Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

“I am not saying that. I just don’t understand why speculation and commentary take precedence over the word of the Buddha.”

  “Not precedence,” the monk said. “We focus on the clarification.”

  “The Buddha’s words are not clear?”

  “Not always.”

  Ananda had to agree with that, of course. Viewed from today’s much more informed standpoint, the Sutta Pitaka left a lot to be desired as canon, but it was all there, and better discover it for yourself than have someone else interpret for you, even if that someone was as brilliant as Buddhaghosa.

  Ruth didn’t respond, but asked instead. “Everyone meditates?”

  “Yes, of course. Mostly, yes.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Our Pali scholars are sometimes too busy.”

  “Pali scholars?”

  “Those who study the Pali Canon to clarify.”

  “The Sangha is not versed in Pali?”

  “No, only our scholars. They translate into Sinhala for the rest to read, for those who can read.”

  “Not all Bhikkhus can read?” Ruth sounded alarmed.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  Bhante’s attendant thought about that for a while, then answered, a little embarrassed, “I don’t know.”

  Ruth said nothing and they walked in silence for a while. Ananda could hear Clare point something out to Lars. The long screech of a bird in flight crossed the sky overhead. It was answered from the forest to their right. The sun had now cleared even the tallest trees and the air seemed to heat up by the minute. Ananda then stepped up alongside Ruth and the attendant. “How many arahants in the Sangha?” he asked.

  “The Venerable Bhante Mahathera,” he answered.

  “No one else?” said Ruth, again with alarm.

  “No.”

  Ruth looked over at Ananda, perplexed. Ananda echoed the expression back to her.

  The Ruth asked, “Do they speak English?”

  “Yes,” the attendant answered, “most of us do.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least,” she answered.

  :

  The Sangha had gathered in a large, open semi-circular amphitheater. Looking out at the seated wave of orange, Ananda estimated perhaps a thousand bhikkhus. Twelve hundred, perhaps.

  Two bhikkhus were busy arranging the public address system, testing the microphone with what sounded like Sinhala counting, one, two, three, one, two, three.

  The Venerable Bhante Mahathera sat by Ruth conversing quietly, holding her arm for assurance or comfort. Ruth nodded, then looked out at the congregation and nodded again.

  The two bhikkhus finished adjusting the PA system, then spoke with Bhante’s attendant, who nodded, and went over to Bhante. He whispered something to him. Bhante nodded, and taking his attendants arm, rose to his feet. Then approached the microphone. Quiet fell not only over the congregation, but over the surrounding forest as well, as if nature had decided to hold her breath.

  Bhante addressed them in Sinhala. Ananda had no idea what he told them; perhaps he had mentioned to Ruth what he intended to say. Then Bhante said no more to his monks and stepped back, took his attendant’s arm again, and walked back to his seat. He nodded to Ruth who rose.

  Approaching the microphone, she struck Ananda as an inch or two taller than normal, or was it just that everyone around them seemed short. No, erect and purposeful Ruth had grown, he could almost swear to it. The setting sun reflected on her hair in a glitter which died as she stepped into the shadow cast by forest on the front of the platform where the microphone stood, awaiting.

  Arriving, she adjusted the microphone to her height, bending it upward. Then she tapped on it twice. Then she spoke.

  “I understand that most of you speak English, which is a good thing for I don’t speak Sinhala.”

  She probably meant for this as a jovial opening, but no one smiled or laughed. The orange wave sat rock still, curious, yes, but with a hint of hostility. Who was this girl, and why was she talking to us?

  Ruth, the Buddha Gotama, the Tathagata, was obviously aware of this, and Ananda could see her hesitate, unsure of how to proceed.

  “My name is Ruth Marten,” she said. “I am from Pasadena, California.”

  She paused, everything was still. Then she said:

  “A little over sixteen years ago I was in the Tusita heaven, where I had rested for a little over four hundred of your years.”

