by David Guy
“What about Uchiyama?”
I didn’t know Jake’s whole history at that point, but he had spoken sometimes of the man he considered his true teacher.
“He just wanted people to sit. Didn’t look at their private lives. He was married himself. To his third wife.”
I had to hear more about this guy.
“I don’t know if there is such a thing as a true celibate,” Jake said. “Who doesn’t even masturbate, just recycles the energy. It seems possible theoretically. I’m not sure I get the point. I do know we tend to idealize people, especially people we think of as holy, especially from the ancient past. I don’t know what the Buddha did about sex. What Jesus did. But if they were human, they dealt with it.”
It didn’t seem a highly charged subject for him.
“I wouldn’t make rules about it, like you’ll give it up for such and such a time. That sets up a conflict. Just sit a lot. Try to be mindful in daily life, the same thing I’d tell anyone. See what you get hooked by, if that’s what hooks you, and try to stay awake. You’ll screw up sometimes. You’ve got to take it easy on yourself. Try to learn from it.”
It seemed simple advice, the next thing to nothing.
“Mostly I’d sit a lot. Just be aware and look at it.”
The ironic thing about that conversation was that I’d started to get involved with Madeleine and, unbeknownst to me, she told Jake everything. I was talking about being celibate while, with another part of my mind, I was putting it off. It was the Make Me Chaste But Not Yet situation. The secret hope was that this woman would be the one who understood, this would be the one it all worked out with. There was no problem after all! I just hadn’t found the right person!
I didn’t have her to the motel, of course; we met strictly at her place. I didn’t even take her to the diner for pancakes. But it was the classic situation: we fell into bed almost immediately, made love as if we adored each other. Soon she saw my neediness and fear. I saw her limitless yearning for affirmation. Skip the engagement and the wedding: we can jump right to the divorce. It didn’t even last six weeks.
I did sit a lot in the morning, though Jake cautioned me not to turn it into an athletic event. In the afternoons I exercised and spent time with Madeleine. The evenings I gave to her. Time passed quickly.
Sex started to come up big time when I began doing retreats, which didn’t happen until the following year. Jake in the summer just had classes and the sitting group, where he taught a lot of newcomers. But during the rest of the year he scheduled retreats at times when people were likely to be free, Christmas and spring break, and his loyal students made the trek up to what was then Madeleine’s house, would eventually be his.
She herself didn’t do retreats. She came to the island, sat a period or two every day and came to the talks, but never tried the whole thing. She was sure she couldn’t, had a dreadful fear of it. Even now, twenty years later, she hadn’t sat a whole retreat.
I found my morning mind clean and clear, often felt full of energy. Right before lunch Jake gave a talk, which often inspired me. After lunch was a work period. But in the late afternoon, when the energy wasn’t strong anymore and the day looked long—it was three o’clock, say, and we wouldn’t do anything but sit and walk until bedtime at ten—in that time of low energy and discouragement, when the room seemed small and close, fantasies arose. I’d been seeing them all my life.
“Just watch,” Jake said, when I told him. “Don’t think about them, analyze them, try to figure them out. Just see them.”
They were the images I’d always comforted myself with, when I was afraid, frustrated, unhappy. Mostly afraid. They’d been extremely dependable, muffled the fear entirely.
Now when another kind of fear was coming up—or maybe it was the same, maybe all fear is just of that endless stretch of time, endless space, nothing at all to fill it, the reality of existence that we face on long Sunday afternoons when there is nothing to do—they arose again.
“I’d like to meet the fear,” I said to Jake. “These things are in the way.”
“They are the fear,” he said. “The fear and the distraction are the same thing.”
It was like being locked in a tiny porn theater where the same loop of film ran again and again. You couldn’t get away no matter what you did. It showed on the screen, on the walls, in the balcony.
This is your life, Henry Wilder.
I’m not talking one retreat. I’m talking multiple retreats, over a number of years, even some I did with other teachers.
“Afternoons are more yang,” one teacher said (or maybe it was yin; I don’t remember). “It’s natural for sex to come up, for a certain kind of person.”
I was that person in spades.
“I have a friend who lives in Africa,” another said. “There you might have two or three wives. Visit different ones on different days. That’s how they deal with the problem.”
It had gotten to the point where Jake, when I brought it up, would just say, with a smile, “That’s your specialty.” One time, in the late nineties, when a certain event dominated the headlines, he said, “Maybe you should run for president.” Then, in an afterthought, “If he had just listened to Joycelyn Elders, we might have avoided this whole thing.”
Finally, after years of trying to deal with those afternoons, hearing Jake brush them aside, we were sitting in dokusan—the interview that a student has with his teacher, sitting cross-legged, knee to knee—when I said, “I’m tired of these fantasies. I want them to end.”
For once that brought out the fierceness in the man, and his certainty.
“No.” He leaned forward. “This is your conditioning. This is your karma. You have to see this. The nature of desire.”
The nature of desire (in case you want to skip all the sitting) is that it is endless. You want sex and want sex and want sex and want sex. After that you want sex for a while. If you actually have sex, then you want a cigarette, or to smoke a joint, or take a nap, whatever you like. Then you want a bowl of ice cream. Some cookies might be nice. Why don’t we brew some coffee? As you’re sipping the coffee, coming back to life, you think, maybe it would be nice to have sex again.
