Dear Crackers:
The grass was still damp from last night's shower and the meditation room was too crowded, but the tree behind the vihara was encircled by a bench unoccupied at the moment. I sat quietly, eyes open, observing rather than concentrating, but my solitude didn't last long. Several Westerners, having been booted from the kitchen, moved their conversation to the bench. I recognized two of them as Cisco and Ganesh. They nodded to me, and I smiled back. I considered moving to a less crowded place, but didn't know where I might find one. There were a lot of people taking this meditation course. Perhaps I'll learn something by listening. Ven. Ñanavira had prefaced his book, Notes on Dhamma, with a Sutta quotation about listening.
There are, monks, these two conditions for the arising of wrong view.
Which are the two? Another's utterance and improper attention.
These, monks, are the two conditions for the arising of wrong view.There are, monks, these two conditions for the arising of right view.
Which are the two? Another's utterance and proper attention.
These, monks, are the two conditions for the arising of right view.It would depend, then, not on what was said but on how I listened.
"Anyone seen the peanut man?"
"Not since breakfast time. He was here at breakfast."
"Yeah? That means he won't show up again 'til lunch."
"You don't expect him to come at your convenience, do you?"
"I wouldn't expect anything reasonable in India."
"Why should India be different than the rest of the world?"
"Not only that; why make such a fuss over peanuts? I wish that's all I had to wait for."
"By the time your money gets here it'll seem like peanuts."
"I still don't know if the telegram and letter ever arrived. I must spend half my life waiting for money. Seems like that's all I ever do."
"And by the time you finally get it it's already gone in paying back what you've borrowed while you were waiting. Yeah, I know how it is."
"I'm gonna go poke around in the kitchen. Maybe I can get something to eat. If you see the peanut man get me a rupee's worth, will you?"
"If you give me a rupee."
The peanut man came to the gates of the vihara at unpredictable hours during the day. Since we weren't to leave the grounds of the vihara for the duration of the ten-day course he did a lively business when he appeared. There were always those who, unable to meditate, sought diversions. Each time he came some of my putative fellow meditators would desert the practice to buy, shell, and eat peanuts, and to talk. Cisco was always waiting for the peanut man, just as Ganesh was always waiting for money. They showed equal lack of foresight in attending to their needs, but I refrained from pointing that out.
"That Cisco, he must have a tapeworm."
"He says he had a shit test in Delhi."
"Then it must be the munchies."
"You think he's been turning on in here?"
No dope, no sex: such were the conditions during the course, even for laypeople.
"No. He's probably got residual munchies."
"We've probably all got them."
"Gotta watch out for them residuals. They'll get you every time."
This was for many of these people their first time in months -- or longer -- without their stimulants, and the withdrawal symptoms were interesting to observe. Most of them were facing for the first time the vertiginous prospect of life without diversions. I listened to them with a sort of clinical interest, as a patient who was already familiar with the early symptoms of withdrawal, and also with a sort of compassion for the anxiety concealed in their words. The three main topics of talk among the disenchanted were always food, health, and dope (sex seemed to run a poor fourth), and they exhausted those topics before moving on to others.
"So I go into this office," Ganesh was saying, "and stacked against the walls, every single wall, from floor to ceiling, are these shelves crammed full with files. And on the floor are more stacks of paper, sometimes six and eight feet high, with barely room between them for three desks. And at each desk is a clerk, busy writing up more papers and adding them to the stacks. Then I go in to see the chief honcho, he's got his own office, you know? And in there are more shelves of files and stacks of papers everywhere. There's hardly room for this little Indian bureaucrat in his own office."
Ganesh hunched his shoulders and shrank within himself in pantomime of the crowded bureaucrat. He was amusing.
"I ask him about all the files and folders, and he says it's almost all old records, so old they were there before even he came to the office as a clerk forty years ago or something. And I ask him, 'How can you ever find anything in all those stacks?' And he says, 'We couldn't if we had to. But fortunately, that's of no concern, because as long as I've been here we've never had a single call for any of these files.'"
Ganesh was good at reproducing the gestures, cadences, and dialect of Indian English. He wore pink-toned yoga pants and a pullover shirt. He seemed always well-scrubbed. He had a prominent nose and carried his pot-belly on a thin frame. His top-knot and beard enhanced his performance, and there was laughter.
