One Whiff Rule

I’d like to make a tv commercial. Some people are standing in line for something. It could be a couple friends in line at a restaurant, or some event, or whatever. Its a line outside the entrance and there are people there queued to get in.

And the camera focuses on one of the friends and then we hear someone shout at them: “Hey! You stupid asshole!”

The face of the person indicates that it registered yet they try to not react to it. But its discernable in their eyes that it did register.

Then another voice shouts at them: “Hey you piece of shit!”

And another voice: “Hey stupid bitch!”

She keeps ignoring it. Then the two friends attend whatever place or event it is. Maybe there’s a scene where they are laughing or smiling and enjoying whatever it is as if everything is normal.

Then a scene shows them afterwards back home and the one who was insulted says to the other “That was fun tonight.”

The other friend says “Yeah the insults were a little too much.”

“Oh well, it wasn’t too bad. At least we had fun.”

End of commercial.

Would anyone consider it normal to have that kind of experience? Would anyone consider it normal to only be insulted a few times when going out somewhere. The answer obviously is no. Obviously no. Ob-frikkin-viously no! Someone would be like “What the hell was I doing there?!?”

But then, when people are out somewhere, it happens all the time that they experience far worse insult to their bodies in the form of secondhand smoke. Each whiff that one inhales of secondhand smoke is just like an insult from the “commercial” above, only worse.

Its far worse. If only it were verbal insults then a person could just go home and forget about it, distance their self from it.

But the insult to the person’s body from the secondhand smoke can last for days.

It is not ok.

I have a new rule for myself therefore: the One Whiff Rule. If I’m anywhere and I experience even one whiff of secondhand smoke I am immediately leaving wherever it is.

In Buddhism is the teaching to cherish the three jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (or law), and the Sangha (or community). It is a person’s responsibility to cherish that which is good. It is wrong to not cherish what is good and should be cherished.

No person on a spiritual path has the right to disregard insults to their own person. That is like insulting the sangha. It is going against the three jewels.

Even if we cannot be with the sangha, we can still cherish it by cherishing our self. It is our duty.