Mr. Altig’s Overview of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra

Part I: The Three Poisons

Maya was drowning, and nobody knew it.

Her Instagram feed was a carefully curated highlight reel of someone else’s life—someone confident, popular, unbothered. But at 3 AM, she lay awake scrolling through other people’s posts, that familiar ache in her chest: Why do they have what I don’t? Why isn’t my life like that? The wanting never stopped. New phone. Better grades. His attention. Her body. A different family. A different life. The rooster inside her kept pecking, more, more, more, and she was so tired of being hungry.

Her little brother Marcus had different demons. His poison was fire-bright and righteous. Some kid at school called him a slur. His so-called best friend talked behind his back. His father promised to come to his basketball game and didn’t show—again. Marcus kept a mental list of everyone who’d wronged him, and that list was long. At night, he imagined elaborate revenge scenarios. The snake coiled tighter in his gut with each betrayal, whispering: They deserve to suffer. Make them pay.

And then there was their mother, who’d stopped seeing them altogether.

After the divorce, something in her had gone numb. She moved through their apartment like a ghost, eyes glazed, responding to questions about dinner or permission slips with vacant nods. She wasn’t depressed, exactly—just… absent. Indifferent. The pig in her mind had learned that not caring was safer than feeling. If you don’t look too closely at your kids’ pain, you can’t be blamed for failing to fix it. If you don’t think too hard about your own life, you can’t be disappointed by it.

They were three people eating dinner in silence, each trapped in their own private hell.

Part II: The Woman Upstairs

The woman in apartment 4B was the building’s friendly mystery.

Mrs. Chen—though she insisted everyone call her Grandmother Chen—had moved in six months ago. She was ancient, maybe eighty, maybe a hundred, with a face like a walnut and eyes that seemed to hold some private joke. Her apartment door was always open during the day, and there was always tea brewing.

What made her strange was this: she seemed to know things.

When Maya trudged past her door after a particularly brutal day of comparing herself to everyone online, Grandmother Chen would call out: “Ah, trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom? Come, have tea. I’ll tell you about the time I tried to hold water in my fists.”

When Marcus stormed by, fists clenched, muttering about revenge, she’d say: “So much energy spent on that fire! Do you know what happens to the person who holds hot coals, waiting to throw them at an enemy?” She’d pause dramatically. “The one who gets burned is you.”

She never lectured. She told stories—rambling tales about her village in China, about bodhisattvas and hungry ghosts and wheels that turned forever. She spoke about them the way other people discussed the weather, like these metaphors were simply facts of life.

Most people in the building dismissed her as a sweet, eccentric old lady.

But Maya started stopping by.

Part III: The Practice

It started with the panic attack.

Maya was in Grandmother Chen’s apartment (she’d stopped by for the WiFi password and somehow ended up staying for dumplings) when her chest went tight. She couldn’t breathe. The room tilted. Every inadequacy, every comparison, every wanting rushed through her at once.

“I can’t—I need—” Maya gasped.

“Shh.” Grandmother Chen’s weathered hand was cool on Maya’s forehead. “Look at me. Just look at me.”

Maya met her eyes. They were impossibly calm, like deep water.

“Now breathe with me,” Grandmother Chen said. “And as you breathe, I want you to think of someone who loves without wanting anything back. Someone who gives without keeping score. Can you picture that?”

Maya’s mind scrambled. Her mother didn’t qualify. Her friends were all transaction-based. Her father—

“You can picture me, if that helps,” Grandmother Chen said, smiling. “I’m sitting right here. I have enough tea for both of us. I have nowhere else to be. Your panic doesn’t frighten me. Your sadness doesn’t burden me. Breathe and think: What would it feel like to be the kind of person who loves like that?“

Maya breathed. She pictured Grandmother Chen’s endless patience, her open door, the way she listened like she had all the time in the world. Something in Maya’s chest loosened, just a little.

“Better?” Grandmother Chen asked.

Maya nodded, surprised.

“The grasping mind,” Grandmother Chen said, pouring more tea, “it’s like a fist clenched so tight your hand cramps. You think you’re holding onto something precious, but look—” She opened her own wrinkled hand. “You’re just holding onto air. When you think of someone who gives freely, your fist relaxes. Try it for a few minutes each day. Think of me, think of anyone who embodies generosity. Let their openness become yours.”

