Grocery Shopping Monks

"Joey, Bag of Donuts" or "Joey Bags", as we called him, was the first man I saw everyday for a year. He worked in the back of the market with me in the warehouse. His name wasn't Joey at all, it was Richard. He was 5 foot even, fat, New York native, Italian mess who never took his baseball cap off because he was bald.

One morning, after stealing us breakfast, Joey came running into the back room. With a hot croissant hanging out of his mouth, his raspy voice sputtered, "you'll neva believe this honey, two dudes with dresses in the milk isle!"

"Dresses Joey?" I asked following him out to the store.

"You know those meditating people," he threw his hands up.

I watched from a short distance as the two men in question, headed towards Joey and his stained apron. They were draped in red cloth over one shoulder and wore brown sandals. Each of them carried a wooden bowl.

"Can you help us shop, Sir?" The taller, and obviously American, of the two spoke to Joey softly. He explained that he was from our town but went over seas to become a monk. He went on to tell Joey that he could not touch the food they wanted to purchase, or the money to buy it with. They needed Joey to walk the store with them.

Joey, being the curious thing that he was, thought this was hilarious and volunteered to help them with a smile. He started asking questions right away.

His first question was if they had any underwear on. The American monk laughed and said they had shorts on. Joey went on to ask what they did all day? Weren't they bored? No tv? No SEX? He was the most mortified that they couldn't even touch themselves!

As you could've guessed, Joey was NOT a shy man, nor did he leave out details of a hot date to anyone, or even how he handled his morning wood. The monks came back every day for one week and always asked for him.

They were interesting and I looked for them every morning. They were quiet but they stood out. The older man with his beautiful skin color and their wine colored robes. Someone the American knew would leave money at the booth and they would use that to pay. When they bought fruits or vegetables that had seeds in them, they had US pray for them because they would be eating them later and depriving the seeds of thriving.

They had told us that one morning they had forgotten to pray for their oranges and went to the neighbors to ask if they would pray over their fruit and the neighbors weren't very kind to them about it. I wonder why people freak over differences.

At the end of the week, Joey and a few others had helped the monks with their shopping. Joey had asked them all the questions he could think of, even tried to persuade the American to come back to our culture, telling him he was missing great movies and good sex. The young man laughed and left Joey with a book that I wish I had taken from him. And Joey had sent them off with smiles and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos before I could stop him.

"They'll like those Doritos," he had said to me, proud he could give them a treat.

"Joey, they can't HAVE Doritos, it's unnatural!" I told him.

"Whatever! They have to now because then it'd be wasting!" He laughed, cramming stolen Lays into his mouth, peices falling on his belly. The only monk-like thing about Joey was that you could compare his belly to the fat Buddha. He's make an atrociously ugly Buddha with absolutely no moral fiber in his body. But the thought still makes me laugh.

The moral is, with talking about religion and spirituality, that rituals separate belief. If I can remember all the things Michael said today, which was ALOT, then I'll be able to keep perspective on not getting lost in the rules but instead get lost in the feeling.

For those two men, devine devotion to their craft... to their journey, is what they chose. For me, my path is what happens. I will eat Doritos and seeds, if it doesn't kill me. They say you're not supposed to seek out drugs to bring you to different experiences but I like doing that too. I feel like my own rules will be okay with this new thinking because this thinking is about me; about what I want. And as the guru always says, "if no one is dead, bleeding or on fire... it's okay."

(And yes, that is our Blue Buddha from our garden that my mother has had her whole life. The irony.)