by John Updike
Mine wasn't that great, you know. My mother—
Three, you know the ropes here, and, frankly, I don't. I reach into myself and say what comes but the organizational part of it has always been over my head. There's always been women to do the—
The dirty work.
The nitty-gritty, the stbula side of things.
You would have to do with fewer limos.
Absolutely—that was just an image kind of thing. The humor of it appealed to me, being dragged along these dusty washboard roads like they were Fifth Avenue.
And the diamonds. They should be sold.
Sure, sell 'em—though you won't get half of what we f aid. Again, it was the symbolism, the Buddha Realm bit, the pan-nirvana part of It. It got people's attention; gave 'em a little shock. Stop people short for even a second, and you have that much more of a chance of enlightenment fighting its way past the abam and all that defensive furniture.
I understand the theory; but the practice has proved to be very expensive.
You may or may not believe this, but I really don't give a shit about any of this material garbage. It's all external, it's all just semiotics. I am non-attached, that's not just bullshit.
Then I, too, may be dispensed with.
To you I'm attached. Maybe not forever; as you say, I'm subjected to a lot of temptation. But for now I'd like you to bang around. I'd luff for you to bang around.
Don't do that to me. Say that word that sweet way.
Hey . . . Flash: Watertown boy confesses emotional dependency on North Shore matron! Ashram recovers, Arizona declares bank holiday.
Thanks, dear, but, truly, no thanks. I figure I've had as much sahasrara as I can stand. And if you or your other in-residence Shaktis try to keep me from going, I'll tell the world you're really Art Steinmetz. Now that would be a news flash.
Don't talk ugly, Sarah. We're trying to get back on an even keel, you and I. I don 't know bow good that is as blackmail—it might leak out anyway, if the media keep working me over, or Durga tries to make a killing on her story. It might not hurt so much. It might just stop people short for that second we were talking about and let in some light.. You 've beard me at dar-sban—you can say it 's all bullshit and still they dig it. They think your saying it's bullshit is bullshit. Deep in Kaliyuga as we are, it's bard to come up with bad publicity.
Well, at the least you'd have to scrap a lot of T-shirts. I think you're a teentsy bit bluffing. I think you like being the Arhat.
All it means is "the deserving one." I deserve all I can get, after the lousy upbringing I bad.
What do the scriptures say of the arhat? "In character as excellent as the gods, in meekness as the ascetic, and in wrath as the thunderbolt."
That's me. Speaking ofvajra, let's lie down to talk. I got to get used to this idea of doing without my Kundalini. I'll miss those multiple o’s.
I'll miss them too. But I think they were just a stage.
Sure. Use me and throw me away.
We throw ourselves away. All of us. Isn't that what "you taught?
I forget what I taught. I get frightened, Sarah. All this spiritual responsibility is frightening. I need you to give me some structure. I need those big tits of yours to suck. I need to bold on to your ass.
Stop trying to sex me up. That's very chauvinistic, what you imply—that women don't get frightened too.
Buddbatvam yosbidyonisamsritam.
Oh sure. Women are gods. Women are dirt. It comes to the same. Women are just like men are—little bits of purusha caught in prakriti, lost and isolated in all that duhkha. Why did it happen? How did purusha get so 'polluted?
The explanation is, it allowed itself a moment, just a moment in all that eternity, of self-reflection. And, whoomph, everything clouded over. Bingo: maya. But fear not, Kun-dalini. A way out exists. The thinking brain—buddbi—can lead man—and woman, if you insist she needs an out—to the edge of awakening. When prakriti is recognized as itself, it flees the spirit, the Sankhya-sutras put it, like a dancer who has satisfied her master's desire.
And isn't that a chauvinistic image, by the way?
Come on, ease up on the gender politics. I'm trying to answer your question. People want to confuse purusha with the cbitta-vrittis, or with buddhi; but these are just the most complex and rarefied manifestations of prakriti. Prakriti, like purusba, is eternal, but it has a kind of incipient motion, a teleological instinct. Once it departed from its original state of alinga, energy appeared, monstrous amounts of it, called "mabat." And then evolution, parinama, took over. Come here, you sweet botsy-totsy. Let me check if Buddhahood still resides in your yoni. I'll eat the bastard out.
