The Gift Of A Bike

Well on the subject of “my muse” there is one thing I must congratulate fate upon and that is rescuing me from ever getting involved in Indian culture. The more I discover about the reality the more random it all seems. Bruce Parry staying with a Tibetan tribe said to camera “I read about Buddhism before I came, but what in the Hell is this?”. Exactly my experience of Chinese Buddhism. People and wisdom, it seems, are like oil and water: they don’t mix. Latest fascinating example detailed here:

The mother of one of my tutees has run out of money. This because she is funding her boyfriend who is bankrupt. Details of that are extraordinary: he was defendant in court when her husband (now Ex) won the case for the prosecution. Put down for far longer than he should have been the Ex-hubby wonders what the judge knew that he didn’t! Straight out of Bollywood. To alleviate her situation and to continue my illustration that money isn’t very important I scrapped the fees for tuition: my policy has always been that evening meals are quite sufficient payment. She has ended up feeling guilty about the time I have spent with her son and so has gone and bought me a £600 bicycle. It is almost unbelievable that a “human being” can be this stupid. Do I need to elaborate? Firstly this isn’t helping her financial position. Secondly I can’t eat a bicycle. Thirdly it will cost me more in the up keep of the bike than I am saving on rail fares by cycling it. Fourthly this is an absurd amount of money to spend on any bike. Fifthly why get a new one. Sixthly why not just pay me the fees like we were doing which is a lot easier? I do understand how she got into this mess and it is all to do with Indian culture. She is over the moon at the moment about the Land Rover that her boyfriend has given her. This Land Rover is the reason more than any why they are together: it equals prestige and she loves parking it at work for all to see. Of course she is blind to the fact that he has given it to her so that it can’t be claimed when he goes bankrupt (update: she does realise this). Everything about all of this is soooo Indian.

I suppose its the same situation that was explained to me about the Jews. Why, the question went, did God (if he is objective) decide to reveal himself and chose the Jews above all other people. The best answer I got (from a Christian) was that they were the worst people and if God could persuade them then the rest of mankind was saved. I wonder if Buddha decided to reveal himself to the Nepal/Indians for the same reason ;-) Tho Herodotus relates the tales of travellers who say that in this place to the East “all the men are virtuous and all the women chaste” – maybe it is the English culture that has corrupted the sub continent.

On the bright side it does mean that she isn’t a very good accountant – effectively spending the money she owes me on a “gift” for me. I like that naivety, but this isn’t a kid, she has a high powered job and a lot of responsibility. Still in my reality it puts me in a difficult position. The gift has been given to me by her son who is very excited about the bike. I accepted it as a “gift” yesterday but have thought about the practicality since. I am reminded of a story relating to Sai Baba which I have mocked before but understand better now. A few years ago a wealthy follower gave him 5 Mercedes. The priest who told me was laughing when he said “and you know what? he humbly accepted them!”. The joke with friends is that anyone could humbly accept 5 Mercedes :D But actually when it happens you realise how completely misplaced that generosity is. What does anyone really do with 5 Mercedes? I don’t even need a car let alone a Mercedes, how much more absurd for a monk whose only real concern is food/energy (as indeed is the only Real concern of all living things). So what do I do with the bike? I certainly can cycle it. But I already have a bike (a £20 one… but it moves and that is what I need). What I need is food for the next year. My sister suggested selling it on. I have thought about just humbly accepting in the spirit of a gift and as my “karma” but I’m beginning to realise this type of care-freeness isn’t very Wise. What I mustn’t forget however is that I did the tuition to help her son not for the money (as indeed we all should do – the Bible/Gita both state clearly that the fruit of our labours belong to God).

This morning I decided that I would refuse to accept the gift. This is very hard but I will explain that she needs to sort out her finances as agreed (hopefully she will learn the true value of money a bit more). I will also explain that I only ever asked for food (or the money to buy food) and that a more appropriate gift is just the money. This is breaking with monastic rules, but if I’m insistent she will understand that food has real value and bikes/Land Rovers etc only have perceived/relative/random value.

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So i thought a bit more and decided it was an opportunity to behave sensibly. But to be honest it is the same situation I always have with people. Once they start being random there is nothing sensible to say – I may as well drop a bomb in the middle of the situation and get out – I did that with “my muse”, I did that at work… it always ends up like this. Being sensible however I decided to talk to her and gently and politely refuse the bike. I began with an obvious lead, “I’m very grateful for such an extravagant gift but was worried, are you sure you can afford it?”. Good she’s not stupid. She realised where I was coming from and explained in depth. She will pay me some money at some stage when she had sorted her finances out. However fully aware she admitted that she had spent some of my money for me because she knew I would never buy the bike myself. [explain that!!]

