As I approached the bus stop, I saw an older woman in a wheelchair parked next to the bench.
“Was that the 22 bus that just went past?” I asked, partially out of curiosity, but mostly fishing for a conversation.
“Yes…I mean, I don’t know,” said the woman with her nose wrinkled.
“Just make sure you sit as far away from me as possible,” she added.
I walked to the far end of the bench and sat down, “Is this ok?”
“Don’t talk to me, you…” she mumbled some words that sounded like racial slurs.
Then I clearly heard her say, “Damn immigrants making me miserable!”
Luckily, I had been practicing a Hawaiian reconciliation practice, so I started to sing one of the prayers: “I love you, thank you, thank you. I love you, thank you, thank you.”
She responded with “I hate you, hate you, hate you.”
I just kept on singing.
After a minute or so, she yelled at me, “Who are you singing to?”
I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “God,” then kept on singing.
She mumbled and spit on the ground between us.
“I love you, thank you, thank you. I love you, thank you, thank you.”
After a few more minutes, I felt something shift.
She started saying, “You don’t really care about me. You’re not willing to help me.”
This was the moment I was waiting for. I was just about to ask her how I could be of service, when the bus rolled up.
With new witnesses, she went back to her defensive anger. I watched as the bus driver secured her wheelchair without speaking to her.
“Do you have a seatbelt?” he asked after she was locked down.
She shook her head from side to side. He shrugged his shoulders and jumped back in the driver’s seat.
I felt a lot of compassion for this woman at this moment. She clearly needed care, yet she didn’t know how to ask for it.



I had to transfer to a different bus, and when I turned the corner to the bus stop, I saw three large African American men sitting on the bench.
“What’s up, Brother?” one of the men asked.
“Nothing much. How you doing?” I replied.
“Pretty good. Want to sit down?” he smiled.
“Sure,” I wiggled my skinny butt into the tiny space between him and his two friends.
The man who asked me to sit down, handed me a Bluetooth speaker, “Hold this.”
“Yeah, you got the Tupac blasting,” I said.
“Damn, homeboy knows Tupac,” said the man on the far end of the bench giving me a fist bump. “What’s your name?”
“Kozo.”
“Cocoa?” he squinted his eyes.
“No, Kozo. Like Bozo, but with a K,” I said.
All the men started laughing and banging shoulders with me. We traded names and starting talking about the music they were playing.
“Hey, Yoko, whatcha doin out here?” asked the man who asked me to sit down.
“Fool, he just told you his name is Kozo, and you calling him Yoko,” said the older man at the far end of the bench.
“It’s cool,” I said. “I wish I was Yoko Ono. I wouldn’t be riding no bus.”
They laughed.
“But seriously, Kozo, whatcha doing out here?”
“I’m going to ride the bus back to Cupertino, then walk back here bowing every three steps.” I got up and bowed down on the ground with my palms up to demonstrate.
“Oh, he’s a religious man,” said the older gentleman.
“Whatcha you going do that for?” asked the man named Berry.
“Trying to be more humble,” I said.
“Yo, Kozo. You wanna be more humble? Just be born as a black man,” said Berry.
Everyone laughed and rocked on the bench.
“Yeah, you guys don’t have to do this bowing stuff, cuz the cops put you in that position all the time,” I quipped.
“Damn, Yoko be preachin’ the Truth,” said the one man who hadn’t said anything until now.
When the bus came, these three guys gave me a big hug and sat back down on the bench.
“You take care now, Kozo,” said Berry as I got on the bus.
“You too, my Brothers.”
As the bus drove off, I watched them sitting, laughing, and having a good time. They reminded me of a man I met at the Ahimsa Conference last fall at Cal Poly Pomona.


I had gotten to lunch late. All the “speakers’” tables were full, so I sat down at a nearly empty table on the outskirts. A large man in a bright yellow dashiki was smiling at me. His hair was braided with beads on the ends, and I swear he looked like he was glowing.
“I love you, man.” He said as I sat down.
“I love you, too, brother,” I ventured.
Turns out that he had attended a panel I was on earlier in the morning. We talked about the importance of raising compassionate boys for a stint, then I asked him, “What brings you here?”
“I’m just a visitor. My wife is a teacher, so I thought I’d come along and check out the vibe,” he said.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked.
“I’m a bus driver,” he said with a huge grin.
“Cool. Are you like this when you drive your bus?”
“Brother, I might get paid to drive the bus, but my real job is to spread the love,” he said slapping me on the back.
He told me some stories about riders who needed a kind ear or a helping hand. He told me how he tried to make everyone who walked on his bus feel more loved.
“Man, I wanna ride your bus someday,” I said.
“You already are, Brother. You already are,” he said with a large grin.

Over 50 years after the Freedom Riders protests, we still have buses and race relations. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same. But none of that really matters when we are willing to sit down next to someone and share a conversation. The divine is everywhere. We just don’t always recognize him/her.