by Ulf Wolf
And now they rise, like and army of small yellow and red bears on their hind legs to take larger and large bites of the kindling and of the wood, and now those a-front draw near as well, as do those from the sides and now, now he can feel his hands—have the thongs burned free?
What an odd thought, and one immediately replaced by a fresh rising of searing flesh now, cornered and screaming in protest at all avenues of escape aflame.
He feels himself crumble into this searing ocean of fire, feels his knees either buckle or disintegrate, but the ring, that metal ring still intact, holds him—he was right—chokes him, though not lethally.
Perhaps it is a fact that when the roar of pain reaches a certain volume and pitch, it cannot be increased. Perhaps a body’s capacity to register can be out-pained. Once there is only pain, once every nerve screams in unison, once all there is is this roar, this pain, perhaps it reaches a point where there can be nothing more of it.
Bruno reaches this point.
It is now a pain edged by darkness, or should have been, would have been for any normal mortal, but Bruno is no mortal, and still he can think and still he thinks: screaming, on the one hand, through every cell in his body; amazed, on the other, that he still can, and still does, think.
Amazed, yes, and off now a little to the left of the pyre—the little body turning black and still trashing around like a reeking medallion at the end of the chain—Bruno watches and then—and this is a conscious thought, a knowing decision: enough. Enough. He recognizes and severs the channel of perception and no longer feels the anguish of what manner of life still fights on within the charcoaled puppet by the stake. That charcoaled, suffocating thing is not him, or his, never was. He knows with every thrash that it is no more but an unfortunate congregation of expiring cells, once his home, now but one last communal suffering.
A breeze of compassion rises then fades into yellow and red of still greedy flames as he takes his leave.
:
While the remains of what had once been Giordano Bruno, the Nolan, smoldered and thrashed, his hovering essence remained for some moments. Curious. Studying the greedy fascination of the many faces, each drinking in death with every beat of what seemed to be a collective heart. Drinking in the agony of the dying as if being in death’s presence bestowed life, bolstered their living.
He should have felt disgust, fury even, but he felt only sadness. True compassion now for the so terribly misguided need of these poor people.
For a while longer he remained, high above the square, until the remnants of his charred abode finally came to rest: still now in a sea of fire. Soon he could hear, as the word spread, the rising cheer: the evil is dead, the world once again made safe for us by the Holy Church. And so they began to dissipate, these poor people, ignorant beyond ignorance.
Again, he should have felt disgust, irritation, hatred even, but all the true Bruno could feel was compassion.
Then he sighed and ascended.
:: 7 :: (Tusita Heaven)
The Tusita Heaven, to where the not-long-ago Giordano Bruno was now headed, could do with some explaining.
The time and the place we call now and here on planet Earth is, of course, not the only time nor place there is. A glace up into the night-time sky—with its trillions of glittering thens and theres—should make the point nicely.
And as you glance, find a single star, or what looks like one. What you see is a speck of light: perhaps it is a star, perhaps it is a distant galaxy, or even a group of untold numbers of galaxies, its light many millions of years on its way across the cold and vast, to finally reach you here and now.
But what arrives, what settles in your eyes, is not a now, what you see is a then, just arrived. The current now for that source of light is just setting out on its million-year journey to eventually be seen by your way-in-the-future offspring.
Perhaps, in the current now of that light-source, there is a planet similar to ours where someone, looking in your direction (perhaps through a very powerful telescope) is wondering about the when of our local star, Sol; and whether there might be someone in its planetary system looking back at him or her or it across the cold and vast.
Wondering, guessing, but never knowing, for distance—especially of this magnitude—is a formidable fortress.
And beyond these untold theres and thens—or above, or below, or perhaps in a wholly different direction—lies an elsewhen, six of them, so the story goes. Or four. Or five. It can vary, for these elsewhens do not exist unless and until someone is born into them and by residing there creates them. We here on Earth like to call these elsewhens “heavens” for in them everything is lighter, airy.
Bodies are lighter and often transparent, light is lighter and always kind. Devas are born into these realms as a reward for lives well lived, perhaps here on Earth, perhaps elsewhere. Perhaps elsewhen.
Tusita is that heaven, that elsewhen closest to Earth, where—so the same story tells—the most joyful of Devas dwell, and it is also the heaven where the Bodhisatta Setaketu lived before (some thousands of years ago) he was reborn as Siddhattha Gotama—who, as you may know, refused to rise from beneath the Bodhi tree until he knew, and in that giant act of will succeeded in so knowing and became the Buddha Gotama.
Those who dwell here are three thousand of our feet tall and live for 576 million years, give or take. This may sound like a lot of Deva and a lot of years, but don’t forget that when it comes to size everything is relative—dwellings and all surroundings (trees, grasses, rivers) in the Tusita Heaven are of course to scale, and no Deva thinks of himself (or herself—yes, there are female Devas, of course there are, else how could that pleasure be enjoyed, that pleasure which in Tusita is so far above and beyond what we know here on Earth as sex, as to make the diluted sensation that goes by that name here seem like so much faint promise), thinks of himself or herself as three thousand feet tall. They think of themselves—as we do of ourselves—as just the right size.
