“Brave words.” Coal handed me a yak cheese and tomato sandwich. “I hope the right people hear them.”
“Hearing them won’t be enough,” said Clarice.
She was right. Proclamations from Singh would not ignite the hearts of the masses. The Jana Andolan required a flash point, the snapping of a last straw. Something that everyone, from doctors to rickshaw wallahs, could rally around.
We finished our sandwiches and peeled a few tangerines. More than fifty spectators watched us now, from both sides of the street. No one approached. At one point a man yelled out to ask us, very politely, what we were doing. Coal’s nonchalant reply—that we were eating lunch—seemed to satisfy him. He wagged his head and moved on.
Coal asked Clarice, “How long before we get run over?”
“It’s two o’clock now. The bandh ends at four. But we should leave fairly soon.”
“It’s true,” I said. “The industrial-type shops will stay closed, but the food sellers and little shops will reopen. People will sneak outside as soon as they think they can get away with it. I doubt any buses or trucks are going to run, but taxis will.”
Coal frowned. “What about Thamel? Saraswati’s staying at home; we may have to go out for dinner.”
“The restaurants should be open. That whole area is pretty much above the law. No one fucks with the tourist economy.”
“There’s another strike tonight, you know. Same as Tuesday. Lights out,” Coal warned. “Else they’ll break your windows and tattoo your cat.”
“You’re going to hide out at home?”
“We’re watching A Fish Called Wanda. The pale glow of our television, I trust, will be invisible from the streets beyond our compound wall. Join us if you dare.”
Clarice collected our trash into a plastic bag and wrapped the leftovers in aluminum foil. “The sun is lovely,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to do this in summer, though; you’d sink right into the asphalt.”
Coal put a hand on my shoulder. “So how much longer do we have you for, old chum?”
“Three days. Can you believe it?” I shuddered with the sudden awareness that my life was about to be turned inside out. “I can’t imagine being back in Oakland.” My stomach tightened. “Whenever I leave Nepal, I feel like I’m tearing myself up by the roots.”
Clarice leaned over and put her hand on mine. “Why don’t you just stay?” I looked in her eyes. She was serious.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “The fact is, I have two complete, completely separate lives.” A dog joined us. He was mottled with mange, but Clarice stroked his head and fed him a heel of bread. “When I’m in California, getting ready to come to Nepal, I go through the same thing. The thought of leaving my friends, my flat, my daily routine, terrifies me. There’s a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then all of a sudden I’m here, absolutely at home, and the thought of leaving breaks my heart all over again.” I shrugged. “It’s called separation anxiety. I inherited it from my mother.”
“Wail and gnash away, then,” Coal offered. “We won’t think any less of you.”
I peered down Kalimati. Typically the road faded to black, lost in a haze of soot. Today, I could see all the way back to Tripureshwar. It had taken just one traffic-free morning for the seemingly eternal pall of pollution to blow away. Just to my right, on the south side of the street, was the Kalimati Clinic. I felt a shock of recognition: We were picnicking at the spot where, two weeks ago, I’d jumped out of my taxi to interview the produce sellers; the very spot where, in 1979, my friend Paul Janes had stopped his bicycle: This is it.
“What’s that?” Coal turned toward me. I wasn’t aware I’d spoken.
“This is it,” I said, or repeated. “This is my life. The two of you, Grace, the Nepalis and their discontents. All of this, right here. But one week from now, this will be a dream. I’ll be sweating over a pile of tax forms, glued to the phone, stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge. The West will open its maw and swallow me whole.”
“We’ll write each other,” said Clarice.
“No, we won’t. We won’t have time. You’ll be busy; I’ll be busy. The weeks will jump by. And this whole world will disappear from sight, like a postcard that fell behind the desk.”
“You’ll be back,” she insisted.
“Yes. I will. In a month or so, I hope. And hopefully you’ll be here, too. And we’ll pack a picnic, and celebrate at some grassy shrine.”
“And it will be,” sang Coal, “as if you never left.”