"If they were no use why did he keep them?" someone asked.
"That's what I said. 'It's necessary, sir, to obtain permission from the ministry in New Delhi before even one sheet of these files could be put to the torch.'"
"Did he ever apply?"
"Sure. He applied for permission to destroy all files unchanged for more than seven years. He applied five years ago, and he got his answer a few months ago."
"That's the normal waiting period for any communication with New Delhi, isn't it?"
"Did he get permission?"
"He did. He said to me, 'They could see the justice of our case. They gave permission. But unfortunately they saw fit to include the proviso that before we could destroy any file we had to make three copies of it.'"
This time I laughed too.
"Only in India."
"It's an incredible place."
"It's an appalling place."
"It's the spiritual center of the universe."
"And Bodh Gaya is the spiritual center of India."
The vihara was on the edge of the village of Bodh Gaya, close to the nearly-dry Nerañjara river.
"That's a presumptuous claim."
"I don't claim it. I just accept it."
Cisco returned empty-handed, his lips moist, a crumb in his beard. "Couldn't get a thing," he complained.
"Spiritual center?"
"Bellybutton of the universe."
"Contemplating this village is like contemplating your navel."
"Great. But where is that peanut man?"
A bell rang, summoning the bhikkhus to dana. There were eight or ten of us in a crowd of several hundred: most participants were young travelers. I was the only Western monk. The others were Burmese, Thai, and Indochinese. We bhikkhus ate before noon, of course: that was our way. Cisco would have to wait with the others until twelve or later to get more food for his belly.
In this vihara's small danasala we sat side by side on thick paduras. No almsmen here, dayakas served us choice foods which, in silence, we ate from good china plates. I hadn't found much use for the almsbowl in India. Tucked under each plate was an envelope, its corner discreetly protruding. Inside would be a gift of five or ten rupees, which I would accept.
"Take it," Crackers had urged, offering me a few hundred rupees. "I'm not going to be around to cover for you any more." He was on his way back home.
"I don't want money."
"It's a good idea, this trip through India. But you're going to have to use money or it'll be impossible. This isn't a barter society anymore."
"That I couldn't survive in India today without money is a strong argument for going to Thailand right now."
"Then go. But if you're going to see India don't do it the hard way."
"If I went to Thailand now I might never regret not seeing the four holy places when I had the chance. But then again, I might. I should see them while I can."
"Great idea. But be practical about it."
"Even more than the four holy places, what interest me are the places where the Buddha meditated and preached. Savatthi. Rajagaha. I'd like to see what's left of them."
"There were some big cities in the Magdhese Kingdom. There must still be some ruins."
"The Buddha spent a lot of time on Vulture's Peak. It might be a good place to meditate."
"It was good enough for him."
"Seeing those places might help me understand the spirit of the Suttas better."
"It's a good plan. But you can't do it today without money."
"I can't huh?" I looked at the bills and sighed.
"When you get to Thailand you can confess, and start fresh."
"I can, huh?" So I'd told myself, before going to Ceylon, and it had worked then.
Crackers shook his head. "Believe me. Take it. You'll need it."
I believed him. I took it. I needed it.
After dana we rinsed our hands and left, for the dayakas would clean up. To get to my room I had to cross the courtyard. Although I kept my eyes lowered I saw that, meditation time over, the yard was filled with traveler-folk -- freaks, they called themselves these days -- who sat in clusters on the lawn, under the tree, or on the steps, talking. Some were lined up for the mess-style lunch that would be served soon. I noticed Cisco near the head of the line.
Many freaks carried their own plate or bowl. Others would use the traditional banana-leaf plate. Those new to India still had the plumpness of the well-fed about them. Those who had been around for a while wore mostly Eastern clothing. There were a few topknots, and a few Westerners wore the white muslin of an upasaka and were shorn like me. The shorn women looked surprisingly unfeminine. They weren't the reason I kept my eyes lowered. It was because of the very feminine long-haired lasses.
"How, sir, should we conduct ourselves towards women?"
"Don't look at them, Ananda."
"But if we do see them?"
"Don't talk to them, Ananda."
"But if they should speak to us?"
"Be mindful, Ananda. Be mindful."