Now I feel a bit sorry for her kids because a long time ago we had a discussion about culture. I explained that in UK there are 3 classes. The lower, middle and upper. The ideal of the upper class, if you really wish to show your class, is far beyond money and wealth which are deemed extremely common and vulgar pursuits to those in the know. My only knowledge btw comes from my mother who mixed in high circles as a child since one of my great aunts was a debutante and was presented before the king etc (when they did that sort of thing). In modern society the media, Commons and business are dominated by the middle class and this is the only reason that our society “seems” to seek these ideals now. Arya, the noble one, is our real common heritage going back long long before the charlatan Nazi hijacked the ideal… before that was the worship of the Earth Mother which is a heritage all people share… what the individual ideals of that were is a mystery to me at least.

Anyway this was my tuppence worth. What she said in return was that she wanted her boys to experience wealth so that they would know it and be able to chose it in later life. Yet they are actually concerned that their mother is spending all their inheritance. A screw is lose in her head evidently that she feels the need to spend other people’s money for their own good. Writing this now I do see a pathology – maybe I should re-confront her about the issue altho I don’t see yet exactly where the root lies.

My karma is certainly odd. To be honest what have I gained by behaving sensibly? I suppose we are still friends and I still have the invite to visit, but she is mad. Why hang out with mad people? The same with my ex-bosses. They are mad. I stuck it out for 8 years and then dropped the bomb (called them “fascists” and promptly got a bullet in the back of the head – ironic ;-). This is certainly an issue for me – I’ve lost faith that there is anything to gain by behaving sensibly with un-sensible people. They never learn and eventually the bomb will get dropped. Let me see if I have learned anything this time!

Regarding the bike - so I’m stuck with it. I will use it and see how it goes. At £15 for a change of break pads I’m not going to be able to run it for long. I’m not going to ensure it so I’ll just have to take my chances. Basic plan now is to cycle the hell out of it, try and keep it in good condition for as long as possible and then sell it – without her finding out. Its a very sad situation and worthy of the GCSE English A Paper 2 exam today and the compare methods used in poems of different cultures. Maybe I should write a poem to express my culture and the feeling created by this behemoth of a bike… although I have a blog that has been doing that for some time now.

Last time I cycled the 65miles to home on a small framed mountain bike with knobbly tires it took 6hr40mins excluding breaks and 8hr including breaks. I’ll try with the new bike and aim for half that! Problem is I’d have to do it 35 times to get the money back on this bike which is 4500 miles. The return train ticket to Skye where I want to holiday this year in £130. Instead of buying the bike I could holiday there for 5 years! That is 5500 miles to get the money back. Basically a cycle to India is what it would take to make it worthwhile… but I wanted to walk that so I can’t even do that. Is such a bike ever justified (in an oil fuelled world anyway)?

The stat seems to be when pricing a bike: You need to cover 8 miles for every pound you spend on a bike to get the money back compared with rail travel as of June 2010 in the South East.

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Just spoke to my cousin who is no nonsense. Basically this isn’t open to question: return bike, get money. My sister said the same. It seems very fascist but maybe this is my lesson that I need to be strict, straight and clear with people (especially those with a screw lose) in order to make things straight and clear. Do I spend too long understanding why things are wonky rather than just pushing them into shape? Is that my lesson?

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This morning I realise that is wrong. Pushing things into a shape that we design is what I call Fascism and that is exactly the fault of the tutee’s mother. If I force back then I am committing the same crime as she is committing by forcing an expensive bike onto me. I always remember how the Russians beat Napoleon; “let the country defeat them” was the line from a film. It is very American to fight only by pushing. As the martial arts exemplify sometimes we can win even better by stepping aside… let the corrupt object defeat itself … indeed as it always does. This is why we don’t need a police force or government and why Continuity happens… a corrupt object like deformed offspring has low viability anyway. The Nazis thought they had to exterminate the “deformed” imperfect people of the world. If they were so unviable how come they had to “exterminate” them! Surely they wouldn’t exist if they were somehow faulty! By irony it is the Nazi who had low viability… irony is always the way when thinking American (the self parodied stereotype of head on engagement). We think we defeated the Nazi – but if we had to defeat the Nazi doesn’t this prove the Nazis viability? The Nazi would never have survived anyway – inbreeding alone would have made a mockery of any concept of a Pure Race (see dark haired Austrian Hitler with Jewish grandmother to start with)… the Nazi would turn against the Nazi and they would self destruct… anyway! This is the corollary of Continuity which I could call Viability but better to call Fitness after Darwin (since it is the same idea writ LARGE). This is also similar to Buddhist theory, but from a different angle. All objects have Impermanence. The reason is that what is “good” in one situation is “bad” in another – all existence is Relative. So we have objects which fail because their circumstances change to no longer support those objects and objects whose components are contradictory and self-destruct. I think in common usage “bad” when applied to people most often refers to the self-contradictory, and “bad” when applied to inanimate objects refers to them not suiting their environment… tho we do say they are a bad driver meaning they don’t fit in to the driving world well. So we don’t have to change the environment to make an object decay (i.e. apply force to the object) – if it has contradictions it will self destruct anyway. All objects have contradictions (lines of weakness) and a sharp blow to the contradiction will split the object – creating a beautiful cut crystal if done well. This is what Karma (the world) is so good at doing since it always weeds out our contradictions and gives them repeated blows which we call suffering as we try to hold our contradictory self together, rather than accept the lesson and the change that is coming.

