In the Zen Buddhism tradition, after one has attained enlightenment, they return to the world with helping hands, easing the suffering of others, and helping them follow the way of the Buddha. This is called Entering the Marketplace, and is the culmination of the Ten Oxherding Pictures, a parable on the path to enlightenment.

Let me be clear about this from the start: I’ve skipped over steps four through nine and rushed headlong and willy-nilly into the Market. There will be more on that later.

My first time in a Costo, to do anything more than gawk in stunned amazement at the brazen consumerism, was on December 23rd of 2010. It was pretty exciting. Jenn and the boys and I had just moved into our new home in Canmore, Alberta, and had resolved to investigate the option of buying some of our staples in bulk to save money.

During our time together in Victoria, Jenn always threatened to drag me to Costco, just a few kilometers away in Colwood, to stock up on things we used a lot of: flats of juice and cases of Almond Breeze were the examples she suggested. Now, with the nearest Costco a solid hundred kilometers down the road in Calgary, we decide to finally visit one. We did this on the second-to-last day before Christmas.

I think for some this might sound like a recipe for disaster.

It likely would have been five years ago. And it likely would have been had I not been to India in 2008.

But a lot has happened in the last five years; I’ve done a lot of work: the sort of work that allows me to step into a Costco store teaming with crazed consumerism and see it as an opportunity to make people’s lives a little easier. Where else could I find so many opportunities to greet so many other human souls? And get little blocks of cheese on fancy crackers for free as a reward?

A couple of years ago, Jenn and I spent some time in India, where one of our favorite activities was to visit markets. We found an amazing open air produce and fish market in the City of Emakulam, across the bay from the Fort Kochi, which was simply fabulous. And the Thieves and Crawford Markets in Mumbai were extraordinary.

Markets in India aren’t all that different from, say, a modern urban Farmer’s Market, except they are more intense in nearly every way. They are brighter, noisier, darker, more fragrant, and extremely crowded. At one point in the Thieves Market the pedestrian and motorcycle traffic was so congested that we could barely move. I remember an Indian man putting his hand on my shoulder and gently guiding me through the throng. The temperature was in the high thirties that day in Mumbai. We were the only white people in a male dominated, Muslim sector of the city. That takes some getting used to.

Jenn likes to tell stories of our visits to these markets because of how paradoxical they are: two white people, often the only Westerners in sight, weaving their way through these crowded, chaotic locales. I learned that one of the secrets to survival in such quarters was to be effusive with smiles. Smiling is a powerful means of dissolving cultural barriers. So when I would walk into a dimly lit corridor filled with men at work preparing garlands for Shiva ceremonies, I would beam my brightest smile and greet people by saying Namaste: the spirit in me greets the spirit in you. With very few exceptions, this produced warm smiles, handshakes and invitations to photograph the goings on in return. I found myself perched on concrete platforms, talking with men in broken English (their’s was often perfect; mine, not so much) about their work and their lives.

Costco isn’t Kochi, and North-West Calgary isn’t Crawford Market in the world’s third largest city. But something is the same. So when Jenn and I stepped inside my first Costco I made a decision. To use this opportunity to try and relieve people’s suffering.

For most of my life, and for the last five years or so, I’ve been trying steadfastly to find an end to the suffering that characterizes all human endeavors, and certainly has been a dominant force in my own life.

The Buddha taught that, simply put, life entails suffering. Some mistake this to read life is suffering. That’s not what Gautama Buddha taught. What he said was that in life, there is suffering. He also taught that there is a cause to that suffering, and that among the root causes of suffering is attachment, and our failure to see understand the reality of our universe, which is that we are all connected to one another.

The reality is that we’re all part of the same interwoven fabric, and only our dim perception of the world keeps us from seeing that. We see ourselves as isolated sacks of flesh and blood and bones moving about the world, when really the boundaries between ourselves and everything else around us are more like the difference two colours in a sunset. It’s nearly impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Costco is a good place to look if you want to find people who are suffering. Walmart too. We rush through the aisles, scanning the case-lots for something, anything, that will provide us with the illusion of relief from what causes us pain. Inside we feel an ache: loneliness, an isolation, a separation. We mistake these things we are purchasing for our true source of comfort. We believe that if we just had a flat of juice or a case of almond breeze in the cupboard, then we’d be satisfied. But of course we’re not. Because drink the damned things and then we need more.

I wandered around Costco, following my wife up one aisle and down another, loading up the cart with all the things that we regularly buy – from rice to cereal to loaves of bread – and greeting people with the same phrase: “This is my first time in Costco, how about you?”

People would smile and say hi and a few would laugh and we’d strike up a conversation. We’d talk about Christmas plans and the kids and the Calgary winter and then we’d both move on.