It wasn't sufficient that they dress modestly, as they should. Nor was it sufficient that they act modestly as well, nor that they keep their distance, nor even that they remain entirely hidden from view. They were here, in all their myriad possibilities, and it was necessary to hold strictly in check that part of me that would yield to their tender allure, for I didn't wish that part of me to be in control. It pouted and skulked about, seeking release, demanding attention, and sucking up energy and spirit like any addiction. This enforced closeness to such succulent female flesh was, for me, the most difficult part of the Goenka course.
I paced up and down the hallway for a bit to limber up. It was no good doing sitting meditation without sufficient warm-up. In the middle of the length of the hall there was a view of the courtyard. Each time I passed by I challenged myself to keep my eyes lowered, and steeled myself for the effort, and still sometimes I stole a glance out to the courtyard. It wasn't just that I wanted a woman; it was that the looseness and lack of restraint shown by most of the freaks was appealing. And although I saw the danger in such ease I also saw the allure. And although I maintained restraint I was as much subject to the allures of the senses as anyone, and to the gecko-like comfort of not taking care. And I was ashamed of my susceptibilities, for I felt I'd been a meditator too long to be still having lustful thoughts. And I felt dissatisfied to be reminded, in seeing the freaks being fed mess-style, that I was treated as though I were superior to them, for it emphasized all the more so that I wasn't.
We were together with Goenka, a meditation master who led intensive ten-day courses which were, by now, among the most popular attractions in India for freaks. Crackers and I had wondered what value such a course could have for those already experienced in meditation, like us.
"There might be good energy in a group effort."
"There might be noise and confusion."
"If I'd had guidance I might still be in robes."
"But Goenka, he's part of the guru circuit. I wonder if it's possible nowadays for any teacher in India to not get caught up in that industry. It reminds me of the Bible Belt."
"All I've heard of Goenka has been very favorable."
"But it's a group course. Meditation is the cultivation of solitude. I have to wonder whether putting myself in the presence of so much potential distraction would be a help."
"I thought I'd mention it because I've heard that the next course is in January, and it'll be at Bodh Gaya. You'll be going there anyway" -- it was one of the four holy places -- "so I thought I'd mention it."
"If I happen to be there in January I might see what it's all about. But I won't go out of my way for it."
"I also hear the Dalai Lama will be in Bodh Gaya in January. Some sort of special ceremony for the Tibetans."
"Before I go off to Thailand what I want most is to return to the Himalayas. I haven't seen them in five years. I think that in some way I can't explain they had something to do with my taking the robes."
"I remember the Tibetan lamas and refugees. Man, they had nothing. They were absolutely condemned to lives of drudgery and hunger. But they were the first Buddhists I'd ever seen, and they were the first people I'd ever met who seemed happy."
"The Tibetans are impressive; but I don't think they were a factor in my coming to the robes. It was something about the Himalayas themselves. They're so vast and open that maybe just being around them opened me up to something. I don't know ..." My voice trailed off, embarrassed at not making sense.
"When you get to Thailand you'll let me know if conditions there are better than in Ceylon?"
I patted his shoulder bag where I kept the plane ticket. "And if there are any teachers there I'll let you know." I was no longer angry at Crackers for disrobing and wished him well.
"And if you take that Goenka course drop me a line. I'd be interested to hear about it."
"If I take it I'll let you know what it's like."
And we'd parted, I to take a last look at India and he to I know not where.
When I'd walked enough I went into my room and sat on the bed. I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and turned the attention to the breathing, then remembered that for these ten days I was supposed to meditate as Goenka had instructed, not on the nose-tip but on the whole body, placing the attention successively on the parts of the body in a sweeping movement of my attention, ending at the chest. I tried it for a while, then remembered that I still had the envelope from dana tucked into my belt.
My eyes fluttered open. No, let it wait until after meditation. I closed my eyes again. But what if I forgot it afterwards? What if the money got misplaced? And my eyes tried to open again. I kept them closed, telling myself that I wouldn't forget it; I wouldn't misplace it. But how much was there? Should I look, and settle the question? Or leave it where it was and not give in to the urge?
