It was with a sense of shame that I left the temple each afternoon. I didn't sneak out, but made my getaway when no one would see me. I was prepared to tell them I just needed a walk, but preferred to avoid interrogation. I was too fidgety and bored to stay there any longer. Even the manic high I was still enjoying did nothing to improve that. I could find humor in embarrassing moments, I could smile at my naivete, I could observe my lack of grace with indifference, but I was unable to find any pleasures at all in boredom. Behind the imperturbability that lit my face grew the dark abyss of tedium.
I spent my mornings alternating between memorizing Pali and reading translations, trying to discover what these teaching that I'd embraced might be all about. I read books which Ven. Dharmapal identified as "the original texts." Those.words conjured images of dusty scholarship, of arcane processes by which certain texts were selected, isolated, collated, edited, compared, published ... How did they know which were the original ones?
So what if scholars agreed, for the most part, that the Pali texts were in fact the oldest, closest to the source, or the source itself, the ipsissima verba of the Buddha? The procedures they used to debate amongst themselves -- historical analysis, linguistic analysis, comparative analysis -- evolved into learned discussions on finer and finer points of contention until I could no longer follow what was being argued, or why, and I gave up the effort. I turned from their learned introductions and found myself faced with their learned footnotes which advised me to compare the text with, say, Ang.II, xi, 8-9 (A.i, 87), which left me mystified, or which correlated the text to, say, Oldenberg's remarks about Ven. Buddhaghosa's analysis of the Vibhanga, op. cit., which left me even more mystified.
My teacher gave me lessons, told me stories of the elders' days, and corrected my conduct.
"Don't sing," he would say, but later I would catch myself humming under my breath.
"Here's a visiting bhikkhu you should bow to," he would say, and I bowed but kept to myself the question of what sort of honor accrued through seniority and not achievement.
I busied myself with speculations on the mysteries of the teaching of not-self; I dutifully pored through dusty magazines to read tiresome articles which ponderously proved such truths as Impermanence and Suffering; I wallowed in tracts and pamphlets on the virtues of virtue. None of them were concerned with my question: if one is to give up everything, does this not include giving up wanting to give up? And was renunciation impossible then? Yesterday I'd dropped some speed (for I hadn't given away quite everything to the beggars) and spent the morning speculating on the mysteries of the mind. After lunch I tried again to memorize.
Four p.m. was my breaking point: by then the cloistered corridors of the temple echoed with silence, and I had to get out. I didn't know how the other monks managed. They always seemed to have tasks to occupy them, or else they stood in the courtyard, talking. Only the old Burmese monk used the meditation hall.
I put the robes on in the formal style, covering both shoulders and making a sleeve. I was finally becoming comfortable with the robes. Earlier today for the first time I'd dressed myself without help and had felt proud of the accomplishment until one of the other monks observed that although the robe had been rolled and folded and twisted correctly I had it on inside out. I looked down at the robe and saw that the seams were on the outside.
"Nobody told me there was an inside and an outside."
"You should do it correctly."
"They're only tiny seams; no one will notice."
"We already noticed."
"It's like learning to dress all over again."
"Entering the Sangha is like being born; you start again as a child."
But when I'd tried to re-fold the robes I'd become confused, and had to be helped.
Now, however, I dressed carefully with the seams on the inside, took the beautiful green-and-gold satin shoulder bag the Thai monk had given me, and walked quickly across the courtyard and out the gate before anyone noticed me. The other monks didn't seem to need the diversion of a walk. I'd feel embarrassed to confess my own needs to those who didn't share them. I didn't understand the needs I was feeling, for they weren't as simple as an empty gut. And if I couldn't comprehend my feelings how could I hope to account for my actions, either to others or to myself? I avoided the problem by avoiding the others as I hurried from the temple.
I saw that across the street the beggar was at his post. His hair was matted; he looked weathered and wild. He owned a brick and lived on one small patch of sidewalk. By day he used the brick as his seat; by night it was his pillow. Ven. Dharmapal had remarked about him that he wasn't an ordinary beggar, but a sadhu, a Hindu mendicant. They had strange customs. This sadhu's teacher had told him to live on this street for seven years and to watch everything that happened but not to interfere in any way or speak to anyone, and thus to seek the meaning of life by observing rather than participating.
