Is My Inner Buddha A Secret Fascist?
By: Nicole Chardenet
Tags: Compassion, Buddhism, Covid 19, Psychology, Government

Buddhism teaches that crises and hard times build our patience and resilience. That we learn to control our negative thoughts and words and cultivate compassion even for those whom we find unlovable.

I’m backsliding.

It also teaches every human being is born good, with an inherent ‘Buddha nature’, the purest and highest manifestation of ourselves. Buddha nature refers to the potential to attain awakening and enlightenment, filled with compassion and wisdom. Your inner Jesus, if you actually did everything He’d do.

While I don’t aspire to become a Buddha, I always aspire to be a better human than I was yesterday.

To put it mildly, it ain’t been workin’ for me lately.

If Buddhists could see what’s going on in my head sometimes they’d stage an intervention and pack me off to Jerkwads Anonymous. In chains.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads like a toxic miasma, infecting new hosts and uncaring what condition it leaves them in (“Shit, this one’s dead, hey Nursie, come on over here a sec!”), I try not to spend too much time on the news and social media.

I’ve even stopped watching late-night TV comedy shows because Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers dig into Our Fearless Loser and his happy band of M̶A̶G̶A̶t̶s̶ T̶r̶u̶m̶p̶a̶n̶z̶e̶e̶s̶ supporters like laser-focused surgeons. Their efforts to excise a political cancer with their razor-sharp commentary further depresses me by including too much Real News. I’m not against facts, I’m a huge fan. I simply don’t need know a lot of them or I’ll toss myself off the balcony.

But still. One needs to catch up every morning so’s not to break laws that weren’t illegal yesterday. I tried to enter a bus through the front door. Hey, now we only board through the back door! And starting today buses are limited to ten passengers at a time. Next week we’ll be riding on the bike racks.

I’ve been fairly Buddhisty about this whole thing, because pandemics happen, viruses gonna propagate. Canada lags behind the rest of the world with COVID cases and deaths. Also, I don’t have much of a life anyway.

Then I watch what’s happening in my birth country and my spirit turns into a Left-Wing Deplorable. A veritable Vengeance Nazi.

Image by Chrissy on Flickr

That Buddhisty shit flies out the window, and Nicole’s Inner Fascist argues with Nicole’s Inner Buddha.

“I want to send COVID-infected blankets to the Red States.”

Oh, niiiiiice Ms. Manifest Destiny!

Fascist Nicole ignores her.

“Wait, I’ve got a better idea! We let Trump hold one more racist rally and we pass out free COVID-infected MAGA hats!”

It’s TERRIBLE to even think that. What about all the others they’d infect, including children? What happened to your compassion project? What happened to trying to understand, if not excuse, Trump supporters? What happened to, like, basic human decency?

“But they’re hurting others! They’re killing people with misinformation and lies! CNN & MSNBC cut Trump off during the daily COVID briefing! What does it say about one’s orange conspiracy-tweeting ass when MSNBC, the journos who mistook horny crickets for a Russian top-secret weapon, cuts you off for being unfactual?”

Don’t Trump and his followers have a Buddha nature too?

“Theoretically.”

There’s any question?

“Trump? His Buddha nature is as shriveled and near-nonexistent as his frenemies Putin & the North Korean fat kid!”

Donald Trump was born evil? He wasn’t, maybe disadvantaged spiritually and morally by being born into a rich family with twisted values and a mega-super-sized sense of entitlement?

“Okay, Baby Donald probably wasn’t a psycho. If he wasn’t already wired for it.”

Baby Trump (not to be confused with a popular balloon). Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Thank you.

“But his enemies continue to support him as people are dying! They claim it’s no worse than the flu when they’re not calling it a liberal hoax. I’ll bet they think the deaths are no big deal just because their intellectual betters are dying in droves in New York — ”

Intellectual betters?

“Hillary Clinton was right. They’re a basket of deplorables. We need to do something about them!”

Like what, Herr Himmler? Buddha Nicole is sounding a bit edgy.

