Panhandlers have always annoyed me. I feel so uncomfortable when I’m asked for money on the street…I feel so torn,  put on the spot, so UGHHH. On one hand, I don’t want to be a ‘bad’ Alana and say no. On the other hand, my Inside Voice is screaming… “what did you do to deserve my money?” (give or take a few vulgarities…that voice in my head has a potty mouth).  

One day, I’m on the street carrying a bag full of bags that I was selling as part of the temple’s Sappan Boon fundraiser. Someone asks me for money and before I could reach for my wallet, before my inside voice started screaming, I realized  “oh snap — this is just like me and my bag sales.”

At first, with the bag sales, I only wanted to ask folks close to me. Only those I thought owed me something. See I’m the kind of person that likes a ‘balanced book’ on my debts. I give if I think you are ‘worthy’ or are valuable to me and I try not to ask too much in return.  I rather have someone owe me one than the other way around. Naturally (because I’m a predictable creature if nothing else) a lot of this has to do with control, or the illusion of it anyway. If books are balanced, relationships are tit for tat, or, at least if I’m on top, things are predictable, they are on my terms. I am in control. If I owe someone else, if I need to rely on others, to depend on their help, well then I’m not in control and I’m burdened by a debt (and believe me debts weigh very heavy on my heart… my biggest ones I fear I will never be able to repay). Double no bueno.

When it came time to helping support the Wat though, I wanted to do more (I’m in mega debt to my teachers and the 3X  gems after all). I am such a recluse, have so few friends/family, that if all of them bought bags  I would have sold like 10 bags (and that’s only if some folks bought two). When I really thought about asking strangers and random folks, I realized “I don’t know other people’s karma. I don’t know their reasons for wanting or not wanting to buy a bag. I don’t know what benefits it will have for them. Really, I am just the seller, the conduit to transfer a bag. Its not all about me or my debt ledger.” And, as much as I hated to admit it, that meant I wasn’t really in control.    

The Panhandlers are the same thing. My reservations about both asking and giving are rooted in my wrong view that things will happen on my terms. That as long as I have those terms, stick to them, they make me in control, safe. That those terms are some kind of universal truth, that I am all knowing enough to know what that truth is, what that balance sheet really looks like.  I want to ask the owers and give to the worthy. But again, like with the bag buyers, I don’t know the panhandlers karma, their story, I don’t know my connection with them or their connection with the other folks they ask for money. In truth I look at them, the circumstance, the rupa  and I snap a judgment.  I really don’t even know if they meet my own criteria of ‘worthy or valuable’ (whatever that means or is). If I knew they were some kind of hero, some great compassionate soul, a scholar,or an animal rights advocate, or a Bhuddisty Buddhist, anyone I am biased towards then wouldn’t I actually want to give to them instead of doing it because I feel guilty?

In the end, I swallowed  my discomfort and started asking everyone — literally, everyone –to buy a bag.  I asked co-workers, folks at my local restaurants, made announcements at every class I went to at the gym, asked my hairstylist, the parking attendants at my garage, neighbors, basically anyone who didn’t run away before I could get a sentence out. And while that was still probably not a ton of folks (I live a pretty small life), I did it with freedom from being bogged down by the all about me-ness.

As for the panhandling, my ughhh feeling was eased a lot after this contemplation, but still a bit of a thorn in my side. That wasn’t quite resolved till years later when this topic came-up again. When this contemplation rose to the surface and I used it, fed on it, transformed it into a mega twisting tale of criteria and judgment, deserving and desire, suffering, being an A****** to others, frying squids alive, being a player in my youth, IBS, desperately needing the bathroom and, of course, panhandling. Hopefully, I have left you wondering just how that tale unfolds. I’m afraid you will need to wade through quite a few more blogs before we get there. So read on Dear Readers, read on…