Last night, while I'd been walking in the courtyard, I'd glanced outside and seen him puffing secretly on a beedie. I'd never seen him smoke before, and understood that he, too, still had needs he didn't understand. Now as I walked past him I withdrew a cigarette from the pack tucked in my belt and handed it to him. As I walked on he scowled at me (for giving him such an unspiritual gift? or for doing it openly, in daytime?) but he held on to the tobacco.
As I walked on towards New Market a small smile perched on my face, proof of my continuing high. I held my hands inside the robe, right hand grasping left wrist, for to swing them at my side would be not only a sign of lack of restraint but would result too in the robe coming quickly undone.
"Instant Karma," I thought, and tried to be collected. I cast my eyes downward, recalling that monks weren't supposed to be looking about in all directions. But a few moments later a crush of people distracted me, and I jostled my way through and held onto the robe lest it come undone. It wasn't until a beggar tugged at the sleeve and called, paise, sahib, that I remembered again to keep my eyes downcast.
Her voice was soft and pleading, and I took one quick look beside me to see what she looked like. She was shockingly emaciated, giving the impression of bones. She held a baby and was obviously intent on sticking with me until she got something: paise, sahib; paise, sahib. She pulled at my robes, unlike the ladies at the temple, who carefully avoided all possibility of physical contact. Even that cute one who, I was sure, was attracted to me. But I didn't want to think about her. I had to get away from this young woman, who didn't know she wasn't supposed to clutch at me that way. I took a coin from my shoulder bag and tried to drop it into her palm, but she reached up and grasped my hand to get at it, and while pulling back from her l dropped the coin on the sidewalk. While she scrambled for it I got away from her.
After that I kept my eyes downcast and walked slower. When I was mindful the beggars didn't bother me. Instant Karma. But at the next stoplight I looked up again and saw an ancient crone aided by a stick begging alms from stopped traffic. She moved slowly, as if she hadn't much farther to go before death.
"Old age, sickness, and death," Ven. Dharmapal had told me. "That's what the Buddha saw in this world. That's what he teaches: old age, sickness, and death, and the escape from them."
There was a whole legend about his birth as the son of a raja, a king of northern India, and the various events of his youth. Despite the mystique of deification which surrounded his images today, "the Buddha," Ven. Dharmapal had told me, "was a person, not a God; a person who found the path to the end of suffering and as one human taught this path to others."
The prince, who was named Gotama, was the only child of the raja and so was surrounded by every possible luxury. He was guarded from every form of sorrow and unhappiness until he was a youth, when he expressed a desire to see what lay outside the palace gates, and so ordered a tour through the city nearby, accompanied by his advisors.
While going about the city Gotama saw a man with white hair and a very wrinkled face. He moved very slowly, hunched over, helping himself along with a staff.
"Why is that man walking so strangely?" Gotama asked his advisors, for he'd never before seen the effects of old age. "Why is his hair so white? Why is his skin so wrinkled?"
"That man is old," his advisor told Gotama. "When one becomes old the hair turns white, the skin becomes loose and wrinkled and, with the fading of the body's strength, even walking becomes an effort."
"What did that man do to become old?"
"He did nothing more than to be born. It is in the nature of things that all creatures who live will age."
"Will I too become old, then?"
"It is in the nature of things," Gotama was told, and he became very thoughtful.
A second time the prince went out into the city. This time he saw a man being carried on a stretcher. The man's face was pale; he moaned softly in distress.
"What's wrong with that man?" Gotama asked his advisors.
"He's ill." And they explained about disease.
"What did that man do to become ill?"
"He did nothing more than to be born. It is in the nature of things that all beings who are born will suffer."
"Will I too suffer, then, and become ill?"
"It is in the nature of things," Gotama was told, and he became very thoughtful.
And a third time the prince went into the city. Now he saw a casket being carried by weeping bearers and followed by lamenting women and children.
"What's happening here, that all these people are wailing? What's in that big box?"
His advisors told him about death, and the sorrows of death.
"And what did that man do, that he has died?"
"He did nothing more than to be born. It is in the nature of things that all beings who are born will die."
"Will I too die, then?"
"It is in the nature of things," Gotama was told, and he became very thoughtful.
Finally a fourth time the prince went into the city. This time he saw a man with shaven head and wearing rag robes, barefoot, carrying a clay bowl. His visage was clear and radiant; he wasn't disturbed by anything that went on around him.
"What is that man doing?"