“Well, not kill them or anything. I was kidding.”

Ha ha.

“But, we could build a wall around Texas and put all our deplorables there.”

And then what?

“Give them all the guns they want. Problem solved.”

Fascist Nicole, what the hell is wrong with you??? Did a zombie Dementor suck out your brain or something?

“To hell with them,” an obstinate Fascist Nicole says. “We need our own Australia.”

So, you want to build a huge concentration camp for Trump supporters.

“A Deplorables concentration camp wouldn’t kill them, although that would clean the stupid out of the electorate.”

Fascist Nicole, KNOCK IT OFF!!! I’ve had about enough of your backsliding bullshit! When Buddha Nicole swears, she’s pissed.

This isn’t you. Not anymore. You’re about to undo all your spiritual hard work. I’ll agree Trump’s people are morally compromised. I understand why you’re angry but dehumanizing them reduces you to their level.

“But — ”

No buts! You are NO BETTER than a Trump voter when you say things like that. How can you even think of justifying concentration camps at all after what they’ve done to Mexican families? After what the Nazis did in Germany? That’s not even remotely funny!

“Yes, yes, you have a point.”

Now TAKE IT BACK!

“They’re little better than animals and I don’t need to be an animal too.”

THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEAN! That backhanded self-aggrandizing personal validation demonstrates just little your spirit differs from theirs. And by the way, none of you are animals. Or deplorables.

“But Trump’s withholding much-needed medical equipment for New York and Michigan because their governors won’t kiss his greasy orange ass enough. And dammit, we have family in both places! MOM is in Michigan!”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we’re addressing the source of that putrid hatred. This is where you came from, Fascist Nicole. A trending story on Twitter, a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Infowars.

“The way things are going, Trump will be lucky if he has any supporters still alive in November.”

Have you seen these?

Buddha Nicole pulls out her mobile and Google searches.

COVID-19 threatens to rip apart Southern states in a way that isn’t happening anywhere else.

And also The coronavirus’s unique threat to the South.

Fascist Nicole reads both for several minutes, her face growing graver.

“Well….shit.”

Yep.

“It says COVID-19 is killing far more young people and those in their prime in the South than anywhere else in the country or the world, including Italy.”

That’s right. You’re getting your wish. Congratulations.

“Well wait a minute! I don’t want them to all, just like, die!”

You did a moment ago.

“I was just saying stuff. I’m pissed.”

Fascist Nicole is silent for several long moments. “No. No. This is bad. Dr. Fauci says 100,000–240,000 deaths is the best case scenario if everyone keeps practicing isolation and social distancing. But this says Southerners aren’t doing that. That means — the national death toll could be much, much higher.”

Yes. The voters in states with Republican governors prepared less and were slower to adopt social distancing measures. They may well have voted for their own destruction.

“And prolonged unemployment.”

Yes.

“Which they deserve.”

Fascist Nicole. Listen to me. These people weren’t born any more evil than Baby Donald. You’ll never understand why they are as they are because you don’t know them. You didn’t grow up in their families, their dogmatic churches, their lousy education system. You don’t know the fear and uncertainty many have only ever known. You’re getting a taste of it now and big surprise, you’re not handling it very well.

You’re saying these things out of fear, just like they do. All you see on Twitter is a MAGA hat profile and denial of something too terrible to acknowledge. Deep down that person knows she’s at risk. She’s afraid for herself or her immuno-compromised sister. In times of fear, people blame others. Twentieth-century Germans blamed the Jews and I don’t think I have to explain to you why even joking to yourself about MAGA concentration camps to blow off a little steam is unhealthy. This is how it starts.

Rwanda. ‘ Tutsis are cockroaches.’

Let’s not forget these people, like all others, have choice. There’s repentance. Redemption. The chance to change. Sorry to go all Christian on you considering we haven’t recited the Lord’s Prayer since the Reagan years but the point is you made a conscious choice to become a better person when you were in the throes of angry, hostile depression and they might too. People can choose.

“Okay, yeah.”

