Zen and Car Shopping

This morning is close to feeling frosty, but I still troubled myself to make time very early this morning to drink coffee on the deck. It's probably the only real moment of peace I'll be able to find today. Some co-workers lately have commented to me on how stressed I look. Sure, I have some weighty issues to contemplate, but it's mostly due to lack of sleep, because I am still having a challenge in being able to settle myself where I'm physically comfortably enough to be free of my remaining aches and pains. I notice how badly I've been dragging myself through the latter half of each day for the past week as a consequence of it.

I've healed up enough though, and now physically mobile enough where I can finally get on with wrapping up the sordid business of settling my insurance claim, so I can finally ditch my old wreck of a vehicle instead of still relying on it to get around. I'm grateful that I'm finally made it to a state where I can walk almost normally, and can endure a prolonged biking trip at least halfway through the city and back. I'll have to manage with doing more of both walking and cycling; since as of today, I'll be carless for an indefinite period of time.

Running, however, still has been too physically demanding and problematic. I still can't push my pace or breathing anywhere near to the intensity I used to do: not without risking more damage. The inner muscles surrounding my lower leg bones are super-tight; my tibia and fibula feel like they are encased in steel pipe. My chances for racing by month's end are looking really hopeless.

Along with that, I've been frustrated and disappointed with so many other things during this week. They range from car shopping still being a bothersome gong show, to discovering the deceptive means that our province's social services use to screw over care aide workers and those they serve, all with the attitude of: "you're just pawns in this game". It's an ongoing adventure in discovering how ignorant, corrupt, and stupid people are, and the lengths they'll go to try to shaft you. I don't mean to get preachy, but it's a good moment to reflect and examine some of the past-goings on, and to put them in a Zen context.

I think of the example of dealing with the matter of car shopping alone to illustrate this. I have been delaying car shopping for quite some time. Procrastination? Maybe, perhaps a little of that . . . but there was also a strong, nagging, instinct in me telling me that I wasn't ready for it yet. In Zen Buddhism, there is the teachings of the three unwholesome roots, also referred to as "the three poisons". They are: hatred, greed, and delusion. On a more primary level, they in turn are generally connected with ignorance, attachment, and avoidance, which are the components and sources of all suffering. In car shopping, while trying to heal myself, it's inevitable that I'd be confronting and clashing with those three elements within myself and in others. The (incomplete) breakdown is as thus, with crossovers and connections between each point:

• Hatred (Avoidance) - hating getting injury irritated by moving around, to appointments that could turn out to be just a pointless waste of time; more negativity and distrust of the sellers, frustrated by misrepresentation in the ads; frustrated by limited mobility; hating not having a work schedule that accommodates me to look at cars at the times when most are available for viewing; dealing with insurer and the idiot who rammed me; I dislike shopping most of the time to begin with, and it's now worsened by feeling pressured to do so out of necessity; ultimately wanting to avoid the feeling of being deceived and cheated; new debts, higher registrations fees, etc.
• Greed (Attachment) - Sellers assigning too much value to a high mileage/older car; me being strict and inflexible with a personal budget; me wanting to use time to rest rather than kick tires; wanting/liking a car and then finding out too late that it has been sold; feeling a lack of options, and forced to buy something out of some duress; buying more than I can afford in the long run.
• Delusion (Ignorance) - my impatience for wanting to heal faster, yet still forced to do things that are counterproductive to allow for it; seeing a person not acknowledging the flaws I detect when I examine a vehicle, and/or flat out trying to bullshit me about them; not having the right senses to detect the real performance of the car and poor/rash decision making (being on pain-killers); failing to ask the right questions/missing details; lacking a consumer confidence in making the right decision for myself; the clash between the reasoning about what is practical need, and what I find more sensually appealing; having too high a standard on things that matter less: having too low of a standard on things that matter more.

Along with healing to get better mobility, delaying (procrastinating) was one way to mentally detox, to clean some of these poisons out of the mind, if I really wanted to put a champion's effort into wisely buying a vehicle, but it's important to limit it before it turns into another form of avoidance.

So today, I face the reality of trying to crack open the trunk for the first time since the collision*, to clear out and salvage my vehicle's contents, and load my bike in there to permit myself a means to ride to the bank with my settlement afterward, and return home. My car served me well enough, but I'll be happy to finally rid myself of that little beast, and move onward. I have no special sentiments attached to it: no regrets, no tears. It just gave me lots of lessons (and repairs) to process for the time I had it.

Back to a more intensified effort toward walking, biking, and hopefully running, better . . . for a little while hopefully.

*- It doesn't matter if it can be shut again, since the car is heading to the scrap yard after I drop it off at the claims centre. Addendum: as expected, the damn trunk didn't close once I dropped it off there.