Selected Short Stories Featuring Ghost Dust
Page 20
sleepy, and drift off.
2008
I’ve never been comfortable mentoring. “Why have you decided to take refuge in the triple gem?” I remember when someone first asked me the question, and I feel like I’m wearing his clothes and playing dress up.
“Wow. I know exactly what you mean, but could you have said that in a way that made this sound any more like a freaky cult?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
“Fair enough,” he smiled, too. “My parents are both Buddhists, but they aren’t that spiritual about it, really. So I was raised with all of the aspects of the religion, but in kind of a hollow way. I realized my life wasn’t what I wanted out of it; and I think I was happiest when I was young, and first really embracing Buddhism. I think finding out I was adopted, that was just the cherry on top.”
“Peace does not spring from without, but from within.”
“I know, I totally get that. But that inner peace, getting to it, that’s the point. That’s why I’m here.”
“Then I think you’ll be happy here.”
“Good. I was worried for a second you were going to tell me there’s no room at the inn.” He paused. “You know, you walk funny for a monk.” I looked at him- no anger, no sadness, no anything, and he realized on his own what he’d said. “No, I, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just you walk like somebody more comfortable on a horse than his own two legs. My uncle has that same kind of walk, and he’s spent all his life sitting on a plow horse.”
I smiled. “I’ve spent many lives on a horse, and spent a few being ridden. Perhaps that explains my gait.”
“So you definitely believe in reincarnation, then?”
“Most prefer rebirth, since that implies difference and change in the person’s consciousness. But I recall things from before this life. I like this metaphor: as one candle ignites another, their flames are not identical, neither are they completely distinct.”
“Hmm. You sure I didn’t accidentally wonder into a Branch Davidian compound?”
“No. Unlike a cult, you are expected to find your own truth here. The only one I would insist is paramount is that craving is the origin of suffering. I said you would be happy; perhaps I should have said contented, because peace is the one thing I believe everyone can achieve. Because peace is the absence of suffering, which is the absence of craving.”