BEFORE CHAPTER TWELVE
Someone asked me recently if emptiness was needed for liberation? I answered with two comments.
(1)“Yes, emptiness is needed to remove the constructed ego from control of mental formations or what is commonly known as “thoughts and concepts etc.”
(2) And that The Heart Sutra is an excellent and difficult practice for deconstucting the self-centered-ego. It is a practice of via negativa.
AND…
We in the West, have to deal with Descartes’ exclamation of “I think, therefore I am.” This statement is a statement of our nature of being: I think = therefore I am.
Emptiness is not an obliteration of the mind, emptiness is a way to end suffering of the mind and the body. The mind is a storehouse of suffering especially when the mind is impure. Our difficulty is that we believe the thoughts, feelings, impulses, forms and conscious efforts as being true and real.
When the mind is empty of this attachment to this ego-structure we leave samsara, the world of suffering. Check this out for yourself. Study when you ride the mind’s roller coaster up and down and ask yourself if it is the mind states that are taking you for a ride! I’d bet that it is the mind.
What does Jane react to?
Is Susan caught in memory?
What do you react to?
Does it stem from your mental formations?
Are you trapped in the past moment? Future? Present?
CHAPTER TWELVE - THE VISIT TO THE SHOP
Jane shakes off her encounter with the woman on the street. Nothing else delays her. She turns down the familiar, derelict alley. The gravel mashes underneath the weight of her big car wheels. The smell of wet dirt and grease greets her as she lowers her window. ‘Nothing fancy,’ she thinks admiring the old, faced brick. ‘Brick holds up against time.’
Susan’s car, parked close to the crumbling curb, blocks part of the shop’s windowless back door. A small battered pick-up truck, the kind used to collect metal junk leaves little room for Jane to squeeze in between it and Susan’s sedan. The unsettling morning calms as she turns off the car and congratulates herself.
‘That was close. I hope I can get out.’ she laughs at the possibility.
The note of her own laugh lifts her mood. She follows with another shiver to dislodge the threat; you won’t hear the end of this. ‘If this woman really is gunning for me, there is little I can do to protect against a stray bullet like her.’
With these warnings clinging to her, she inches her tall, neat body out of the car and walks to the other side. ‘No can do. It’s too tight.’ Hands on hips she takes deep breaths to ward off her worry. ‘OK. Get back in. Turn on the ignition. Lower the window. Walk back ‘round and get the gifts. Get back in. Raise the window. Turn off the ignition. Lock the car.’
Gifts balanced between hands and body Jane presents herself outside the backdoor of Susan Belle’s shop. Back straight…weight evenly distributed…chin in…steady gait. She lowers her eyes in dismay as she sees there is no buzzer. Miffed, she mutters in silence, ‘Susan was supposed install a buzzer!’ She decides the only thing to do is to kick the door. ‘Where is she?’
She kicks it again. ‘What the hell?’ She kicks it several more times, each time a little louder each time fixed on her balance and the gifts. ‘She’s going deaf!’ She confirms, then shouts, ‘Hey! Open the back door!’
Susan opens the door, smiling. “How long have you been standing here kicking and shouting at the door?”
“Never mind that! I have three things to say. I am glad you keep the blasted door locked, but what happened to the buzzer you were supposed to install? AND… and to tell you, you are going deaf!”
“No. I am not! I was in the front room lowering the metal security system you insisted I install.”
“I’ve known you Susan for over 50 years and yes you are. And I didn’t insist. I merely showed you how your insurance would be cheaper if you installed some security.”
“Jane, yes you did.” Susan takes the boxed vase of flowers from Jane. “Are these for me?” Jane shakes her head with closed eyes and laughs at the obvious.
“Thank you. They’re beautiful.”
“I cut them myself… from Dee Dee’s part of the garden.”
“How’s that going? You being home all the time and Dee Dee in your backyard.”
“No problems to speak of…but I am not home all the time. More of the time, but not all the time.”
“You know what I meant, Jane.”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
Susan walks down the hallway and sets the vase on the coffee table in the front room of the shop while Jane sets the bag of food on top of the cabinet in the alcove. “I got one bag of chips.” Jane turns and raises one long finger. “That’s good. We can split them.” Jane looks at the box still in her hand. “And this,” Jane lifts the white, gold-trimmed box up towards Susan, “is for you.”
“What a surprise Jane.” Susan replies overstating her surprise. “Jane. I…how sweet of you. Let me guess….’
“Don’t guess, Susan. Just open it.”