If you feel superior to this, if you’re a woman and this sounds childish perhaps or just like a man, substitute shopping. Substitute food. Shoes. Alcohol. Rapt adoration. Sooner or later you’ll find your thing. Or just sit for days at a time. It’ll show up.
I spent my summers in Bar Harbor—Josh coming up when he could—for the next four years. When Josh went to college—in Boston, as it turned out—I moved to the island and taught at a high school, began to help out at the bike shop in the summers. In recent years I’d been able to quit the teaching job, become a full-time student and assistant to Jake. Basically he supported me, with dana from his students and a lot of help from Madeleine. Also that huge summer rent on the house. For much longer than that I’d ordered my life around continuing this practice. I didn’t have another life. This was my life.
10
I STILL HAD MUCH of the day left when I left Jess’s house in the middle of the morning. Jake would be coming back after a late lunch to take a nap. I went to the bookstore for a while. It was amazing what you found in there, obscure texts from thirty years ago, when Zen was just getting started in this country. There were actually chairs where you could sit and read. I don’t think Morrie cared about selling books. He just wanted to help seekers on the path, as he would put it. He loved it when some fresh-faced kid came in with a question. And he lived to debate old hands like Jake.
He seemed not to recognize me, which was just as well. I bought a couple of paperbacks just to keep the place going.
I had a quesadilla and some limeade, walked down to the square to watch more chess. It was a completely different game at that speed; you had to react instinctively, read your opponent in a move or two. There were guys in Cambridge who lived to beat the chess master. He was the fastest gun in the west.
&n
bsp; I wondered what kind of safety net Jess had. She lived in that shabby apartment, which nevertheless probably had a steep rent. She no doubt made a fair amount in tips as a bar girl, unless all the regulars took her for granted. She wasn’t getting rich, that was for sure, and she couldn’t do that forever. She didn’t have a college degree or much motivation to get one.
Maybe she was a part-time hooker who, taking care of all the regulars at the Green Street Grill, made a ton of money. Maybe she was supporting a drug habit, didn’t need the money for rent at all. Maybe she had a boyfriend who adored her and would take her off someplace to raise kids and she was just waiting until he got his start.
One thing I did know was that she wasn’t terribly far—losing her job, or having her roommate move out, or having an accident—from the homeless people you saw hanging around the square. There wasn’t a huge distance between the waitresses at the Green Street Grill and the lost souls who hung around the Golden Donut. Just twenty years or so—which pass in the blink of an eye—and a few bad breaks.
I also knew that two months after my father died I was a zombie, didn’t know what I was doing. Ten months later I wasn’t much better. It was a terrific shock, with a long recovery time.
I walked to the Y after a while and took a swim. Didn’t get into a big thing with the woman at the desk, just paid my ten bucks and went down.
Jake was still asleep when I knocked on his door. He was glad I came when I did, didn’t want to nap too long.
“Madeleine’s serious about these plans for the center,” he said. “Ready to knock out a wall for a bigger office. Took me to look at furniture. I had no idea she was this far along. You’ve got to decide if you’re up for this.”
He was moving around the room getting his clothes on. That was a hell of a way to greet me.
“What about you?” I asked. “You’ll be moving from a place you’ve lived thirty years.”
“Be realistic. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about a commitment for the rest of your life.”
Let’s not knock down the wall just yet.
Jake pulled on a jacket. “Ready for a beer?”
We walked down the stairs and out onto Mass. Ave. The evening was dark, had turned cool.
Jake seemed fine when we stepped out the door, but by the time we got to the corner his eyes went vacant. He seemed not to know where he was, where we were headed. I took his arm at the light and walked us to the other side. He stopped at the familiar storefront. “Fishcakes and beans are good here.”
Dinner at the Golden Donut? I don’t think so.
“What about that beer?” I said. “Don’t you want a beer?”
“Oh, right.”
“We’re going to Green Street.”
He didn’t seem to know where that was.
I pulled him to the right, walked us back there. “The boys are waiting for you,” I said.
The crowd went wild when Jake walked in, and that seemed to bring him back; I don’t know whether he reacted spontaneously or was remembering, but people did their best little bows and he blessed them all around. “Clear the stools, clear the stools,” everybody said; they put us in the same spot we’d occupied the last two nights, right in the center. It was a big crowd, guys standing two or three deep, lots of talk, music playing.
Jess had our beers by the time we sat down. Jake lowered his head for the ritual kiss. She wore a big smile. The streak in her hair was scarlet. I could have sworn she’d changed it since that morning.
“Padre,” she said. “Would you believe what happened? Some guy took me to breakfast and bought me two Bloody Marys. Two drinks before ten o’clock.”
“I wonder what he had in mind.”
“Only one thing. I fended him off.”
“That was a first,” somebody said.
“It is weird having a hangover in the middle of the afternoon,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken a nap.”
