CHAPTER FIVE - The Meddling
The Misery of Mrs. Geesky. Serial Number 5. The Red Reticule.
BEFORE CHAPTER FIVE
Chapter Five is short but it needs some explanation in terms of the Heart Sutra. I begin with a simple antidote: Uncertainty.
Before meddling, slow down and ask yourself, “Am I certain?” Are you certain you are right? What makes you think you should interfere in someone else’s life?
At the end of Chapter Five, I have added an explanation of the spiritual relinquishment required to end the meddling which brings suffering.
Uncertainty is a beginning antidote to meddling.
STOP. BE PATIENT. DO NOT JUMP IN. LISTEN. BE GENEROUS WITH LISTENING. LET THE OTHER EXIST AS THEY ARE. DO NOT INTERFERE. STOP THE DESIRE TO COMPLAIN. DO NOT JUDGE, MEASURE, OR CRITICIZE.
CHAPTER FIVE - THE MEDDLING
‘I am alone. Everyone is. There isn’t another face like mine.’
These are the words of Mrs. Geesky as she finds herself sitting alone at the butcher block counter the morning after she has cleaned off all the sticky notes at her desk. She sits behind a locked window that faces her neighbor’s yard. It is very quiet. No one else is in view. She is content.
Under the small overhead lights, Mrs. Geesky in her clean, white kitchen reads in silence the last few sentences from a journal article on Intimacy.
We tend to shun intimacy. The few exceptions are when someone moves away or is about to die. Human beings lack courage to be close. The hard truth is that we are all afraid of one another. It comes from our instinctual nature. It is fear and this fear is to help us survive.
The content and brevity are basic with an acute sense of something familiar. Mrs. Geesky taps the page with one finger acknowledging something sleeps beneath her lifetime of repeating the same old story to herself. She rereads and focuses on the following sentence.
The hard truth is that we are all afraid of one another.
‘I am not afraid of intimacy; I work with the dying.’ She boldly inflates a fearlessness that is held together by jealousy and envy.
Her words disappear in the rubble of her fifty odd years of taking a stand against anyone who came near her. She read it a third time.
The hard truth is that we are all afraid of one another.
This time she congratulates herself.
‘I made them happier. The old woman died last night. I sat there and waited. I didn’t run. I waited for it to happen! And I did it alone.’
She reads two more sentences.
Human beings are hard-wired to survive. Our sense of smell, although seeming to be a latent sense, plays a crucial role in human survival.
She rereads these two sentences. When she stands up, she sniffs a handful of orange peels she is about to throw away. The smell reminds her of her mother.
‘Mother smelled sour. I remember it made me sick. Mother felt wet and smelled sour. Not like this. She lifts the peels to her nose once more and squeezes them between her fingers releasing a last bit of fragrance. Mother smelled like spoiled milk.’
With her lower lip rolled forward she moves her head in agreement with the crucial point of survival clear in her mind. ‘Fear and smell help us survive. I know that!’ She sniffs the air. ‘Yeah. That’s right. I smell death. I smell it every time. I wasn’t afraid to feel her weight in my hand. And then she disappeared after the struggle. There’s always a struggle. That’s intimacy. A closeness no idiotic journal can put into words.’
Engaged in her thoughts on intimacy she relaxes at the butcher block counter thinking it is too early to be disturbed by anyone on the street. But she is wrong. She hears a car pull up on her side of the street in front of her small wooden house.
“Who is parking in front of my house?” she yips aloud as though she is in pain and rubs the end of her nose. Pricked by a familiar unstoppable irritation she gives the page of the journal a sudden swipe and strides head strong, ears pierced by the slam of a car door. When she reaches her front window, she slips several of her fingers through the drawn metal blinds and watches a stocky woman in a kerchief lugging a canister vacuum in one hand and swinging a bucket in the other. Unable to stop herself from wanting to uncover a weakness she pounds the window and heckles.
“Don’t leave your car there. You don’t belong here!”
Irina, the neighbor’s cleaning woman, does not hear Mrs. Geesky bellowing through the thick shatter proof glass and as she has come to do her job continues her way across the street.
“Don’t park your car there!” Mrs. Geesky barks as she extends her neck out between her front storm door and the wooden overhang edge of her porch.
“Don’t park your car there!” she howls again.
Irina with a calm face turns and shrugs her shoulders.
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand me!” Mrs. Geesky hammers once again, this time louder. With curled lips, and an unrivaled squall she heads out toward the cleaning lady. By the time she gets across the street the cleaning lady has managed to drag the vacuum and bucket to the top of her employer’s side door.
Irina sets the bucket down and hangs the vacuum cleaner hose across her shoulder as she struggles to find the key to open the Baines side entrance. Mrs. Baines warned her about this woman who now stood alone in a rant at the bottom of the side stairs. ‘Ignore her, Irina.’ Irina reminds herself several times. ‘Mrs. Baines told you to ignore her.’
