Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

  “This is the unproduced happiness that does not have to be sold to us, and so brings no profit to anyone. It was never born and it will never die. Perhaps we could call it eternal, but that would place it in the same dimension as time, and this stillness lies beyond. It is deathless. Both beyond and closer to us than anything this cosmos has to offer, be it wealth, pleasure, pain, lust, or any happiness that arises to then fade.

  “The closer we get to this stillness, the more silent the relative silences we traverse to get there, the better we see the walls we have erected to protect us from true stillness. For yes, this is true, and you can see for yourself that this is true, that no one other than you have separated you from the deathless. What distances there are, what barriers have been erected, they are all imposed by the seeker him or herself.

  “The stiller you become, the more apparent this will grow.

  “For true silence is alive, aware, deathless.”

  Here Ruth fell silent for the last time. She did not invite questions. The hall lighting rose, the silence cracked here and there by whispered comments and questions, then broke entire into a wide susurrus of amazement and perhaps a thirst for more.

  Ruth looked out over the audience, then left the stage.

  :: 111 :: (Los Angeles)

  While Ruth had vetoed the suggestion to allow television crews at the UCLA lecture, she had allowed the print media, provided no flash photography was used, and the television reporters could also attend, of course, by the same rule.

  Ruth Marten was news again. But this time the media was strangely split as to whether the news was good or bad.

  The Los Angeles Times—seeing as this Marten Revival was taking place in the paper’s back yard—surprised not a few by coming down on the side of good.

  The following morning’s headline read “Beneficent.” The lead read,

  “USC’s new Uber-lecturer Ruth Marten captivated an overflowing Royce Hall yesterday with a mesmerizing, albeit brief, lecture on silence. As if to personify the subject of her lecture—and this writer must confess she has never experienced anything quite like it—the audience barely drew breath while Miss Marten spoke.”

  The story then went on to tell of the substance of the lecture, while also weaving in some of the back story, including Miss Marten’s Cal Tech Science credentials and (never far away from any reporter’s mind) the Federico Alvarez incident.

  The New York Times, while also placing their story on the front page, took a different tack, warning its readers not to be taken in by Miss Marten’s rhetoric, and not so subtly reminding them that a century ago another world was taken in by Herr Hitler’s mesmerizing rhetoric to devastating result.

  NBC’s reporter sided with the Los Angeles Time, and went so far as to express a “Hope for Man.”

  CBS, on the other hand, sided with The New York Times and actually warned people to be “very wary” of Miss Marten, suggesting that there is something “unholy” (that was the word used) about her grip on the minds of our youth.

  The Washington Post went further than its competition, and all in the direction of bad. It struck many, both readers and pundits, that they must have had the story researched and ready to go well before attending the UCLA lecture, for their assault upon Miss Marten dug up as many corners of the past that there were to dig up, all aimed at exposing this fraud of a girl, and especially reminding its readers about her “Alvarez circus” and how they country had “convulsed” (yes, that was the word) in the wake of that.

  The Post wrapped up its assault by calling on the authorities to act responsibly and in the interest of the mental health of the nation, and to act sooner rather than later, before it indeed was too late to do anything about this threat to the nation’s stability (many readers assumed that the word used in the story’s first draft was ‘security’).

  :

  The following Monday, the American Psychiatric Association issued a lengthy statement that in part seemed to have been a copy of the Washington Post article, but which then went on to proclaiming Miss Marten a threat to the mental stability of the nation.

  The term most often used by this statement (which, incidentally had no specific author, but was only signed, “APA”) was “mentally seductive.”

  Not only was Miss Marten’s message—the implied promise of peace and happiness—seductive, but her delivery method, her mesmerizing attitude, her “grip” on her audiences, they all contributed to an alliance of factors that could “well destroy the harmony of this nation.”

  The paper, since it was very much on current topic, was carried in full by most print media and quoted and commented on by most television news shows.

  The final few paragraphs of the paper were specifically addressed to parents, and offered advice to those who did not know how to protect their children from this threat, or who could not salvage them had they already fallen prey to Miss Marten’s mental seduction. The first step to take: contact your doctor, or, should you not have one, contact us and we will refer you to a specialist. This was followed with several paths of contact, including toll-free phone, email, websites, and a direct Mortimer link.

  :

  On the same day—and many speculated that his had been knowingly coordinated between the American Psychiatric Association and Big Pharma—Eli Lily and Pfizer issued a joint communique to the effect that “Hope without foundation” can be very seductive—if not addictive, and that it was a clear indication of the need for proper care and attention of our youth that so many well-educated young men and women would lap up and swallow this “hope” indiscriminately.

  The communique strongly urged parents, teachers, community leaders, and, yes, the authorities to shoulder their respective responsibilities and see to it that any troubled youth that needed medical attention would be given that attention, now, not later (when it might be too late).

  This warning and plea from Big Pharma got a surprising amount of airplay, even leading the news on some stations, especially in the east. The cynics, and there were many of them and all of them vocal, voiced the opinion that Big Pharma was looking out for their bottom line, which they felt was being threatened by Miss Marten.

