“You?”
“Yes. Is true. I am only one man.”
I looked around me at the jumble of boxes and crates, and in that moment, somewhere deep inside the labyrinthine tunnels and chambers of my brain, neglected synapses crackled and sparked for the first time in months. Massive, dusty wheels began to revolve, decrepit machinery shuddered and groaned, setting in motion cranks and levers that dislodged the lid on a bubbling cauldron of ambition. I was growing ever more excited just imagining what a dissertation this would make. For the better part of a year I had barely thought about academics, and yet—in a matter of seconds—here I was, lost in a vision of my brilliant future as an internationally acclaimed Indologist. I saw myself walking into Abe Sellars’s office with an edition, annotated translation, and text-critical study of Rinpoche’s sutra. So you think I’ve been fucking around over in South Asia, drinking chai and smoking ganja? Or, worse yet, playing out some juvenile fantasy of a spiritual quest? Is that it? Well take a look-see at this! Tattered old Banarsi briefcase springs open and out it comes, five hundred pages of meticulous philological scholarship that lands on his desk like a mortar shell. And the journal articles it would generate, the papers . . . I envisioned myself as the honored respondent to a panel at the national conference for the Association for Asian Studies, six top-drawer North American and European scholars presenting papers on a previously unknown Indian Prajnaparamita sutra rescued by yours truly. Edward Conze banging on my door. Lamotte might even drop me a card from Brussels. Suddenly I wished Margaret Billings were still in town so I could look her up.
“You found it here?” I asked.
“Oh no, no!” He flapped his hands in the air. The rosary was wrapped around his left wrist. “No, Mr. Tsan-lee.” His voice roused me from the glory of my heraldic vision.
“No? No what?”
“No find in this library.”
“Then where did it come from? Tibet?” I began to get excited all over again.
“Come from India. Is old sherchin sutra from India.”
“But how did you find it?”
“Someone give me.”
“Someone? Who?”
“Someone in here,” he exclaimed with a broad grin, pointing a finger at his head. But his smile waned when he saw the unguarded look of utter disappointment that swept over my face as the big fantasy of academic fame and fortune evaporated. This old lama had not the slightest idea of why I might be so profoundly disappointed. How could he? “Come from mind,” he repeated, as if perhaps I hadn’t understood him the first time. “Gong-ter.” He smiled again, a bit meekly this time. “Very mystery, you know?”
“Are you saying,” I cleared my throat, trying my best to appear as though it made no difference to me one way or the other, “that you, uh, made it up?”
His eyebrows rose uncomprehendingly.
“Made up?” “Made it up. It means, well, that you wrote the sutra. You know, all by yourself.”
His fist thumped down on the open copybook. “No, I am not made it up. Is word of Buddha. Very old sutra. And now you help me translate to English.” He smiled mischievously, and I felt for a moment as though I were being drawn into some outlandish conspiracy.
“Tell me,” he demanded, “how you translate sherchin yigey mepa?”
I pushed the copybook over toward him. “Can you write it down? In uchen, please.” He picked up a fluorescent pink ballpoint pen, wiped a blob of ink off the tip by smearing it onto the corner of the page, and began carefully printing the characters in a single line of surprisingly legible classical Tibetan script. When he finished, I studied it for a minute and then ventured a translation. “‘The perfection of wisdom with no letters . . .’ No, wait. How about, ‘the unwritten perfection of wisdom’?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head earnestly. “‘Unwritten perfection of wisdom.’ Yes, yes. Very nice.” He gazed at the letters a moment longer and then looked up. “You hear before?”
I shook my head.
