Dec 08, 2007 12:38
So... today is December 8th, meaning that loooooooooots of places (like this place called "Japan") celebrate the Buddha's Enlightenment today. Or near today. Buuuuuuuuut seeing as the Buddha that they're talking about was Shakyamuni Buddha and seeing as how we can't actually pinpoint when he existed, but it was probably about 2600 years ago, I tend to doubt the accuracy of this "December 8th" thing. I think there's something in Japan or China, or some Sanskrit word, maybe, even that means both "8" and "birth" or something like that. I dunno... Roshi talked about it last Hanamatsuri (the ceremony to commemorate the Buddha's birthday, April 8th). But at at any rate, Albuquerque Zen Center was having this "Jodo-E" ceremony today, and myself and the old guy (Jim) who is up here decided we'd go down and represent Bodhi at this Jodo-E, because we really like the abbot of AZC, and he doesn't have any live-in students, but he is still vice-abbot of Bodhi, so we go to a lot of their celebrations, and there are usually bagels, and it's really nice.
Now, AZC is about 60 miles from Bodhi. Jim and I left at 6:00AM, giving us time to grab some breakfast in the city pre-ceremony. About 7 or 8 miles down the road, I started feeling pretty sick, but I figured "ehh... I'll just ride it out. It'll go away"... so, I pretended to sleep and I felt better and then worse and then better and then worse... and I was breaking a sweat, and I could see my green-ness in the side-mirror through tinted windows, and for whatever reason, I was just determined to make it to Jodo-E. And then we slowed down and got off the highway and stopped at Denny's... as soon as we started slowing down I knew that I wasn't gonna be able to fight the nausea anymore... so, then I spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom at Denny's. I came back out, looking like I had just spent 20 minutes in the bathroom at Denny's--for whatever reason. I told Jim I thought we should go back to Bodhi. He said yeah, I looked kinda green, and we headed back. I have to say, I did pretty good on the way back. The first time I asked Jim to pull over, we were in the Jemez pueblo. For those of you who have never been to a pueblo, picture me, hands braced on my knees, dry-heaving into wet, red earth (it's drizzling today). And on that wet, red earth is a half-buried bag of some pig product, best I can tell, but the package is all in Spanish. Now, every pueblo also has to have at least 3 dogs to every one person, and they all wanted my puke bad... but the cool, wet air actually settled my stomach a little bit, and after a few relatively-dry heaves, I was done. I climbed back into Jim's truck, and we set off again. At this point we're about 12 miles from Bodhi.
Jim and I start shootin' the shit, he's joking about how the road we were on was great for puking, lots of good dirt pull-offs on the side... I start talking about how I used to get car-sick when I was a kid, and he did too (except 60 years before me)... finally, I see mile marker 15, which means that there are only 2 miles to Bodhi... and then I break a sweat again, and I just tried to fight it for about 30 seconds, and then we hit this corner and I knew that whatever was left in my stomach (not much) was coming out, whether it was gonna land in the dirt or in Jim's car. So, all at once I say "Jim, can you pull over?," I start to roll down the window, he starts to pull over, but his truck was going 40, so it's gonna take a second, but I open up the door and take my seatbelt off (totally unconsciously, this was NOT a rational process) and the car is ALMOST stopped by the time I'm jumping out and heaving. For the first time in my life I actually fell to my knees puking... I leaned up against this rock, and behind the rock was this beautiful, picturesque coyote skull... and I thought, as my organs tried to push their way out of my body, "huh... it could be worse... that coyote probably once had a much worse day than I'm having today". I damn near passed out, best I can tell. I just kind of sat on the rock staring at the skull for a little while, too shaky to get up. I was waiting for the shakes to go away, but when I decided that they just weren't going to yet, I got up, climbed back up into the truck, and we made it back to Bodhi fine... where I writhed in my bed until I fell asleep. The phone rang about an hour ago, waking me up. I found some food. I'm gonna be okay.