I have been inadvertently weeding out potential suitors with a sort of Buddhist IQ test. When I first moved to the Bible Belt, I began a search for kindred spirits by posting an ad online which read, “Buddhist seeks fellow Buddhists.” My initial search for a Zen center or other non-Christian spiritual hub was unfruitful, so I turned to the community pages of the personals. I targeted my ad to anyone in the Buddhist community, assuming there was one. I included my photo, reasoning that people are more likely to reply to a stranger if they have a sense of what that person looks like, and received a slew of messages, most of which read, in short, “I’m not a Buddhist, but do you want a back rub?” Sigh.
A few messages surpassed the Homo erectus grunt, “hey text me,” so I responded. At least five times, I was asked, “Are you real?”
“Well, that’s a funny question to be asking a Buddhist!” I replied. “If you get that, write back.”
Rather than amusement or any other acknowledgment of irony, the common response was, “I’m sorry… I had to make sure you’re not a bot.” Apparently, online personals are often the target of automated bots designed to cull working email addresses or propagate spam. I don’t really know what a bot is, in this context. All I know is that I am not a bot.
I was too uninspired to continue the exchange, crestfallen by the lack of any meeting of minds.
I went through a phase, which I imagine every Buddhist goes through, of sensing that I have no inherent existence, which took form in my ego as a belief. The dissolution of ego can soon return as ego’s dramatic self denial.
Early this year, I received a survey in the mail from the census department. Totally without thinking, I tossed it into the trash. I had the distinct, subconscious sense that I did not count among those who walk the earth.
I received another survey weeks later and ignored that one too. I never thought twice about it. I had somehow accustomed myself to perceiving that I had no place in the world.
I have a book of Buddhist fiction on my shelf entitled, You Are Not Here. Apparently, the government disagrees with me. Months later, a census official knocked on my door. She let herself in, made herself at home, and launched into an impromptu interview.
I giggled to myself. After years of crushing Buddhism and a long struggle with an old death wish, this woman barges into my house with the express mission of acknowledging that I do, in fact, exist.
I was reminded of a story about two philosophers attempting to settle a disagreement. James Boswell recounts it in The Life of Samuel Johnson:
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it — “I refute it thus.”
The purpose of waking up is not to escape life but to enter it more fully. One does not disappear from this moment, as one might hope. Yet, something does dramatically change.
In my ensuing mental fantasy, I am running like a loose chicken down the street. The theme song for The Dukes of Hazard is playing in the background. The census lady is chasing after me, waving her paperwork in the air.
“I don’t really exist,” I yell. “I have no place in this world,” I cry, to no avail.
She catches up with me, kicks me in the shin, and says, “I refute it thus!”
The injury returns me to this moment, to the reality of what is and to my self, and yet my illusory self still has the quality of being illusory. Perhaps one day, there will be a new check box on the census survey to accommodate Buddhist Americans: “Neither exist nor do not exist.”
I stopped looking for a Buddhist confidant. My mind is drawn to memories of insightful, intuitive companions who once graced my life, those whose mindful, nurturing touch continuously reminded me that I am real. There are things we can know in the body that no philosophy can articulate. I may not find a Buddhist confidant in the Bible Belt, but there are plenty of beautiful people here who know how to be real. Just ask the federal government.
