If I could get a little better at steering it.
But I still didn’t want a guru.
Naturally, a guru showed up.
He didn’t come as I imagined he might. I wasn’t climbing up a misty mountain. And he wasn’t a fat old Zen master, or a Shaolin monk who could balance on a pin, or a 110-year-old yogi who could see the future.
His name was Lambert.
And he was a Hawaiian insurance agent who spent most of his day watching television. He had a passion for three things: poke (a kind of Hawaiian salad made out of raw fish, pronounced “po-kay,” by the way), detective stories, and—surprisingly enough—church.
I admit that Lambert was a strange sort of guru. He didn’t know anything about Buddhism. Or want to. Lambert actually thought Buddhism was kind of weird.
“I just really love Jesus,” he told me one day when we were talking religion.
“Me too,” I said.
“Then why are you a Buddhist?”
“I can’t be a Buddhist who loves Jesus?”
“Uh, I guess. Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not. But I think that makes you a Christian who likes Buddhism.”
“Fine with me. But you’re just trying to convert me. I mean, maybe you’re a Christian who loves the Buddha and you don’t even know it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t need to find out. I’m fine with just Jesus.”
“Suit yourself. But how do you know Jesus wasn’t a buddha?”
“Because he was God. I thought you said Buddha wasn’t a god.”
“You might have a point there. But I think it’s primarily a vocabulary problem.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re weird.”
At first I couldn’t see Lambert’s teaching. I thought I was teaching Lambert. I told him about all the very profound things I learned in my religious studies classes. And since Lambert was a Christian, and I had to read the Bible a lot for class, I read Lambert the Bible almost every day. Usually, he’d just fall asleep.
“Man, this is your religion and you’re sleeping,” I’d say. “Have a little respect.”
“I’m just taking it in on a very deep level,” Lambert muttered dreamily.
But most striking was this: we laughed a lot. And I soon learned that that was Lambert’s main teaching. He always had bad jokes. And when he wasn’t dropping those on me, he was making fun of me for being a vegetarian, which seemed to be an endless source of entertainment for him. He couldn’t believe anyone could live without poke and beef.
“You’re not going to live very long if you don’t eat meat,” Lambert told me all the time.
“Well, I’m doing a little better than you are, Mr. Carnivore.”
“Ha ha. Very funny.”
This wasn’t a very good joke, actually. And I never would’ve said it if Lambert didn’t have an incredibly good sense of humor. Lambert was the biggest optimist ever; that was his other teaching. Because considering his condition, it was amazing Lambert could even smile.
Lambert couldn’t even get out of bed.
He could barely move.
Lambert had a rare sickness called neurofibromatosis—Elephant Man’s disease. He had gotten bouts of it through his teens and twenties and he’d beaten them, somehow. But the most recent one had nearly paralyzed him.
I’d like to say I volunteered to take care of Lambert. But I met him because I needed some money and responded to a job posting for a caregiver position that also included free rent. Lambert and I hit it off right away. Suddenly I was Lambert’s roommate and caregiver.
At first, I thought it would be nice just to help the guy out and save some money. I felt rather proud of myself for being a do-gooder again: