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Author of this essay:

Ven. Ming Zhen Shakya
(November 22, 2009)

The Failure Of Handicapped Parking
By Ming Zhen Shakya

Bernard of Clairvaux, that most Zen of Catholic mystics, understood clearly that all too often, when the altruistic among us rush to help the needy, they are soon overtaken by stampeding opportunists.

It was in the year 1150 that the good saint made his famous observation: "Hell is full of good intentions." The odds are that it still is.

Parking was probably not the problem in 1150 that it is today. If it were we could also bet that the places reserved for the handicapped in the Cistercian lots would be used only by the handicapped. Bernard ran a tight ship. In my town there are more spaces reserved for handicapped drivers than there are handicapped drivers in the western hemisphere; and I have yet to see a disabled individual emerge from the driver's seat of a privileged vehicle.

This is not an exaggeration. The car may have a handicapped logo stamped into its license plate or printed on a windshield permit, but not in nearly twenty years have I seen a wheel chair, cane, crutch, or walker assist the car's driver. This is not to say that handicapped drivers do not use the parking lots. It is just that all those I have seen have had to park with the rest of us in the ordinary spaces.

Especially during the holidays, the reserved section is always full and the weather is likely to be bad, further discomfiting the disabled. The irony is that the mall's security service relentlessly guards the cars' right to park in the reserved spaces; and woe to any car that lacks a permit. But the intention of the privilege was to give the disabled the right to use the reserved spaces. The privilege, however, accrues to the car, not the driver. Policing the system ends in the parking lot. It does not extend to the issuance or the user of the permit.

No doubt most of the permits were not obtained by people who had a special friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles or a cooperative physician. As we will see, it is entirely possible that some were obtained and used by people who had at least a legally defined disability, while others were likely gotten by those who were disabled but permitted another family member to use the privilege regularly.

In the few instances in which a police officer's curiosity is aroused by the sight of an acrobat leaping from a handicapped car's driver seat and he inquires about this miraculous event, he is given one of the standard explanations: "My Mom is actually the disabled driver; but her scoliosis has gotten so bad lately that I just drove her to her doctor. I'm only picking up a few things she needs." Why this should give that good son the right to park in the reserved section may not be clear to anyone but the policeman - who will not only overlook the violation but will give it his blessing along with a medical opinion. "It's probably the change in weather that's affecting her. It's bothering my mom, too." The encounter reminds the driver to call his mother who lives in Arizona.

On the street, if an ordinary driver overstays a parking meter by two minutes, though he may have been the victim of a drive-by shooting and is presently in an ambulance, a citation, a wheel boot, or the costs of towing and storage will be waiting for him if he survives.

Giving the disabled special access to store entrances was a good intention; but it was a desire originally predicated upon the general belief that the disabled were brave souls who wanted to do their own errands and be independent but whose ability to walk was seriously impaired. The logo selected for the program was, after all, a wheel chair. That the program is such a dismal failure is due to a confusing definition of "disabled" and to the lack of an enforceable program that would preserve the integrity of the intention.

How do badly designed programs get their start? Let's say that we want to make parking more convenient for disabled drivers at a heavy traffic location such as a shopping mall. To accomplish this, we mandate the allocation of reserved places close to the entrance. Obviously we intend to limit the use of those spaces to disabled drivers since disabled passengers could be driven directly to the entrance to be dropped off or picked up.

So far, so good. Next we need to establish the criteria for determining disability. Afraid to do our own thinking and take responsibility for the decisions we make, we form a committee. We are immediately disabused of the notion that disabled persons are actually disabled - at least in the way we've always thought of as "disabled." In my state, meeting any one of 7 criteria qualifies a person for a permit. (http://www.dmvnv.com/platesdisabled.htm)

Criterion #1 grants the privilege to any person who cannot walk 200 feet without stopping to rest. Before we can figure out where this person would rest every 200 feet or why he would even want to go shopping in a mall, we move on to Criterion #2 which sensibly qualifies those who "cannot walk without the use of a brace, cane, crutch, wheelchair, or" - and here we must pause - "another person." Would such a handicapped person be able to drive a car in the first place? Would the benefit then accrue to the perfectly capable person who is not disabled? We do not know.

Criterion #3 grants a permit to anyone who "is restricted by a lung disease" a group in which most city dwellers already belong to one degree or another. Criterion #4 qualifies anyone who uses "portable oxygen" for a reason mysteriously not covered by Criterion #3.

