Chapter 2
Getting Off-Chapter 2
(i)
Once the Auspicious One was staying at Anupiya. Anupiya is a town belonging to the Mallas. Now at that time the leading youths of the Sakyans had renounced the world in imitation of the Auspicious One.
Now there were two brothers, Mahanama the Sakyan and Anuruddha the Sakyan. Anuruddha had been lavishly raised. He had three palaces, one for the cold season, one for the hot season, and one for the rainy season. During the four months spent in the palace for the rainy season he was attended by female musicians, and didn’t come down from the upper story of the palace.
Then Mahanama went to his brother and said, “Now, the leading youths of the Sakyans have renounced the world in imitation of the Auspicious One, but from our own family no one has gone forth from the household life to the homeless state. Therefore, either you go forth, or I shall.”
“I’m used to luxuries. I can’t go forth from the household life to the homeless state. You do it.”
“Then come, dear Anuruddha; I will teach you about the household life. First you have to get the fields plowed. When they’ve been plowed you have to get them sown. When they’ve been sown you have to irrigate them. When they’ve been irrigated the water has to be drained off. When the water has been drained off you have to get the weeds pulled. When the weeds have been pulled you have to get the crop reaped. When the crop has been reaped you have to get it collected. When it’s been collected you have to get it arranged into bundles. When it’s been arranged into bundles you have to get it threshed. Then you have to get the straw picked out, then you have to take the chaff off, then it has to be winnowed, then the harvest has to be gathered. When the harvest has been gathered you have to do just the same next year, and the same yet again the year after that.”
“The work is endless! An end to the work isn’t seen!” Anuruddha complained, and Mahanama agreed.
“Yes, dear Anuruddha, the work is truly endless. There is no end to our labors. Even though our fathers and forefathers worked until their deaths, even then there was no end to the work.”
“In that case, dear Mahanama, you seem to be well acquainted with the duties of the household life. You live this life, and I shall go forth into the homeless life.”
Vinaya: Cula vagga VII,1,i
“Vinayadhara! Oh, Vinayadhara!”
The voice was loud enough to break my attention. I’d been engrossed in an account of the life of the Buddha. Most of the books in the temple’s glass-doored bookcases were printed in ornate Oriental scripts: I couldn’t even read the words much less understand them. Those books I ignored: they were part of that alien background which I’d learned to disregard because it was so inaccessible. The few English-language books around — their rarity made them treasures — were ancient, brittle, and full of neatly drilled small round wormholes.
“Vinayadhara? Why you don’t hear me calling to you?”
And then I understood: Vinayadhara was my name!
“Come in.” I had my own small room now on Monks’ Row. I sat on a low cot. There was also a chair and a window.
The door opened and the young monk, Mahinda, came in.
“Vinayadhara?”
Vinayadhara: here was a new sound, one that I could no longer ignore. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable sound though it might be it was part of the world, alien until now, that was opening up for me, that I would have to open up to. I was anxious to learn these new ways, and so to partake more fully of the monk’s life. I was anxious to make a good impression.
They’d named me last night. After the ordination the bhikkhus had consulted among themselves while I waited at one side. There was a nodding of heads as consensus was reached, then I was summoned and informed of my new name: Vinayadhara. That, Ven. Dharmapal explained, was Pali for “keeper of the discipline.”
“Vinayadhara? Eleven o’clock. Time now for dana.”
“Hi.” I was cheerful. “Take a seat.” I indicated the chair, but he remained standing.
“You don’t hear me calling to you?”
“I was reading.”
“You must give better attention.”
I was embarrassed, and afraid of getting a reputation for being addled. And maybe it would be deserved, for when I tried now to remember my name I got no farther than the first syllable. Vin … vin …
Not knowing how to explain myself, I just smiled. I’d been in a manic state since last night, when I’d found joy, and nothing could bring me down. I felt embarrassment no less with the manic than I would without, but I felt it with a certain detachment, as if the feelings belonged to a fictional persona, a clownish fool to whose act I was but a spectator. Not me. This was my first real manic reaction, and I was imperturbable.
“Sit down, okay?” I tried to be friendly.
“You don’t remember, Vinayadhara? About the courtesy? About sitting down? From last night?”
“Courtesy?”
What was discourteous about inviting him to sit down? We were both monks now, weren’t we? And there was no point in standing on formality, was there? Then I remembered. My conduct had already been corrected last night: when senior monks stand junior monks don’t sit. I started to get up for my senior, but as I rose there was a tugging on the robe: my big toe was caught in the hem. As I stood I felt the cloth tauten and then start to slide off my body. I grabbed at it off-balance, legs still partly crossed and one foot off the ground. My big toe struggled blindly against the wholly unexpected and tenacious power of the robe. Unprepared, I found myself staggering against the wall to avoid toppling over like a sack of rice. I clutched the tangled folds of cloth against my chest lest they fall off entirely.
Mahinda tried to hide a smile as I fumbled with the cloth, tugged at it, and finally extricated my big toe. They’d shown me earlier how to wear the robes in a simple sleeveless style, the style worn informally while on the vihara grounds, but I couldn’t get the cloth sorted out properly.
“Never mind to bow down. For me is enough you stand.”
“Why don’t I bow to you?” If I let go of the robe it would fall off.
“I’m just a little bhikkhu. Only need to bow for big bhikkhus, and always for our teacher.”
“Do I bow for other samaneras?”
“For other samaneras no need even to stand.”
“But I should stand up for you?”
“I’m bhikkhu. That’s rule.”
“I’m standing. Now what?”
“Now is time for dana. You understand dana?”
“Not exactly.”
“No? Is meaning lunchtime. So make the robe like I showed you last night, with the sleeve, and then we go to eat.”
“When will our teacher see me?”
“After dana. Okay?”
“It sure is. I’m hungry.”
“Then make your robes, we’ll go eat.”
“The easy way?”
“No, with the sleeve. Today we have special dana.”
I looked at the bunches of cloth and tried to remember how to fold them so as to end up with a sleeve. I stood bewildered until Mahinda, with a bemused headshake, took charge and draped and folded the robes until they were properly fitted. I tried to hold the cloth tightly in place but already, around the shoulder, it began to slip a little, and I tugged at it as we went outside to the courtyard, where I felt suddenly conspicuous.
Last night’s meeting hall was today’s dining room. It looked friendlier in daylight, and not so empty: large tables filled the middle of the room. Plates were stacked up on one of them. White-clad devotees fussed over cooking pots and serving bowls. Outside, in the courtyard, unfamiliar monks mingled with those of the temple. They talked among themselves, waiting. I moved towards the open double doors of the dining hall to see what the women were cooking, but Mahinda steered me away from the laywomen and their cooking smells.
“Are we going to eat in there?” Because breakfast had been an informal matter produced by the temple boy in the cookhouse and eaten by the dozen monks of the temple in the small room near the kitchen.
“I telled you, today is special dana.”
“Because of me?”
“No, because of the ordination.”
“It’s not like this every day?”
Mahinda smiled. “No. The dayakas, they make special food.”
“Who are these other monks?”
“They come from other viharas for this dana.”
“I noticed now some of the monks were looking at us.
“Are those monks bhikkhus?”
“Almost all. Why?”
“Then I should bow down to them, shouldn’t I?”
“You can see, here is no place to bow down.”
“Right here, on the cement.”
“See how dirty the ground is” — although in fact the courtyard was well-swept — “and everywhere are too much peoples. Just do to them the namaste, that will be enough.” He showed me again the clasped-hands greeting, head lowered.
I went to each of the unfamiliar monks and signified my respect, but before I could finish the namastes the fold of robe that went over the left shoulder became slipping down. I pushed up at it, but each movement made it looser still, and finally I had to be rescued from my plight by two as-yet-unrespected bhikkhus who pulled and twisted at the robe until it felt secure again, while all the monks and many upasakas stood around and watched, and I smiled, abashed but brave.
Ven. Dharmapal arrived. We lined up and entered the dining hall single file. As most recently ordained I was last to enter and sit down. A bolt of white cloth had been unrolled on the floor along the far wall, so that we sat looking out onto the courtyard. Cushions were evenly spaced. To one side of us were tables laden with bowls and pots of various curries.
The upasakas gathered together and sat in a group while one of the senior monks delivered a brief sermon (in Bengali, of course) after which the pańca sila was recited in the same fashion as the night before. I had the distinct impression that one young lady with long black braids and a smile looked in my direction with a certain deliberateness and, abashed, I averted my eyes.
A plate was set on a small cloth before each monk; a huge cauldron of steaming rice was brought from the table and large saucersful were ladled onto each monk’s plate. Other devotees followed with large brass bowls, each filled with a curry. The aromas sharpened my appetite; I was glad to see there was dahl, a lentil I relished. A spoonful or more from each bowl was placed reverently on my plate, which was soon heaped so high that I wondered how I might decently refuse more.
I watched until Mahinda, beside me, whispered, “Keep your eyes down.”
Peering sidelong I saw a man offer him a spoonful of some sort of pale green stringy matter, but Mahinda placed, his hand in front of his plate and the upasaka withdrew his offering. He held it over my own plate and I had a good look at the stuff. Strands of it hung glutinously over the edges of the spoon like worms trying to get out of a can. I tried to stop him, but I wasn’t fast enough. He dumped the mess on top of my rice, which began soaking up the green juice. Before he could give me another spoonful I put my hand in front of my plate, declining all further offers of food.
Ven. Dharmapal, at the head of the row, took the first mouthful of food; then the rest of us began. Like the other monks, I started to eat with the fingers of my right hand; but before I could mix some rice and curry into a small rice-ball and pop it into my mouth a battered tin spoon was offered to me. I declined it: this food I preferred to eat Indian-style, with the fingers, like the other monks. Again it was offered, and again declined. I didn’t know which was more embarrassing, that such a fuss should be made over me or that by refusing I should make a fuss myself; but when the spoon was pressed upon me a third time I accepted it reluctantly.
It was awkward to maneuver that mound of rice with a spoon, and to get the curries mixed in the right proportion (about one to one for me then; later I learned that the prescription of the commentaries was about four parts rice to one part curry, and I tried to conform). Each time I tried to mix the curries and rice together with the spoon some of the food got pushed off the plate, staining the cloth various colors. Each time more food got pushed off the plate I was flushed with the awareness that none of the other monks had spilled a grain of rice.
Second helpings were offered as we ate. I declined all except an extra spoonful of dahl. With eyes downcast I couldn’t see the face of the devotee who offered the yellow lentil, but as the arm moved towards the plate I could see that it was a young lady’s, and she took an extra moment to place the dahl reverently on my plate, and another before she withdrew her hand and moved away. I tried to mix some dahl in with the rice but, flustered, spilled a great deal of it. When I got some food to my mouth I discovered that some of the stringy green stuff, had got mixed into the rice-ball. It had a bitter taste and a slimy texture.
The thought came to me several times that this would be my last chance to take solid food until tomorrow morning, and I urged myself to get it now, while it was there. But it was with a realization of my own limits that I finally put my spoon down on a still quarter-full plate and pushed it an inch or two away. A silent belch filled my mouth. I was finished.
Some of the other monks were still eating: third helpings of everything were being offered all round and, here and there, another favored morsel was being accepted. I sat silently with a lump of gas in my throat, too stuffed to feel anything but stuffed, until everyone was finished. But when my plate was removed I silently bewailed the loss, for I feared that this evening I would have to go as hungry as any beggar.
A brass water pot and a blue enamel spittoon were passed down the line. Each monk poured water over his curry-stained fingers, washing the greasy rice-grains into the spittoon; then he rinsed his mouth. A few gargled noisily. I’d eaten with a spoon; my hands were clean, so when Mahinda finished he returned the utensils to a waiting upasaka without offering them to me. My lips felt greasy, and as I followed Mahinda and the other monks outside into the courtyard I wiped them unobtrusively on my sleeve.
“Here, make your robe over, like this.”
I watched how with several deft moves Mahinda unrolled his robe and arranged it into the sleeveless loose-fitting style that was worn casually about the temple. I tried it, but got tangled up and had to be rescued.
“I wonder if I’ll ever learn to dress myself?” I smiled at my incompetence.
“Oh yes, I hope so, because sometimes there will be nobody to help you.”
Around us the other monks relaxed. They smoked beedies, talking. Smoking wasn’t forbidden to monks. “The rules,” Ven. Dharmapal had explained, “were made by the Buddha, and tobacco wasn’t known in those days; so how could there be a rule against smoking?”
But, he added, if it had been known it probably would have been disallowed. If I wished to give up smoking it would be all to the good provided I didn’t become prideful and censorious of smokers.
The pungent smell of the burning beedies drifted past me and for the first time since last night I had a sudden and fierce desire for a smoke. I knew a smoke was only a word away. But monks weren’t supposed to have desires, I told myself angrily, and refused to speak that word.
I turned away from the smokers and watched the women cleaning up inside the dining hall. From the patch of sunshine in which I stood the interior of the hall was dark, and I couldn’t decide which figure was the young lady.
An upasaka distracted me by offering a basket of pan. Mahinda helped himself. He scattered chips of areca nut onto a betel leaf and smeared on a generous dab of limestone paste, then folded the leaf into a packet.
“Here, you take this.”
“No thanks.” I remembered the first time I’d chewed betel. The lime, I’d discovered too late, was highly caustic and stung my mouth and throat as if by a swarm of wasps. I’d learned then that in spite of its potency pan wouldn’t get me any higher than Wrigley’s Spearmint, and had lost interest.
“Pan is very fine for, how you say, with the food.”
“Digestion? But the lime is very bad for the mouth.”
Mahinda shrugged and tucked the cud into his cheek.
“Tastes good; good for you.”
He dropped a blood-red blob of saliva into a nearby spittoon. The lime was a powerful salivating agent that changed the leaf-juice from a pale green to a harsh red. It was those red stains that I’d seen all over the walkways when I’d first entered the betel-chewing part of the world, and had mistaken for blood: did everyone in Asia have advanced tuberculosis?
“Here, reverend, is a pan without any lime. Perhaps that will be more to your liking.”
I wasn’t used to being called reverend and it took a moment to realize the upasaka meant me.
But I accepted the offer in the hope it might allay my desire for a smoke. It didn’t.
“Reverend, we are being very happy that you are coming to be a holy person in our temple. It is making every persons be with great happy.”
“I’m not aholy person; but I’m glad to be a monk.”
“Yes. To be a monk. Because just you are doing something very difficult. Now difficult means, you are being monk.”
“Oh no, being a monk is very easy!” And so it was, for me, so far. “Being a layman is what’s difficult.” And so it had been, for me, until then. “I’m a monk now because that’s the easy way. Before I was a monk my life was very hard. I wasn’t happy. If I had to be a layman again I don’t know what I’d do. I had lots of worries and problems I didn’t know how to solve.” As a monk I was only beginning to discover what worries and problems there might be in this sort of life.
Neither Mahinda nor the upasaka looked as if they understood what I’d said. They nodded doubtfully at me and searched each others’ faces for clues to my meaning.
“Reverend, if I can help to you you ask me. Because it is very great merit to help to such a holy monk like you.”
“Thank you.” This was the third offer I’d had so far from would-be dayakas. I didn’t even know this man’s name.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Vinayadhara,” one of the other young monks called, but I didn’t recognize the name, until he came up to me and delivered his message: my teacher would see me now.
I excused myself and began to walk away.
“You forget something, no?” Mahinda called after me.
I looked back at him, puzzled. Was I supposed to bow?
“The pan. You shouldn’t go to our teacher eating pan.”
“I forgot.” I deposited the remains of the pulpy green wad into the spittoon.
“And don’t forget the courtesy,” Mahinda reminded me as I walked away.
Ven. Dharmapal looked up from his papers when I entered. I got down on my knees, bent forward, and touched my forehead to the ground three times. I wasn’t sure whether the pattern of doing things in threes extended to bowing, but I was determined to err, if I was to err at all, on the side of fastidiousness rather than neglect. As I bowed down, palms flat on the carpet beside my head, the robe fell off my shoulder completely.
Ven. Dharmapal acknowledged my obeisance with a very slight motion of his head and an indeterminate throaty sound I didn’t quite know how to take. Was it displeasure that I’d let the robes flop all over the floor? More likely it was satisfaction that I’d remembered to bow. Or was it, perhaps, a blessing?
He waited patiently while I rearranged the robes. I sat down carefully, knowing they would surely fall off again the next time I tried to stand up. What I really needed, I decided, was a safety pin. I wondered if they were allowed. None of the other monks seemed to use them.
“So, how are you liking this life now, Vinayadhara? Everything is good?”
“Yes, everything’s fine.”
“Now you’re not Robert, are you? Now you’re Vinayadhara.”
“Yes.” I still kept forgetting the name and was glad to hear it used.
“But how is your staying here now? Without problems, or is there something where we can be helping you?”
“These robes won’t stay on. Would it be okay if I used a safety pin to keep them in place?”
“Already you’re looking for devices. To be a monk you should develop your own abilities instead of relying on props. But don’t worry; you’ll learn soon enough how to keep the robes on. Learning how to be worthy of the robes is more difficult.”
I nodded, unconvinced that I couldn’t as well prove my worth with safety pins as without.
“In the Sangha we have special ways. I tell you this, you don’t get angry, yes?”
“I’d like to learn about those ways.” I was apprehensive, ready to defend myself.
Ven. Dharmapal reached over to his desk, took down the almsbowl I’d held last night — I recognized the rust-colored stain — and handed it to me, using both hands, as if it were of great value. But when I took it I could see that it was empty and wondered what had happened to the money.
“Vinayadhara, here is your bowl. It’s important that you understand about the bowl, and why you shouldn’t handle it with disregard, as you’re doing.”
Oh, oh. I put the bowl down and left it alone.
“I’ll tell you about almsbowls.” Ven. Dharmapal picked up the bowl and set it gently in his lap, and told me about almsbowls.
“In the days of the Buddha there was a man living in Rajagaha who had a piece of wood, a piece of very fine and rare sandalwood. You know what sandalwood is?”
I nodded, remembering the refreshing aroma of the sandalwood Tibetan prayer beads I’d seen in Nepal.
“One day this man, he thought, ‘I’ll have a woodcarver shape this sandalwood into an almsbowl. Then I’ll give the bowl to a worthy person. That way I’ll do a worthy deed with the sandalwood, and I can still enjoy the chips.’
“So a woodcarver made the bowl for the man. The man kept the chips, but he mounted the bowl at the end of a long bamboo pole and planted it upright in the ground. Then he announced that whoever could rise up into the air and take down that bowl from its pole would be the owner of it. Because that way only a very great person could take the bowl, and the man would have very great merit.
“Many people tried to get the bowl, but none of them was able to. Then a bhikkhu came into Rajagaha one morning to get almsfood. He heard about the bowl and the rules for winning it, so he rose up into the air and brought it down. Then all the people heard what he’d done and followed him everywhere. They filled his new bowl with the best of foods and made a great noise: ‘This great monk, this worthy monk, this monk of supernormal powers, this monk has risen up into the air and brought down the sandalwood almsbowl!’”
As we both laughed at his animated style the temple boy came to the door with tea. Although it was past time when food could be eaten, tea and certain other drinks were always allowable. While it was being set out — with plenty of milk and sugar, as it was drunk in Bengal — I pictured myself with the power of levitation. There were many powers to be obtained through meditation. How proud I would be to have such abilities. What honor would come with them! I looked at my metal bowl with its rust-colored stain, still held by Ven. Dharmapal, and thought how pleasing it would be to have a sandalwood bowl.
“That was a good story. Where do you learn these stories?”
“From the old Pali books. We call them Suttas.”
“Are there more of these Suttas?”
“Many more. But wait; this Sutta, I’m notfinished telling it to you.”
“I thought that was the end.”
“No. You see, the people, they honored that monk and asked his advice and blessings and followed him and made a big noise, even when he retreated to the forest for his meditation.
