by James Dunn
As the days passed and the season changed yet again, my foot resisted a total healing. It pained me to walk any distance, and I still became tired after a short time of any type of exercise. I knew that I needed to be going, but worried that I was too weak to survive any sort of a trek.
I tried without success to interrogate Truong about the location of the monastery. He claimed he didn't even know which province it was in. Although I liked him and enjoyed talking and kidding with him, I wasn't sure I could trust him. So I told no one that I was planning on leaving.
One day Truong and I were discussing meditation. This time we were talking about the formal sitting meditation. "What do you think about when you sit for all those hours? Is it like praying?"
Truong didn't answer right away. I thought maybe he hadn't heard me, or was just avoiding an answer. He did this often enough that I had decided to just wait him out. I just stared at him and waited, and waited. I was about to explain to him that ignoring a question in my culture would be considered rude. He smiled and spoke slowly. "Meditation is a way to turn the mind inward, away from the world. We meditate before we decide almost every action. We seek to understand the rightness of our actions. Do you remember the talk of Beloved Abbot's about right-mindedness giving rise to right action?"
I nodded. The memory of the discussion with a bundle of light still bothered me, but I had no intention of telling Truong, or anyone else about that.
"Do you ask hard questions?" I asked.
Truong furrowed his brow. The wrinkles stopped just short of the place on his head where a hairline would be if he had any hair. "Hard questions?"
"You know, like should I eat meat? Should I go back to being a soldier?
Should I shave my head today? Hard, specific questions!"
"Beloved Abbot tells us that when we are not sure of anything that we should ask within. If we get a sense of direction, then we would do well to follow it. When we get no clear answer then we know that it is an indication that we should simply wait. The answer will come."
He studied me for a moment and announced. "Tomorrow I shall bring a razor, and both of us can shave. You are beginning to not look like a Buddhist."
With that he bowed ever so slightly and left.
"Well, I'll meditate on that," I said, loud enough for him to hear through the closed door.
"No sense of humor," I muttered to the empty room. I was definitely getting stir-crazy. The continuous rain, the passage of day after day, the way my foot refused to get better.
"Another day and I'll go insane," I said aloud. I flopped onto the end of the cot and, just for the hell of it straightened my spine like I had seen the monks do.
I drew in a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled. I had seen this routine so often it was nothing to duplicate it. I allowed my eyes to close, and listened and focused on breathing in, hold, breathe out, in, hold, out. I decided if I was going to pretend to be a Buddhist, then I might as well look the part. Besides, there isn't much else to do. I'll gain their trust if I look like I'm getting on with the program.
There doesn't seem to be a lot to this, I thought. As my breathing became slow and regular I thought about my escape. It wasn't about whether I should leave or not, it was more about when. An idea popped into my head. One minute I was following my breath, and the next I got this notion. It told me to prepare, and leave the first day the rain stopped.
I opened my eyes, and glanced around. That idea was so clear, and so sure. I immediately wondered if that might mean the Viet Cong came out of hiding and started patrols again. Funny, I thought. The war gets put on hold when the weather is bad.
I argued with the idea for most of the day, and into the night. But in the morning it was still there. Still clear, and still unambiguous, it spoke with authority. "Leave when the rain stops," it said.
Maybe that was what Truong was talking about, the idea that a clear answer is clear. And I certainly couldn't pretend that it was fuzzy.
I went to the lectures with Beloved Abbot, but my mind was busy planning. I had to make up a list of essentials I would need for my escape. I decided I had to start hoarding food and storing it under the bed. I would need a canteen, and a good pair of boots, or at least good sandals. The locals were very thrifty, and all over Viet Nam you could find sandals made out of heavy canvass uppers and cut up tires for soles. I asked Truong if he could get me a pair of sandals, and the next day they were lying at the foot of my bed.
Later I told Truong how much I enjoyed the discussions, but that I needed to walk longer distances.
"This is good," he said, "but you must never go out alone. We have signals that tell us when the soldiers are coming, but we still can't take the chance that you would be seen."
"How long have I been here?" I asked.
Truong thought for a moment and said, "Nearly four months. Why?"
"Four months!" My mind recalled the announcements of the Secretary of State, and the promised withdrawal of troops. Good morning Viet Nam broadcasts just before the rescue attempt had indicated that troop strength was down to 12,000. If I had been there four months, then I might be one of the last Americans in the country. I had to get a plan going and get out of here! My foot still pained me but my belly was mostly healed.
Truong must have been reading my mind. He smiled and looked out the window. "I have so much enjoyed our discussions with the Abbot. You ask such good questions.
Chapter 4
I decided to start and end each day with a meditation. Part of me said it was done to impress the monks that I was becoming Buddhist. Another part of me thought it was a good idea all on its own. It seemed to ease the restlessness in me, and also offer me more ideas and options.
At the very next session with the Abbot, he spent the entire time stressing the importance of meditation on a daily and regular basis.
"One must never confuse formal meditation with the continuous process of observing the mind from a detached place." He looked at me and smiled and continued. "It often helps to imagine yourself floating upwards from the body.