Now, returning to the bike. I could try and change this situation back and she would get the blow. But I’m not sure if that is a skilful blow. A fragile crystal can just fall apart, or if it’s the wrong place achieve nothing or worse make new fractures. A good crystal cutter will examine the crystal in great depth before working… isn’t this what I’m trying to do here?

It is wrong to let her defeat herself – that is callous. It is wrong to try and change her - that is her crime against me – it is what I call Fascism. The correct approach is to find the contradiction and cleave it with a sharp blow. So the course of action is simple and what I have always done in the past actually… but I still need to work out the issue. That is specifics and not worth a blog.

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I need to get my mind clear! There is so much chaos within, having a world which is even more crazy is of no help at all!

OK the contradiction within myself (as though I am HAL9000 in 2001) is that I cycle in order to save money. So for Fascist mother to buy me an expensive bike with my own money is in direct contradiction with my own intentions. So what gives? Do I change and start enjoying cycling for its own sake? For this I need to start earning money and that means working and fuelling the economy that I don’t think works anyway. It’s a huge change that is required. Does she have to start respecting other people more and examining them more closely? OR is there an Hegelian type aufhebung, arising from the tension, where we both rise to a higher level. Well for that there needs to be tension between us. It does seem (and maybe it is egotistical) that I do need to refuse the bike. Whether this is wise I don’t know but at least it is a clear, un-obscured observation (in the Cartesian sense of clear and distinct ideas). If my tutees mother needs one thing it is clear, un-obscured vision!

Good however I have clarified a question. Buddhism teaches that all “things” are impermanent, this includes ourself. It even teaches that all things are annatta (non-self) which is a way of saying that the self is not a thing… but since this cannot be thought without implying that there is such a “thing” as self, it must be expressed as things are non-self. Ego is when we take “things” as representing self. This sounds odd but it happens all the time – we go on holiday and get a phone call saying that our house has been burgled and even though it is thousands of miles away we feel that we have been personally affected! The ability of the body and self to absorb into things is technically called Extension and is essential to using tools, for example where we feel “through” the key the lock mechanism moving and know that it is the right key. But extension means that we get stuck to things even in the face of the obvious fact that they are not even part of us. Buddha says actually nothing is part of us not even our body, senses, feelings or even thoughts! It is all Extension. BUT the question remains that if nothing is part of us and all things are liable to change which bits do we try and preserve. If we are attacked to be fight back? The Tibetans call the idea that we just accept even the death of our own body with indifference as crazy wisdom – BUT what is the difference between fighting for our body and fighting indeterminate terrorism? It is just levels of extension and vague feelings of threat to some ill define self. This is a clear root question now one I will go and ask to someone.

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But no the story continue. The bike is due to go to shop for a replacement part. I have no choice but to discuss returning it with the tutee himself. Now this turns out to be the very worst thing I could have done. I explain my fears for the cost of the bike and also end up explaining my disagreement with his mothers attitude to things. The tutee explains that the bike was half price at £300 and practically it is a better option than my old bike because the parts will last longer and are more up-to-date. I accept that this is the better option. It then turns out that the bike was his idea, not his mother’s… ouch! What a difference a wrong assumption makes. So naturally he is very hurt that I have been so ungraceful about his gift to express his appreciation for the work I have put in and also his friendship. Couldn’t have got it more wrong. It gets weird and I end up smoking a joint of blue cheese skunk with him and a friend to celebrate the end of the exams and wow it sure is strong these days. So I spend 3 hours lying on my back in a field with just lots of stuff crashing in and visuals!

As a friend used to say “assumption is the mother of all cock ups” and also another thing which has caused lots of problems in the past also. Although the bike is a £300 gift from him in reality it will undoubtedly eat in to the fees that I am owed so as his mum indicated so I will end up with less money to live on in the following year. Yet because the fees have not been decided yet it makes no sense to speak of what I would or would not get paid and actually when his mum says that she has spent some of my money for me, actually this is only an intention since the amount I am going to get paid hasn’t be decided yet. It is a very grey area indeed. He thinks 1 thing. She has her own interpretation of the situation and I have my take on it all. I can’t accuse her of making decisions with money that is not hers because her son originated this idea and did the work to find a cheap bike. I can’t even complain that it is a bad idea now. After 2400miles it will have paid for itself, half of which will be this summer and it will only need a few spare parts. And another way to think about it is that only 5 weeks of living in a garage saves me £300 minimum anyway!