His question came back to me, though, on a late, gray winter afternoon several years later. I was ensconced in a library carrel in the Harvard-Yenching when I chanced to come across mention of the “‘unwritten’ Prajnaparamita” while perusing Roerich’s translation of the Blue Annals. I found the insignificant reference tucked away in a history of the Shije lineage, where this “unwritten perfection of wisdom” is reported to have been taught by an Indian ascetic named Dampa. According to the Blue Annals, Dampa on his third visit to Tibet met Machik Lapdron, the woman who went on to found the influential practice known as Chö. The story is that they got together at the home of a wealthy merchant named Rokpa, where Dampa passed along to her “three words of friendly advice.” This is the so-called “pith instruction”—nying tam—reported, once again, in the Blue Annals and other Tibetan chronicles. Rinpoche’s lineage believes that the three words referred to in these texts are see, relinquish, rest, and that the whole thing is an esoteric reference to a particular “unwritten perfection of wisdom” that was passed along by Dampa that day.
As I say, I only put all this together much later, after returning from India, and even then it was many more years before I made any conscientious effort to document the claims made by Nortul Rinpoche. In India I pretty much swallowed whatever he said. For instance, according to what he went on to tell me that afternoon in Delhi, the “unwritten perfection of wisdom” was not a single sutra but an entire genre of Prajnaparamita teachings that circulated throughout India during the same centuries when most of the other famous Perfection of Wisdom scriptures—like the Heart Sutra and the Diamond-Cutter—were being recorded for posterity on the pages of hand-lettered palm-leaf xylographs. If what Nortul Rinpoche told me is true, however, then the particular sutra referred to in this passage from the Blue Annals is the very one that lay open before us—a sutra that had been passed along orally for generations but never before committed to writing. A sutra he was now translating into English.
“This sutra,” he glanced at the copybook, then quickly back up at me so as to judge the effect of his words, “we call ‘mantra healing all kind sickness.’”
I had been listening quietly until then, but with that remark I stopped him. “The perfection of wisdom is the medicine for suffering.”
“Yes, is medicine for every kind suffering.”
“Then why all this talk of ‘terror’ and ‘dread’? It’s supposed to be a cure for suffering, right? Not a cause.”
He looked at me pointedly. “You want jump too far in front.” He said this and continued to scrutinize me, as if he were slightly perplexed. As if he were sizing me up. Gradually his expression became quiet, thoughtful. “When I was young man in Tibet, many year before, I once know old lama, Tsering. Tsering say that most person always look for magic. No interest philosophy. You teach philosophy, they go for sleep. Very tedious.” He actually used the word tedious. “Most people only want learn mantra—magic. So maybe you are same, eh?” He paused and searched my face for a sign of confirmation. And then in a flash his expression turned grave, his tone of voice uncompromising. “Mr. Tsan-lee, you want magic medicine for end suffering? You want make suffering finish? Right this moment?”
His eyes were locked on mine. My immediate impulse was to say, Sure. Give me the magic pill. But there was something about the intensity of his gaze that unnerved me. The beads clicked through his fingers. I quickly looked away—over his shoulder, then down at the copybook where it lay open on the table—and instead of answering, I deflected the question. “So what about the third noble truth of the Buddha? The end of suffering? Why should I fear nirvana?”
“A-laaaay . . .” He sighed.
I raised my eyes slowly and found him still watching me. Only now he appeared to be somehow disappointed.
“You read many Buddha sutra. Read in Sanskrit, no? But maybe you read too much quick. Miss important parts.” He adjusted himself in the chair, arranging and smoothing his faded robes. “I give some advice, okay?” I n
odded dumbly. “Forget third noble truth. You see? Oos ko fenk doe!” The Hindi phrase was amusing, arriving unexpectedly in his Tibetan accent. I started to object, but he waved it off and continued. “Now please you tell me. What is first noble truth of Buddha?”
“Duhkha,” I replied confidently. “The first noble truth says that all life is suffering.”
“Nice. All life suffering. First noble truth. Very nice.” He looked at me and grinned. His mood seemed to have inexplicably improved. “Is true, eh? What you think?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What?!” he cut me off. “You do not know? Then you must know some happy in this life?” He seemed to be incredulous at the suggestion that I might ever have actually experienced happiness. “You know what is happy?” Once again he looked as though he were actually expecting an answer.
“Happiness is . . .” I ventured, “it’s what everyone wants. All people want to be happy.”
“And nobody want suffer and pain. Is it not so? Everybody fear pain. Push away.”