“We are all so much together,” said the philosopher and theologian Albert Schweitzer, “but we are dying of loneliness.” I believe I can see this in people’s faces; in the distracted way they move through the world. Telling people that it was my first time in Costco was my way of chipping away at that loneliness, and dissolving the illusion of separation. Suddenly the shell around us cracks, and we become human again: we connect, and for a moment the barriers we erect to protect our fragile souls from the arrows of the world are withdrawn.

When Jenn and I got home from our Costco orgy of consumerism it felt good to fill up the cupboards with the necessities of life. Two cases of Almond Breeze and a double sized box of Cheerios means less trips to the local Safeway, and more money to pay for the other necessities of life. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, so long as we’re being conscious about what we buy. But let’s not mistake that feeling of temporary comfort from the permanent relief from suffering that the Buddha taught was possible.

My next venture into Costco came a month ago, during the kid’s Spring Break. The three of us went into the city to visit the Zoo, and Jenn and I prepared a lengthy shopping list for us, and programmed my phone to dial 911-Shopping Hell if I needed to. But we didn’t.

The three of us went up and down the aisles again, filling our cart, and I did my very best to smile and say hello and chat with people as we went. I couldn’t use my refrain of “first time…” anymore. But I didn’t need to. I simply sought out every opportunity to greet people – fellow travelers – as I encountered them.

I wasn’t always successful: the second person who cut me off to take a parking spot in the massive blacktop lot didn’t win a smile. But that was an exception.

In Zen, the Oxherding Pictures are a parable on enlightenment. There are hundreds of versions of this fable online and in books, and each is illustrated with simple, eloquent line drawings or watercolors. I take my interpretation from Roshi Philip Kapleau’s book The Three Pillars of Zen (Doubleday, 1980).

One: Seeking the Ox. Even though the Ox has never gone astray, we search for it, forgetting the true source of peace. Instead we mistake worldly gain and fear of failure for our true path.

Two: Finding the Tracks. Through the sutras and teachings of the Buddha we come to learn about the Ox. Though still living in the mist of illusion, we know that there is another way.

Three: First Glimpse of the Ox: We realize that everyday distractions are blinding us from seeing the Ox. We catch our first glimpse of him through a brief parting of the mist of illusion.

And for the record, after twenty years of study and five years of challenge and practice, I think I’ve just started to glimpse reality through the mists. The hard, sometimes deeply painful work, of step four yet eludes me.

Four: Catching the Ox (or, as Cat Stevens put it: Catch Bull at Four). After some effort, we are able to rope the Ox, but it is wild, and is attached to its old habits, so struggles. We must use strength and courage to hold onto what we have caught.

Five: Taming the Ox. The struggle with the Ox is won: we have conquered suffering. We no longer struggle with our true nature, but instead accept it, and smile at the paradox of existence. We overcome delusion, accept and triumph over attachment and harbor no illusion of separation.

Six: Riding the Ox Home. Serene, we are no longer in conflict over “gain” and “loss.” Though temptations still ply us, we retain undisturbed.

Seven: Ox Forgotten, Self Alone. In the Dharma – our purpose in the universe – there can be no separation between ourselves and others, ourselves and the world around, and ourselves and enlightenment. This is in part because there never was any separation; it’s only our thinking, and the illusions that this creates, that make us believe we alone.

Eight: All Forgotten. All attachment is vanquished, including attachment to holiness, and to being the Buddha.

Nine: Returning to the Source. We have never been separated from enlightenment. We are already home; we are already a part of the source. We always have been.

Ten: Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands. Having seen through the illusion and having conquered suffering, our job now is to help others find the tracks of the Ox and embark on their own passage.

But I don’t think we need to wait for steps four through nine to occur in order to cut straight to the desire to enter the marketplace with helping hands.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not always successful. I’m inpatient and hot-headed and have a temper and sometimes I’m not very nice. When I catch myself behaving this way – behaving as if the people I’m curt with aren’t simply an extension of my own fearful, fragile self – I make a point now of apologizing and remembering the greeting of Namaste: two sprits greeting one another; we are the same thing.

Rio and Silas and I proceeded towards the check-out, the long lines stretching back towards the cases of impulse items: chocolate bars and twelve packs of socks. I felt a wave of panic that I’d just loaded hundreds of dollars of food into my shopping cart and that there were people in this world who would never see such a bounty. I looked around me and felt a wave of pity (that most regrettable of emotions)  at all the people there who looked tired and sad and lonesome. And then I looked behind me in the lineup and saw such a face; two faces, a couple who looked worn and weary.

“Hi,” I said, and smiled. “How are you?”

But what I really meant was: You are not alone.

“How was your day today?”

You and I are one.

“I hope that you have a good night. Take care….”

You are loved. I love you. Find peace.