“Now, the Buddha heard this noise and asked what was the cause of it, and was told. Then he called that monk and asked him if it was all true, and the monk, he said yes, it was. So the Buddha rebuked that monk for having shown his supernormal powers for the sake of gain. He said it wasn’t fitting for a monk to have such finery as a sandalwood bowl. And he compared the monk to a woman who displays her body for the sake of gain. Also he said that it is an act of wrong-doing for a monk to display supernormal powers to householders, to anyone except another bhikkhu.”
“Only to a bhikkhu? Not even to me?” For I was only a samanera.
“Not even to a samanera.”
“Could a samanera have these powers, like levitation?”
“Anyone who’s developed enough in the proper meditation can have these powers, whether they’re a bhikkhu, a samanera, or an upasaka.”
“And would a samanera be allowed to show these powers to others?”
“He would need his teacher’s permission. And if he had a good teacher he wouldn’t get it. But don’t worry about such things until you get the powers.”
“What if an upasaka showed his powers?”
“Then he would have misunderstood the Teaching. That’s why the Buddha instructed the monks about attachment and about giving up, and told that monk to break up the sandalwood bowl and grind it to a powder, because in that time they knew how to use sandalwood powder in an eye-ointment. And he told the monks not to use wooden bowls. The only kinds of bowls allowed monks are bowls of clay or iron.”
This iron bowl, Ven. Dharmapal told me, was my livelihood. It was to be cared for carefully; and he taught me how. The bowl had been specially treated somehow (by baking with certain oils, I later learned) so that it wouldn’t rust or stain easily, but it was necessary that after eating from it I wash and dry it properly, not putting it away while it was still damp nor leaving it out in the sun to bake for hours, damaging the finish, nor yet leaving it where it could be knocked over or kicked about, and always to rest it on a piece of cloth or a properly-constructed stand so that it would be neither scratched nor broken.
The minutiae of caring for the almsbowl were followed by lessons on caring for the robes: how to wash them, how to dye them, how to repair them, air them, wear them and respect them as a symbol of my calling. And — I remembered them falling to the ground as I’d bowed down — not to needlessly let them touch the ground.
The monk’s life was lived dependent upon four conditions. Food: if invited for a meal I could accept if I wished; if there were no invitations I was to be content with what was gleaned on the almsround. Clothing: if robes were made available I could accept them if I so wished. If no cloth was available I was to piece together my robes from the rag heap. Medicine: if I was ill I could make use of whatever medicines might be offered to me. If nothing was offered I was to be content with mud and cow’s urine as medicine. And Shelter: if a suitable dwelling was made available I could use it if I so wished; otherwise I was to take what shelter I needed at the root of a tree.
Healthy, well-dressed, well-housed, well-fed, the prospect of ever having to be content with anything as basic as rag robes or the root of a tree seemed no more real than a levitating bhikkhu, and I readily accepted the conditions for myself. I felt I could bear up under any hardship.
I was fortunate, Ven. Dharmapal told me, to have an iron bowl. He recalled the clay bowl he’d had when, some twenty years ago, he’d been a samanera. It had been difficult to care for. This bowl that I now had was, in fact, the first iron bowl that he’d ever had, many years ago. And he told of the time after the partition of India and Pakistan, when the Moslems of East Pakistan had harassed and persecuted the Buddhists, and he’d joined the stream of refugees to India. Among the few possessions he’d taken with him had been this bowl which he now handed back to me.
“You’re my pupil. I want to pass on to you what was once mine, just as I try to pass on to you what I understand of the Dhamma.”
“I’m very glad to have such a special bowl.” I took it with greater care than I had the first time.
“Then use it with care.”
“But there’s one thing I don’t understand.”
“Only one thing?”
“I mean, you told me how to clean the bowl after eating from it; and you told me I should be willing to accept what food I got on the almsround; but today we had food from plates instead of the bowl. The only way I’ve used the bowl so far was to collect that money last night. Has someone taken that money now?”
At once I felt ashamed, for that wasn’t at all the question I’d wanted to ask. But my teacher answered without offence.
“Oh, those rupees, I put them with the other money you gave me. While you’re here the dayakas will care for your needs. That money is for your needs when you leave here.”
“But today at dana, why didn’t we use the bowls?”
There: that was the question I’d wanted to ask. I felt that as a monk I ought to eat from a bowl instead of from a plate. I wanted to play the part of a monk fully and was dissatisfied that I wasn’t being allowed to be my image of what I thought I should be.
“In the Bengal Temple we don’t use the bowls much. India is Hindu now, eh? Not a Buddhist country anymore. So we have to put aside some of the old ways. Then we can live here in peace.”
“But I want to eat from the bowl.”
“In Buddhist countries like Burma, Ceylon, and Thailand there is more of a keeping to the old ways. You’ll use your bowl there.”
“Then I’ll be leaving soon?”
“Are you anxious to go?”
I didn’t want to say yes. “Perhaps I should visit some other temples?”
“You have seen temples in Nepal?”
I remembered the Tibetan lamas. Some of them did meditation. That monk with the sandlewood almsbowl, he’d been a meditator too. “I’d like to visit someplace where I can study mediation.”
“You don’t study meditation. You practice it.”
“Then I want to practice meditation.”