I nodded.
“I give more advice now. Okay?” He considered. “Look close at happy time. Happy time is always something welcome. You see? That is all. Very simple.”
He examined my face and frowned.
“You not understand. Listen more close. Welcome is enough for happy. Reason not important. Whatever time is welcome, that is happy time. All other is suffer and pain. Suffer and pain is only that—what you not welcome.”
“But of course,” I shot back. “Pain is never ‘welcome.’ Nobody wants pain.”
He studied me in silence, clearly evaluating my response. “You ever try?”
“Try what?”
“Try welcome pain.”
“Rinpoche, why would I want to welcome pain?”
“Very simple answer: because pain is best teacher. That is why make pain welcome. Self never want welcome pain. Self always run from pain, run toward happy. Always make big difference pain from happy. Self always welcome happy, push away pain. Fear pain. You know?” He held up both hands between us, palms facing me, and turned his head back and forth, looking from one hand to the other. “Want happy. Not want pain. Want happy. Not want pain.” He did this several times, looking from one hand to the other and repeating the same line, then he turned his eyes toward me again. “Self made from ‘desire happy’ and ‘fear pain.’ Self always judge. You know what means ‘judge’?” He squinted at me, cocking his head to one side.
“Judge,” I repeated the word. “It means to decide one thing is better or worse than another.”
“Yes.” He nodded vigorously. “That is meaning. First judge, then choose: Want or not want. Desire or fear. Self always must judge and choose. So everything very simple: No judge—no self. No self—no suffer! You see? Need only to stop judge and choose. Sit quiet, welcome pain and pleasure equal, like two stranger come for visit. No need for invite—guest come and guest go. Guest come, you be nice. Guest go, you be nice. Very simple.”
He did a kind of Marcel Marceau routine, pretending to open a door between us, then bowing formally to his guest, welcoming his visitor: “Come in. Sit down. Drink chai. Goodbye!” He delivered all this in a singsong voice, tipping his head to one side and then the other, pronouncing the final syllable of “goodbye” with distinct irony while supplying a cute little wave with the fingers of one hand. “You see now? Self is finish.” He caught my eye, his expression suddenly becoming grave. “Tsa!”
His hand chopped down through the air like the blade of an ax.
“Finish! Like tree cut off at root.”
Back in the shadows something moved its teeth along the edge of a crate. Nortul studied my face, assessing my reaction.
“I . . .” My voice faltered.
“Yes?”
“I, uh, I still don’t understand.”
“What you not understand? Very simple.”
“How am I supposed to just stop judging and choosing? It’s not that easy, Rinpoche. People can’t just make themselves stop wanting one thing and not wanting another. I can’t just do that.”
He shook his head. “Not do.”
“But you said . . .”
He interrupted me. “Nothing you must do.”
“Then, what?” I was losing patience.
Nortul was charming, no doubt, but this whole pantomime about “welcoming pain” struck me as somehow disingenuous. It was fine in theory—I understood the theory—but I didn’t need more theory. I suddenly felt very much like I’d had more than enough theory to last a lifetime. Several lifetimes. All those classes and seminars at Chicago, reading the texts, arguing about grammar and syntax, writing papers so that Abraham Sellars could flood the margins with his vicious red scrawl, using his words to open wounds that would never heal because they weren’t supposed to heal. That was the idea—right?—the arguments must never end, the words must never, ever be allowed to stop. All those massive intellects on parade, endlessly churning the soup of reason. Words, words, words. Words in Sanskrit. Words in Pali. And here I was trying to learn Tibetan when it should be blindingly obvious that all the words in all the languages on earth translate into nothing but more tears.
So why was I here? It seemed, at that moment, like a relevant question. A question worth asking. What exactly was I looking for?
“If there’s nothing I can do,” I said, “to make myself stop judging and choosing, then I . . . well, then I guess I’m lost. I don’t see the point.” I’m sure he heard the frustration in my voice, which I was no longer even trying to disguise.
“Not do,” he said again emphatically. “Do mean think. No need for think. Only see.”