“You shouldn’t have taken the drinks. Listen, sweetheart. I talked to a friend. An old friend, very generous person, has helped me with a lot of things. She’s willing to stake you to that art class. Help you find your way to school if you want.”
Jake was going out of his way for this young lady.
“Jesus, Padre.” For the first time since I’d known her, Jess looked flustered. “That’s sweet. So unexpected. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“How so?”
“It’s just,” she shrugged, “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“One way to find out.”
“I know, Padre. But Jesus. Somebody’s paying. I try and I screw up.”
“This woman has a lot of money. Not a big deal to her.”
Jess wiped the bar with her rag. It didn’t need wiping.
“I don’t know, Padre. If you say so.”
“You can at least meet the woman. She’s coming to the retreat. You’re still doing that?”
“I want to. Yes.” She didn’t seem as sure.
“You decide what hours and tell Hank tomorrow night. He’ll arrange everything.”
“All right, Padre. Listen, there’s a lot of thirsty people here.”
“Of course. You’ve got a job.” He raised his glass.
“I appreciate this. You can’t know.”
She blew him a kiss and walked away. He swallowed, I would swear, half a Guinness in one hit. He had a hell of a capacity for a little guy. I’d never seen him even close to drunk.
I was surprised he’d brought Madeleine in on that. It would be pocket change to her, but I didn’t think she’d want to put every barmaid in Cambridge through college. Still, he was like that. We’d be having a conversation in a café somewhere and some guy would overhear and ask about Buddhism. Jake would stand there for forty-five minutes, running through the whole thing. A homeless guy would ask for money and Jake would give him fifty cents and listen to his whole life story (no doubt made up), tell him about shelters, places he could get food. All the guy probably wanted was the nearest liquor store.
“We should talk about this center,” I said, having put down half my beer. Had to keep up.
“Let’s save it for dinner. It’s so noisy in here.”
It was as if the beer were strictly incidental. He’d come to deliver the news.
I felt weird enough about the whole episode with Jess that I wasn’t telling him. At no moment had I had any intention of having sex with her. As soon as she’d mentioned it, my only feeling was that I didn’t want to make her feel bad, had to decide if she really needed money for rent (a fifty-fifty chance). I sure as hell didn’t want to see her bedroom. I actually think sex is every bit as wonderful as she seemed to, didn’t think it was wrong to pay for it. I’d paid for it in the past. If she got me to the bedroom I was in trouble. But I wasn’t at a point in my life where I wanted to go with a twenty-year-old girl who picked me up on the street.
Jake and I ate at a Chinese restaurant at Inman Square, right on the corner of Prospect. It was a tiny place, hardly big enough for a restaurant. We sat at a table at the window, looked on the street. Only two couples were there. A big relief from the noisy bar we’d staggered out of.
“I think Madeleine pictures you heading the center,” I said. “No matter how many times you tell her.”
“Probably right.”
“She isn’t doing it for me.”
We were sharing moo shu pork and a platter of Chinese broccoli. Jake waited while the server made a little taco for each of us. He sipped his tea.
“She’s always wanted me down here,” he said. “But I love the beauty of the island. The quiet life. I don’t think it matters how many students you teach. It’s how you do it, what influence they have. You can carry my teaching on.”
He’d never said that to me before, and I’d honestly never thought about it, until that trip to Cambridge.
“You’re my dharma heir,” he said. He was trying to hammer it home.
“I don’t know, Jake.” Big shoes to fill
.
He seemed not to hear, making another taco. He threw on a little broccoli for good measure.
I’d never met anyone else who enjoyed food the way Jake did. He could do without: in Japan he’d lived for years on rice and pickled vegetables, and up on the island we had a simple diet, didn’t take much trouble. But even at oryoki, the ritualistic meal we ate at retreats, when the pot came around he held out his bowl with a huge smile, as if at a gourmet feast. Bean soup for the millionth time. He loved the greasy eggs at the Golden Donut the same way he loved this moo shu pork, which was first-rate. He didn’t literally have just one bowl, like the monks in the old days, but was grateful for anything that plopped into it.
“I read something once that fascinated me,” he said. “I think it was that wild Tibetan who fucked all his students. He thought the Buddha didn’t set out to teach. Have you heard this?”
“No.”
“The usual view is that he got enlightened and faced this decision, whether to stay in the forest or go off and teach. He decided to teach, like a professor deciding on a career.
“But this guy thought he didn’t do that. He just joined the world, the situations arose, and he taught out of them. He didn’t have a system, didn’t have an intention. He just saw people suffering, and tried to help them.”
Jake always taught to a situation, one way or another.
“That’s the way to teach,” Jake said. “Don’t plan. Let it come up.”
Like it or not, that was what I’d be doing in those lectures.
“What if nothing comes?”
“Say nothing.”
That would go over big.
“I also think, I’ve always thought, that giving talks is the least of it. Uchiyama didn’t give talks.”
There was a solution.
Jake hadn’t known what to do with himself when he came back from Japan. It was the early eighties, and several centers had established themselves. He wandered around trying to fit in. He might have stayed in San Francisco if Shunryu Suzuki had still been there, but he’d died years before. Rochester was possible, but that was another teacher, another system.
