the curious incident of the duck in the night time
the other day i accidentally ran over a duck while listening to a meditation tape in my car.
of course i felt dreadful. the last thing i want to do is kill a duck. i want to kill nothing. i like birds and the duck is my favourite.
the situation was very unfair. i was driving home from uni at midnight on a quiet unlit road, listening to a mediation tape for self development and Boom.
i pulled over 100 metres down the road and followed the prints which were evenly spaced, stamped on the asphault again and again by the rolling tire. noticing it was not a single unbroken blood trail like in GTA, i felt like a real forensic scientist. another car pulled over and a young vetinerian looking woman ran out to the duck with a blanket, wrapping it in her arms.
"its cooked" she said, and pull the duck away from me when i tried to stroke its beak. "dead" she said. oh shit, i said. god damn damn damn.
"i wasnt wearing my glasses and even i saw the duck crossin the fuckin road" she said. the swear word told me she was mad at me.
i really didn't see it, i said, which was true. i didnt tell her about my tiredness or the meditation tape.
she placed the dead duck under a bush on the median strip and we both crouched down and looked at it in silence a while. i told her i was really sorry. she repeated the line about the glasses and the fucking road. then she left. i stayed and looked at the sleeping dead duck. due to a lifetime of zoloft, i cannot cry. my eyes dont make tears. but i can feel the feeling of being supposed to cry. i gave its head a stroke and said im sorry my friend. then i left.
you might think it was bad of me to "meditate" while driving a car, but it wasnt my choice. the meditation was at the end of an audiobook lecture, and also, it wasnt your typical close-your-eyes-and-count-your-breath type thing. it was really a kind of pep-talk meditation titled "recognising your inherent value".
step 1 was to find a quiet place to sit for ten minutes. that place was my car. i told myself i would stay aware of the road.
step 2 was pay attention to your breath. thats fine.
step 3 was to check in with your body: your feet, your legs, your guts, your heart, and all the other things. i ignored this advice.
then step 4 was to:
Recognise that you have value and worth simply by existing, just as everything else in this world does. What you do and say, the job you do, whether you are a parent or not, how wealthy or smart you are — these are all secondary to your inherent, innate worth. A single daffodil adds value, even in a field of a million daffodils; it has value just by existing. It is beautiful in and of itself. Can you feel the same way about yourself?
hmm, i thought, i don't know. what if i have negative worth? what if i am a disappointing and injurious blight on the people around me? what if i am not a beautiful daffodil but a horrible weed?
step 5:
Take a few moments to reflect on all the ways you express innate goodness quite naturally. These can be things as simple as holding a door open for someone; letting another car in front of you in traffic; feeding the birds in winter; calling a friend or family member who you know is having a hard time; complimenting others; or all the ways you may be spontaneously kind to strangers and generous to the people you know. Sense how all these kinds of actions are expressions of the goodness and inherent value of your nature.
well, i thought, its true that i have done all those nice things in the last 24 hours. opening doors, letting cars merge, supporting a suffering friend. perhaps this means i am not a weed. perhaps i am not the worst person i know. perhaps i am neutral or even good. perhaps i am a daffodil.
the final step was to repeat the words:
I am enough.
and at the moment of insight when i realised this was true, the duck stepped out from the darkness and
badoonk.
how to think about this?
you might say it was just a coincidence, but experience has taught me to be superstitious about certain things.
one omen for me is broken glass in the morning. whenever i have awoken to a cracked phone screen or a smashed car window, it always means something bad has happened. one time it was my grandma's death; another time it was my 30th birthday; and the most recent time was my lost love contacting me after a decade of communication to remind me of my inherently negative value.
i also believe that by vocalising any gratefulness or happiness, your fortune will be quickly rebuffed or rescinded, for god is listening and he has tall poppy syndrome.
another superstition for me is ducks. for a long time i really wanted to reincarnate as a duck because on first impressions, they live the best life. the ducks i see spend all day hanging out with their friends at various lakes, swimming and sleeping and making cool noises. their children are cute and they sometimes even fly. whenever i am on holiday, i love to spend time sitting with the ducks, reading or talking to them or trying to tame them. but then i found out about the male duck's violent behaviour and i could never appreciate them with the same reverence. i vowed to work as hard as i could to hopefully reincarnate as something better.
when i was telling this story to my colleagues at uni, my teacher expressed disgust. "buddhists are inherently sexist", she said, because men are ranked higher than women in the reincarnation tier. i was too annoyed to argue. a) patriarchy exists in every single aspect of secular life and every other religion. like all jesus based religions, the 'laws' buddhism change with the culture and context, and b) every buddhist knows that the best thing to come back as is nothing at all. life is suffering. life sucks.
well, i am still trying to figure out what my running over of the duck means for me and my future.
crouching by the bush, i sent a silent communication: i am truly sorry my avian friend. i never meant to hurt or kill you. i hope you that your life was a good one and that you have reached the final tier of non-being. i hope you are all done and dusted.