  The collective gasp was palpable, but Ananda sensed it as a gasp of affront, not a gasp of surprise or revelation. Then he perceived how Ruth expanded and filled the amphitheater, making all of it a room of co-knowing.

  Bhante smiled where he sat. Melissa looked surprised, as did Clare. Lars was too busy filming to show anything but concentration. And now, as Ruth continued to speak, her voice was supported by her internal depth of meaning. The voice of the speakers filled the evening air while the meaning resonating inside. Ananda scanned the Sangha for signs of recognition.

  Speaking slowly and clearly, she said, “I am Tathagata.”

  A thousand pairs of eyes rested on her, and a thousand pairs of ears waited for the next word. But no next word came, not over the speakers. The meaning, however, was repeated as internal resonance: “I am Tathagata.” And again. “I am Tathagata.”

  Ananda strained to see sings in the little sea of solemn faces. There was a smile, and there was another. Few, though, and far between. Ten, at the most twenty, could hear her.

  “I am Tathagata,” she said again as internal whisper. Existing smiles widened, but no new smiles budded. The vast majority could hear nothing, and here and there the somber faces tinged a perplexed annoyance.

  Someone spoke up, and loudly into the quivering dusk: “No, miss, you are not.”

  “I am,” said Ruth aloud.

  “No,” said another bhikkhu, “you cannot be.”

  “Why?” said Ruth. “Why can I not be?”

  No one answered her.

  “Because I am a woman?” she said.

  Then they all discovered, Ruth, Ananda, as well as the others, that the Los Angeles spectacle had indeed reached these shores, and this monastery, after all. For a bhikkhu near the stage rose and in a loud voice said, “You are the American television Buddha. We have heard all about it and believe none of it.”

  Ruth turned to Ananda, her face a startled question. Ananda shook his head, he had no idea. This was not the time to begin explaining all that had taken place, if that were even possible.

  “Can you not hear me?” she asked silently. The few nodded, but most, by an overwhelming margin, heard nothing, and were now growing restless, angry even. They were being played for fools. Someone else rose, then spoke:

  “What do you want from us? Are you after more clever television magic?” Some of them snickered at this, and most of them turned toward Lars, filming all this, and Clare, next to him.

  It was as if a wind had reached the orange tree of Bhikkhus, a thousand voices whispering like the susurrus of a million leaves. Alive with irritation, it seemed. Ananda looked over at Ruth. This was not going well.

  At this point—with the help of his attendant—Bhante rose. The susurrus died down to a much quieter wind, but wind nonetheless.

  Bhante slowly moved toward Ruth and the microphone. Arrived. For the benefit of his guest, Ananda assumed, Bhante addressed the Sangha in English.

  “Friends,” he began, and the remnant of wind quieted, too. “Friends,” he repeated.

  Ananda knew that the Sangha had not heard Ruth, and had not accepted her as one of them, much less the Buddha. He also knew that there was nothing Bhante could say that would convince them otherwise. They must know for themselves, and they would only know if they could hear. Bhante, he realized, faced an impossible task, and he wondered what he could possibly say next.

  “Friends,” Bhante said for a third time. “Miss Marten is my guest.”

  This he said with such weight that Ananda could feel
shame rise up through the orange sea.

  “She came here with a message. She does not lie.”

  This stirred a fresh little wind among the Sangha. Many bhikkhus begged to disagree.

  “She does not lie,” repeated Bhante.

  The wind rose to renewed rustle of many leaves. The Sangha did not agree.

  “What are you saying?” said Bhante. “Are you saying that I lie to you?”

  “No, sir,” a voice called. “But we know of the television shows. We have heard of the scientific experiments. And of the chair trick. The Tathagata would never stoop to that.”

  Rising agreement cut him off.

  Then another voice, loud and clear: “The Buddha was not a girl.”

  And the wind of the Sangha rose and rose. Only those who had heard her remained quiet, looking about them with a mixture of uncertainty and fear.