“You heard me!” Mrs. Geesky yells accusing the woman of feigning deafness. “Don’t ignore me. I will bring you up on charges.” she threatens as though she is about to shoot a poisoned dart into Irina. “You don’t belong here!” Along with her words, she spins and extends her left arm towards Irina’s car parked in front of her house. “Move it! You hear me! And get lost.”
The cleaning lady looks down at Mrs. Geesky, a matter which seems to give Mrs. Geesky permission to squawk at her again with another accusation.
“Stop stalling! You’ll hear about this! You are trespassing.” Mrs. Geesky warns. “The Baines won’t get away with this!”
The encounter is in vain. The cleaning woman, whether pretending or not, does not pay any heed to Mrs. Geesky’s possessive, domineering disposition of the public street. Without a word, the cleaning woman reminds herself to ignore her and puts the key in the door and pushes it open.
“Where do you think you are going?”
The woman forewarned and forearmed picks up the bucket and with the vacuum hose flung across her shoulder disappears behind the closed door.
In an angry rage, with eyebrows low and tight, arms crossed, Mrs. Geesky stands alone and yells. “They’ll be sorry!” she threatens tightening her arms around her chest as she plans to march up to the door and bang.
“The Baines are racists. I know it. Everyone knows it.” She fuels her meddling with bitter invectives. “They have no tolerance. They use people. They cheat. And steal.” With her last criticism she runs up to the door of the Baines home about to bang when she hears a crunch followed by a crackle followed by a screeching meow. The sound is coming from under her neighbor’s bushes.
Mrs. Geesky suspects one of her cats is underneath the thick low-growing branches. Bending over the railing she spies the motionless tail of a cat. It is bone thin. The fur is dirty. It is a starving cat. ‘Oh dear.’ She says to herself as she hurries down to rescue it. Accompanied by many claps with her hands she calls for the sick creature to come out. Bending down she begins to cajole the animal to come out.
“Come. Come, come sweetie.” She sings. The cat continues to shriek and moan and squawk. Bending down next to the nearby bushes Mrs. Geesky sees the cat roll and turn on its back. “Come. Come. Come sweetie. You silly thing. Follow me now. I haven’t seen you for a few weeks. Come, come. You must be hungry.”
In a rare moment of tenderness Mrs. Geesky smiles and claps her hands inviting the cat to come out of the bushes. In a familiar confidence Mrs. Geesky stands straight and turns to cross the street knowing this weakened animal will follow her close behind.
Mrs. Geesky returned to her butcher block counter with a serene sense of accomplishment. Her intrusive domination was never once thought of as a ‘problem’ or an ‘act of harm’ to others. No. Her invasiveness and insensitive acts left her emboldened and victorious. She felt and saw herself in the right. She knew better than anyone else a knowledge that followed her childhood rule of making others happier.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
SPIRITUAL CONSIDERATION
…far from every perverted view the being of light (bodhisattva) dwells in nirvana (enlightenment). The Heart Sutra
A meddler, as Mrs. Geesky is an exemplar, has a perverted view that keeps one from enlightenment. It is true for all meddlers and meddling. If you meddle, you have a perverted view and are unable to dwell in enlightenment.
One who interferes is a meddling person who has two underlying problems. (1) a desire to dominate and (2) a desire to conquer, frustrate, prevent success of the other, cause destruction and bring ruination. Inhibit another. These problems are often thought of as a strength and an act of being helpful.
The dominance and interference may be given in the name of “good,” but it is often done in the name of “rightness and supremacy.” One could say a desire to control and convert.
To be free of the impure ego’s grip, we must depend on the perfection of wisdom, (prajna paramita) and then, the mind or mental formation is no hindrance. To do this, we practice deeply the perfection of wisdom.
This meddling trait arises from an impure mind; the ego is in charge and manages the behavior of the impure mind of self-interest.
If you think of yourself as a know-it-all, or even knowing better than, you most likely suffer from meddling.
AND…you may not be aware that you do meddle in other people’s business because you think you know better than the other. The underlying mental formation is that you think you are “right.” When you think you are “right” you are unapproachable. There is no space except for your view, whatever it might be. Dominance and wanting to dominate is part of meddling.
The practice is to let go of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and a reliance on the impure ego-consciousness.
Do not depend on the mind or the body. Drop forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and reliance on the ego-consciousness. It requires perfection. The perfection of generosity, morality, patience, vigorous diligence concentration and wisdom is required.
DON’T GIVE UP.
MEDDLING: Meaning "act or habit of interfering in matters not of one's proper concern" is from late 14c. [Etymology Online].
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