9

ACHES AND PAINS

Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, Northern India

October 7, 2014

The old monk’s mood matched the darkness: fatigued, achy, constipated; all too human at his habitual 3 a.m. rising. Time, solitude, and silence would be the required remedy before another busy day of appointments.

With all three at his disposal, he knelt to the polished wood parquet. As had become usual, his legs were reluctant to bend, his body equally stiff to follow them down to the floor. The monk let out an involuntary sigh from the effort, answered by a watery knee’s cry, as if it had been stabbed by the touch of the hard wood floor, despite the thin velvet-covered pad. A new pain in his left wrist introduced itself in piercing sympathy when he pushed his hand against the floor to relieve the knee.

Getting old . . .

Years amass a corporeal toll, however spiritual their passing. Lines deepen, wrinkles multiply, folds hang, blotches bloom, muscles shrink, bones weaken, organs slow, gray hair, no hair; silent messengers of age that congregate to collectively shout their presence even in those who countenance calm.

The monk stiffly submitted his body fully to the floor, flat to this earth, in prostration before Buddha, of Buddha, in Buddha.

Settle . . .

Difficult!

Release . . .

Reluctant!

His brain was stubborn, willful from too many travels, too many people, too many complications . . .

But aren’t these just alternative explanations for one more symptom?

He was tired.

Age had changed sleep from sound to fleeting, from friend to enemy, from peace to war. Night was now a black amphitheater of wakefulness. Seconds felt like minutes and the minutes like hours; hours and hours for the smallest thought to expand infinitely like a drop of oleic acid on water until it filled the void with an equal enormity.

He was weaker too.

Aches and pains multiplied and grew. Colds and fevers attacked and lingered. The natural remedy of youth was long gone.

Yes, all the signs are there.

Except those he sought.

After all, age demands an end; an end that needs to be understood to permit a new beginning.

When?

How?

Who?

Where?

But there was still nothing from the inside, and yet more silence from the night outside.

It was enough to try the patience of a saint.