So after all that I could have just accepted the gift in the first place. Is it always true that conflict arises from incorrect assumptions and misunderstandings? An argument I read in connection with SRH was that Paradoxes don’t occur in reality from which it was deduced that they must be a feature of language alone. Is it the same with conflicts? Maybe, but the conflict and tension is required if we are to discover the contradictions with us. I’d like to think that ironically it is not the mother but myself who has learned from this, but as yet I don’t understand the problem.

While lying in the field I was visited by a buddha and dazzling white angels and the higher beings ended up zapping my demons… which was nice. I realised that because I had sort objectivity in “my muse” and she had rejected that it has resulted in me closing myself off from trust with the outside world – on the logic that if I was not good enough for her (who I selected as the single supreme judge) then really I am not good. I guess this logic is hard to break because if you select a judge you can’t go and find another one if you disagree with the verdict!!! It is the stem of my decision to avoid relationships now. I also realised that the sex is a huge driving force behind the beauty of living things [removed to separate blog entry]. Three hours later I found my way to watch the sun set – something I always enjoy doing buy i imagine the skunk had its part to play in doing it yesterday ;-)

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Awaking this morning I see that my original take is actually correct and I should refuse the bike (ideally), but for the simple reason that I am concerned about having enough money to eat. Everything else is trivial. If I can eat then I don’t really care about the rest of the arguments. I ought remember the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle in future! However my 16year old spoilt tutee simply can’t understand the experience of being independent and self-supporting for him the bike is a gift on top of money for tuition. He doesn’t see that in reality my tuition fees have been split between cash(food) and a bike. I suppose the real tension now lies with his mother who must make that decision. Maybe she will see something about the obscure nature of “value” in this.

There is an issue here that a philosophy of sharing must solve. In a shared house at college another wonderful situation arose that had everyone guessing for a very long time. There were individual electricity meters in each room and shared meters in the rest of the house. Graffiti started appearing on the plugs up stairs saying “tight wad”. It turned out that the landing mates were annoyed at one of them using the shared hall plugs to shave. Then “tight wad” appeared in the bath. I found out (and hence became good friends with the defendant) that he was reacting to a house mate taking large scalding hot baths every morning. Nobody seemed to care about this. He thought that since he didn’t take a bath very often he could use his “share” of the electricity to shave. But everyone thought he was stealing from the group pool because he “should” have been doing it in his room. One of the house mates - who wanted to be a police woman – couldn’t get her fascist head around this… in the same way that she completely lost her rag over me eating her bread while she was on holiday. Stealing she called it… going-in-the-bin I called it (as it was going past the sell by date). This here is the origins of my understanding of fascism and the total inappropriateness of Laws to reality. It is also closely related to the joke about the man who saved £2 running home behind a bus only to realise he could have saved £10 by running home behind a taxi. This is like me saving £60 a week living in a garage (tho £70 is the cost of the cheapest place I could find which I turned down to move in). OR people saving 10% by buying a discounted product.

In a way the current system of accounting is useful because it defines strict rules, like a road map, that everyone can look to in order to clarify what can be complex situations. However we all know the feeling of following the road map and yet feeling that things have gone wrong. Seeing the CEO of a failing company award himself a “bonus” equal to a decade of workers wages just doesn’t seem correct – but the road map allows it… or the recent case of the tax payer going into debt on behalf of the failed finance industry – it is completely counter common sense but it is what the road map dictates. Basically the road map is faulty. It all stems from the concept of “fairness”. We seek fairness. Yet we accept every day non-fairness. The only real solution is to develop generosity and just give. However when faced with starvation (like I’m starting to think about) it alters the mind a bit and generosity starts to get lost. In particular it is the odd situation of feeling that ones “generosity” itself is being abused – now how ungenerous is that! I effectively gave her the tuition money so that she could clear her debts. I am prepared to go hungry to clear someone’s debts. But I am not prepared to go hungry so that they can “give” me the gift of a bike – this is a truly messed up situation. The reflection of generosity upon itself. My generosity has actually made me ungracious!! Strange-loop indeed.

Is it worth me documenting every twist and turn of my mind in this situation like a fly trying to escape the bottle? I suppose I have done so with “my muse”. Is there really anything for me to learn or is this just Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) and there is no solution?

New approach to “My muse” this week has been to understand that maybe I just made it too complicated. She realised her boyfriend was cheating on her and so flirted with me to get back at him. I think we could have worked - she was only after the sex with him anyway. Maybe if it had been simple it could have worked. Facts were though I was looking for enlightenment and needed intensity and focus, and believed that she was “the one”. I don’t believe she was capable of this level of intensity in retrospect – I don’t believe anyone is really, the world is just too distracting and convoluted see above!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!