Dharma Highway Sutra: Driving and Buddhist Practice

Excerpt

"That aside, here I am driving to work or home from work, like I do every day and the reality that I want, the reality that I EXPECT  is the following:

•       no red lights,
•       goodly speeds,
•       graceful lane changes,
•       blinkers, yes blinkers. 

I expect traffic to be light and if it is heavy, still moving efficiently.  

 

But what happens when these expectations are dashed after the first right hand turn? Anger? rage?  We, I mean I become frustrated, my pulse races, my vision narrows.  I am assigning all kinds of character traits to people I don’t know. I transform into an enemy, one of Mara's henchmen. I have also noticed that since the pandemic it has gotten worse. I even noticed during the week as I was preparing this dharma talk, that as it says in the Dharma Highway Sutra,

 

“Even the virtuous follower can find themselves overcome  by blind passions when someone invades their lane of traffic  or crowds their rear bumper at high speeds.