Don't be gross. What I've never understood about nirvana—
Yes, you little yum-yum?
How does it differ, from extinction?
Who says it differs?
All that Mahayana business does—but maybe that's just popular superstition, icing an originally austere cake. The same thing happened in Christianity. But I can appreciate how the popular mind works: why have all this religion to attain just what we're afraid we're going to get anyway? I mean utter death, utter extinction.
Cut it out, Sarah. You're frightening me. It was bad enough always having my parents threatening each other with genocide.
See? You're no help. You just reduce everything to the personal.
You haven't been a sannyasin long enough to understand. You haven’t burned away your ego, your pbalatrisbna. You must become sbunya. You must become emptiness. Sbunya also means a girl of low caste, a slut. When you become an utter slut, then vajra will shatter you. Buddha will fill you.
When does he fill you?
When be fills you.
Thanks a lot.
Baby, all your questions—they are optical illusions of the mind. They disappear in the right light. You still have that Christian capitalist me-first mind-set.
Look who's talking—Art Steinmetz, the pseudo-Hindu.
Steinmetz, the Arbat, Krishna, Buddha—you 're bung up on these secondary distinctions.
If your mind-set is so great, why do you keep saying you're frightened? Why are you begging me to stay?
Being a jivan-mukta, you 're still a person. You 're like the potter's wheel that keeps turning, though the pot is finished. I am not begging. I am respectfully inviting.
I respectfully decline.
We bad such super maitbuna.
We did, 'but funnily enough that's not a reason to stay. It's a reason to go.
Spoken like a man.
If you had spoken like a man you would have told me who you were.
I am what I have ever been.
A liar. A sham.
You know, you have gotten a bit butch since coming here.
I used to hear Durga call you Art and I thought I was mishearing her Irish accent.
So it's jealousy of Durga this is all about. She was in on something you weren't.
Shams. That's what men are. Liars. Hollow frauds and liars. All of them. You're the nothing, not us cunts. You're the shunya.
Ah, shit, Momma. Suddenly you're boring me.
[end of tape]
December 1 (New Moon)
Dear Mahima—
It filled me with limitless joy to receive your letter announcing your rebirth as a sannyasin. The shanti of the Buddha penetrates everywhere, and will redeem every atom before the end. Your supplementary loan of five hundred thousand ($500,000) is hereby gratefully acknowledged and its instant repayment at your pleasure guaranteed. Its temporary repose within the Treasury of Enlightenment will go far to repair the damage in these past months done the ashram by its ego-ridden enemies both within and without, and to fuel the flame of dispassionate wisdom which we seek to set before the world. To quote the blessed Dhammapada: "It is sweet to have friends in need; and to share enjoyment is sweet. It is sweet to have done good before death; and to surrender all pain is sweet."
You will find many changes when you return. The sec
urity force, now called the Peace Patrol, has been much reduced, and no longer wears its lavender paramilitary uniform, with belting and epaulettes. Instead, our young protectors, no less healthy and vigorous than before, wear loosely fitting karate pajamas, and instead of Uzis and Galils arm themselves only with wands of hickory wood and attitudes of impregnable benevolence. Miraculously, the number of trespassers and spies they once had to repel has markedly diminished, and if you find the outermost sentry post deserted, have your driver himself swing back the de-electrified gate and serenely proceed.
You will find here a number of state-employed clerical workers and conscientious bureaucrats who are supervising the legal exactions made upon our properties. These alien personnel are non-threatening and, increasingly, sympathetic; indeed, a number of them have expressed interest in my halting preachments and in more than one case have succumbed to the inexorable appeal of the Eightfold Path. The Hall of a Millionfold Joys, whose foundations were merely a hole in the earth when you were led astray by the delusions of Presbyterianism, is now being dismantled because of alleged violations of the Arizona laws pertaining to zoned ranchland use, insurable electrical wiring, and required number of emergency fire exits. A small glassed-roofed shed, however, will be allowed to remain, in the position of the present entrance foyer, to be used as a combination agricultural greenhouse, tractor garage, and emergency meditation space.
