The Perfect Woman

There once was a bar in Columbus with a sign like this; maybe it's still there.  It hasn't been long ago that I drove past it and wondered why no feminists have ever defaced it.  After all, it means to depict the perfect woman in the context of thinking that women talk too much. 

I don't think that's just a cute joke.  I don't think it's merely about talk, but about a woman's place, a kind of systematic demeaning of women that is fundamental in patriarchal cultures, that is, pretty much all human societies.  Without going into the complex historical reasons for this, I will note that in the animal kingdom, sheer size and strength win.  And we are animals.  But we are also human beings and can do better than that. 

In patriarchy, women are silenced.  Are supposed to quietly serve men.  Are not supposed to have opinions. Can women think?  Should we?  What are we entitled to think about?  Should we have opinions?  Make waves, get equal pay?  Patriarchy knows the answers.

What is the opposite of the silent perfect woman serving a man?  Perhaps it is a gentle, loving man who is in no way aggressive.  What would he look like?  Not a castrati, I don't even want to think about depicting that.  I have never seen a pub sign like the above that would show a man mutilated in such a way as to make him a woman's ideal, and don't want to.  So how would I depict him?

Maybe he would look like this.....

Jesus as the good shepherd.  Maternal, long lovely hair, wearing a dress.  Okay, gown.
Or maybe the perfect man looks like this.....

The Dalai Lama. I could not quickly find a full-length portrait of him, but as you know, he too wears a dress.  Alright, gown.

As for a depiction of a perfect woman, I like the ideal of Kuan Yin, Kanzeon, Green Tara in various branches of Buddhism - the buddha of compassion. We ourselves have a statue of Jizo in our little Zen garden, who I believe is sometimes male, sometimes female, a quiet little patron saint of travelers and lost children.  Here she is, in fall color.  She wears a robe and carries a staff with little rings that jingle quietly as she walks, to let animals know she is coming and means no harm.

This is a personal issue for me, this thing about strict gender definition.  I wish I'd been taught that it was okay for a girl to be smart, to think.  I had to fight my way through a thicket of thorns on that, and to my surprise, sometimes I still do.

I saw this amazing thing

The above photo is of the catacombs in Paris, always a tourist attraction, I understand.  I learned recently that flash photography was invented in order to photograph this dark tunnel. This is not your blinged-up  Halloween.

There is a lot written about the moment of your own death.  Buddhists desire to be lucid and conscious of entering the great light.  But we have a chance to practice confronting death numerous times in our lives - the deaths of others.  I think that's what bothered me about the most recent funeral: everyone quickly pulled down the iron shield.  There is a way to use Christianity to step away from this material world of loss and into talk of heaven and how special we are, the ones who believe the right thing. And the preacher used that to the fullest.

But the real magic trick was what the family did, elevating Dad (I wish I could artistically show the aura around that honorific that I heard in people's voices) to this wonderful fun person.  Erasing 95% of his personality and 99% of the truth of his life, the mundane, the sad, his frustrations, his limits, the long, sad decay of his body and mind.  Firmly putting in a beautiful walnut box with a brass plaque not only our personal loss and sadness, but also the fact that we, too, will die.

A death ought to leave us feeling like we are in the funhouse, the part where you're suddenly in the dark and the wooden walkway keeps shifting under your feet.  Death is sobering.  And people don't like it.  I've seen many people jump right over that initial moment of tears and start writing the fiction and planning the big party.  What a mess.

Awareness makes death hard for me to take.  At the same time, I know that Buddhism has it right:  life is  dukkha, life is hard.  Unsatisfying.  The very nature of life is constant change, and change means loss as well as gain.  You will lose people you love, and you will lose your own life in the end. Figure that out and maybe you'll stop spending every fourth Saturday in the beauty salon getting artificial.  Don't figure it out, and you will feel dissatisfied at the very moments of life that "ought to" be gratifying, the Thanksgiving meal, the wedding, the birth.

Change is hard, is both death and birth.  Birth - awareness - is hard, painful and messy.  Sometimes I wish I could give it up.  That makes me think of another of my favorite poems about the difficulty of giving up magic and theatre and pleasure, and acknowledging reality.  "Journey of the Magi" was written by a devout Christian, T. S. Eliot.  You can both listen to and read it here.

Being Kind

I find myself on this catlove or lovecat theme just now.  A sort of spring fever brought on by the sudden entrance of fall weather, clear and cool.  I enjoyed this video, brought my way on Facebook by Barb Taylor, and thought, Wow, how we need to ask what our children need, our spouses.  And what we need.  It's sort of simple awareness, but then, awareness is not necessarily common. 

Some Zen people I know have been trading fervent opinions about the precepts.  One is a fundamentalist of sorts, who sees things in black and white.  You see that in converts sometimes.

But really, if you are trying to figure out how to act with reference to rules, you can get very confused.  For instance, if it's Not Killing and you believe that killing sensate beings for food is wrong, you may run into the fact that wheat harvested by machine kills all sorts of small lives who make their home in that field.  (If you want to build your compassion for field mice, I recommend one of my favorite books, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.)  I think I plucked the example of animals killed in a harvest from the writings of Bernie Glassman.

Sometimes I feel that my long journey with Buddhism and lots of thought has led me back around to the simplicity of the amazing Christian commandment:  Love one another.  Although I practice lovingkindness meditation, metta, I don't love everyone, so I vow instead to be kind.  The Dalai Lama has expressed it eloquently: "Try to be nice."

Kindness is a heart move.  When I pay attention to that vow it seems to mean that I do and say less and pay attention more. I don't bounce right in knowing what someone needs.  Sometimes I don't know and can't  "figure out" the kind thing to do.  For instance, what do you say to a friend whose drinking seems to be messing up his life?  I still don't know.  Backing up to think about it, I wonder, What would I want someone to do if it were me?  Now that sounds like the Golden Rule.  I can't help it.