this past Thursday I was summoned for jury duty. in my experience, jury duty is an opportunity to do a lot of reading. so with this in mind I brought along my copy of the Lotus Sutra to study while being held in the jury services waiting area.
the Lotus Sutra is one of the many books to survive the radical culling of my personal library I must do in preparation of moving this week. the new lease starts on Thursday, but moments ago I received word that we can pick up the keys tomorrow. my current apartment no longer is capable of housing all my books, so for that reason alone I’m overjoyed to be relocating. add the fact that I will be cohabiting a delightful house overlooking downtown and the ocean with a woman I love dearly, all for a reduction in rent, and I couldn’t be more excited. it is a privilege to have books to pass along to someone else, so there are presently three bags full of titles I will be sending off to some friends, plus I’ve donated at least four bags worth to the library that employs me, plus I traded in two more bags worth for $70 in trade credit. I had to restrain myself from immediately using all of that credit to purchase an unabridged two volume Isis Unveiled by H.P. Blavatsky and a copy of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Instead I picked up a textbook on electromagnetism, a book of stories by Malcolm Lowry, The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, and The Epic of Gilgamesh. if it is in my fate to own the books I passed up, they will be there next time I visit the used bookstore.
back at jury duty, the Lotus Sutra seemed to be protecting me. I made it through the first round without my name being called, and the morning was moving along nicely. I thought that so long as I maintained the right view, the right intention, the right speech, the right action, the right livelihood, the right effort, the right mindfulness, and the right samadhi, then the selection of jurors would pass over me and allow me to escape the bureaucratic hell karma had determined would be my lot for the day. since this desire is obviously a vulgar, profane goal arising out of my ego, and not out of my buddha-nature, with 30 minutes left in the morning session my name was included among those prospective jurors who would be required to return to the courthouse that afternoon for potential placement on a jury panel that had begun selection the day prior.
the case needed one more alternate juror to begin proceedings. were I being questioned for an official spot on the jury, and not as a potential back up, I might have kept my mouth shut and participated, but, not wanting to sit through the entire trial on the off-chance I’ll be needed to fill a vacant spot come deliberation time, I told the judge I harbor deep resentment towards my ex-FBI father, and this resentment has led me to a principled, political opposition to the police as such, and the judge dismissed me. the use of expedient means by buddhas and bodhisattvas is one of the prime lessons of the Lotus Sutra. the next day, the day I traded in books, Mercury retrograde started.
yesterday was 9/11, never forget.
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