“Calcutta isn’t a good place to do that. Here we have crowded living conditions. Here we have much work to do. Here we help the refugees and other poor Buddhists. There is little time; there is little peace. When you leave here we’ll send you someplace where you can meditate. It’s better outside the cities.”
“Where do you think is a good place?”
“First you must stay here until you learn certain things. You don’t want to leave before you can put the robes on by yourself, do you? But even then you must have an experienced monk to give you guidance, so it’s best if you go to a Buddhist country like Thailand or Ceylon. There you’ll find places where you can meditate.”
“Which do you think?”
I like you best to go to Burma, but the border is closed to Westerners to live there. So I think Ceylon. In Ceylon many people speak English.”
“It was part of the British Empire.”
“Like India. But in Thailand the people are very proud, and few of them speak English. So Ceylon is maybe better for you.”
“But where can I go in Ceylon?”
“You must find a place. But I hear that there’s a hermitage there on an island, and that might be good for meditation. Sometimes there are Western monks living there, so perhaps you won’t be isolated.”
“Then, when I learn the basics I’ll leave for Ceylon?”
“But first you’ll stay with us for a month or so.”
“Will it take a whole month to learn what I need to know?”
“Are you so anxious to leave?”
“I want to meditate. For that this isn’t the right place.”
“Still, you should stay here for a month. Maybe more.”
I was sorry to hear that.
“In Ceylon I’ll use the alms bowl?”
“Using the bowl is a good thing, I don’t say it isn’t. For one thing, when you use the bowl” — he hesitated and smiled gently — “not so much rice falls to the floor, eh? But you shouldn’t think that by using the bowl you’re a monk and by not using the bowl you’re not a monk. To be a monk is something else. To be a monk what you must do is to keep the sila. When you are perfect in conduct then you are fully a monk. To be a monk the only thing that is needed is to live according to Vinaya.”
Vinaya! Now I remembered: my name was Vinayadhara. Keeper of the discipline.
Chapter Two (cont.)- (ii) 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.
Chapter Two (cont.)- (iii) I sat cross-legged fidgeting with a half-finished letter when Mr. Barua arrived with an upasaka who spoke English. He gave me four packs of cigarettes. They bowed. I moved to the chair while they sat stiffly on the bed, lower than me.
“Reverend, you are knowing this here is Mr. Barua?”
“Mr. Barua gave me the robes I’m wearing.”
“Yes. You are wearing. Here this Mr. Barua is happy to present you with these cigarettes of your request.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barua.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Barua gazed sadly at something just behind my head.
“Reverend, we are much of happy that you are being a good examples to the Buddhist peoples of Calcutta.”
“I don’t want to be a good example. I just want to be a monk,” I replied, but I wasn’t so sure of that now; being a monk wasn’t as easy as I’d expected, nor as rewarding.
“Yes, that is right. We are happy to be having such a good examples as your holy self, reverend, to show to us poor Buddhists of Calcutta.”
“If you think I’m making such a good example how come none of you are following it?” I was nothing if not direct.
Actually my example, such as it was, wasn’t being entirely ignored. In some Buddhist countries all men became monks part of their lives, even if only a few weeks; but that tradition had largely died out among the Calcutta Buddhists: the slow process of assimilation into the dominant Hindu culture was at work. Now, in separate (and less publicized) ordinations during the past three weeks two boys and a young man on leave from work had been ordained, all with the intention of disrobing again in a short while. I was considering that possibility myself.
One of the boys had obviously been coerced into the robes by his family and was very unhappy with the regimen he was subjected to. The other boy accepted his lot more as a Stoic than a Buddhist, knowing it would soon be over. The young man seemed to be willingly fulfilling a familial obligation. Such was the extent of the stir my ordination had made, and thus was my example being followed.
Our talk sputtered. There were pauses while Mr. Barua’s friend thought of what he might say next and how he might say it. I made no attempt to keep the discussing going, though I responded politely enough. This conversation was their idea, not mine. I preferred to be alone, unconstrained by the formality of visitors.
“Mr. Barua is saying you not to forget dana is at his house for Sunday.”
“I’ll remember.”
Every few days I’d been going to Mr. Barua’s house for a meal. I was received each time with reverence, gave the pańca sila (unless I forgot it: it still wasn’t memorized perfectly), and be served a sumptuous meal of rice and curries. At first I’d wanted to take all my meals in the vihara, where they could be eaten without upasakas and without ceremony; but then I’d found that the restraints and formalities of the outside dana were a small price to pay for the pleasure of being on my own on the walks to and from Mr. Barua’s apartment, free. Those were highlights of my days. Ven. Dharmapal had tried at first to provide me with an escort, afraid that I might get lost or mugged or something, but I’d successfully resisted that effort.
“Mr. Barua is saying that if you should be wanting to anything you must be saying to him.”
“Thank you, but I don’t need anything right now.” But I was merely unsure of what I did need.
“Thank you,” Mr. Barua said.