So I debated with myself until finally I opened the envelope and found five rupees. Then I had to put it away lest it be lost, or lest I fret over the possibility. Like any habit, it had to be supported and cared for. And then I thought about how much money I had, and calculated how much I could spend per day until I boarded a plane for Thailand. I wanted to stay long enough to return to the Himalayas. In January, though, it was still too cold in Nepal for the clothing I had, even with the angsa, so I stayed in the Northern plains until the weather turned. The Goenka course was helping me get through winter.
The flight would leave from Calcutta. That meant I would be seeing Ven. Dharmapal again. I'd already been there once, after the long train ride up from Madras. The most attractive features of Calcutta were still its poverty and ugliness, both of which (it hardly seemed possible) were more striking than when I'd first been there. And there were still the beggars, more desperate than ever. Paise, sahib; paise, sahib. I'd walked into the vihara unannounced to find Ven. Dharmapal in his quarters.
"Ñanasuci. So you've come back, eh?"
He hadn't seemed surprised, nor noticeably different than he had five years ago.
"Now you're not Vinayadhara any longer, are you? Now you're Ñanasuci. Or are you something else now, eh? So you're still liking this life? It's still good?"
He smiled pleasantly as I bowed. He made an indeterminate throaty sound. My robe, worn properly, didn't come undone and fall to the floor.
"It's good, bhante."
The bell rang for the afternoon group meditation, but I stayed where I was. The course had a rigorous daily schedule which we were expected to follow (although, as Goenka had explained, the only penalty we would incur from failure to keep to it was to benefit less from the course). But I'd tried the meditation hall, and preferred to be alone in my room.
All the distractions! The noise! The slightest rustling of clothing had reminded me, before I stopped attending the sessions, how awareness of others infected all attempts at group mindfulness. The muffled cough, the footstep on the stairs, snapped at my attention like a rat-trap. And even when the others made no noise at all, awareness of them touched ever so lightly on my consciousness, spring-taut.
The freaks didn't have private rooms to which they could retire. They slept dormitory-style in the vihara's attic and in some large tents, segregated by sex. The only ones with rooms were the monks and the few Indian gentlemen who took the course. The Indians were all elderly, wore only white, and would have no truck with the multi-colored freaks who dominated the course. The freaks slept on the floor, protected from the wintry nights by whatever bedding they had with them, usually sleeping bags. When it rained they got wet.
I turned my attention to the meditation Goenka taught. It was one of those taught by the Buddha, and had its own pleasures and pitfalls, but I was comfortable with the breathing meditation, as with an old robe, and preferred it. After a while my knees began to ache and I wanted to stretch them. With a resolve I turned attention back to bodily feelings. But as the aching knees asserted themselves more stridently attention became more difficult to maintain.
Another five minutes, I told myself. I can manage another five minutes. And when I guessed the time to be over I pressed myself to stay for yet another five minutes, to prove I was trying. Finally I could sit no longer. Anticipation of activity smothered watchfulness of bodily feelings. I uncrossed my legs and, when they stopped tingling, left the room.
I walked to the flower beds and circled them for a while. Calmed and relaxed, I walked slowly. It was time for group meditation, but some freaks were sitting outside, singly and in groups: a winter sun was out. They were only part of the landscape, like the flowers and trees, to me. Then I saw Cisco and Ganesh talking to some other freaks. They nodded at me and patted the ground in invitation to sit.
"Have some peanuts," Cisco offered.
I declined.
"What amazes me," Ganesh was saying, "is how serious the Buddhists are. At the ashram we were always dancing and playing music and smoking dope and carrying on. We did freaky things just to do them. You don't find that around here. Is this the way it is in other viharas?" he asked me.
"This is wild compared to some places I've lived."
"It seems like a great discipline, then. But I can't help feeling that it's also a very narrow discipline. There doesn't seem to be any expression of human emotions, it's intellectually didactic, and artistically impoverished."
"Hmm."
"I mean, meditation is one way of learning the truth about ourselves, but what about other ways. What about, say, the intricacy of Tibetan painting, or the simplicity of Zen poetry, or the purity of Balinese dance? Why doesn't Theravada Buddhism make use of those techniques?"
"I don't know. I don't know about any of that stuff."
"What does the Buddha say about artistic expression?"
I scratched my head. I'd need another shave soon. "I don't know. I can't recall anything about use of art in the Suttas, except the little poems monks sometimes made up, like you find in the Dhammapada."