  Bhante held up his hand, but to no avail. The susurrus had risen to a thunder. He turned to Ruth and said something to her that Ananda could not hear. Ruth nodded in acceptance, and backed away from the microphone. Ananda could see that she was on the verge of tears.

  :: 104 :: (In the Air)

  Long ago I predicted that the Dhamma would only last a thousand years. I predicted that the true and pure Dhamma would by then have diluted into something less than its own shadow, that the Dhamma-Vinaya that meant practice and certainty gained by personal experience would by then no longer exist.

  I foresaw this because when I walked the earth as the Buddha Gotama, the world had already seen too much acceptance of, and subservience to, rites and dogma. And I knew that this river of rites and dogma was the ignorance that had to be crossed.

  That is what I tried to teach, this crossing.

  And I did succeed, then. So many awoke, but not many enough.

  And today, at this gathering of the modern Sangha—the Sangha that, surprisingly, has access to television and newspapers—so very few heard me, perhaps not more than I could count on my fingers. Is the Dhamma then lost?

  Ananda sits beside me, he pretends to be asleep, but he ponders just like I do. What do I do now?

  “Ananda,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” he answers, without opening his eyes.

  “What are your thoughts?”

  “I fear the Dhamma is all but lost,” he said, mirroring my own thoughts.

  “Yes,” I say. “I fear so too.”

  “What will you do?” he asks. His eyes are still closed. Then he opens them and turns to me.

  “I was going to ask you that.”

  “You still need that platform of credibility, of authority, to speak from,” he says. “But now we have to look elsewhere. The world-wide Sangha will not recognize you, much less endorse you.”

  “I know.”

  When Ananda leans back, closes his eyes again and says nothing more, I add, guised as suggestion, but I’ve already made up my mind. “I’m going back to school.”

  He turns to me again, “To study what?”

  “I need that platform of credibility. I need a doctorate in Philosophy and in Religion.”

  “You’re not going to find those at Cal Tech.”

  “I know.”

  “Where, then?”

  “I’ll complete my particle physics doctorate at Cal Tech, and then transfer to USC.”

  “They would be thrilled to have you, I’m sure.”

  “I know.”

  “I take it then that you plan to marry science, philosophy, and religion.”

  “Would that be a strong enough platform; do you think Ananda? Would that carry the weight of the Tathagata?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I should think so.”

  “I should like to vanish for a while.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To lick my wounds.”

  He smiles, then leans back against the head rest again, closes his eyes. “You’ve earned some peace,” he says. Then says no more.

  What other path could I take? None, that I can see. This world no longer sees. The Sangha no longer sees. I have to reach the world on its terms, in its language, I’ve always known that. The Bristlecone Pine told me as much, and Ananda just put it succinctly: I need to marry science, philosophy, and religion. I have to show them as one truth. I have to prove them as one truth. Then, perhaps, the world will listen.

  :

  Clare Downes decided not to air the Sri Lanka footage, which did not sit well with her producer. Not at all. Money down the bloody drain is what it was. Still, she stuck to her decision and guns. She could do a documentary about the monastery itself, but nothing about Ruth Marten. This was not good enough, and her producer made that very clear.

  “It’s that or nothing,” Clare maintained.

  Her producer finally saw that this was an argument that she could not win, and Clare was simply too valuable an asset to estrange, so she backed down. “Get back to work,” she said.

  Clare Downes remained convinced that Ruth Marten was exactly who she said she was, for she had heard Ruth (Miss Buddha, as she sometimes thought of her) again—again in Sri Lanka—with her own ears, or whatever you’d call that which heard in that room of co-knowing. She could not quite understand why the Buddhist Sangha had not heard her as well, but that was not the issue here. The issue was to protect, and help Ruth Marten any way she could, and the first step along that road was to make sure that the footage of her Sangha address never saw the light of day.

  Lars, bless his big heart, agreed.

