I find pleasure in discarding things.
Even though I left Monterrey in 2019, there’s a running joke at Astrolab’s HQ about me impatiently looking for things to throw away. (The phrase in Spanish is: ¿Ya lo puedo tirar?, which translates to Can I throw this away?) The joke is to ask that question repeatedly and anxiously about weird stuff, even about ideas or people:
Are you done with your food? Can I throw your plate away?
Why do we have an extra chair, can I throw it away?
We ran out of coffee. Can I throw the coffee machine away?
According to my Amazon account, I bought The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo on June 9, 2015, but the book itself was an effect, not a cause: I’ve been like this for decades.
My obsession with frugality has, like every obsession, many origins. When I think about this, my memory comes back with two inputs:
One. I had a tutor named Alex that was a very practical man. His favorite phrase? If you own something, and you think that you may use it, get rid of it. That means that you’re never going to use it”.
Two. The second one is more complex to explain.
See, Alex, like myself, was a member of the same religious organization as me, and we both followed the same rules. We were not monks, but almost, and were asked to surrender all we had. We didn’t take vows of poverty. Instead, we practiced poverty of spirit—owning things but not being owned by them, whatever the fuck that means.
(And yes, every time I write about that moment in my life I think about Severance’s Ricken Hale and his book The You You Are. I promise that before the year ends I’ll write more posts about that experience. I resist because I don’t see the point of being dark and dense in these posts, more than I already am. I prefer Mondoli to be less bitter, even when I can gravitate there every now and then.)
So why am I writing about this, and why now?
Because I found a piece of paper that I’ve been saving for two years and a half, and can’t find the will to throw it away.
Here’s the backstory.
A welcome
I moved to Philadelphia on August 22, 2022. I flew alone, one day before Vivi and the kids got here.
My bag was scheduled to arrive one day later, so I left the airport with a small carry on. I remember that it was very warm.
I requested an Uber and Jean-Claude picked me up. According to my email receipt, the ride lasted twenty minutes.
Here’s the interesting part of this story: as soon as I got in, Jean-Claude started sharing his experience with Nichiren Buddhism, a branch of Buddhism based on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin (1222–1282), a Japanese Buddhist monk.
Jean-Claude told me that all people have the potential to attain enlightenment in their present lifetime.
Then, he asked me:
Do you know Nam Myoho Renge Kyo?
What, I asked
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!
No, what is that?
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is… wait a second.
While driving north via I-76, Jean-Claude took his wallet out and started looking for something:
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is a chant that contains the essence of the Buddha. You say this and you start your path to enlightenment.
From what I’ve gathered, the phrase is usually translated as I devote myself to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra, which means represents a commitment to understanding and embodying the universal principle of cause and effect, which somehow leads to enlightenment.
I can’t remember what else he said, but he did insisted on me practicing the chant several times before he dropped me off:
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Now you try.
Nam Renge…
No, try again: Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Eventually I got it right. By then, we were already outside my apartment.
The guy smiled, handed me a card, and wished me good luck. I got out, and he left. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, I said while walking up the stairs to what we thought was going to be our house and our city for a year.
Yesterday, I found the card he gave me:
I don’t know what anything of this means, but maybe I will someday.
What I know, is that I haven’t thrown this piece of paper away.
I also know that after that, I explored the apartment, and went to get this sandwich from the corner deli:
Thanks for being here!
#day62