This allows a sense of being more than the body, and simply an observer of the actions of the world."
The hair on the back of my head would have been standing at attention if there had been any. The thought occurred to me that this little man could actually read my mind. He winked at me. A feeling of panic engulfed me and he smiled again.
His eyes wandered around the room, pausing on each monk before returning to meet my gaze. "It may even help," he continued, "to see this part of yourself as form of light.”
I decided that I had better start practicing the poker face that I used to use so well back at the camp. He nodded ever so slightly and continued to explain formal meditation. I wondered if he would be willing to teach me to read minds, but he never looked again in my direction.
That evening I sat on the edge of my bed and closed my eyes. I tried to listen to my breathing, but my mind was jumping around from idea to idea. I felt like there was no privacy when an old man might be hearing my thoughts as I thought them. Did that mean he knew that I was planning on leaving?
I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of these troubling thoughts, and suddenly got the strong urge to sit on the floor, cross-legged, like the other monks did.
At first it was awkward, but by sitting on my pillow I elevated my butt enough to be able to get my legs crossed with each foot above the other knee. I smiled to myself and thought that the monks would be proud of me.
I remembered to not "attach" my mind to that thought, or any other and idly noticed the pattern of my breath. Shortly my thoughts slowed to where there seemed to be an interval between each idea. I remembered thinking that this might be exactly what the Abbot was talking about, and then smiled as I remembered his closing words. He had bowed to each of us and repeated to each of us, "Avoid spiritual pride."
I stayed sitting and breathing for a long time. I wasn't sure if this was meditating or not, but took pride in th
e fact that I at least looked the part.
Following the Abbot's instructions I said silently "Inward," each time I drew in a breath. "Hold" was for the resting time, and "Outward" with each time I let the breath go. My mind got real quiet after a while, almost like no thoughts at all.
Suddenly I was back at the ambush, throwing my left arm around that boy in the black pajamas. I thought I heard the sound of the black knife as it entered his ribcage. I tensed as the boy collapsed into my arms.
I seemed to rise up out of my body just as the wispy form of the boy appeared above his corpse. Both of us glanced back on the spectacle of blood and jungle. Then the wispy form of the boy smiled at me and took my hand, pulling me into the air.
"Get the hell away from me!" I screamed. My eyes flew open and I tried to stand, but my legs were asleep. I stepped with my bad foot, and collapsed in a heap on the earthen floor. I muffled another scream, worried that the monks might come to check on me.
I crawled over to the bed and managed to pull myself up enough to collapse onto the cot. Sweat ran down my face, stinging my eyes and soaking my orange robe. My legs hurt from sitting, and my mind was churning.
The intensity of the meditation and the strange vision of that boy tumbled around in my mind. Was there some meaning I was supposed to get? What the hell was happening to me? I needed to straighten out my mind, and I needed to get a grip on reality.
Maybe I was being brain-washed with some drugs they were putting into my meals. I started to get up and pace, but the pain from my foot and ankle made that impossible. I lay back down on the cot, but never slept at all. Just before dawn, I heard the gong for morning sitting, and decided I was through with that crap. With that decision made, I finally fell asleep.
Truong must have checked on me, since we usually walked together to the morning meditation. But if he did, he must have decided to let me be. I slept through the mid-day meal like I was dead.
I woke up to the sound of pouring rain on the tin roof, soaked in my own sweat and stinking so much I disrobed and stood naked in the rain outside my door. I used the last of the coarse soap to try to scrub the memories of the night from me, but returned to my cot feeling confused, angry and frustrated.
Late in the day Truong tapped on the door and entered. "Are you feeling all right," he asked in Vietnamese. "The Abbot has asked about you."
I lay flat on my back with my eyes closed. "Tell him no! Never again! And you stay away from me tool" He nodded and left.
I thought about the idea of sitting in that temple, with the Abbot reading my mind, and a sense of sheer terror filled me. I was convinced that I had been brain-washed, and suspected that maybe hypnosis was being used. The last thing I wanted to do was give them more opportunities to get inside my head. I had to get away from this place, back with my unit, if it was still in
The Viet Cong was the enemy! I am an American soldier. These things were the basics. Maybe the Buddhists had rescued me, and tried to treat me medically, but they could not be trusted.
I undid my robe and examined my belly. It was still purple and red and sore as hell. I guess I'm lucky no vital organs were damaged. I wondered how that tree branch managed to get all the way through me without puncturing my intestines. A noise at the door jerked me back to the moment. I covered myself and opened the door, expecting to see someone standing there.
A bowl of rice soup and some veggies wrapped in a leaf had been placed at my doorstep. I panicked, thinking that they were still trying to slip me some drugs that would make it easier to hypnotize me. I glanced towards the temple, hoping to catch sight of the cook, but there wasn't a sign of anyone. I shut the door with the food outside.
I remembered the old cook. He had whispered that he used to be a commander in the Viet Cong. Maybe he still was.