We pulled our shoes back on, and stood up. I crammed the cushions back into my daypack while Clarice shook out the ground cloth. Coal carried the trash. As we unlocked our bicycles, I waved good-bye to the remaining spectators. They waved back, smiling.
19
Heaven and Hell
I’D COME TO the Saturday teaching early, as the Rinpoche had advised. There were no other shoes at all. I placed my sneakers in a corner, covered them with my daypack, and entered Chokyi Nyima’s assembly room. I felt sheepish; only three days had passed since the Lhosar celebration and my inexplicable anxiety attack.
Appropriately or not, my display of fragility embarrassed me. Up until Lhosar Chokyi Nyima had viewed me, I imagined, as a self-assured professional, walking the razor’s edge of prerevolution politics, taking my dharma on the fly. But I’d blown my facade, betraying a shaky inner core and revealing myself as a potential candidate for the dreaded diagnosis that Dr. Dan was occasionally forced to stamp onto the medical forms of certain trembling, bug-eyed tourists just before they were airlifted back home: PUTTIA. Psychologically Unfit To Travel In Asia.
Chokyi Nyima was sitting alone at his dais, perusing a sutra and sipping tea. When he saw me he wagged his head backward. I walked up to him, knelt down, and presented a kata scarf. He held it between his hands, intoned a prayer, and slipped it around my shoulders.
“So. Better?”
“Much better. Thank you, Rinpoche. I don’t understand what happened to me the other day. I saw a dead person lying on the kora, just a body. And I lost it. I can’t explain why.”
“Better not try explain. In Tibet, some people believe seeing dead person good luck. Maybe some other religion bad luck. For you, maybe, bad luck.”
“How so?”
Again, he studied my eyes. “Sometimes a lot of things to say, no good to say. Sometimes a lot of things to say, no need to say. Sometimes no need to say, but good to say. This time, no good to say. Understand?” I nodded dubiously.
“Okay,” Chokyi Nyima continued. “What I want to tell you is this.” I backed off my knees and settled into a trampled lotus. “In Buddhism we have what we call the ‘auspicious conditions.’ When these things happen together, it is quite good. Quite . . . rare. Understand?” I made an agreeable noise.
“First auspicious condition: You have human rebirth. So many possible rebirths! Can be reborn as dog; as fly; as bird; even as tiniest, tiniest, what call? Amoeba! Every living thing must be reborn. But a human rebirth? Very, very rare.”
I nodded, familiar with this reasoning. Most East-leaning Westerners take it on faith that any half-decent person will reincarnate, automatically, as a human being. But Buddhist scriptures suggest otherwise. Unless one has practiced the necessary skills and developed an instinctive grasp of the complex dance steps required to transit the Bardo, there are no guarantees.
“Second auspicious condition,” Chokyi Nyima continued. “To be born in a time, and place, where Buddha dharma is available. Many other times, many other places, not available! Not so easy to find! Understand? One hundred years before, even you live in America, maybe impossible to find Buddha dharma. One hundred years from now, maybe also impossible. Born in Africa, China, North Pole, South Pole, also not easy to find. Always busy! Always chasing wawulwu . . . ?” He made an incomprehensible guttural sound and puckered his forehead in confusion. “Wrawrlu . . . ?”
“Walrus,” I offered.
“Yes. So. Third condition: desire t
o study. Desire. You hear about Buddha dharma and you think, ‘Oh, here’s something good. Something useful .’ You feel the need to learn, some interest to study. Okay?”
I smiled in agreement, quietly amused by how organized Buddhism was. Everything was broken into lists and carefully numbered. Such a system would have been very accessible, even to the illiterate people of ancient India.
“Now a fourth condition, very important also. One must find a teacher who can teach. Who is willing to teach. Able to teach. Maybe happy to teach—but that is not necessary! Many good teachers, not so happy to teach! Even Buddha: at first, not want to teach. ‘Oh, too difficult, no one will understand, no way to teach.’ But it is possible to teach. Difficult, but possible. Okay?”
“Yes, Rinpoche.”
