The Buddha of the Small Following

I have always wanted acclaim. I have always imagined the applause. What a craving.

Craving is Greed. The Buddha warned us. Greed can poison our lives. I don’t like to think of myself as a greedy person. I look around me and others have more than me. A good friend drives a BMW. It’s lovely, but I’m happy with my Hyundai. Another friend has two vacation homes. I’m happy with our backyard. I’m happy with our timeshare although we don’t use it as often as we’d like. I’m not jealous. But greed is not only about material things. I’m hungry for applause. I crave recognition. Still.

Walking on the boardwalk yesterday, I can’t help noticing how much faster others are walking. Well, they’re younger. Even the guy with white, white hair who strides by, he’s probably in his 60’s. I’m glad to be walking, enjoying the Spring sun and the sight of the surf, Bach in my hearing aids.

I’ve made my splash. I’ve heard some applause. After a reasonably successful career in public mental health – we’d done a lot of things that I’m still proud of – I grabbed an early retirement option at the age of 58 to find out where the Peacemaker path would take me. “Aimless meandering,” Bernie called it. I found myself emulating Bernie’s social entrepreneurship. I met wonderful people, many of whom were living well with major mental illnesses, learned from them, and did some good projects which failed to reach launch velocity before we almost unintentionally opened our first charter school nine years later. We would level the playing field for kids who were living with emotional challenges. By the time I retired in twelve years, we had built a network of four school, were serving 1500 kids and growing. We had more than 300 people on staff and our revenues had eclipsed Greyston’s. Although I never garnered the Sixty-Minutes fame that Bernie achieved in Yonkers, they did throw me a hell of retirement party, and there was plenty of applause.

Not enough apparently to satisfy my craving. It’s still there in retirement. Even on the boardwalk. The public address announcer in my head – he’s been there all my life – intones, “No one in the world can walk like Kenny.”

In the Zen world, applause seems reserved for teachers with a lot of successors. I don’t have any Dharma successors. Or the applause goes to the teachers with big sanghas.  They call themselves “abbots.” I lead a small sitting group. In its current incarnation, our group, the Zen Community of Staten Island, has been meeting every Tuesday for more than 20 years. We’ve rarely had more than a dozen people at our weekly sitting. More often, we settled at half that.

For years, I was jealous. I wanted more, but I put my effort into social action, not into my “Zen” business. Bernie was the Bodhisattva I aspired to be. The Bernie I was emulating was the social entrepreneur who had built The Greyston Foundation. But, of course, Bernie had more than 30 successors. And Roshi Bob, who Bernie had sent me to for koan study had about as many. I reminded myself that my efforts went into social action rather than into sangha building, but I craved the recognition.

Zen didn’t make me greedy. I was always looking around, envious. When I was trying to build my private psychotherapy practice, I imagined a booming practice. I did the things that therapists in my position were advised to do. I wrote articles, got them into reputable journals, and sent reprints to colleagues who I thought might refer patients. I looked for opportunities to speak to potential patients and referrals sources. I joined all the managed care groups. My practice never grew above ten hours a week and was often smaller. I had friends in the psychotherapy business with huge practices. I told myself my energy was going into my full-time job, but I was jealous anyway.

When I retired the first time – to find out where the peacemaker path would take me – I wondered if Zen might be my path to fame. I spent hours instant messaging with Hawaiian Buddhist buddy, Brent Shigeoka. Brent thought we might be able to use the lessons he’d learned in building his mega-dental practice to build a Zen business. That worked out about as well as my efforts to build the psychotherapy practice, but the social enterprise practice took off and we build our Greyston-inspired network of charter schools.

Still, the craving wasn’t satisfied. Writing this weekly blog, I appreciate every one of my readers, but I wish there were more. I have no idea how many readers my blog should have. I just feel “not enough.” Greedy Buddha.

For more than a year, I’ve been struggling to read The Flower Ornament Scripture. It’s a massive tome, too heavy to read in bed. Recently, having moved it from the bedside to the study, I came across these words:

Some there are who, naturally enlightened,

Cause a few beings to abide in the Way;

Some can in a single instant

Awaken countless deluded ones.

The Buddha is talking to me. Can I accept what he is saying? I am the Buddha of the Small Following. All my life I have wanted to be the Buddha of the Countless Followers. Greedy Buddha.

The Buddha of the Small Following: why is this so hard to accept? Where does thirst for applause come from? Has the craving has always been there in the echoing PA announcements. Has that emptiness been there longer? When I worked briefly on koans with Jishu before her passing, she was always telling me, “Go deeper.” Greedy Buddha is pointing me to an emptiness which I wished to fill with fame. I am going to need to sit with this koan a while.

“I am the Buddha of the Small Following.” I am saying it, but Greedy Buddha is not there yet. Breath in, breath out, oh, Buddha of the Small Following.