I sat again on the cot, trying to sort things out. I couldn't very go without food if I hoped to gain my strength. And if I stayed in my room, then they couldn't hypnotize me. Or could they?
It got good and dark before I moved again. My mind seemed unable to focus. Nothing made any sense anymore. I had to get out of here, and I had to get better to make it happen. And I was afraid to ask for anything from anyone. I couldn't even talk to Truong anymore, for fear that he was somehow a part of the plan to... to what? I flung myself back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
It was either my stomach growling, or some other noise that woke me. It was pitch dark, and raining. I opened the door and found the food, which had mostly managed to avoid the downpour.
I slurped the cold soup and ate the vegetables without thinking. I had to maintain my strength. I placed the bowl outside my door and returned to bed, and slept hard.
Morning prayer gong brought me out of my deep sleep. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. No good ideas magically appeared. No bad ones either. In fact my mind seemed too numb to even form a coherent thought. A gentle rapping at the door brought me out of my stupor.
Truong opened the door but didn't enter. "Are you feeling better? I see that you ate. Are you going to morning prayer?"
"No," I said, surprised at the croaky sound of my own voice. "But please come in."
He glanced at the downpour and entered closing the door.
"How big was the branch?" I asked. He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.
"You know, I was up in the tree, with a branch sticking out of me. How big was the branch?"
Truong frowned and his eyes went to my belly. He made a circle using his thumb and index finger, about the size of a Ping-Pong ball.
I wondered if he was teasing me. "That would have killed me," I said. "I'd be dead for sure!"
I asked him again, and again he gave the same response. "Shouldn't I be dead?"
A slow smile spread across his face. "Maybe yes, maybe no. Here you are though. Are you coming to morning sitting?"
I shook my head and closed my eyes. He was gone when I reopened them.
He checked on me the next day and again I asked him in. "Do you ever get the idea that Beloved Abbot can read your mind?"
A big grin appeared. "Of course he can. He teaches us that if we quiet our mind, we can hear the trees, the moon, and the thoughts around us." He opened his mouth to say more, but then decided against it.
"What? What were you going to say, and didn't?"
He rolled his eyes. "You were angry and didn't attend the day he lectured about that. I was going to remind you of what he said, and then remembered that you were not present."
"I'm not sure what I think or believe anymore." I muttered.
Truong just stood there.
"I can buy some of this stuff," I told him. "Like the First Noble Truth; All life is suffering. But I'm not so sure I can go along with Number Two. Can suffering be alleviated?"
He drew in a long breath and just stood there for the longest time with his eyes half closed. It was as if he had to go and check his memory before he spoke. I had heard the Abbot when he spoke of what he called the contemplative life. The theory was that some part of our mind knows. The tendency to speak without accessing this part of the mind is a cause of much suffering, and so before we speak we ask within. It was all supposed to be part of the eight-fold path. "Right thinking leads to right speaking, right speaking leads to..."
I could almost see the little old Abbot as he conducted his lecture, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what followed right thinking. So I guessed that Truong was checking his memory before he answered. He did that a lot.
His habit of waiting to answer was always annoying, but today it seemed downright rude. I was just about to tell him so again when he nodded and spoke.
"In order to give up suffering, we must be first willing to give up our attachments. Beloved teacher spoke many times about this, and I know you were present."
I smiled sarcastically. "So it's not the rain, but my attachment to wanting it to stop?"
"Ah," Truong responded. "That is such an excellent example! Yes. R
ain is just rain. What we think of the rain causes us to suffer. Not the rain, but the thought. Exactly!"
I thought about the people of Viet Nam. Their history was filled with war, with conquering foreigners. They had so little to say about the armies that roared back and forth, destroying and killing as they went, Chinese, French, Japanese, and now us Americans. No wonder they concluded that it was their thoughts that caused them pain. At least there was a small hope of controlling their thoughts.
Truong smiled and spoke. "Beloved Abbot teaches us that it is not even physical sensations that hurt us. It is the pain of resistance to the sensations. We want things to be different, and our anger at them not being different brings suffering."
Immediately my mind raced to the conclusion that maybe he too could read my mind. I glared at him but refused to allow another question to form in my mind.
We sat in silence for a while. I didn't dare say all the things I suspected, and he seemed to want to wait me out.
Finally he said, "Aren't you coming to hear the Abbot anymore?"
I shook my head. He nodded and stood and bowed," Beloved Abbot always tells us that if we take care about the moment, that the future will take care of itself."
"Do you believe him?" I asked
"The Abbot's life is his proof." Truong said softly. "We learn mindfulness is all that is required of us. This means we commit only to noticing our thoughts. We release any angry ones, and dedicate our mind to being the silent observer."
"Do you hate me?" I asked. His face showed surprise. I was thinking of the boy on the last patrol.
"How could I hate you?" he answered.
I thought about the many patrols, the ambushed, and the kills. A small black bug crawled past my good foot as I sat on the edge of the bed. I squashed it without thinking.
Truong’s face started to register surprise, and he then went quickly to a passive mask.