  Other commentators, all with serious faces gazing into their respective cameras with grave concern, took up the Big Pharma cause and personally warned their viewers against this all too real threat to our youth.

  One Boston pundit went so far as to wonder what socialist government, or what subversive group was financing Ruth Marten, for surely she could not have dreamed up this out-and-out assault on today’s gullible youth all on her own.

  :

  “I cannot fault you,” said Ananda. “You’ve done nothing foolish this time. This is perhaps just what we should have expected.”

  “Still,” said Ruth. “This is—I don’t know what. This is an outright attack.”

  “I believe the cynics are right,” said Melissa. “You’re getting too close to their sources of profit. Both the medical folks, and the pharmaceuticals feel threatened. Peace and harmony have no place in today’s world. They don’t bring anyone any profit.”

  “What should I do?” said Ruth. “Any suggestions?”

  “Stay the course,” said Ananda. “What else can you do?”

  Melissa agreed.

  “You think I can wear them down?” said Ruth.

  “Oh, I doubt that,” said Ananda. “They’re not going to go away. But they may be irrelevant if your message is the stronger of the two.”

  “It is,” said Ruth.

  “Of course it is,” said Ananda.

  “Over a million views already,” said Melissa looking up from her computer. Then added, “The UCLA lecture.”

  “That is good, isn’t it?” said Ruth.

  Melissa nodded. “Sure is.”

  “Stay the course,” said Ananda.

  :: 112 :: (USC)

  Both Kristina Medina and Julian Lawson were invited to her USC lecture the following Friday. Along with Ananda an
d Melissa they were escorted to their front row reserved seats by a very smiley young woman, seemingly all too aware of who her charges were.

  Agent Roth found his own seat in the middle of the hall, slightly to the left of the stage. From there he had a good view of the proceedings, and he had successfully tested his digital audio recorder, which was now already recording.

  At ten o’clock precisely, Ruth stepped up to the podium and tapped the microphones her usual twice. As if that were the sign—which it might well have been—the lights dimmed and a soft spotlight found and highlighted her. The room fell silent. Ruth gazed out at her audience. Long and thoughtfully. Then she spoke:

  “I have long promised to tell you how to reach the stillness.”

  If the room could have gone more quiet, it would have.

  “Today I will keep that promise.”

  Again, she paused to survey the gathering. Then she said:

  “Samadhi is a Pali word that we generally translate as ‘concentration.’ It is formed by the Pali prefix ‘sam,’ meaning ‘together,’ and the Pali root ‘dha,’ meaning ‘to put, or place, or bring.’

  “Samadhi, then, means bringing together. It means unify. It means collecting the most of the time unruly mind and bringing it into a steady, undistracted awareness.

  “Samadhi means the collecting, the gathering together, the focusing and integration of the mental flow we call the mind.

  “Done right, Samadhi has the qualities of purity, clarity, stability, strength, readiness, flexibility, and gentleness.

  “Samadhi is the harmonizing of the various voices of the mind with the single wish to see.

  “Samadhi is the one step that must be taken, and taken well, to reach the stillness.

  “However, taking this one step, achieving true Samadhi, is far easier said than done.”

  Here she paused again to survey her audience.

  “When you close your eyes and attempt to focus on a single thing, say your breath, you will soon discover that you are not alone. You will in short order perceive that you’re sitting smack in the middle of a noisy and very opinionated city council, say that of Chicago.

  “It is such a din that you can scarcely make yourself heard, let alone make anyone respect your wishes. No one wants to hear about your breathing.

  “Which begs the question: are you the only life in your body? Closing your eyes and trying to focus will make you wonder. And it’s a relevant question.

  “Look,” she said, holding up a finger, “Who—or what—is making your heart beat? Who is working your lungs while you’re asleep? How does the liver know what to do? Or your kidneys? And how do they carry out their complex chemical functions with such faultless precision day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out?

  “And how do the T-cells, or B-cells, or the natural killer cells know what to do? How do they recognize an invading virus, and how do they know that a healthy dose of perforin will kill these invaders? How do they know to produce perforin, and how to do it?

  “When was the last time that you—personally—singled out a virus for attack and shot these small cytoplasmic protein granules in their direction to fend them off? Have you ever knowingly done this? Ever?

  “Have you any idea how much is going on in your body at all times? Have you any idea how much is going on in your mind at all times? You’re basically just along for the ride. And, to be honest, you’re mostly hanging on for dear life.”

  Ruth waited for the trickle of nervous laughter to die down.

  “My point is: you are not alone. That much should be obvious to anyone who stops for just a second and reflects on this. Another pertinent question arises: How sentient is this other life? How aware are these other little, or sometimes not so little lives? The millions and trillions of them.

  “That. my friends, is for us to find out.

  “The more immediate point is that as long as the city council rages on, you will never reach the stillness of Samadhi. You will never reach a silence deep enough to let you see clearly what truly gives.

