armpit Buddhism

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For some reason, I have been thinking about armpits lately. Tender, uncalloused, protective, vulnerable, stinky, often-closed ... armpits.

I believe that in martial arts, a strike to the armpit can be lethal, a way to collapse the heart. And the aborigines (or whatever the polite term is these days) also see armpits as vulnerable points... or anyway, I think I heard that once.

Armpits allow the arms to protect what is vulnerable -- heart, lungs, stomach, breasts and so forth. But armpits themselves are vulnerably soft and shielded. In their cloistered realm, there is protection ... and there is stink.

Maybe armpits are a bit like Buddhism: A naked vulnerability that can be employed as a means of protection ... and yet the protection itself is a terrible vulnerability.

How nice it is, on a warm, breezy day, to raise the unclothed arms, and feel the air touching the armpits. It feels open and free somehow, like skinny-dipping in the air. Or to engage in a loving, wide-open hug...an unspoken take-me-I'm-yours.

When you've got a pit problem, it is nice -- not to mention considerate -- to take a shower. It's good practice, showering. But no amount of showering can expunge the sometimes fright-filled, sometimes wonderful vulnerability of armpits.

Maybe that's Buddhism -- relaxing at last into what was once a tender vulnerability. It's just the truth, after all.

Or maybe I am working up a sweat about something entirely irrelevant.

It's just that "armpits" have been nagging at my mind, so if I write it down, maybe the nag will ease or go nag someone else. :)
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