“So. These are the auspicious conditions. Even the first one, human rebirth, very rare. If you have all of them, it’s like miracle. Isn’t it? So how can you not study? How can you not practice meditation? Otherwise this lifetime, this opportunity, is finished. Maybe next time reborn as giraffe. Right? Real giraffe! Then not so possible to change. Not so easy to liberate. Right?”
“Right.”
“How many more weeks you stay here?
“I go back to America the day after tomorrow, Rinpoche.”
“Wow! So soon! Then it is very important that you find a good teacher there. Many good teachers there, I think. I will find out. You can write to me, I will recommend. Okay? But please remember the auspicious conditions! Understand?”
“I understand, Rinpoche. Thank you.”
“You take this.” He leaned forward and tied a red and yellow protection cord around my neck, uttering blessings as he did so. An elaborate knot hung on the loop, reminiscent of the lanyard key-holders that Jordan and I once wove, out of rubbery laces, at YMHA summer camp.
I TOOK MY place on the carpeted couch. My mind, oddly, was on Albert Camus. The primary question that any human being must answer, the philosopher had maintained, was whether or not to go on living. If one answered in the affirmative, one automatically assumed a vast responsibility: freedom. And that, it seemed to me, was precisely what Chokyi Nyima was saying. He was offering, through the dharma, an opportunity for liberation. Living, breathing, and human, how dare I refuse it?
People began entering the room, presenting katas and finding their places. Tea was served. Chokyi Nyima answered a phone call, received a bundle of medicinal herbs from a disheveled Khampa pilgrim, and took a stack of letters from Rebecca. A moment later, a man sitting in the middle of the room coughed: an explosive, hacking cough that startled the Rinpoche. The victim looked lamely to the dais.
“Sick,” he explained.
Chokyi Nyima shook his head. “No. Not sick.” He returned to his letters.
There was scattered laughter, an awkward moment of cognitive dissonance. A red-haired woman with electric blue eyes and a round, Irish face waved her hand. “Rinpoche . . . why did you say that just now: ‘Not sick’?”
Chokyi Nyima set down his pen, handed the correspondence to Rebecca, and settled himself.
“If I say ‘sick,’ he think sick, then more sick! Some sick person really sick; some sick person not so sick, but if think sick, make more sick. Some sick person very sick, but if think not sick, not sick. Sometimes even quite big sick, if you think, ‘I’m not sick!’ then sickness is cured. Even little sick, if you think, ‘I’m really sick!’ then make big sick. Okay?”
This virtuoso response drew a smattering of applause. This was the Rinpoche’s specialty: delivering gems of wisdom, couched in English primer prose. This particular gem seemed to fit my brother; so much of his suffering seemed to be a self-reinforced condition. I wondered, sometimes, if the key to his cure might be no more than what Chokyi Nyima had demonstrated: a denial of his sickness, shouted boldly into the wind.
Grinning, the Rinpoche called for further questions. The Irish woman waved her hand again. “This has nothing to do with my first question,” she warned.
“Okay. I try to give smart answer anyway.”
“Well, it seems to me that many Westerners are actually attracted to suffering. We put ourselves under a lot of pressure, seeking out situations in which we are sure to suffer. Why is this so? Why would anyone choose a life of suffering?”
I stared at her in astonishment; the question seemed perfectly attuned to my own thoughts. The Rinpoche, however, looked at her uncomprehendingly. “That means? Explain.”
“Okay. I’m an artist. I design fabrics for a living. I work for myself. Every day I face the possibility of rejection, which makes me feel sad and nervous. Yet I stay with this job. Then, when I do get assignments—when I am successful—I sabotage myself. I take on more and more work, until I get completely stressed-out. Do you understand? It’s as if I’m not satisfied unless I’m suffering somehow.”
“People make themselves busy in order to be famous, in order to get rich,” Chokyi Nyima observed.
“Yes, but what if it’s clear that you’re going to be neither famous nor rich, but you keep doing it anyway?”
“Then, habit. You are caught in a bad habit.” The Rinpoche answered quickly, then stopped. He considered a minute before continuing.