The Fountain of Karma, which you will recall in all its multi-colored, round-the-clock glory, now plays for half an hour at dawn and at sunset, when the sannya-sins, passing to meditation, darshan, and aerobic exercises, may contemplate its symbolism of endlessly restless prakriti. The other twenty-three hours, it rests, and allows the Sachchidananda River to replenish its depleted flow. To quote the sacred Upanishads: "This earth is honey for all beings, and all beings are honey for this earth. This water is honey for all beings, and all beings are honey for this water." Although unusually severe climatic conditions this past summer reduced our anticipated artichoke harvest, our agricultural expert Hanuman has exciting new plans for acres of xerophilous, oil-rich jojoba and therapeutic mescal bean.
You will find a great choice of accommodations when you arrive. Many former pilgrims have deserted the Eightfold Path for the vanities of secular life. A number of others have been restored to their native lands. Commodious trailers and air-conditioned A-frames stand empty for you; I recommend that you take up residence close to my abode, and to the Uma Room, where you will be working to help administer the revised fortunes of the ashram. Our sister Alinga, our brother Yajna, our vigilant accountant Nitya Kalpana, the delightful and energetic Satya and Nagga and many others await your healing presence and guiding counsel. Above all I await you. We shall resume, dearest Melissa, your ascent to samadhi where it was regrettably arrested at the third, or Manipura, Chakra. Since this is the "gem center," the thought has crossed my mind that if you were to divest yourself of your own gems, secluding them within the impassive bosom of our Treasury of Enlightenment, you might be freed of the klishta they represent. Consulting your records, I am now inclined to believe that the burning sensation you often reported was the vain effort by your subtle body to remove this granthi with tapas, the cleansing ascetic fire. Lightened of the impure weight of personally retained jewelry, you should quickly rise up thesushumna nadi to the fourth Chakra, Anahata, whose element is air and whose principle is touch and whose presiding deity is Isha. After that, as the sages say, "Ko veda?"—"Who knows?"
Anticipation of the bliss that will be assuredly yours fills me with immeasurable satisfaction. My colleagues at the ashram are of like mind. Even our little river seems to play a merrier tune and once again to merit its name. To quote once more the invaluable Dham-mapada: "He [or she] who in this world has gone beyond good and evil and both, who, free from sorrows, is free from passions and is pure—him [or her] I call a Brahmin." I am eager to embrace you.
Yours most faithfully,
Shri Arhat Mindadali
Head, Ashram Arhat
/k
le 3 décembre
Cher monsieur,
Je vous envoie ci-joint un chèque pour cent mille dollars des Etats-Unis ($100,000 U.S.)—le déposez à mon compte. Ma nouvelle adresse suivra bientôt. Je ne me trouverai pas encore dans The Babbling Brook Motel.
Agréez, je vous prie,
l'expression de mes sentiments très amicaux,
#4723-9001-7469-8666
December 3
Gentlemen:
Enclosed find a check for $100,000 to be paid into my account with your bookshop. The address on this stationery will no longer be valid—in fact, I very much look forward to visiting Samana Cay in the near future, and perhaps taking up residence there. So you will know me when you see me—I am rather tall for a woman, with dark and abundant hair, touched with gray as yet but lightly, and with what has been kindly described as "a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale." Actually, I don't weigh a pound over one hundred thirty-five, which is still a bit heavier than perfection. I look forward very much to browsing in your store, drawing upon some of my considerable credit with you, and acquainting myself with your island and its idyllic (I have every reason to expect) climate.
Yours in keen anticipation,
Sarah P. Worth
December 3
Dear Jerry—
Please take this tape and put it in the safest place in Caracas—your lockbox at the bank if you have one, otherwise somewhere around the hacienda, maybe with your kids' rock tapes, like the purloined letter in that idiotic Poe story they used to make us read at Concord Academy. I don't hope ever to have to use it but there may.be unpleasant developments where its evidence could be useful. Don't listen to it—it won't make much sense to you and doesn't show your sister at her best. And Esmeralda might be shocked—she's such a Latin lady.
I've decided to leave the ashram. I think the winter here is worth skipping—they tell me it's brief but raw, and there's nothing worse to a New Englander than a winter that doesn't pack any kind of picturesque punch but doesn't let you enjoy the outdoors either. I'm thinking of an island—just being on the same continent with the men in my life makes me feel crowded and harassed. Charles has been rather quiet, but now that I know the reason why, it's worse than the harassment. I'll get over it, of course. People get over everything, and that's the secret of all the persisting religions—God or whatever they call it gets credit for our animal numbness and reflexive stoicism and antibodies and healing processes, or else we die and that shuts us up as effectively as an answered prayer.