  :: 105 :: (Pasadena)

  One year later almost to the day, Ruth Marten received her Cal Tech Doctorate in Particle Physics. Her thesis, which was a thorough elaboration of hers and Julian’s EPROM experiment, exploring all physical ramifications of their findings, was hailed in science circles as something of a wonder.

  And not only that, of course. Ruth Marten, at seventeen, was the youngest Doctor of anything that Cal Tech had ever awarded, and they were rather vocal about it.

  Although there were some attempts to fan the Federico Alvarez incident back to life after her return from Sri Lanka, once she made it clear that she would neither react to allegations or insinuations, nor give any interviews, and once it was equally clear that Alvarez himself would also maintain silence (he was now on a self-imposed sabbatical), the media let go of the incident altogether. What little was said about Ruth Marten concerned the EPROM experiment, which finally seemed to be gaining some belated general traction as a story.

  She had already been accepted by USC to attend three graduate programs: Western Philosophy, Contemporary Religion, and Traditional Theology. Her aim was a combined doctorate in Philosophy and Theology based on the three programs and one thesis. At first the admission committee had balked at her request, but after a word from Abbot White reminding them who she was, and that she already had a doctorate in Particle Physics—this girl is a genius, ladies and gentlemen—they saw the light and admitted her.

  Over the next two years Ruth did little else but study. Not only did she attend all lectures and conferences but she also did additional research both in the extensive USC library and online via her Mortimer. Melissa, at times, was a little concerned, Ruth’s focus was that intense, but Ananda would reassure her that all was fine, the Tathagata was on a mission, and needed these credentials to address the world on the world’s terms. Ruth told her mother as much as well, and Melissa would again relax.

  Both Abbot White and Clare Downes developed and maintained friendships with the Marten household and were often guests in the Pasadena house; often at the same time, so they came to know each other as well.

  Julian Lawson and Kristina Medina were two other frequent guests, and often the house and guests would be drawn into long discussions about the current state of the world, its politics, its spiritual dearth, how to approach and wake it up. It was generally agreed that Ruth had chosen the correct course for a couple of reasons.

  Firstly, the more time she put between herself and the embarr
assing Alvarez debacle (as Ananda called it) the better. Let the world forget it completely.

  Secondly, there was an almost insurmountable agreement not only in academia but on the street as well that no truth could possibly be observed and shared unless you had been properly educated. And properly mostly meant that you could attach “Ph.D.” to your name. Short of that, you were more than likely a charlatan out to cash in on people’s anxieties or inability to lose weight.

  :

  Two years later, in June of 2029, Ruth now nineteen years old, her doctoral thesis entitled “Science, Philosophy, and Religion — Shared Ground, Shared Goal” (see Part Four: Thesis for the full transcript) was accepted by USC, and she was awarded Doctorates in both Philosophy and Theology.

  Her thesis was published in several journals, as well as a book, and was, by most readers and reviewers considered not only a work of art, but as a wake-up call.

  :

  That fall she was offered a professorial position at USC, to teach Contemporary Religions, a position she—after some deliberation, but on the advice of Ananda—accepted. She did however stipulate that she would be allowed to visit and lecture at other colleges, as long as she fulfilled her teaching requirement at USC of two graduate classes per semester. This was agreed.

  :

  By her twentieth birthday Ruth felt—and Ananda agreed—that she had finally established a stable and credible platform. She had won recognition in her fields, she had found her voice, and she could finally and truly embark upon her mission.

  By now, the Alvarez incident was all but forgotten. When her name was mentioned, whether privately or in the media, it was always as that marvel of a girl, three doctorates and now teaching graduate courses at USC.

  Yes, they all agreed, the rudiments were finally in place.

  ::

  Part Three — Teacher

  :: 106 :: (USC)

  USC’s Taper Hall was standing room only, and a densely packed expectancy not only filled every available seat, but also lined the walls, while others sat in the center aisle.