After my visitors left I turned to my window-ledge shelf and prepared the incense holder, a heavy clay Buddha that Hum had made and given to me. Other people had supplied me with packets of incense. The Buddha, earthen, bulky and dark, put me in mind of the white plastic Buddhas I’d seen sold in the shops of Katmandu. Those were lightweight because they were hollow and could be filled with modeling clay (though some travelers preferred, prior to mailing them home, to fill them with less innocuous substances). They were Oriental versions of plastic Jesuses, and I’d made up a song about them:
I don’t care if they make ‘em cruder, I’m gonna stick with my plastic Buddha riding on the front of my rickshaw. For a rupee and ten paise you can’t get one any nicer, guaranteed to be without a flaw.
Whoops! That was singing, wasn’t it? I’d just caught myself — again! — humming a tune. Not singing was as hard as it was unrewarding. Giving up music (giving up anything), as I was becoming unhappily aware, involved more than making a simple decision to do so.
For a while I watched the smoke rise, writhe, and vanish. I tried not to think about anything else. Perhaps there was something to be learned from doing so. A Zen monk, so I’d read, had achieved enlightenment upon hearing a bell struck; but if the smoke of the incense held any revelations for me I received no sign of it tonight, and after some minutes I realized that I had to get out of that room lest, from boredom, my mood should turn black.
I tucked cigarettes and matches into my belt, adjusted the robes, and went outside to the courtyard. At this hour the gate was locked; the only way out was to climb over it. I looked up. The bars were higher than my reach; each iron bar was tipped with a brass spikelet. When I grasped the bars they felt cold. I looked out onto a sleeping street. A vehicle sped down a nearby road, unseen. I listened for a while, but heard nothing more.
It was cold at night, with one shoulder bare, and I moved about. The meeting hall was locked, as was the meditation room where I’d stayed when I’d first come to the temple. Only the shrine room remained open. A candle, left by some late worshipper, still burned, giving luster to the brass Buddharupa. I hadn’t come here for worship, so I didn’t bow down to the image, though I knew by now that protocol applied to statuary as well as people. I’d come here because there was nowhere else to go.
I sat on the cold tile floor, covered my right shoulder with some of the robe, and leaned against a tile wall. I decided not to go back for a blanket. The cold was preferable, for it was real. I wasn’t so sure about the monk’s life. I’d wondered lately whether I’d get as far as Ceylon, as a monk.
I’d be leaving in another week; I could stick it out that long. To disrobe here would be a sticky scene. I’d wait until I was on the way to Ceylon. Buy clothing with the travel-money. Change in a rest room or a phone booth. Supermonk indeed!
It had been great the first few days; then it had become wearing. I had yet to put an end to suffering. “You have to want to give up,” Ven. Dharmapal had told me; but wanting to give up wanting was still wanting.
“Being a monk is very easy!” I’d said. “Being a layman is what’s difficult.” But there was something very difficult about the monk’s life, and I was beginning to suspect that it was its easiness. I hadn’t forgotten, though, the endless hassles from which this life was supposed to be a refuge. Disrobing would mean going back out to that world. What could I do? Maybe write a book about my experiences? Maybe become a guru and minister to the welfare of nubile maidens?
The chill breeze reminded me of where I was. I still wasn’t ready to return to that room, and it occurred to me to try meditating. That was something I wanted to do before disrobing.
I began by sitting in an almost-full lotus, but after a few minutes my knees started hurting and I settled for a half-lotus. Eyes closed, hands on lap (I was trying out hand positions, trying to find the right one for me), back erect, my posture seemed pretty good. But what came next?
I thought of the different lessons I’d learned from Ven. Dharmapal and remembered the story of the monk who’d levitated to fetch down the wooden bowl from its bamboo pole. Even though he’d been rebuked by the Buddha I still thought psychic abilities would be fine to acquire. Levitation, for example, would eliminate tiresome train travel. If I could discover how something as fine as that was done I’d even be willing to stay with the robes. At least as far as Ceylon.
I sat on the cold tiles (levitation would keep my rump warmer too) and, eyes shut tight, tried by force of mind to will myself off the floor, to visualize myself floating in the air, to make the visualization so real that it became the reality. Float, I willed myself: float, float! I pictured myself flying cross-legged over mountains and lakes (Vinayadhara Airways?) as I moved southwards towards Ceylon while nearby eagles hovered and far below dusty villages lay trapped by surrounding jungle. If I could levitate myself to Ceylon I’d be glad to go as a monk. How fast would I be able to go? How long could I fly at a stretch? Like a bird … like a plane …
The insistent throbbing of one leg fallen asleep brought me back from my Supermonk fantasy, and I stretched my legs while feeling cascaded back, tingling and burning something fierce. I’d have to concentrate better than that or I’d never get off the ground. It didn’t occur to me to doubt that with sufficient determination to concentrate on the image of me, here and now, in this shrine room, floating one inch off the ground — that was a modest enough start — that I could maintain attention on that image for as long as I wanted: float, float, float … nor that with sufficient determination I would achieve it. Float, float, float: every beggar has his own refrain.
I knew monks weren’t supposed to display their psychic powers, but … what if someone were to walk in on me while I was levitating? That would be no fault of mine. And I fantasized the acclaim that would follow upon the accidental discovery, and the modesty with which I would respond.