Susan unwraps the gift, placing the cup on the saucer and the cake plate near the vase of backyard flowers. “Do they match?” she asks as she notices they are of the same colors.
“No. The colors match. The vase is a Kutani porcelain, and the Trio is from another manufacturer.” Susan a bit bothered by the expense manages to say, “They are beautiful.”
Jane sits down along one side of the couch with her long, shapely arm up along the back of it and says, “I know.” Susan waits for a moment or two and then offers, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now let’s have some…of your tea while you tell me how your shop is going?”
“Oh. Yes.” Susan turns to reheat the water and opens a small tin of loose tea. “I know your preference is espresso…so I’ll make the tea strong.”
“Not just any espresso. Italian espresso which is hard to come by…”
“I know Jane. I keep meaning to investigate getting the equipment…but I need your expertise.”
“Susan, the black tea is fine. No need to get any equipment…besides making a satisfying cup of espresso, Italian espresso is an art. One must have the proper grinder, Italian coffee, and a heart to make it well. Stick with the tea.”
Susan shrugs in an easy surrender to her friend’s implication. She doesn’t appreciate coffee in the way Jane doesn’t appreciate tea. She opens the bag of sandwiches, unwraps one, hands it to Jane and decides not to mention her encounter with the odd Mrs. Geesky’s request for a good note.
Pulling apart the edge of the chips bag Susan responds to Jane’s request to know how her shop is going. “I’ve been studying the ability to concentrate. I was in the office. Loretta was moaning when I heard the bell against the front door. When I came out, a young man was sitting where you are sitting right now. But unlike you, who is attentive to my presence, he was not. He had a phone in his hand staring at it. I swear Jane, he didn’t hear me. At first. I thought he was so deep in concentration that he didn’t know I was looking at him. Do you know what I mean?” Susan continues without Jane’s response and leans over to pour what she measures as half the bag of chips onto Jane’s waxed paper.
“Maybe…” Susan stops and realizes… “I have not given you enough information. I was standing looking at him for some time…a good amount of time.”
“Oh…Oh, you’re saying he should’ve sensed your presence.”
“Exactly! But he didn’t. He wasn’t concentrating. He was in a trance.”
“Maybe? Maybe not…maybe he was just preoccupied with his phone.”
“No Jane.” Susan jumps back in. “Not in this case. I know you think I’m quibbling…and you might not think it is an important difference…” Susan stops, looks at Jane…
Jane sighs in surrender. “Ok…you might as well tell me Dr. Belle, what is this BIG deal difference between concentration and trance?”
Susan, tempted by Jane’s reference to her as a doctor says, “Funny you should call me Dr. Belle, but I’ll get back to that. First and foremost, the difference between concentration and trance is…well…I must add a proviso…the proviso being one of the biggest and maybe the most important; concentration is under the rule of the will and trance is a submerged mind state like a dingy adrift at sea without oar or rudder. Without will we are useless regarding the direction of the dingy.” Jane mumbles, “Maybe most of us are in a trance.”
“What does this have to do with this kid that showed up on this very couch?” Restless, Jane wants a summation.
“Nothing, I suppose. I didn’t explain it to him.”
Jane in a lighthearted scoff. “I didn’t think you did. Why…Oh…why did the kid show up here in the first place? Trance or no trance.”
“Do you remember Samuel? Probably not.”
“Samuel as I recall is the old guy who screamed at you, what’s the point of life? Or something like that.”
“Why yes, Jane…” Susan says in good humor, “he is the old guy who asked that question. He sent the kid here.”
“Well, well. You’re getting a following. A reputation for… Doctor!”
“Don’t say it, again.” Susan insists as she shakes her finger in the air.
“Good. But before I set the record straight on my title, doctor….” Susan drops to a more subdued tenor. “The kid came to tell me Samuel wants to see me…he’s in the hospital.” Before Jane responds Susan adds, “…calling me Dr. Belle got me into hot water.” Jane winces. “C’mon Susan, that’s hard to believe. Hot water? Really? It’s not as bad as all that. Samuel knows you.”
“I am teasing you, Jane.” Susan laughs. Jane doesn’t.
“Oh.” Jane opens her eyes wide. “Somehow it doesn’t seem funny. But give me your best shot, Susan. Come on.” Jane straightened up against the back of the couch to jut out her jaw in mockery.
“It’s not an argument. Although I must say we have started to use fighting words.”
“Just tell me the trouble, the hot water I got you in.”
