Thou Shall Not Covet

We were all driving 60 mph, speeding down that stretch of I-94 between St. Paul and Minneapolis. Then we saw it, up ahead on the right: two disabled cars were off on the side of the road, their occupants on cell phones calling in the crash to insurance companies, family members, etc. This is when I noticed one of them, a young woman, pretty, really pretty. My relationship of four plus years had about run its course and seeing this beauty was good medicine for the....

Oh my God! They're stopped! Brake lights! Hit the brakes--I can't stop in time....

BAM.

When my eyes opened up I found that I had been rear-ended so hard that the seat in my huge 1996 Plymouth Grand Voyager had snapped backwards. My van was now stopped in the middle of the freeway. I had avoided hitting the car in front of me (its driver had seen me coming and had swerved to the right) but the old Ford Tempo behind me couldn't stop in time. I looked behind me and saw the car that had hit me was also stalled, smashed up to its front wheels.

I assessed my condition. There was pain, but no paralysis, no bleeding, no signs of injury. I drove to the side of the road and I too got on my cell phone to make the appropriate calls.

Last week I finished a class called Total Dynamic Living. In our last week we had an all-day retreat devoted to mediation, yoga, mindfulness, and walking meditation. During our period of walking meditation I strolled through one of Minneapolis' most beautiful neighborhoods. Picture homes that cost $2-10 million dollars, arranged on a hill near the most sought-after real estate in the Twin Cities. Then consider our assignment. Walk mindfully. Take each step as if your foot were planting beautiful flowers. If you want to look at something, stop and take a look. Then when you are finished begin walking again. Although I did try stopping to look, I found myself reverting back to walking and looking at the same time--until my feet came upon an icy stretch of sidewalk and my body had to suddenly twist and jerk to catch myself from falling.

In mindfulness, we are to notice what we think about and simply make a note of it, without judgment or trying to change anything. So my first note was that I thought the houses were beautiful. But I quickly realized there was something else going on inside me. Seeing the beautiful homes also gave me a negative feeling. I could never own those homes. In my current financial situation and foreseeable future, there is simply no way I could ever afford to live like that. I took a few more steps and it suddenly dawned on me what I was doing: I was coveting that which is my neighbor's.

Now of course in zen-speak we don't say "covet." My zen priestess teacher would probably tell me that in Buddhism I was "attaching." But now that I had noted what was going on inside me, it didn't' really matter what I called it. I was longing for things that were not mine.

I'd never really understood the commandment regarding coveting. Do Not Murder always made sense to me. Even honoring your father and mother seemed logical. But coveting your neighbor's wife or property? Who's it hurting? Where's the supposed crime here?

This year marks five years since my interstate crash. I still have to see a chiropractor at least monthly. I still have to do yoga and get massages on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to avoid the symptoms of Class II whiplash. How many other people have physical injuries related to coveting? How many (possibly more) people have mental and psychological and relationship injuries due to coveting?

Today is Sunday and I'm not in church. I'm not a Bible thumper and I'm not a dogmatist. But stopping to reconsider this forgotten commandment makes me wonder. How many other commandments are actually for our own good? Have we been reading the Bible wrong all along? Maybe some of its messages were not meant to keep us from having fun, but instead had at their core, powerful messages that, if followed, would bring us more fully into life.