You seek the wisdom of the way, unaware that the way is with you wherever you go.
You may find yourself in a gambling establishment, seeker. It happens. Perhaps it is CasinoRama. Why CasinoRama? Because it was named after Rama, a king of ancient India who was the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu. Unless it wasn’t. And, even if it was, it wouldn’t really matter. Perhaps you find yourself in some other such establishment. There are many, and you are but one human being. Which establishment is of no consequence.
Listen to what is around you. You will hear the pinging of machines. You will hear the clanking of coins as they are dropped on other coins in cups, or, as is more likely, as they are deposited in slot machines. You may even hear the ball rolling around the roulette wheel. If this is all you hear, you have heard nothing.
Listen more closely. Under all of this surface noise is the sound of the “Om,” the one sound that unites all things in the universe. Go ahead, seeker. Listen. I’ll wait. I’ve got until the bus comes at five o’clock. Ah, you hear it.
Good.
Consider the roulette wheel, that which is sometimes referred to as the wheel of fortune. Sometimes, it comes up red. Sometimes it comes up black. Yet, it only rests lightly on these, only for a moment, before, once again, the wheel is in spin. Sometimes the ball lands on the colour you have chosen, sometimes it lands on the green and all are losers. Sometimes you win at 36 to one, other times you cannot catch a break for hours on end. Ultimately, no matter. Win and lose are meaningless concepts. There is always one more spin. The spin is all. Until it is nothing.
Or, consider the Betty Boop slot machine. She entices with unspoken promises of wealth. As you sit down in front of her and begin to place your money in her slot, you can imagine that you are the only person who has ever sat before this machine, who has ever fed money into it, who has ever placed his hopes and dreams on the turn of her inscrutable inner workings. In a sense, you are correct: nobody has ever placed bets in exactly the same way that you have. In a deeper sense, however, you are completely mistaken: thousands have come before you and thousands will come after you. You are but a single gambler in the procession of chance we call life, no better or worse than those of who have come before you or those to follow.
Be humble.
There is much else to be learned from the Betty Boop slots. Perhaps one person in a thousand will win money, and, unless it is a truly honking large amount, he is likely to lose it on his next trip. Once one has overcome the sting of loss, one can ponder the illusion of material possession. How can we say that we own a coin, when it so easily disappears into a slot, never to be seen again?
The Betty Boop slots teach us that all things are impermanent. What today is a coin burning a hole in our pocket turns out tomorrow to be just one of a sack full of coins in the vault of the casino. One can mourn one’s loss. One can celebrate the good fortune of the casino. Or, one can go beyond mourning and celebration and accept that this just is. The Betty Boop slots encourage us to let go of our conceptions of the permanence of reality just as it encourages us to let go of our coins.
The important thing is to be mindful in our loss, to live every moment in front of the Betty Boop slot machine to its fullest. Hold the coin firmly but gently in your hand. Feel its hard edges. Feel your ass on the stool. When you drop the coin into the slot, feel the gravity pull it from your hand into the machine. Attend to the pressure under the button as you press it, and to the figures dancing in front of you. Listen to the soft music of the machinery. When you lose, it will be alright to shout in disappointment because, unlike those around you who are shouting in disappointment, you are mindful in your disappointment.
You seek the wisdom of the way, unaware that the way is with you wherever you go.