“There’s a difference here,” he said at last, “between West and East on some level. Westerners seem to get a better education from a young age, so they are eager to use their skills to become successful. In this part of the world, many people cannot even read or write. So they do not get caught in the same way. But they get caught in other ways! Some are deeply interested in their reputation, in having a respectable image in other people’s minds. Very, very important. For others, having money is enough. But here is one funny similarity I have discovered.” Chokyi Nyima leaned forward, and the students craned toward him. “It seems much more painful to be unsuccessful, than there is pleasure from success.” There was a murmur of assent.
“Understand? When good things happen, it is never enough. For example, when a businessman makes a good deal—a big deal!—that is just how it should be. Good—but maybe next will be better! But if a deal fails, it’s very, very painful. A really big disaster! The same is true with one’s reputation. If you get credit for something, that is good, a sweet feeling! But if you get blamed or criticized? Terrible! So terrible! Isn’t it?
“Why is it,” he asked, “that mind can never be filled, or satisfied? Why is it mind cannot be satisfied, with attainment of any kind? Why? Why? Hmm?”
He surveyed the room, Sphinx-like. They were a bit odd, these riddles posed by the Rinpoche. If you guessed wrongly, everyone would chuckle at your foolishness. If you were right, you came off as a pompous ass. The room, accordingly, was silent.
“Because mind is empty. Always empty. There is no way to fill it up. No matter how much success—money, job, get famous, get girls, get boys—no matter how much, mind is never satisfied! Simple as that.” Chokyi Nyima looked down and furrowed his brow, as if he’d suddenly found himself at the edge of a precipice and had no choice but to leap forward.
“But how can the mind be empty? This is very important, so please listen well. Are you ready? Okay: Mind has no beginning. Mind has no end. But the world of phenomena, and our five gross senses, confuse us. This is very difficult to understand, but very important. If you need proof, please try this.” Chokyi Nyima inhaled dramatically. “Take a deep breath. Relax. Now begin searching your mind. Searching, searching your mind. Where does mind begin? Where does mind end? Can you find mind’s beginning? Can you find mind’s end?”
We sat in silence, earnest in our collective search. This went on a few minutes. There were no shouts of “Eureka!” or any satisfied sighs of success. The mind, I discovered, turns out to be a good metaphor for the universe, or vice versa. It is impossible to establish a limit, or to think beyond it, but it is possible to imagine it curved: a topological paradox in which any given direction takes you back to your starting point. At any rate, the Rinpoche’s lesson was well taken. If so
mething is without beginning or end, no amount of stuff will fill it up. There is infinite room for distraction, attachments, and suffering.
“One more question?” Chokyi Nyima leaned forward, studying the attentive faces. An elderly Swiss man spoke out. He sat by the back of the room, hands on his knees like an obedient schoolboy. “Many times, I hear talk of Buddhist hells and heavens.” He spoke in a thick accent. “But do Buddhists really believe that hell exists? Or heaven, for that matter?”
The Rinpoche nodded vigorously. “Good question,” he obliged. “Many people think this. I’ll try to explain.
“This condition into which we are born—the cycle of existences, of death and rebirth—is called samsara. So long as we are generating karma, there is samsara. There is rebirth. Karma has a complicated meaning, but usually means deed. Action. Action is important; but most important is intention. Good intention, bad intention. Good karma, bad karma.
“Now, human beings all look similar. We all have mouth, eyes, nose. We all see that mountain is mountain, sky is sky, moon is moon. We all accept things that way. This is called general karma.
“Individual karma is not like that. How you see, how she sees, may be completely different. Different interests, different likes. Books, music, even food. So. We’re all human. We all have similar karma. Similar, but not the same. Okay so far?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the Swiss man said dismissively. “I know this. But my question is, what about the hell realms?”
“Listen, I’m telling you! In Tibetan Buddhism, we talk about six karmic realms: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and the hell realms. Each realm has its own special, how do you say, trait. For the god realm, the trait is pride. Everyone is proud, conceited, very self-satisfied. The demigod realm is quite similar—but there, the trait is envy. Jealousy. Always spying, spying, trying to find a weapon, trying to defeat someone else. Jealous.
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