“That’s it?” Maya said. “Just… think about you?”

“Not about me,” Grandmother Chen corrected. “Try to become me. Imagine yourself with my contentment, my abundance. When you scroll through those pictures and feel the wanting start, pause. Ask yourself: ‘What would Grandmother Chen feel right now?’ I’d probably think, ‘How nice that young people have joy to share.’ And then I’d move on.”

It sounded too simple. But Maya tried it.

Part IV: The Transmission

Marcus came to Grandmother Chen by a different route: he broke her window.

He’d had another fight with his father on the phone—more broken promises—and punched the hallway wall. But he miscalculated, his fist went through a crack, and shattered the decorative glass panel in Grandmother Chen’s door.

He expected yelling. Police. Eviction.

Instead, Grandmother Chen opened the door, looked at the damage, looked at his bleeding knuckles, and said: “Ah. You’ve been carrying hot coals again. Come in, let me bandage that.”

Marcus stood frozen in the hallway. “I’ll pay for it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you didn’t. The anger meant it. You were just the vehicle.” She gestured him inside. “Sit.”

He sat.

As she cleaned his cuts with surprising gentleness, she said: “Tell me. When you replay these revenge fantasies in your mind, imagining what you’ll say, what you’ll do—do you feel better afterward?”

Marcus wanted to lie. But those eyes wouldn’t let him. “No,” he admitted. “I feel worse.”

“Of course. Because anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” She wrapped gauze around his knuckles. “But here’s what nobody tells you: anger isn’t the real problem. It’s a symptom.”

“Of what?”

“Of seeing yourself as separate. Alone. Under attack. You think, ‘I am Marcus, and they are my enemies, and I must defend myself.’ But what if that separation is the lie? What if their suffering and yours come from the same source?”

Marcus frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. They hurt me.”

“Yes. And why did they hurt you?”

“Because they’re jerks?”

“Because they’re suffering. Hurt people hurt people. Your father who breaks promises? He’s drowning in his own shame. That boy at school? Probably scared and small inside, trying to feel big. When you see this—really see it—something strange happens.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “You can’t hate someone whose pain you truly understand.”

“So I’m supposed to just… what? Forgive everyone?”

“No. You’re supposed to practice seeing through their eyes. Just for a few minutes each day. Pick someone you hate—really hate. And imagine: what pain are they in that makes them act this way? Not to excuse them. Not to say what they did is okay. But to understand that they’re trapped in their own wheel, just like you.”

Grandmother Chen smiled. “Try this: when the anger comes, picture me sitting here. Picture how I’m looking at you right now—with these old eyes that have seen too much suffering to add more to the world. I don’t need you to be different than you are. I don’t need to punish anyone. I just sit here with my tea, and I understand. Can you imagine feeling like that?”

Marcus didn’t think he could. But something about the way she looked at him—without judgment, without needing him to be anything other than a bleeding, angry kid—made him want to try.

Part V: The Mother Wakes

Their mother came to Grandmother Chen because Maya dragged her there.

“You have to meet her, Mom. She’s… I don’t know. Different.”

Her mother went with the blank compliance she’d developed over the past year. Sure. Why not. What did anything matter?

But when Grandmother Chen opened the door and truly looked at her—not the polite glance of strangers, but a gaze that seemed to see straight through to the numb, frightened core—something cracked.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” Grandmother Chen said softly. It wasn’t a question.

Maya’s mother found herself crying for the first time in months. “I don’t know how to come back.”

“Sit,” Grandmother Chen said, and she sat.

Over tea, she found herself talking—really talking—about the divorce, the failure, the overwhelming sense that she’d ruined her children’s lives and there was no point in trying anymore. Better to feel nothing. Safer to stay numb.

“The pig in the mud,” Grandmother Chen said, nodding. “Rolling in ignorance, eyes closed. It’s easier than seeing clearly, isn’t it? Because if you really looked at your children, you’d have to feel their pain. You’d have to face your own.”

“I can’t,” Maya’s mother whispered.