Criterion #5 grants the privilege to those citizens who have cardiac problems; while Criterion #6 declares that a person who "is visually handicapped" qualifies for a permit. For obvious reasons, this category adds new urgency to solving the problem of cheaters filling the reserved spaces.

Criterion #7 admits to the group anyone who "is severely limited in his/her ability to walk because of an arthritic, neurological, or orthopedic condition."

The problem is coming into focus. We haven't given enough thought to this project.

We don't have to look hard to find this same corruption of a good intention in our personal lives. Perhaps we realize that we need to improve our physical condition. Without giving that need any constructive thought, we join a gym or health club. After purchasing an expensive membership and togs to wear, we actually go to the gym twice before the need to watch the end of a cutlery infomercial establishes a precedent that permanently derails our exercise routine. We have incurred a foolish expense and deprived ourselves of the benefits of physical training.

Whether we want to improve our physical condition, develop our spiritual life, learn to play the guitar, or provide reserved parking for the handicapped, the smart course of action is to investigate our desire before we try to fulfill it. Problems and solutions have definitions, parameters, conditions, and durations. Within our own personalities we have two troublesome opportunists: diminishing volition and dissatisfaction with the realities of our thoughtless choice.

A little forethought would have prevented the corruption of our worthy aim. We should have wondered if our will to go to the gym could overcome our opportunistic lassitude, not to mention sloth. Improving our physical condition, for example, is not something we can do in a single burst of effort - like go to vote. Often regular or daily exercise is necessary. Before we sign a membership contract, it's a simple matter to test our resolve: we can go jogging every morning to gauge the strength of our motivation. In the unlikely event that we do go jogging every morning for a couple of weeks, fine. Now if we still want to join a gym, we can list possible gyms and consider distance, membership costs, and types of contract obligations. If we want to develop a social life at the health club or gym, we can visit each one and see the type person who frequents the facility at the time we plan to go.

Instead of joining a yoga group we can watch a morning yoga show or buy a DVD. If we enjoy doing yoga and want to join a group, the same kind of investigation is in order. Some yoga groups maintain a religious connection that we may or may not appreciate. The time to find out is before we join. On the other hand if we're looking for a religious group (a sangha) to join we need to ask ourselves whether or not our religious views are consonant with those of the group. Most people join a sangha for spiritual guidance and fellowship. The sangha's opinions about reincarnation, participation in the military, dietary restrictions, and so on, should be investigated. Also, we may not particularly care for the fellows we are about to embrace in fellowship.

Before beginning a medical regimen to cure an onset of insomnia, anxiety, or depression we need to go beyond the hype and consider the negatives. Psychotropic medicines should be drugs of last resort. Although they are huckstered to be non-addictive, the sad truth is that they quickly cause dependence. YouTube, under "anti-depression pill addiction" has many videos of people testifying to this sad deception. Any good vitamin store or website can recommend dozens of time-honored herbal remedies. A heart-to-heart talk with a religious leader also helps us to deal with our problems. We can gain insight into them and acquire a calming philosophical perspective. Wisdom is the reward for overcoming hardship - not for frying our brain to a crisp.

Obviously, the way we think about our problems can exacerbate worry and grief. An immature person tends to see every nearby tragedy in terms of himself. "Why me?" he asks the gods. If everyone else in his community were stricken with a fatal disease, he would still wail, "Why me? Why me?" A mature person knows that tragedy comes to everyone in the material world. It is the "bitterness and pain" the Buddha addressed in his Noble Truths.

There are times that we are supposed to be anxious and thereby to focus our attention upon a problem. Grief, too, has its place in the repertoire of emotions we are required to experience if we wish to grow and understand ourselves and others. Obliterating these natural responses with drugs not only fails to correct the worrisome problem, but it often introduces us to the more insidious problem of drug dependence.

Much of Zen's discipline consists in learning to restrain our impulses, to find the courage to give ourselves sufficient time to make reasoned decisions. Altruistic desires ought not to be stifled, they should definitely be pursued - but pursued after we have considered all the possible consequences - and the best way to proceed to achieve a successful result.

It isn't easy to do our own thinking and to plot a sensible course of action. It is so much simpler to give free rein to our desires and let things happen as they will. One emotional ordeal will follow another in an endless procession of thoughtless errors that trails behind us to a vanishing point in our life's horizon. Without vigilance, we get used to adversity. As Pogo used to say - and in his own way, Saint Bernard, too - "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Humming Bird
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