Old Man, Look At My Life
I’m staring wide-eyed at the extensive selection of food and condiments in our local Asian market when I hear, “Are you Mr. Stevens?” I turn around to see an unfamiliar face belonging to a young woman. My obvious quizzical look prompts her to introduce herself. It seems she is a past student that attended my lecture in a high school class on world religions. She now works at this market and noticed me entering the store. We have a pleasant conversation in which she expresses gratitude for what she learned from my talk on Buddhism two years ago.
After we part, I find myself wondering who this Mr. Stevens might be. I guess I inhabit his body and can be recognized by name. But I don’t really know him, not really. He seems to have claimed a spot on planet Earth, and he walks a path called Buddhism in such a way as to be invited to teach it. That life appears like a dream. Maybe he was born to play this role. I’m not sure. He might just as well be a minister, solar home designer, manager of a bookstore, yoga teacher, or massage therapist; all of which this person became at some point in his life.
A random conversation with a young woman in the aisles of an Asian market indicates he appears to have landed on ‘Dharma teacher’ as an occupation. It’s no better or worse than the other possibilities. I wonder about him, though, and why he chose this particular life; or the other way around. As the years have passed and as I enter my last quarter century, I find it all the more difficult to believe in my existence as a teacher of anything, let alone Buddhism. I think it has more to do with requests than my own intention. What have I been asked to do all my life? How does anyone hear the call of life purpose?
Listening to that call began early for me. I rarely felt fully invested in the roles I played growing up. Only those times in which I heard the natural world beckoning me to deepen my awareness of the outer universe did I find myself at home. That call was mirrored in my spiritual longing; the inner universe. When I felt the hand of Buddha touching the earth in his awakening, something happened to my perception; inner and outer merged. I now see the world differently, more clearly. I feel the presence of love more completely.
So here I am, in this moment—an echo of a Dharma teacher writing down some words while wearing the disguise of an old man. It’s a good life, I think.