"He's a sadhu, a mendicant," he was told. "He is living in that manner because his life is dedicated to finding en escape from old age, disease, sorrow and death."
And Gotama became very thoughtful.
I thought about the prince Gotama until I reached the century-old New Market, where hawkers and touts clamored for my attention.
"Change money, reverend sahib? I give you special rate. Nine rupees, one dollar. Sahib, special rate for reverends only, you come with me now, we do good business. Okay, okay, sahib, tell me what rate you want, I give you. Nine and a half? I not cheat a reverend sahib like you. Last offer, ten rupees for the dollar, best offer in all New Market. Sahib, you have bakshish? You have some small gift for me? I know where to get good hashish. First class, sahib. Just you come with me, okay, sahib? Sahib?"
I came to a tiny teastall among shops displaying polished copperware and gold-embroidered silk saris. The proprietor, squatting beside his charcoal fire and teakettle, nodded at me: I'd been here before. I sat on the bench; the place was too small to have tables.
"Chi?" Tea?
"Ek dudh chi." One milk tea.
He fanned the coals into flame to heat the water; the smoke went out the open front of the stall. Since I'd ordered tea it was a small step further to order a couple of sweetmeats with it: they were displayed right beside me.
When putting my money into Ven. Dharmapal's safekeeping I hadn't thought that I'd like the idea of being without funds. The prospect of my options being so drastically reduced made me feel cramped. I wanted to be a monk and give up the world, sure, but I didn't want to stop getting my pleasures, so I'd kept back some rupees, just in case it got too hard. And so today I'd come all the way to New Market, righteously ignoring the money changers, to find a tea stall where I was unlikely to be recognized by anyone, where I could buy my pleasures with the contraband rupees.
It was well past noon, of course: the tea stall was my after-hours place for food and drink. I wasn't happy to be yielding to this need and argued with myself that I really needed it, like a drunk who, unable to walk a straight line, argues that he could do so easily if he just had another drink. As I sipped at the tea I invented justifications for having broken two of the ten precepts. Three of them, actually, since it had also been a lie to tell Ven. Dharmapal the money I turned over to him was all I had.
And those weren't the only precepts I'd broken. I'd been told several times now not to sing. I could only guess at why music was so frowned upon, for it seemed such a harmless thing, but there it was: I take the precept to abstain from dancing, singing, and music, and from watching entertainments. Yet I kept catching myself singing unintentionally. And when I didn't Ven. Dharmapal did.
"But what's wrong with singing?" I complained.
"Singing is like watching entertainments. If you're looking for amusement you're in the wrong place. The Sangha is for giving up distractions, not for indulging in them."
I'd looked disgruntled at that reply and Ven. Dharmapal had tried to explain further. "These precepts are for learning to control the body and the mind. To have peace and happiness it's necessary to give up conduct which leads to excitement and unhappiness."
But now it seemed that observing these precepts was making my life not simple and richer but more difficult and, somehow, more barren. Life had been freer without such controls. I didn't understand why these sila, tugging at the edge of my consciousness, were as unwelcome as the beggars at my sleeve.
Okay, then; so I've broken the precept against singing. That's four. And what about that speed I'd dropped yesterday? I'd been glad to find it mixed in with the anti-dysentery pills, for it staved off a growing boredom. But I was also glad, when I'd searched later, that there weren't any more. Wasn't that a violation of the fifth precept? The one to abstain from intoxicants?
That was half of them right there, and I'd only been a monk for seven days. Would I last another week? Should I last another week? And what, in particular, about the third precept? I take the precept to abstain from incelibacy. Upasakas had it easier; they abstained only from "improper" sex, which was defined, I gathered, in terms of contemporary community standards. But monks, even if they were only samaneras, abstained entirely.
"Celibacy is the main distinction between a layman and a monk, whatever sect he belongs to," Ven. Dharmapal had told me.
My sex drive was still artificially depressed from the various drugs I'd been taking (antibiotics as well as head drugs: India is hard on the intestines). It was easy, when I thought of that young lady who fancied me, to choose to do nothing about her. But I remembered how readily I'd taken that speed when I'd come upon it (although, perhaps because of the high I'd felt no deprivation symptoms from stopping the drugs). What would I do if I came upon her as unexpectedly? I fell into a reverie which began with my unbraiding her long black hair, but the noise and movement of the market drew me from it. Each choice for celibacy was a reminder that the issue of sex and sensuality had yet to be faced.