“You think you can’t. But indifference isn’t peace—it’s a different kind of suffering. You’ve just gotten used to it.” Grandmother Chen leaned forward. “Tell me: when you were young, before all this happened, what did you love?”

The question caught her off guard. “I… I painted. I haven’t in years.”

“Because it would make you feel something?”

She nodded.

“Ah,” Grandmother Chen said. “So you’ve been trying to protect yourself by cutting off your own heart. But here’s the truth, daughter: we’re all connected. Your pain, your children’s pain, my pain—it’s not separate. When you numb yourself to your own suffering, you numb yourself to everyone’s joy too. You become a ghost.”

She paused, let that sink in.

“But,” Grandmother Chen continued, “there’s a practice. A way back. Every day, just for a few minutes, I want you to do something that makes you feel. Paint. Listen to sad music. Watch your children and really see them—not as reminders of your failure, but as whole humans who need you. And as you do this, imagine being someone who doesn’t turn away from pain. Someone who can sit with suffering—theirs and yours—without drowning in it.”

“I don’t know anyone like that,” she said.

Grandmother Chen smiled. “Yes, you do. You’re sitting with her right now. I’ve lived through war, famine, loss—more than you want to know. And I’m still here, drinking tea, with an open door. Not because I’m special. Because I learned that running from pain takes more energy than facing it. Can you imagine feeling like that? Solid. Present. Unafraid of your own heart?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Then don’t imagine being you. Imagine being me. When the numbness comes, when you want to check out, pause. Think: ‘What would Grandmother Chen do right now?’ I’d probably take a breath, notice the pain without running from it, and then make some tea. Small steps. That’s all awakening is.”

Part VI: The Transformation

Six months later, the changes were subtle but real.

Maya still sometimes felt the clawing want when she scrolled through Instagram. But now, when it arose, she’d pause. She’d picture Grandmother Chen’s contented smile, her sense of “enough.” She’d ask herself: “What does it feel like to be someone who doesn’t need what they don’t have?” And sometimes—not always, but sometimes—the wanting would loosen its grip. She’d put the phone down. She’d look around her actual room, her actual life, and find something to appreciate.

The rooster was still there. But it was getting quieter.

Marcus had stopped fantasizing about revenge. Not because he’d become some enlightened saint—he was still a teenager, still got angry, still thought his father was an asshole. But now, when the rage came, he’d do this weird thing Grandmother Chen taught him: he’d picture himself looking at the person through her eyes. Patient. Curious. Why are they like this? What pain made them this way? It didn’t make everything okay. But it made the anger burn less hot, fade faster. He’d started going to her apartment to talk things through instead of punching walls.

The snake had loosened its coils.

Their mother had started painting again. Small watercolors at first, at the kitchen table after dinner. Then bigger pieces. Maya came home one day to find her crying over a canvas—but not the numb, dead crying from before. Real tears. Present tears. “Are you okay?” Maya asked, alarmed. Her mother looked up and smiled—actually smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think I am. I’m just… feeling something. It’s good.” She’d started really looking at her kids again, asking them questions, listening to the answers.

The pig had opened its eyes.

Part VII: The Mirror

One afternoon, the three of them—Maya, Marcus, and their mother—were having tea in Grandmother Chen’s apartment (this had become a weekly ritual) when Maya asked the question that had been nagging at her.

“Grandmother Chen, you never told us—why do you do this? Why do you spend all your time helping people? What do you get out of it?”

Grandmother Chen laughed, delighted. “What do I get? Everything! When your suffering decreases, mine does too. When you find peace, I feel it. Don’t you see? We’re not separate.”

“But that’s not literally true,” Marcus said. “I mean, we’re different people.”

“Are you?” Grandmother Chen raised an eyebrow. “You think there’s a solid line where Marcus ends and the world begins? Show me where. Is it your skin? But your skin is constantly exchanging molecules with the air. Is it your thoughts? But you didn’t invent language, you learned it from others. Every idea in your head came from somewhere outside. Is it your feelings? But you feel sad when your sister hurts. You feel angry when your father disappoints you. Your insides are shaped by everyone around you.”

She poured more tea.