It’s about to get very, very real. Their empty Christianity, excised of any real compassion or kindness, may well not get them through this crisis. Whole families could be wiped out. We haven’t seen that since the Spanish Flu epidemic. Individuals can react many different ways, including realizing the deadly consequences of careless voting, substance-free religion and refusing science and medical opinion.

“Okay, yeah. I — I don’t want to see pine boxes stacked up like we did after 9/11 — ”

The Dalai Lama, you can be certain, feels compassion for Trump’s followers. Remember, he’s always been forgiving toward the Chinese government and you know what they did to the Tibetans when they invaded in 1950. You read his autobiography, and you won’t re-read it because it’s so disturbing.

Fascist Nicole gets contemplative for a few moments, brow furrowed.

“I want to feel compassion for Trumpers,” she says, “but I don’t want to excuse their execrable behavior and hatred. I don’t want to be one of those squishy brainless liberal types who’s too tolerant, too understanding.”

Buddha Nicole dips her head in assent. Yes, that’s what Buddhists call ‘idiot compassion’. Tolerating intolerance out of misplaced cultural relativism, an unwillingness to judge inarguable abhorrent behaviors and values, refusing to challenge people to be better or grow because you’re afraid of hurting them.

“That’s it. There needs to be accountability. These COVIDiots aren’t just hurting themselves, they’re putting their families, neighbors, friends and coworkers at risk. The Atlantic article points out the reasons why they’re at higher risk for COVID infection and fatality is policy and poor healthcare. And who voted for that?”

Yes, they did.

“The difference between them and myself is they detest others for stupid, irrational reasons. Hating people for how they were born, whether it’s skin colour or gender or sexual preference. I dislike people on the basis of their values and morality, the things they can change. Even if you’re born into a certain culture, like a racist white one or a misogynist religion, you still have the capacity to question those values and reject them. It boils down to one question: Are you hurting others? If so, that value or belief needs to go.”

They have to know it’s a problem, which they may not. Perhaps no one has ever challenged their Wrong Perceptions before. When you’re taught from birth others are inferior to you, how can you expect them to understand otherwise? These lessons come from parents and caretakers they love. They live in blind ignorance. Maybe they’ve been told otherwise and rejected the message, but maybe the message needs a different frame. Or just repeated enough. With patience.

It starts with exploring and asking questions. Understanding your enemy is the beginning of detente and the end of suffering. For both sides.

Fascist Nicole sighs.

Relieve their suffering, and you relieve your own.

“I wouldn’t want to live in their heads. Especially Trump’s. I remember what deep depression and hopelessness feel like. I believe he hates himself.”

Wouldn’t you end their suffering if you could?

Fascist Nicole nods. She wouldn’t wish that psychic pain on anyone. People lash out, like wounded animals at those trying to help them.

You know you feel much worse when you give your hatred free reign. Fascist Nicole nods again. Let’s remember one very important fact.

Hatred is a choice to make yourself feel worse.

“I do feel like crap when I give in to it. Triggered and angry. Later, guilty.”

Do you need any help feeling like crap?

“No, I’ve got the news and ever-evolving restrictions on our lives to feed my anxiety.”

Yes, and just imagine how afraid Trump voters are. They’ve got more to fear than you. They live in the country they voted for. They don’t understand any better than others how they create their own suffering. They’re not going to get the help they need, and many of them will descend into madness and suicide without any better coping skills than blame and hatred. There’s a very ugly mental health crisis brewing in the United States, worse than what it had before. They’ve got guns. There may be much pointless suffering and deaths without the virus.

“That sounds, uh, kind of ominous, Buddha Nicole.”

The good news is Trump seems finally to be giving a little more ground to scientists like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.

“Fear makes people act crazy and do crazy things. They need help. They might be more amenable to real soul-searching once this is over.”

Yes. Buddha Nicole gives her an expectant look.

“And me too.”

That’s right. You can’t fix the world, Nicole, but you can choose to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

“Hey…you didn’t call me Fascist Nicole.”