All such things are relative. They probably think of us as two thousand nine hundred ninety-four feet too short. As antish.
Perhaps appropriately so.
And as for time, remember that for the spirit anything short of eternity is ephemeral.
When Gotama Buddha, to the happy cheer of the many Devas who welcomed him back, returned after his brief Indian spell on Earth, he assumed the Deva form and self of Natha, to enjoy a brief respite. At least that was the plan.
Natha, however, was concerned and not a little impatient. He often thought back on Earth, on his time with the Sangha, and with his friend Ananda and the other monks, and he would not let go of the love, of the compassion he felt for the place.
“Natha,” they would say, the other Devas, “Natha is troubled.”
“Natha is troubled,” Natha would agree.
“But you have so much reward,” they would point out. “So much yet to savor.”
“Things are not well with Earth,” he would answer.
“Bother yourself not with Earth now,” they would say, there is a time for that soon enough, but that time is not now.”
“That time is drawing near,” he answered, as often as not.
Then, one day, Natha was gone. But they knew, these many dwellers in the Tusita heaven—for they are nothing if not wise, even if a little too fond of sensual pleasures, these dwellers—they knew that Natha had returned to Earth, and had been born a man in a small Italian town called Nola.
“Probably just to take a look around,” said the Devas. “He will be back soon.”
“Probably, yes,” others agreed.
Then the Devas pondered and discussed Natha’s curious impatience for a little while, but soon threw all such thoughts to the wind and returned to what they were here to do: enjoy themselves.
While Natha burned at the stake.
And now, rising, rising.
:
Below him the square grew smaller, though still stabbed by the angry plume of smoke rising from w
hat were once Giordano Bruno and the pyre surrounding; the plume rising, too—along with him—into dissipation and lighter air.
Perhaps he should not have returned—he certainly had no taste for martyrdom; but he had to see for himself. And so he had seen: things were not well with Earth. No, far from it.
Soon the square was no longer discernable, though the plume still was, for another heartbeat of rising, maybe two, then the plume, too, was gone; and then the city, and then the big boot that was Italy, and then the small blue pebble that was Earth, all gone, vanished into black. Sol, too, now fading into a point familiar.
And rising still, or gliding perhaps, or shifting.
The gates that guard Tusita, the golden portals that mark, and serve approach and ingress, are not physical—though often described as such. In truth they are state of mind, and when you reach the proper height, Tusita gradually appears, until its fields and waterfalls and untold number of birds and trees have grown as real—nay, much more real—as anything here on Earth.
And so Giordano Bruno, shifting into Natha now as he dons his tall body of light, enters once again this wondrous place called the Tusita Heaven.
And soon the others, one by one, recognizing his presence, ceased their doings and turned in wonder. Natha was returned.
“Nathadeva,” one of them addressed him. “You are back.”
Bruno now nothing but a brief glimpse at a troubled world, flickered in Natha’s eyes, as he replied, “Yes, I am back.”
“You will stay this time,” suggested the fair voice.
“No,” said Natha. “I will not stay long.”
“How long?”
“A day and a night,” Natha replied. “No longer.”
“Let us take leave properly this time,” said another.
Natha did not answer this. Instead he sat down, folded his new and nimble body into a perfect lotus and reflected upon his first visit some two thousand years earlier, then upon his recent visit, upon what he had seen, then upon what he now had to do, and how he would do it.
Seeing him thus, the other Devas withdrew, not a little awed. For they were, all of them, parched for the water of sensation, and could not fully grasp the strength of Natha who did not seem to care about such things, or about enjoying all those things he had earned by so many good deeds over so many lives.
Leaving him, they returned to their fields, their seas, their skies and there danced the day and the night before they returned to see Nathadeva off, properly this time. But when they arrived at where they had left him, he was nowhere to be found.
They called out his name, and then again, many times. They looked for him some more, but without fruit. Then they collectively shrugged their shoulders, it couldn’t be helped, Natha had return to Earth before they arrived to see him off. Oh, well. We wish him well.
:
During his perfect stillness Natha merged with and donned the familiar garment of the Buddha, and once so draped he envisioned as well as he could the task that lay before him, below him—the crusted earth, the tortured planet rushing, clearly in his view, toward self-destruction.
Toward Tusita dawn, not quite a terrestrial year (but a few heart beats in Tusita) before he was to return as Ruth Marten, Gotama’s thoughts turned to Ananda.
:: 8 :: (Tusita Heaven)
My thoughts turn to Ananda. I remember him fondly.
What set him apart—aside from his dedication both to me and to his own emancipation—was his prodigious memory. He remembered everything I said, every discourse I held; and should he miss one, for any reason—which usually meant that I had sent him on some errand or other, he had made me promise to repeat it privately to him on his return so that he may hear and so remember it for posterity.
He was the Holder and Guardian of my teachings, the Dhamma.
In fact, the Earth has Ananda to thank that the Pali Canon exists today. But for him, my teachings would have been lost or hopelessly altered and perverted by now.
But he was more than that. He was also my closest friend and companion over many, many lifetimes, both in the human and animal realms, as well as in the Deva heavens. We were seldom, if ever, apart; and if we were, it was only for an occasional lifetime. Then we would find each other again, and set out for adventure anew.