"Nothing like an Aesthetics?"
I shook my head doubtfully. "Not that I've run across. The only relevant quote I can recall is, 'Two things only do I teach: suffering and the path leading to the ceasing of suffering.'"
"What about the Tarot, then? What about astrology?"
"I don't know anything about them."
"How come Hindus accept other teachings as equally valid and Buddhists don't? Theravadins don't even accept Mahayana as valid, do they?"
"The person's more important than the system he's shackled to. As soon as you get involved in a system you're distorting reality."
"Systems are only devices."
"Systems are attempts at a complete view, and a complete view is an impossibility for an existing human being. There's no way you can get an 'outside' view of your own experience because the view is part of the experience."
"How about a system with an 'inside' view?"
"The Suttas don't reject this system or that system. They reject the need to systematize. Suffering doesn't need to be categorized. It needs to be given up."
"But there are lots of Theravadins who treat the Dhamma as if it were a system."
I didn't dispute him.
"Man is a builder," someone said. "If the Buddha doesn't deal with systems he doesn't deal with man."
"The Buddha's Teaching is a collection of advice on the nature of systems, and the path leading to the ceasing of system-building."
"What do you mean, system-building? The universe is already there: we don't build it."
"Aha -- a Realist. But the world doesn't simply present itself to me uniformly. Or, rather, I don't perceive the world as a uniform whole. It's warped, so to speak, by the choices I make, so that some parts become more prominent and others fade out of awareness. And parts of this warped structure are colored by emotions like dye-marked specimens. All of that is involved in the perception of the world 'out there.'"
"Aha -- an Idealist. You're saying that the world only exists as you perceive it. That it wouldn't exist if you didn't somehow participate in its being."
"That's not my point. That's no less a frame of reference than your Realist position, that the world out there is what there is and we'd better learn to see it that way."
"Then?"
"I'm not talking about the world. I'm talking about how I perceive the world. If I perceive it with ideas of 'me' and 'mine,' then I perceive it with desire, or greed, or hatred, or delusion. The important question isn't whether the world is real, in any way or any degree, but how we're going to relate to that world, no matter whether we call it real or imaginary."
One of the freaks got up. "It's too much for me," he said. "I can't understand it." And he walked off.
"The only thing we can do is make it as good a world as we can," another freak remarked.
"Before that we have to find out what 'good' means."
"It means what benefits the most people, what makes the greatest number happy, doesn't it?"
"Does it?"
"It means doing your duty," another said.
"It means how you feel. If you're happy, then it's good."
"It means to do away with suffering."
"As long as there is birth, decay, and death there's suffering," I remarked.
"Then you won't be happy until everyone's done away with suffering?"
"I hope I don't have to wait that long."
"Can you be happy when other people are suffering?"
"I hope so."
"Isn't that selfish?"
"Would the world be better if I suffered too?"
"But should you run away from the suffering of the world?"
"Should I run from facing my own suffering by losing myself in the suffering of others?"
"Isn't that just running from the real world, and its responsibilities?"
"It's easier to live concerned with other people's suffering than your own."
"That's escapism. Aren't you refusing to face reality?"
"Yes."
I'd been asked such questions before and had learned by now the futility of trying to explain a way of life to those who had all their lives immersed themselves in stimulants, irritants, and distractions and concerned themselves with others to avoid themselves. Such folk would ask me -- or tell me -- about karma, about rebirth, about heavens and hells, meditation, levitation, the eternal, the temporal, the finite and the infinite, the good, the bad, the high, the low, and a thousand other speculations, imaginations, and fancies. And when I answered them with words about greed, hatred, and delusion, or with words about birth, decay, and death, or with words about impermanence, suffering, and not-self, they would turn away dissatisfied and seek elsewhere for answers to their cosmic questions.
In a while my companions left and wandered off to other parts of the vihara, leaving me to sit on the grass alone. I closed my eyes and observed, from within, the ongoing experience. It consisted of matter, feelings, perceptions, conditions, and consciousness. What was there to escape from, or to?
I didn't know whether Bodh Gaya was the spiritual center of the universe, but it seemed to be the center of concern for spiritual things. Within the guru circuit that concern was a blatant hindrance to the practice, which involved neither doctrine nor system, but simply sitting down and doing it.
With best wishes,
V
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