The Day I Met Buddha

Annie & I. 

If you met Buddha, would you know it? Or maybe you've already met Buddha, in someone you least expected. The word Buddha, which simply means "the awakened one," doesn't just have to be reserved for the historical figure who lived in India nearly 2,600 years ago. In one sense, the term can be used to represent the inherent goodness and perfection that lies dormant within each and everyone of us, animals included. The problem is that we are ignorant to this inner beauty, and our ignorance leaves this internal gem unpolished. It is only through our own efforts to polish this precious gem that we find this inner beauty shining through.

I met a Buddha, but I didn't even realize it. Her name is Annie, and when I first met her, I didn't like her. There was something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. As she will admit, she's "loud and obnoxious." But what I didn't know, when I first met her, is that there is a reason for her overly positive attitude and joyful spirit. I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't I like someone who is joyful and positive? Well, I guess like some, I might be a bit pessimistic when it comes to someone who seems to be too happy. I guess I just don't trust it in general, and I've often found that it's a cover-up for some deeper issue and is nothing more than a show.

So I had my reservations. The other thing is that when Annie arrived at the yoga/meditation retreat center I was staying at in Cambodia, I was observing silence. To make matters worse, as Annie made her way around meeting everyone, she wasn't aware that I was in silence, so as I attempted to avoid a direct interaction with her, tension between us grew. She could tell I wasn't overly fond of her, and I knew that she could tell. Needless to say, we weren't off to a great start.

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

Okay okay, I know I've heard this a million times, and have had many revelations from this after having wrongly judged someone, yet I still fall victim to the reactive tendency to judge people whom I don't know very well. One thing about observing silence is that it makes it easier to become aware of these judgments that inevitably arise. Without having an outlet for these reactions, they end up bouncing around the head and are pretty hard to miss. Even though I have a practice to help shine a light on the shallowness of the judging mind, which is just to silently note, "judging, judging," there was still a part of myself that believed in the judgments.

Basically, the idea is that the judging mind is just a function of the mind, and its judgments are nothing but reactions based on past conditioning. The judgments themselves can therefore be seen as being temporary, fleeting, and devoid of any intrinsic value. In other words, in no way do our judgments represent who or what we really are, yet we tend to believe them. We can think of the judging mind as a childish prankster who is always fishing for our recognition of what it sends our way. Insecure on its own, it always seeks our approval of whatever judgments it conjures up. When we don't realize what is happening, we unknowingly hand over our approval and even go a step further to write our name on the judgments, thinking they are actually ours to begin with. This is mistake if we are looking to find freedom from automated tendencies of the mind, because by signing off on these judgments, we are effectively stepping down from our platform of control. I don't mean to say that we need to try to control everything, but it's nice when we have a say in the way that we think, act, and respond to life. If we don't, we're nothing more than habituated reactivity in action.

When it came to Annie, I tried not to believe in my judgments of her, but I had no evidence to say otherwise. As the days went on, I started to get more glimpses into who this person was, and she was starting to grow on me. By the time I came out of my 6 days of silence, I had already decided that she was my favorite person at the retreat, but it wasn't until the next day that I really understood why.

On the next day, Annie told her story. When she was 27, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and she lost eyesight in both eyes, which lasted for a couple years. She also was slated, according to her doctors, to lose her ability to walk and was facing a life of a being blind and in a wheelchair. Now, she's 32, and as she was telling her story, she was clearly not the person that they said she would be. Her vision is 20/20, and she fits right into the daily yoga classes; you'd never know she had MS.

At some point, during treatment, Annie made a leap of faith. She dropped all of her meds and moved to Colorado to seek out alternative forms of healing. She gives all of the credit of her recovery to amazing healers and doctors of Chinese medicine, and she's telling her story to explain why she has now become an accupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, the very practices that gave her the life she enjoys today. "I'm happy, every single day, because I can see." Hearing her sense of profound gratitude was enough to bring tears to my eyes, especially because my mind was simultaneously being blown in regards to just how wrong I had been about her.

As she reminded us, "You don't know how special something simple like eyesight is until you lose it for two years." Okay, so that's not an exact quote, but you'll have to forgive me, I wasn't expecting anything worth taking notes on. Now, I wish I had been filming her class, which turned out to be a beautiful and moving Dhamma talk, so I could share it with all of you.

Annie's message is loud and clear, don't miss an opportunity to be grateful for all of the things you have. She even offered us the practice of thanking the various parts of our bodies. "When is the last time you thanked your ankle for doing a great job?" she asked. "Most people wait until something goes wrong with their ankle and then they start complaining, but don't they realize that their ankle was kicking-ass everyday of their life until that moment?"

Not only is she inspiring, but she's hilarious. "If you want to know more, just read my book," she joked. I told her later that she really should write a book, and try to teach as much as she can. It's all too often that someone like me, who is fairly serious and devoted to the spiritual path, becomes bogged down with hardship and finds things to be a bit grim at times. "To me, meditation is about connecting with the inner joy that we always have access to," she reminded us. To do this, we can even start by making ourselves smile, which within 20 seconds, she says, will trigger our brains and actually cause us to be happy.
Usually, it's the opposite, but she says it works both ways, and
the brain doesn't know the difference.

Meeting Annie was something that really touched my heart, and was very humbling. It's a great reminder to not trust the judging mind and to not take myself so seriously. The epitome of someone who lives the life they preach, Annie is an inspiration to us all to connect with the magic and the mystery of life in every moment, and to never take things for granted. I can't believe I was so ignorant to have almost failed to realize that I met someone who was truly a spiritual person, someone who knew what it was like to face hardships and come out smiling, a true Buddha. Thank you, Annie, for showing me the way.


*My apologies for any errors I may have made while recounting Annie's story or the details of what she said. Her quotes, as they appear in this article, are simply from my memory, and not intended to be direct quotes.