The Buddha in my Cab

It is not the first time that I have heard wisdom from a taxi driver. Yesterday I was riding home from the airport and chatting with the driver about the normal stuff; traffic, the police, bad tippers and all of the other topics that I brought up, which are generally favorite taxi driver conversation. Generally I don’t mind these talks, as I like to complain about the same things. On the way to the airport for instance the taxi driver was complaining that a couple had just been having sex in that same cab where I was sitting and that they only left a $2.00 tip. This was was upsetting for two reasons of course, as I felt the need to make up for their small tip, and find Purell as fast as possible. This new driver however was not a complainer, but rather like the zen master of yellow cabs. He saw no need in complaining, and took a rather Epicurean attitude towards the typical gripes that I list above, by saying that “these things are out of my control, so I therefore give them no power over me.” So, seeing the simple, yet uncommon wisdom in this statement I thought I would dig a little deeper, especially because we were trapped in that damn annoying New York traffic.  His ancient wisdom struck me as I was just coming back from a trip to Ohio where I couldn’t sleep all night due to anxiety and endless, useless complaining about some minor problems with the craftsmanship on my new office. So I asked him about the topic I mentioned in my last several blogs which is free-will. I said basically, “if you have no control over the traffic, do you feel that you control anything?” He told me that he doesn’t honk his horn. That was his response. Why did that have anything to do with Free-will? He explained that often in traffic a cabby will start honking. Eventually the cars will start to move. The fluidity of the traffic of course had nothing to do with his honking, but the cabbie suddenly feels a sense of empowerment, like he moved traffic. So the habit continues. Each time there is traffic he honks, even though he has no power over the movement of that traffic. That, he said, is what freedom is like. No matter what we do, things good and bad will happen. Rather we tell ourselves that we have done them is the only difference. Therefore we do not have free-will.

I was somehow happy for that traffic, and glad that he didn’t honk to move it along faster. I wouldn’t have had the experience of getting to know him. Or was there no other way it could have been?