  “That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can make the city council listen. You can bring them all together. You can calm them down and have them all look in the same direction. You can unify your mind.

  “You can concentrate.

  “Interestingly, the word ‘concentrate’ breaks down into the Latin ‘con,’ which means ‘together’ and the Latin ‘centrum,’ which means sharp point, or middle point of a circle. Concentrate, in other words, is a perfect English replica of Samadhi: to bring together to a focus. To unify.

  “The Pali has another applicable word: ‘Ekaggata,’ which in essence means ‘one-pointedness’ or a mind all pointed in the same direction, or upon the same object. Concentration, in other words.”

  Again, Ruth paused as to ensure that she wasn’t losing anyone. She wasn’t.

  “To reach the requisite stillness the entire mind—all of you, them, it—has to want the same thing, and the good news is that if you will this well enough, deeply enough, strongly enough, tenaciously enough, long enough, often enough, and with enough focus, and, again, long enough: the mind will listen, it will quiet down, and it will fall in with you.

  “It will focus.

  “The good news is that the mind does respond to gentle persistence. To steady and gentle insistence.

  “But you have to take charge, you have to—gently but sternly—impose your will, your intent, your wish to focus, upon the multitudes of thoughts and images that as a rule come and go as they please. No one has ever said that this was easy. In truth, many spend entire lives trying to achieve the perfect stillness, and fail even so.

  “True Samadhi is elusive, but it is achievable. And it is the most important achievable in this, or any, world.

  “So how then? How do we achieve Samadhi? How do we concentrate cleanly enough, and tenaciously enough, to approach and reach the stillness?

  “There are many techniques leading to Samadhi, but for me—and I honestly believe for most of you—the short answer is Anapanasati.

  “Anapanasati is the Pali word for ‘awareness of breathing in and breathing out.’ It is the meditation practice that focuses on the breath.

  “‘Ana’ means breathing in. ‘Pana’ means breathing out. ‘Sati’ means mindfulness or awareness. ‘Anapanasati,’ then, means being aware of breathing in and breathing out. Awareness of breathing.

  “Buddhist lore has it that Anapanasati was the technique that the Buddha practiced before and as he achieved enlightenment. And since I have no reason not to believe that to be the case, it seems, then, that Anapanasati has a pretty good track record.”

  Again, she waited for the now not so nervous wave laughter to fade.

  “As I said, in order to still the mind, to get it to all pull in the same direction, you, and it, need something to focus on. This is known as the meditation object. There are many such objects in many different traditions of meditation, but the breath has qualities as a meditation object that make it uniquely suitable.

  “For one, it is portable.

  “For two, it is the one bodily function that you and the body share control over. The body will breathe on its own if you don’t pay your breath any attention, but you can also assume control, and breathe, or not breathe, at will. In other words, breathing straddles the line between the conscious and the unconscious.

  “Also, the breath is always there. If not, in its absence, well, you’re dead.

  “The breath is subtle enough to require fairly close attention, yet strong enough to hold it firmly once you land on it.

  “Another thing about Anapanasati is that if practiced right, and diligently, it can and will lead you all the way to the ultimate stillness, Nirvana, or Nibbana, which is the Pali word for it.”

  Here she paused again, as if deliberating her next sentence.

  “I could use the next few hours with a detailed lecture on Anapanasati, but I think that would be a waste both o
f your time and mine. As far as the mechanics of awareness of breathing meditation, there are many good books out there, most of them online, and most of these are free. I will suggest a few over the next few days, and email them in your direction. Still, you can probably find them yourself if you Google ‘Anapanasati.’

  “What you must take away from this lecture, however, is that if you want to reach the stillness that speaks, if you truly want to see for yourself what makes this universe of ours, and all life in it, tick, then you must make mediation your first priority in life.

  “You are all mostly young. You have your entire life ahead of you. At your age death does not even exist, and it will certainly not happen to you any time soon, if ever.

  “Death does strike others, some even your age, but those are not even close calls. Anomalies is what they are, those deaths. As for you, you will go on and on and on.

  “The truth, however, is that death can come at any time, to anyone. He’s a most unpredictable fellow, and a very inconsiderate one. And when he picks a target he does not check with you ahead of time if you’re ready. He just invites himself, sits down, and that’s that.

  “As I said earlier, even those who practice a lifetime may not reach the Samadhi of perfect stillness. Point being, it is never too early to begin. Nothing, when all is said and done, is, or ever can be, more important.

  “Nibbana, Nirvana—the deathless—is real. Yes, you’ll have to take my word for it right now, but you can experience the truth of that personally.

  “The deathless is the only thing that is not conditioned, that will never fade away—like your youth, your life, your possessions, all of this world, all of which are impermanent. Nothing is more important than reaching that stillness.

  “Unless you make meditation your first priority, and unless you discipline yourself to stick with it come what may, you will not reach it.

  “That is what we here in the west would refer to as the bottom line.