And what would happen if I were found out? There seemed to be no penalties for breaking the precepts, no penances to perform. Nobody would pull the robes from off my body and send me away in disgrace.
"If you're not keeping the precepts you're not really a samanera," Ven. Dharmapal had told me.
"What happens to me then?"
"If you break even one of these dasa sila you should renew your samanera vows."
"You didn't tell me how to do that."
"Like at the ordination, with a bhikkhu giving you the precepts."
"If I've broken one I should renew all ten of them?"
"You should renew them fortnightly whether or not you've broken any of them. Just to make sure."
"But if I haven't even broken any of the precepts what good will it do to repeat them every two weeks?"
"It will help you remember them and refresh your desire to keep them."
But it had only been one week, and already half of them were broken, and I knew I wouldn't go to Ven. Dharmapal and admit that I'd stumbled so soon.
"When you get to Ceylon," my teacher had told me, "you'll keep better to these precepts. Here in Calcutta there is much business to be done; I have many cares; I must use money. But I don't say it is a good thing for a monk. In Ceylon I would like you to give up the use of money." And I placated myself now with thoughts of distant compliance and goodness. In Ceylon everything would be different. But as I ate the second sweet I wondered whether they had gulab jamuns there.
The taste of the sweets lingered on my palate like a memory. Satisfied, I leaned back and lit a cigarette. Would I have to give up that, too, in Ceylon? Didn't I already have enough things to give up? But in Ceylon how would I get tobacco? Here Mr. Barua supplied me with all the cigarettes I wanted. Would there be other Mr. Baruas in Ceylon? I didn't know. And if I gave up using money I'd really be dependent upon dayakas to maintain my bad habits.
I finished my cigarette while speculating idly about the island in Ceylon Ven. Dharmapal had spoken of. Was it offshore, a craggy pile of rocks battered by sea waves crashing ceaselessly upon a forbidding beach? Or was it a river island, placidly fertile, low-lying, lush? What if they wouldn't let me stay? Perhaps they wouldn't have room for me. Where would I go then? But what if they did let me stay? What disciplines would I have to follow? What living conditions were there? What problems would I face?
My speculations were interrupted by a well-dressed elderly man.
"Sadhu, sahib, your blessings on a poor man."
Another blessings-beggar. When would I find an end to beggary? And I found myself less willing to give him the boon of a blessing than to give paise to street urchins.
"I don't give blessings." But he persisted.
"Your blessings on a devotee, sadhu sahib."
"For blessings you need a priest. I'm a monk. If you go to a church you'll find priests."
"But reverend, I'm a poor Hindu who only seeks your blessings."
"But I'm not a Hindu; I'm a Buddhist."
"That's no matter, sir. Lord Buddha was a Hindu. Moreover, he was the greatest Hindu. So please give me your blessings, that I may attain Nirvana."
"Nirvana? You think that's how you attain Nirvana? By getting my blessings?"
"Very well, if you won't give me your blessing I'll give you mine." And, gesturing over me, he muttered something foreign, whether a curse or a benediction I shall never know, and departed.
As I hunted through the shoulder bag for money I became aware for the first time in hours of my face: it was a bit sore. I realized now that this had been bothering me for some time but that I'd been ignoring it. Now I understood the source of this strain. It was the little smile I'd been wearing almost continuously the last week: my cheek muscles were sore.
Little areas of tension lay beneath my skin outside the eye sockets, on my cheeks, and around my lips. I let the smile fade away and felt the muscles relax, and understood the pleasure of not smiling. Tentatively I tried to smile and found in me a resistance arisen not only from sore facial muscles: mental muscles were tired of maintaining a sense of beatitude that had by now become a strain. I'd forgotten, nearly, the comforts of the familiar emotions born of desire and aversion, but I'd learned the strain of existing in unfamiliar territory and found relief in turning off the inner smile of serene indulgence as well as the outer one of beatific idiocy. I wasn't sure what Nirvana was, or whether it was to be attained through blessings, but I hoped it wasn't involved with eternal happiness. Eternal happiness, I decided, just wasn't what it was cracked up to be. After a while perpetual joy became a bore.
Next >>>
Back to Contents | Back to Previous Page | Go to Chapter Two, Part 3
Home Page | Site Contents | Introduction to Buddhism Page