“It is not Samuel. A woman came in because of the word doctor on the front window.”
Jane snickers. “You’re kidding me. That’s great. I told you it would work.”
“Jane I am serious. Your suggestion of putting doctor on the front window got me into trouble….”
“Susan. C’mon.”
“Really.”
Jane remembers pressing Susan to call herself a doctor. To give her authority over what Jane felt was a lame-brain venture to open a shop to have conversations with anyone who happened to show up.
“You’re kidding! Right?”
“I’m not kidding.”
Jane hears the somber tone. She coughs down her laughter. “I see.”
“Jane.” Susan scolds. “If Loretta could speak, she’d be my star witness.”
“I believe you Susan. You don’t need to call on the generosity of your German dog. But…” she smirks and bites the insides of her mouth in a pitiful attempt to be serious. “I am at a disadvantage here. You have not given me enough detail…and as you are prone to say…it is in the details…what are the details?”
“That, Jane…is true.” Susan presses her lips together to refrain from smiling.
“Something horrible must’ve happened…?”
“Not horrible. I’m more inclined to describe it as difficult to troubling to hard to understand.”
“I think the word you’re searching for is puzzle, puzzling?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“You like puzzles, Susan. You might want to…thank me.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Jane sees Susan shift to a more solemn tone once again.
“Ok. All kidding aside. What happened?”
“Where do I begin?” Susan turns her head to look up at the bare overhead beams. “It’s hard to describe.” Jane interrupts, “Ya know, Susan, in all the years I’ve known you I can’t recall a time when you were ever lost for words.”
“Ok. OK.” Susan takes a deep breath and begins. “A woman made an appointment by phone with my answering service which is also your doing and which I need to cancel.”
“Alright. I still don’t understand. You want me to take the word doctor down and cancel your answering service. Is this what this is all about?”
“What? No. NO. I haven’t finished. A woman called for an appointment and refused to leave a call back number.” Susan raises her hand to stop Jane from interrupting. “I wasn’t sure she’d show up… so I came in early.”
“It sounds like she did show up.”
“Yes, she did, Jane.”
“What did she want?”
“That’s it…she wanted what she calls a good note from a doctor because she read on the window that I am a doctor, but as you well know I am not the kind of doctor that can write a good note for anyone.
“Susan there must be more to this than a woman coming in to ask you to write a note because you’re a doctor! What in blue blazes is wrong with that? It’s just a simple misunderstanding, tell the woman NO.”
Susan looks at Jane and says, “I am not the kind of doctor that can write someone a note for their job.”
“Oh. Well, you didn’t say it was for her job. I get it. She needs a medical good note. Is that all? It is just a misunderstanding. One I could’ve….”
Before Jane can say more Susan gathers the last few crumbs of bread left on the sandwich paper and nibbles them down. Then, with closed eyes, Susan sits in silence as she considers how to describe the woman’s insistence. “I don’t know, Jane. Maybe I’m exaggerating.” Jane reaches her hand across the coffee table. “Susan…being a doctor in this shop of yours is not being a doctor in…say a doctor’s office. You’re not a doctor…” Susan winces and glares as Jane continues. “No. No. I’m not saying this well. You are a doctor. And I told you…suggested…I suggested you use doctor on the front window to get respect from the riff raff off the street, not to handcuff you. You can tell me what happened. You…you are not that kind of doctor…the kind that must keep everything-secret-kind of doctor.”
Susan sinks into muddy digression. Hearing Jane’s definition of that kind of doctor she recalls the loud barking voice of Mrs. Geesky. Sitting in her office, the woman was impervious. With her threats of proof and implicating deceit.
“I know. I know Jane, you want me to disclose information on this woman. I can’t. I am not bound by any…
“Anything.” Jane slips in.
“No. Not anything. I am bound by my integrity about what is said to me here in the shop. But I may take the word doctor off the front window. Cancel the service. It’s misleading.”
“You are a doctor.”
“Yes. Yes. I’ve been through this a few times…this is enough said.”
Jane is used to Susan’s deflecting especially when it means revealing something about who comes to her shop and what they talk about.
Jane knows she finagled Susan into using the word doctor and shifts her intent to express an apology. Before she can speak, Susan daubs one finger across her closed mouth. A knowing gesture in their longstanding friendship.
Jane respects it with a closing comment. “I get it. No need to….” She mimics Susan’s finger-hushing move while Susan is haunted by the memory of Mrs. Geesky’s exclamation, “I killed my baby sister.”
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