I'm sorry, I don't want you to think you have a bitter sister. But one of the things you as a male will never have to know is how much a woman can suffer—jealousy, humiliation, panic, sense of betrayal—such a churning would shake a man to pieces; his nuts would come off his bolts, and all the studs out of his dress shirt. I've had some disappointments and reversals lately, but not along the lines of your scoffing jeering letter last summer. The Asian part of my experience has been perfect—a whole new vocabulary to frame the perennial problems in, and a way of looking at them that makes them almost vanish, like those holograms—remember, the postcards we thought were so risqu6 from that variety store in Roslindale?—that are somehow printed onto tiny iridescent ridges and show you different things or the same thing from a different angle when you very slightly move your head. Just as changing your head on the pillow gives you the strong sensation for a minute that you're about to go to sleep.
Mother, I've decided, is just beyond me. Why don't you fly up with some of the grandchildren? You could combine it with Disney World and Epcot Center. She's playing these wild games with Daddy's stodgy old blue chips and last month actually made a killing of sorts, so you can bet she's going to keep at it until she loses everything. I hope you weren't counting on much of an inheritance—I'm sure not. Some of the Price and Pea-body silver should be yours eventually but I'll keep what I have for the time being—at least it's not tarnishing black
as lead like all that wonderful old Perkins stuff she has sitting around on her wrought-iron glass tables just drinking in the salt air and the acid rain from all those space shots that now at least they've stopped trying. Whether or not she marries this utterly senile-sounding admiral depends I think on how senile she becomes and how successful bis children are at preventing it. I think there are three, all in their fifties and no doubt with expensive habits and stalled careers. She ever so slightly mentioned them in one of her letters as being "rather materialistic," and I dare say they see Mother as a fortune-hunting vamp. Maybe she is, in this newest incarnation. We all have a number of skins, especially women I think, because society makes us wriggle more. Do you remember how she used to go on and on about the hateful Prices and how her mother-in-law had once commented about the décolletage of some dress she wore going out to some dance or dinner with Daddy before they were married—this must have been in the Thirties, but I don't think there was still Prohibition—being rather too "staring," meaning there was too much bare skin showing, and Mother never forgot or forgave it, and used to tell us over and over how that remark ruined not only that dress and that evening for her but the whole idea of ever going out with Daddy and having a good time, and how she always got excited telling us about it, saying the word "staring" with this terrible mother-in-law hiss? These odd little passing hurts that echo down through families like cannon balls. I've tried so hard not to raise Pearl, as I'm sure you have your six, your dear little ninos and chicas, so these petty old snubs and slights become grotesque be-alls and end-alls—the way, for instance, Mummy wouldn't let Daddy join his uncle over at Stillman, Ames, Han-nicker & Price because she didn't want him under the influence of—to be indebted to—his own awful family, and made him stay on as a trust officer at the 5¢ Savings Bank where you and I know he never was happy or his talents, really, appreciated—that lovely intuitive mind of his which had to make do with the Metaphysicals since no creative investment decisions were ever entrusted to him, just buttering up widows and second sons—all going back to her décolletage being possibly "staring," when of course if you remember Mother as a youngish woman that was a perfectly apt description—she was always looking for excuses to take her clothes off. Not just on the Vineyard with those Socialist nudists or up in Maine at Great-granddaddy's lake but I can remember her standing around in simply her girdle for hours before they were giving some party, so that these poor caterers' men dragging in these boxes and boxes of liquor had to keep averting their eyes, and as late as the Myron Stern days I remember him coming one time to the house for me and being embarrassed by this gray-haired—probably not much older than I am now, come to think of it—woman in that rather short terrycloth robe with no buttons, just a loose belt that kept coming untied, that she liked to sweep around the house in after having a bath, and his having to make some joke about it, to relieve his tension, out in the old blue Bel Air he used to borrow from his roommate. Now she's probably the oldest bimbo in a polka-dot bikini on the beach, giving herself skin cancer, and God knows how she lured this poor admiral into her sun porch. She said he kept tapping on her hurricane shutters but if I know Mother those shutters were up and all the lights blazing.