Was I floating now? I tried to imagine that I was, but although with eyes shut tight there was one less sense faculty telling me I was still on the ground I knew, even so, that I wasn’t yet floating: my ass was cold and sore. I’d been told that that was a good way to get hemorrhoids, sitting on cold cement.
Nor was that the only danger to my health. There were stomach diseases: the hazards of Indian foods were magnified as a monk, for I found myself with little control over my own diet. And I’d already had enough intestinal problems without needing increased risks. I was even more susceptible to head colds: my bare skull left me more exposed. I wondered how long it would take to grow hair and beard again.
But as I thought about it what displeased me most about the monk’s life weren’t its restrictions and health hazards, but its pointlessness. What good did it do me to administer the pańca sila formulary to others, or to repeat the dasa sila for myself? What did I gain by the memorization of foreign sounds whose meaning I knew only because a translation was provided? And how did anyone benefit by my doing without pleasures that I’d formerly enjoyed? I felt weighted with the problems and responsibilities of the monk’s life and felt a longing for the carefree days I’d once enjoyed.
After I disrobed, I decided, I wouldn’t go on to Ceylon. I’d carry out my original plan to go to East Pakistan. But then I remembered that I couldn’t go to East Pakistan: the border permit I’d need had been unobtainable. And I remembered, too, how unhappy I’d been to learn that, and how I’d envied the monks, who had seemed free from problems.
And finally I recalled that I’d forgotten — again! — to meditate. Why did I keep forgetting to remember? I’d been brought back to reality only by an involuntary shiver which reminded me how cold I was getting.
The candle was burnt low: it dripped wax as the flame flickered in the light but steady breeze that flowed through the shrine room. I stretched my shoulders and became aware of goose bumps on my arms. How could I meditate when it was so cold?
“When you can’t meditate,” I’d been told, “just be mindful. Be aware of what’s happening.”
But what was happening?
I was cold: that was happening. To be aware of what was happening, then, I should be aware of being cold. Since it was so noticeable it should be easy.
My shoulder and bare arm seemed to be the coldest parts of me. What was the cold like there? I paid close attention to the surface of my upper arm, probing for coldness. There was a definite tingling feeling, but that wasn’t coldness, of course, that was just tingling, the same as the way my leg had tingled when it had gone numb. I probed with the mind’s eye for other feelings.
Strange; nothing there except the tingling and, yes, a sort of numbness which, as I examined it closely, was transmuted into a warm and generous glow that pervaded my arm and flowed like rich syrup up into the shoulder area and down to my fingers. Was that really warmth? I thought I was supposed to be cold, not warm.
Surprised, my mind grasped for cold, and my arm shivered at the sudden chill, goose bumps rising like tiny hard nipples. But wait; where was the warmth, then? And there it was, a tingling exactly the same as the tingling I’d perceived a moment before as cold. Now it seemed warm. And it was with astonished awareness that I realized: cold and hot were relative, and subject to interpretation. The only thing real in that perception was feeling. I could interpret that feeling however I chose and perceive it as either cold or hot, but the feelings of cold and hot were entirely voluntary.
I wasn’t cold at all now: certainly there were strong tingling feelings on my arm, on my buttocks, over my whole body, but these were simply strong feelings, and it was only my discursive mind that insisted on translating them into coldness or heat. Was that how Milarepa had done it?
Milarepa had been an eleventh-century mystic poet who dwelt year-round in the high Tibetan Himalayas with only one cotton garment to cover himself. To stay alive in the intensely cold winters he’d developed a special psychic ability to generate warmth. Was this it? Just a little twist in point of view?
It wasn’t only astonishing, this perception: it was almost far out. I played with it for a while, feeling the temperature differential first from above, then below, demonstrating again to myself that it was a real ability I’d learned, not a delusion. The only reason it fell short of being far out was that it wasn’t what I was looking for. It was interesting, sure; but it didn’t get me high.
Perhaps, though, this little trick did something to stabilize me, for the thought arose, ‘maybe there is some point to all this giving up.’ A quantum less dissatisfied, I leaned my head back against the wall and looked up at the Buddharupa curiously. Grudgingly I recognized that the agreement I’d made with myself had been fulfilled: if I could learn something of psychic abilities, then, I’d agreed, I’d stay with the robes. At least as far as Ceylon.
But I wasn’t happy about keeping the deal, for I felt tricked. This wasn’t what I’d meant at all, when I’d thought about psychic abilities. For one thing it would never get me anywhere. For another, the ability to circumvent cold could be of no value in a place like Ceylon, a few degrees from the equator. And not only was it useless, but it was also — unlike levitation — undemonstrable. No one would ever accidentally discover me feeling warm on a chilly night. Acclaim would never ensue.
I crossed my legs, lit a cigarette, and considered the Buddharupa. Its eyes seemed to sparkle gently at some secret joke concerning the wind playing with the candle flames. Then my legs began to cramp again, and I wasn’t able to translate that feeling into warmth or cold or anything but pain.
When I finished the cigarette I was ready to return to my room. When I got up to leave I bent my head towards the brass Buddha in respect and in the last flickers of the candle the eyes sparkled.