Last week I was in Boulder, Colorado where people have long discussions with their sushi chef about whether or not the mackerel and squid they serve is fished sustainably. I’m from Akron, Ohio where the most likely conversation with a sushi chef is, “Take this back, it’s not even cooked!” By the time most of you read this I’ll be on my way to Japan where I will try and find out what the fuck is going on with the company I work for and then go lead a four day Zen retreat.

While I was in Boulder at the sushi shop where people worry about sustainable fish there was a dude outside on the street panhandling. There are tons of panhandlers in Boulder, nearly all of them young, White, healthy and looking like the only thing they’ll use your spare change on is recreational drugs. This particular White panhandler, not quite as young as most of them, had obviously used some heavy drugs in his past -- perhaps even his immediate past -- and put some serious wear and tear on his body. He was getting pretty belligerent with his companions and I kept my eye on him to see if he started heading towards the restaurant’s patio where I was sitting. Eventually he moved on somewhere down the street.

Seeing that guy made me realize that my life really isn’t my own. We all imagine that our lives and our bodies are our own possessions to do with as we please. We figure as long as we don’t do something really egregious like knife our next door neighbor or go shoot up the local grade school it’s nobody’s business what we do with ourselves. But I wonder if that’s really true.

When that hobo was doing all his drugging and drinking and whatever else got him into the state he was in, he probably thought, “Fuck the rest of the world! I’m living my life the way I want!” Of course, I can’t put words into his mouth. But I know that I have felt this way for most of my own life. If I wanted to take acid it was my own brain I was fucking with and nobody had any right to tell me not to. If I wanted to stay out all night partying, I was the one who had to deal with the consequences the next day so screw anybody who had any opinion about it. If I wanted to eat junk food instead of being healthy it was my own body and that was none of anyone else’s concern.

But now I’m starting to doubt that attitude.

Of course if people want to look or dress a certain way society has no business telling them not to. Just because someone doesn’t like your tattoos doesn’t mean you need to remove them. And just because someone doesn’t like your Mohawk doesn’t mean you need to get a Jay Leno style blow-dry do. Your choice of a life partner is nobody else’s bee’s wax either -- except, of course, your life partner’s. Making a decision about whether or not to have an abortion or vote Republican is a very personal matter and no one else needs to be consulted.

It's also not your duty to keep everyone you meet satisfied. Most people are so thoroughly fucked they don’t have the vaguest clue what they really need or even what they really want. Yet they insist upon demanding that others satisfy their confused ideas about what they think life owes them. Life owes you nothing, people. But I see this attitude all the time in my role as a Zen teacher. People have a lot of bizarre ideas about what I should do or what I should say and they have no compunctions about demanding I play the role they’ve assigned me. I’m sure you get this too. We all do. Sorry friends. That don’t fly in B-Town.

But having said that -- which is so obvious it’s a shame it needs to even be stated -- your life still isn’t really just yours alone. This is why I don’t do drugs. If I get high I’m asking the rest of the world to take care of me. I can’t drive. I can’t find the little hole in the front of my undershorts. And most importantly if some kind of emergency comes up I’m of no use at all. I’m shirking my duties as a human being for the sake of a shallow thrill. If I don’t keep my body in reasonable shape I’m also impinging on others. I take up more than my fair share of space on an airplane or bus. I get pissed off easy because my body never feels right so I can’t think straight. If I get angry or otherwise over emotional it’s never my own personal affair. I spread that anger to others through my careless actions, since when you’re angry you never, ever, ever act reasonably. Never. If I get depressed I force others to deal with my black moods. If I get distracted I might run over somebody’s kitty cat.

This is why I do Zazen too. I discovered that when I didn’t do it my body and mind were too scrambled up for me to interact with anyone in a sensible way. It was through this practice that I began to see very clearly that I was not my own possession. I am a manifestation of the universe, duty bound to take full responsibility for everything I encounter. And everything I encounter is everything in the universe.

Look. You’re an asshole. Seriously. A complete asshole. You have no idea what you are or what you’re supposed to be doing. Yet you run around all of creation like it’s some cheap-ass toy Santa gave you that you’re now gonna break and then cry until Santa gives you another one. Cuz there are a million of them all lined up on shelves at the store. Hooting and hollering your ugly head off at three in the morning and waking all the people on the street. Turning your moronic music up as loud as it can go to show the world who you really are. Racing your Harley down Sunset Boulevard at full speed. Dreaming of enlightenment you can buy in a box from some windbag Zen Master and leave in your car while you go out and buy something else. Hanging out at tawdry meditation seminars hoping some genius guru will show you The Light, paying him good money for garbage fantasies. You’re fucking useless. Totally fucking useless. The universe is yours and all you want to do with it is write your name in spray paint on the wall. You’re like a dog pissing on a fence. No one who sees the mark you left on the world could give a shit.

But sit quietly and even a piece of gibbon’s dung like you can see it. There’s no one in the universe but you. You spread out all the way past the farthest galaxies and that’s just the beginning. Your thoughts are all stupid. Your perceptions are completely wrong. There’s nowhere you can be but here. There’s nothing you can know that’s worth knowing. You have no future or past and yet you’ll always be here. And because of this you are God’s eyes and ears on this world.

Pay a little attention, butt wipe.

Brad Warner will be in Akron, Ohio November 7,2007 at the Akron Public Library

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica. This is open to anyone who wants to show up.