“See? See what?”
“No, no!” He shook his head. “You not understand. Not see some thing. See mean be. See mean not come from any place, not go any place.” He held his hands up, palms toward me, gently smoothing the air between us. “See mean rest.”
After a moment he dropped his hands and wound the rosary around one wrist. He tugged on the wisp of straggly gray hair that hung from his chin like Spanish moss, all the while still studying my face. Then he began picking his nose. Once this task was complete he sat absolutely motionless, staring straight ahead into space. He appeared to have forgotten all about me. I thought for a second that he might actually have slid into some kind of trance. The corners of his lips were drawn up in an enigmatic smile that was collecting momentum as I watched. He reminded me of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.
“Tibetan people have muhavrah,” he announced from out of nowhere, using the Hindi word. “You know what is muhavrah?”
I nodded. I remembered learning the word in class, back in Chicago. A muhavrah is something like an English proverb, a saying.
“Tibetan people have famous muhavrah. We say ‘better never begin.’” He looked at me expectantly. “You understand? Better not ever begin Buddha path. ‘But if begin, better you finish!’” His head bobbed with unrestrained merriment. “Once begin,” he repeated, “better you finish!” He started to giggle. “Better never begin. If begin, better you finish! Hahahaha hee hee! Big joke, no?”
I managed to crack a weak smile, but this time he really had lost me.
At first he seemed to assume that my uncomprehending expression was a bluff, but then his laughter faded into another silence and he frowned. “Why you not laugh? Very funny muhavrah. But maybe you know this joke from before. No? Someone tell you before?”
“I don’t think so . . .”
He studied my expression for a moment, then leaned toward me. “When you begin Buddha path?”
In a flash, I recalled the conversation with Margaret, that afternoon in the Fulbright lounge when I’d wanted to tell her about my undergraduate years reading Herman Hesse and Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley. All that acid and mescaline. Throwing open the doors of perception. Judith and I sitting zazen with Kapleau’s students. The whole long story of the spiritual quest that had brought me to graduate school and
then to India. But I no sooner opened my mouth to spit it out than Nortul cut me off short, like some Zen master ringing the bell.
“Now.”
He looked at me, thoroughly deadpan.
“You begin now.”
I felt a prickly sensation all over my scalp, and I involuntarily shivered.
He continued to hold my eyes. “And when are you finish? You know?”
I shook my head. Something about the way he spoke was not right. Something about the way he looked. In fact, something about the way everything looked was suddenly not quite right.
“I tell you.”
He leaned forward across the desk, beckoning me closer, as if about to take me into confidence on a matter of extreme delicacy, something of considerable importance to the two of us, and the two of us alone. Once again I obeyed, drawing my head close to his.
He whispered in my ear, “You are finish . . . now.”
The moment he spoke these words, I became intensely self-conscious, fiercely aware of how I appeared in his eyes. It was as if I were seated across from myself, looking at myself in a mirror, seeing myself as he saw me. It was as if I were looking into my own mind from some outside vantage point. All the pathetic games, the insecurity, the desperate need for validation, the fantastic panorama of yearning and fear. My whole life stripped naked under the brutal white glare of the incandescent bulb that hung over us like some unearthly fruit. Only now I had swallowed the fruit and it was inside me. It wasn’t even him seeing me, or me seeing myself—there was only this immense seeing, this boundless light where thoughts, feelings, and sensations were unmoored and drifting like clouds in open sky. And in the midst of this Great Seeing the light coalesced and took form, crawling up over the horizon of consciousness like the fiery morning sun, absorbing my attention and focusing it on a single astonishing realization:
This is a dream.
This subterranean chamber stacked with books, this strange Tibetan man in robes with his creepy text. All of it suddenly felt exactly like the dream where I was driving the bus—not real, and yet at the same time impossibly, undeniably, vibrantly present. Or like the dream after the driving one—the dream where I dreamed I’d actually woken up. It felt like something I had once imagined, the dream of a memory, or the remembering of a dream I did not want to remember.
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