“The separation is the illusion,” she said. “Once you see through it—really see through it—compassion isn’t a choice you make. It’s just what naturally happens. Your pain is my pain. How could I not help?”

Maya’s mother spoke up quietly. “Is that enlightenment?”

“Enlightenment isn’t some magic state where you float above the world,” Grandmother Chen said. “It’s just seeing clearly. Seeing that the thing you thought you were—this isolated, separate self—is a story. A useful fiction, but a fiction. When you practice imagining yourself as me, what you’re really doing is trying on the truth: that we’re all connected. That your nature is vast and compassionate. That the jewel was always in the lotus.”

“I don’t understand that last part,” Marcus said.

“The jewel is your true nature—wise, compassionate, already whole. The lotus is the mud of your suffering, your ignorance, your delusion. But here’s the secret: the jewel was always in the lotus. The mud doesn’t hide your true nature; it’s where it grows from. Your greed, your anger, your numbness—they’re not obstacles to awakening. They’re the very material that awakens.”

She leaned back in her chair, smiling at their confused faces.

“What I’ve been teaching you these past months—it’s not that I’m some special, enlightened being and you’re not. I’m showing you your own reflection in a cleaner mirror. When you imagine being me, you’re not becoming someone else. You’re remembering who you actually are, underneath all the poison.”

Part VIII: The Empty Apartment

They found Grandmother Chen’s apartment empty on a Tuesday.

No note. No forwarding address. Just empty rooms, freshly cleaned, and a kettle still on the stove. The landlord said she’d paid through the month and left her key.

Maya, Marcus, and their mother stood in the doorway, stunned.

“Did we imagine her?” Maya whispered.

“We all can’t have imagined her,” Marcus said. But he sounded uncertain.

Their mother picked up the kettle—still warm—and noticed something underneath. A small card, with elegant handwriting:

The door was always open. The tea was always brewing. You thought it was mine, but it was yours. Keep it open. Keep it brewing. Someone else will need it soon.

With love, Your own awakened heart

Maya started to cry. Not sad tears—something else. Recognition, maybe.

“She was never ‘up there’ saving us, was she?” Maya’s mother said slowly. “She was just… showing us how to save ourselves.”

“Not ‘ourselves,’” Marcus said, surprising himself with the certainty. “There’s no separate selves to save. That was the whole point.”

They stood there in the empty apartment for a long time.

Then Maya’s mother said, “I’ll make tea.”

And when they sat in the empty space—Maya, Marcus, their mother—something strange happened. They started talking. Really talking. Marcus told them about his anger and his fear. Maya confessed about her constant comparing. Their mother spoke about her numbness and her slow awakening.

And as they talked, they realized: Grandmother Chen wasn’t gone.

She’d never been separate from them to begin with.

The woman in apartment 4B was just a clear mirror, showing them their own capacity for wisdom and compassion. Now that they could see it, they didn’t need the mirror anymore.

Epilogue: The Open Door

A year later, apartment 4B had a new tenant: Maya’s family. They’d moved in together—their mother, Maya, and Marcus—after the divorce was finalized and they decided they wanted to actually be a family again.

And they kept the door open during the day.

They kept the tea brewing.

When the angry teenager from 5A stormed past, Marcus would call out: “Hey, want to talk about it? I know about carrying hot coals.”

When the divorced woman from the first floor dragged herself past, eyes vacant, Maya’s mother would say: “I have paint supplies. Come make something. Doesn’t matter if it’s good.”

When the girl from 3C stood in the hallway, scrolling through her phone with that look of desperate wanting, Maya would offer tea and say: “You know what I realized? You can’t fill a bucket that has a hole in it. Want to talk about it?”

People thought they were a little odd.

Most people walked past without stopping.

But some people stopped.

And for those people—the ones drowning in their own three poisons, spinning in their own private hells—the open door in apartment 4B was something more than an invitation.

It was a mirror.

It was a reminder.

It was the sound of their own voice calling them home.

---

The Bodhisattva is not someone else who saves you. The Bodhisattva is who you are when you stop pretending to be separate. The lotus blooms in the mud. The jewel was always there. The door was always open. You just had to remember to walk through.