Through all this time as Bodhisatta, my destiny was always clear: to enlighten the world as to Truth, as to Dhamma—and so was Ananda’s. He had long ago chosen to do what he could to help me, and so, by his own choosing, he shouldered that destiny as well.
Thus he became Gotama Buddha’s personal attendant for over twenty-five years in those far away Indian days, and he mourned my physical passing—and return to Tusita—more deeply than any other.
Feeling perhaps that his destiny had now been fulfilled, Ananda did not follow me to the Tusita heaven upon his own Parinibbana, but took a different path. The grieving Ananda by my deathbed was the last I saw of him.
And now that I am soon to return to Earth, I wonder where he is, my always friend and companion. For I could use his help again.
:: 9 :: (Ancient India)
Buddhist Legend has it that Ananda also, like Gotama Buddha, descended to Earth from Tusita Heaven. This is not so.
Ananda—as karmic reward for much accumulated merit in service of the Bodhisatta—had, before again joining the Buddha—spent his last two lives in the Nimmanarati Heaven, where he, like so many other devas on this plane, had enjoyed his arts (for at heart he was a musician) and delighted in his creations.
The Legend—being legend, after all—is not clear on precisely how Gotama Buddha got word to Ananda from Tusita that it was now time to return, that the darkness of the world had reached such depth that they could not tarry longer, but word was given and word was received.
The truth is that Ananda was not so pleased to hear from his old friend just then. He was mid-symphony, a two-year long multi-colored and many-harmonied tribute to creation itself, mirroring, to the best of his recollection and abilities, the ascent of the potential of life into life itself.
In fact, he was—if only briefly—tempted to feign deafness, or ignorance, or absence, anything to allow him to work his creation to conclusion. And had he not already promised to perform this symphony once finished? It would not do to break promises, now would it?
This line of reasoning, however, did not sit well with his conscience, for he had already, and priorly, promised Gotama Buddha to return to Earth when the Bodhisatta deemed the time was right; and now he deemed it so, though it could hardly have been more ill-timed, at least not by Ananda’s reckoning.
Still, maintained his conscience, a prior promise is a prior promise, and so Ananda—in synchronized cessation of a million energies in as many vibrations—dissolved his symphony into the nothing it had sprung from and then left Nimmanarati for the Indian subcontinent.
:
Ananda’s father, Amitodana, was the brother of Suddhodana, Gotama’s father (both of the royal warrior caste family of the Sakyans) so they were—in an act of beautiful synchronization—to be first cousins this life.
And not only that: they were born on the same day, Siddhattha Gotama and he; Ananda in Kapilavatthu—where they were to grow up together—and Siddhattha in Lumbini, in a garden beneath a Sal tree, where his mother, Queen Maha Maya, on her way to her father’s kingdom to give birth according to Sakyan tradition, were to rest for the night. For that was the night Siddhattha (and so, too, Ananda) decided to arrive.
Siddhattha’s birth was quite an occasion, sages and seers from all over arrived to pay homage and predict futures. Of all the holy men that foretold Siddhattha’s life, however, only one, Kondanna, got it unequivocally right: this boy, he said, will become a Buddha.
Kondanna’s prediction, however, did not sit well with the Gotama’s father, King Suddhodana, who preferred to believe the predictions of the remaining lot of holy men, all of whom gave Siddhattha a fifty-fifty future of growing up to be either a great king, or a great h
oly man; the King’s preference coming down on the side of “great king.” Queen Maya, however, wished with all of her heart that Siddhattha would indeed become a great holy man, if not a Buddha.
Unfortunately, Queen Maya, did not live to see her wish come true, she died within a week of Siddhattha’s birth; welcomed to Tusita by many a deva singing her praises.
:
He lived a sheltered life, did Gotama Siddhattha, much too sheltered for Ananda’s liking—for he always had to go to the palace to visit him, since he would never leave his luxurious seclusion to see Ananda, and would never accompany Ananda on his expeditions into the fields and forests surrounding Kapilavatthu.
Strange.
And stranger still: his uncle Suddhodana had told him, and in no uncertain terms, that Ananda was not to, under any circumstances, describe or even mention to Siddhattha anything about life in the city or surrounding country, unless—and only if—it was to tell his son how beautiful the city and its land was, and how happy was its people.
Siddhattha was to become king, and his mind and heart were not to be sullied by the mundane, is how Ananda’s father explained this to him when one day Ananda asked. And being a good son, a good cousin, and a good nephew, Ananda complied, and would never—although Siddhattha at times asked—demean the city or the country, but would always, and quite cleverly, either praise their beauty or steer the conversation back to the palace and its grounds and the many places to rest or hide or eat or enjoy the blessings of either the sun or its shadow.
Ananda, and many others, carried out the concealment so well that Siddhattha spent his first twenty-nine years well shielded from the mundane.
He was a true prince.
At twenty-nine, however, Siddhattha had had his fill of secluded luxury and insisted (and not for the first time; in fact, this was the third time) that his father let him leave the palace and visit his subjects.
