The Day-to-Day Dharma/ Drama, Vexations
3 April 2012
“Hey Dad, how are you doing? I’m doing fine. I just adopted a kitty, named her Molly — looks just like Brown Kitty, our first cat back in Terengganu. Blue eyes and brown fur. I’m going on a road trip this weekend to Kedah with Muna and the geng. We’re stopping by Penang first, so I can see you. And yes, I’m running out of money — only have RM5 left, should last me till tomorrow. Love you, Dad…”
That’s part of an email from my daughter. A little cat named Molly. A long road trip. A visit.
And a reminder that her university fees are due — RM1300.75.
Where am I going to pull that kind of money from?
I’ve got rent to cover, two car payments to scrape together, and what was it the Dalai Lama said about vexations?
If I were a woman, I could sell my body at the night market.
If I were desperate, I could call up an Ah Long, sign my soul away, and get shot when I can’t pay it back.
Of course, there’s always my son in Dubai — but that requires swallowing my pride. Again.
Get a job?
Believe it or not, I worked two jobs over the past few days — for my cousins. Neither paid me.
Probably waiting for me to ask.
Which I won’t.
I knew years ago that income would always be a problem — that’s what happens when you trade security for passion.
So maybe I should join the herd — become a cab driver, a night watchman.
Something steady. Something that doesn’t ask for soul.
Yesterday, I spent nearly ten hours working on a painting.
But that’s not work, right?
That’s a “hobby.”
A non-paying, self-indulgent distraction you do at your leisure.
Except… I’ve got two exhibitions coming up.
Three, if I hadn’t turned one down — again — because of money.
I curse the day I discovered I love to draw.
This so-called “gift” has brought nothing but pain and a quiet loathing of how dependent I’ve become on others.
Beg, borrow, or steal — is this what it comes down to?
I hate this feeling — like my spirit’s been neutered. Like my balls have been ripped out and hung on a hook labeled “Starving Artist.”
So I turn, as I often do, to J. Krishnamurti —
And there he is, waiting with a philosophical slap to the face:
"We make effort because we want to become something…
But becoming is an avoidance of what is."
Boom. Another slam dunk by the old sage.
Can’t even throw a proper tantrum without him kicking me in the ribs.
But that’s why I blog —
To reveal, to process, to scrape the gunk from the corners of my mind.
To heal the splinters in my soul.
Money problems will come and go.
They’re just another gate on the path —
a Dharma gate.
My daughter’s email was just a trigger — a real-life manifestation of vexation.
Rent, car loans, fees, food, exhaustion — all of them are part of my practice.
Each moment, each stress, is another chance to observe and be.
"The Dharma gates are boundless — I vow to enter them."
That’s the Bodhisattva way.
That’s my way.
Even if I enter them broke, exhausted, and cursing my paintbrush.
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