{"id":2630,"date":"2009-04-17T08:17:55","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T13:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2009-04-17T08:17:55","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T13:17:55","slug":"millionaire-matchmaker-the-monks-and-the-heart-sutra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/millionaire-matchmaker-the-monks-and-the-heart-sutra\/","title":{"rendered":"Millionaire Matchmaker; the monks and the Heart Sutra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, April 17, 2009.<\/em> Last night I watched The Millionaire Matchmaker<\/a> on tv.\u00a0 I’ve seen it a couple of times before.\u00a0 Her website advertises it as “where successful men come to meet their beautiful and intelligent wives or girlfriends.”<\/em> The matchmaker is Patty, who is a brash New York type who is almost 50.\u00a0 The word yenta <\/em><\/a> comes to mind. She herself is attractive enough, she just has a coarse and rude way about her.\u00a0 And I always feel like blotting her lipgloss.\u00a0 She charges $25,000 for a one year membership for the men and the women can join free.\u00a0 What she does for that is has her staff go out on the street and approach attractive women and invite them to come for a group screening to be considered to be matched with a millionaire.\u00a0 She stresses to the women how much money the guys have, and she stresses to the guys how pretty the women are.\u00a0 Gosh, how can anyone pass that up, especially in Los Angeles?<\/p>\n

I’m not criticizing her basic premise, since it keeps the millionaires from having to be on the street picking their own women and approaching them.\u00a0 My issue is with her telling both parties to be something they are not in order to keep the interest of the other.\u00a0 She insists women change their hair style and\/or hair color, and tells them all they must wear a push up bra and form fitting clothes on the date. She gives the men hair and fashion makeovers and tells them they must act “romantic” according to her definition of romantic, which means spending a lot of money on the girls to impress them on the dates.\u00a0 She suggests lavish first dates, gifts, flowers, trips in private planes, the works.<\/p>\n

Then we get to watch the dates on the show. Here is a man who may have lots going for him but he’s been made to look and act like someone he’s not, so the women rarely see who he really is.\u00a0 All she sees is that he’s spending lots of money and attention on her, and he’s got millions.\u00a0 We see women who may have lots going for them, but they’ve been told to look and dress as seductively as possible.\u00a0 That ensures the men get baffled by the boobs and sex appeal and don’t get to know what the women are really all about.\u00a0 She tells the men to not talk about business.\u00a0 My issue is with everyone being instructed to not be themselves.\u00a0 And the few who do “slip up” and just act like their authentic selves on the date, for good or bad, get dissed by Patty onscreen for being jerks or immature or otherwise “not Millionaire’s Club material”.\u00a0 She is proud of her no refund<\/em> clause and seems to invoke it often.<\/p>\n

Ok, it IS Los Angeles and, if you believe the media, that’s what happens out there.\u00a0 But if Patty is really interested in helping these men and women find their true love, which she keeps telling the camera over and over, she’d let them be themselves and know from the gitgo who the other really was.\u00a0 It would save a lot of time.\u00a0 She might have to work harder for her $25,000 fee trying different combinations, but she’d not be leading anyone into illusion via initial deception.\u00a0 And I’m sure she believes in what she’s doing and how she’s doing it.\u00a0 But we don’t always know what we think we know.<\/p>\n

I sometimes think I know something, when in fact I don\u2019t know it at all.\u00a0 And to make it worse, I think I know it, so I don\u2019t take the time to contemplate it, so that I really can know it.\u00a0 I\u2019m reminded of a story which Ram Dass<\/a> accounts in his classic book, \u201cJourney of Awakening,\u201d about a group of monks who one day noticed that a crazy yogi had climbed to the top of their prayer flag pole.<\/p>\n

They surrounded the pole and chanted the Heart Sutra<\/a> (also here<\/a>)\u00a0 and coming to the end, said the words, \u201cBy the power of our words, we beseech that this evildoer may come down<\/em><\/span>,\u201d at which point the yogi slid half way down the flagpole.<\/p>\n

They then ended with \u201cBy the power of our understanding of <\/span>these words, we beseech that this evildoer may come down<\/em><\/span>,\u201d whereupon the man climbed again quickly to the top.<\/p>\n

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