Compassion Amongst a Nest of Zombies

I have been lying awake in bed meditating on the dream before awakening. I was walking with my older son into a building, when all of a sudden a group of zombies moved towards us, some walking in that shuffling gait that the typical zombie promenades about, while others were actually running. Some of them had parts missing while one of them took a machete to its own head and sliced through it without any effect. I told my son to stay back while I went to confront what seemed to be the leader. I came up to the zombie leader and he laughed at me and told me to hit him (zombies could talk?). So I gave him a powerful punch to the face. He just laughed and seemed to grow stronger. I punched some more, blows like Muhammad Ali in his prime, and all it did was make the zombie grow stronger. This was not working.


Then my son did something that stopped the approaching horde--he cried. He went into a place of sadness. Not fear, not rage; but sadness. And the zombies just stopped dead (which is what zombies should be doing!) Seeing the effect I too went into a sadness for this sorry situation that we all found ourselves in. For me and my son, and especially for the zombies. And I started a conversation with my zombie assailant and asked him what I could do for him. He said he would like to be killed and to be put to rest, so I lifted a machete to ease him out of his misery but he started to grow big in anticipation. So I stopped and said that violence to him wouldn't work.


And then I woke up.


So ruminating upon what would work to my zombie friend I have come to the realization that it is compassion. And only that. For who is my zombie friend? He is all of us who go through the day on automatic, caught in habits that keep us from living. A zombie is basically a body that is going on the most basic drive--to consume. We are a consumer society, consuming insatiably to feel alive. But this consumption is literally a wasting away disease--a coffin fit. Zombie movies are really popular these days as people get to live out this sick desire of blasting away human bodies without guilt, because these zombies are not humans; although they sure look like us, sans nice complexions and proper hygiene. What a seeming joy to just blow away bodies. Maybe this is the message of mass shooters? 


But this does not free anyone, this heartless attack. We viciously attack our fellows who find themselves caught up in their habitual drives, like those who find themselves in the midst of scandals. This condemnation, this judgment, is a way of shooting up a zombie. After all we don't really know them and it makes us feel alive...well, sort of.


We are all zombies at times. We have buttons that are pushed and like a zombie we unconsciously go off in zombie mode. Or we see something that sets us off in the I-got-to-get-away mode or the opposite, I-must-have-it. Both are the same. There is no freedom. There is only reactions. Only by finding who we are, the Infinite Self, that needs nothing to be fulfilled can we find freedom. Until we get out of this mad notion that we are bodies will we wont be free. But until then, with ourselves and with all our fellow sleep walkers, let us not cock that shotgun of judgment anymore and blow our brains out; let us reach out in compassion and remind each other, "Hey, you are not this."

The following is a poem I wrote a long time ago after returning from the Peace Corps. This is an excerpt from my book of poetry “Footprints Along the Shore of an Incoming Tide”. Just rereading the poem I noticed that the child I speak of watching over is my older son of the dream.

18. The Sorcerer in the Box

            As I finish my training as a Waldorf School teacher and observe children untainted by the mass visions of television, who are allowed to let their own imaginations blossom, I am even more convinced of protecting my son from that confounded box. I should know. I grew up with it, and suckled from its electronic tit so much, that when I walk in a room where its visions flash across the screen, only with the greatest of will can I tear myself away.  And in meditations I must discard T.V. programs from my subconscious like emptying my bowels. 

In some of the villages of Cameroon,

When a child dies, the parents

Watch the grave during the first few days,

Lest some sorcerer steal their bodies

And sell them down in Gabon as zombies.

I laughed at that:

Laughed at their superstition,

Laughed at their fears.

But now as a father,

I watch my people’s children unattended

In front of television sets,

And see the sorcerer in the box, unchecked,

Sucking out their minds

And plucking forth their eyes.

Then I observe the grown ups

Shuffle off to jobs they despise,

Their eyes staring straight ahead—

I am filled with fear.

And over my child I stand

And keep vigilance

           Against the sorcerer in the box.

Playing with Krishna

This morning I played Frisbee with Krishna. Well, not exactly Frisbee, but with his chakra. In the dream I was having some difficulty accommodating one of our teenagers (no surprise there!), who was naturally rebelling. While I was going through this, a thought came to me from Krishna (in dreams you just know) that it was all right that my child was doing this because there needs to be separation from the parents so they can find their own path. But then there was a kind of gentle warning that whatever we give to Krishna he will throw it back, with perhaps a little more zing to improve our skill. And that was when I saw these thoughts take form into Krisna throwing his disc. And the thought came that since everyone is Krishna then whatever we throw at anyone, whether thoughts, words or deeds, all will come back to us in perfect reflection. And then my wife woke me up to go to church.

In reflecting upon this dream I feel that the message was that no matter what we need to do to find our path, no matter how challenging it might be to others who want to keep us the way they want us to be, we must do it, but with the remembrance of doing it as gently as possible. For after all, he will throw it right back at us. In the book Siddartha, Siddartha complains to his friend, Vasudeva, about his son leaving him; and his companion reminds him that he has no right to stop his son from choosing his path, and, anyway, Siddartha had done the same to his father.

Another important message of the dream was it was another reminder how powerful is the chanting of mantras. Yesterday, I was composing a simple Hare Krishna song on the guitar, and a few days before that I was telling a story at a storytelling swap about a time when I was chanting Hare Krishna when I was rescuing a man from his assailant, where I was enclosed in a bubble of protection (another story). I have had many dreams where I was saying the mantra (more than any other mantra or divine name) and powerful events would occur.

Hare Krisna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare

May you recite the sweetness of God’s many Names upon your journey.

Enthusiasm

People spend their days
Grudgingly doing tasks,
Enslaved
By the mind that tells them
They can only do this or that.

Day after day,
They hope for the lottery
To be free to fulfill their dreams—

Dreaming, praying,
While their eyes become more sunken
And their bones more protruding,
And gravity becomes more relentless
To pull their bodies back into the soil.

O Adventurer of the Cosmos,
Take up your banner of joy,
And go out into the jungle
And roar with the tigers,
And charge with the rhinos,
And live each day with a light
Shining in your eyes.

Janaka has,
And the toy chest of heaven
Lies open for him to pick and choose,
With angels anxiously waiting to bear such gifts.

When your body drops
A rerun of your life you’ll see.

Make it a good one,
When no yawns will drown out the words.

Make it a show
At which you can smile, laugh,
Say ooh and aah,
which finishes in a crescendo of a Wow!

The Infinite Self needs nothing to add to ItSelf,
So it does not tell you
To go grab something outside yourself,
Which will give you happiness
That they tell you is to be found
Only upon a Hollywood screen.

That Self,
which you are,
And share with All That Is,
Is happiness complete,
Wanting to express in this wonderland of delight.

If you feel anger at a desire thwarted,
Happiness did not send you that way—
But only the shadow of unfulfillment.

Let every moment be your desire,
Free of the whips of ‘shoulds,’
That you may be donned in creation’s garment—
A glorious garment removed by angelic hands
From the toy chest of God.

Janaka wears this garment,
Is given everything he needs,
And each moment

His heart utters: Wow!
 
--Janaka Stagnaro
from "Footprints along the Shore of an Incoming Tide"