I read the other day about Buddhist monks whose abbey had been infested with ants. A nuisance for the average homeowner, who can spray nasty smelling stuff or call an exterminator, is a moral dilemma for a Buddhist.
Monks may gently relocate a spider or a snake but they may not kill any living thing. At most, the monks might shake ants off their skin or robes. This, however, seriously ticks off the ants, which respond with vicious bites. Last I heard, the monks were begging their superiors for a dispensation to use more effective methods.
Buddhist teachers have said that our troubles stay with us until they have taught us something. So what’s a monk to do? Meditate on patience, I guess.
When patience fails, they might rub their bodies with orange peel or zest, the aroma of which is said to deter even ant armies on the march. I meditated on the monks’ dilemma; I breathed out patience and compassion for them. I thought a little good karma would come back to me when my patience wore thin. What did I know?
Next day my granddaughter and her cousin return from the beach, dumping shells, rocks and sandy backpacks on the floor in Amy’s bedroom. My daughter spends the day washing clothes and trying to pack for their return to Montana. I hear Amy crying, “I left a banana in my backpack and the ants are all over.” I say, “Put the backpack on the patio,” as I go for the vacuum cleaner. We spend at least two hours emptying and washing the squished banana yuck from the new pink bag. My daughter Hoovers up the hapless intruders who have overtaken the bed, the open suitcases and are hiding in every crevice of the Berber carpet. Can’t we just spray something, she asks? Well, no. The only thing I will use is a mixture of Skin So Soft bath oil and water, which works on tile or wood floors but would ruin the carpet. I rationalize that ants are repelled by the scent of citronella. In fact, for reasons unknown, it actually dispatches them. Probably the weight of the oil does it.
Anyway, once the little devils are sucked up, I take the vacuum outdoors so the survivors can crawl out into the garden. Never mind that I’ve never seen any survivors actually do this. That night I forget to meditate and ask forgiveness for any creatures that I may have inadvertently killed. And for more patience, even though I didn’t bawl Amy out for the banana and I didn’t yell obscenities.
Next day, after daughter and cousin leave for Montana, we are visited by some really messed up karma. My grandson Devon picks up his backpack from the mudroom floor and gets a fist full of, you guessed it, ants. Reddish, medium sized, voracious consumers of cookie crumbs, nuts, cereal bars and used chocolate wrappers. About a month’s worth of snacking detritus industriously retrieved to be carried who knows where.
This time my patience is about zero since I beg Devon to empty his bag daily so we won’t miss homework assignments, notes from teachers and ballgame schedules. It doesn’t happen.
So now I’m taking it out on a 12-year-old who is jumping up and down saying he hates ants and begging me to help him. And he wants to know why we can’t just spray the whole bag. Well, of course, first you have to open the zippers, all 10 of them crawling, then dump everything out on the patio table and retrieve the homework, etc.
Realizing he is poorly equipped to handle the situation on his own, I stop snapping at him and show him how to do it, making sure that he actually does some of it himself. I am astonished at the mess that falls out of the bag. Ants are crawling over and between about 50 index cards with vocabulary words on them; notebook paper with stories handwritten; math papers (graded mostly A or A-minus); and a broken ruler, five mechanical pencils, three chewed erasers, a sweat band, a pair of smelly gym socks, a jockstrap with cup and a typed sheet of baseball rules and diagrams of the field.
I give him three bags: one for garbage with ants, one for recycling paper and one for keepers. I show him how to tap the cards on the table to shake off the ants. I disappear the garbage bag and return to find him stamping on the concrete. Oh well, he’s a bit young for Buddhist philosophy.
We are no longer angry. I think the ant attack lasted long enough to teach Devon something. Maybe me too. I learn that losing patience with children is counterproductive. That maintaining calm is easier for those who meditate every day.
Tonight, I will focus on patience, for myself and for Devon. And for the monks gently shaking ants from their robes. May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering. Maybe a dispensation wouldn’t hurt.