In that initial period, we were a threesome, a gang.
1 We had long conversations about the way the School would change people’s lives for the better and become a nationwide force. We sat up late in the kitchen drinking highballs and having these conversations. It was like being fifteen.
2 “But you believe in God, right, Michaelson? Cause you saw God, which is a dead giveaway. And Chrysalis is just the kind of person who would, cause. But what about me? Where do I fit in?”
3 We listened to the Easy Rider soundtrack over and over. When “Born to Be Wild” came on in a store once, I felt I belonged, I smiled at the grocer. Then I thought, “When this is over, I’ll never be able to listen to the Easy Rider soundtrack again,” and had to leave the store, chilled, without my spaghetti squash.
4 Ralph toyed with my long hair, loving me. I loved Ralph back, I took a few pills and loved Eddie. We lay full-length in the summer grass, out of our minds:
5 Ralph and I were on our waking-up walk, round the private wood. The birds chirped boldly, thinking they were alone. The air felt alive, its early clarity a throbbing presence like a bass note.
And I confided: “I woke up not in agony today.” I just said it with no qualification, as it came, made cocky by possession of good news. I said it and listened joyously: it really was the case.
Ralph said, “Why were you, ever, in agony?”
Finally I asked him what he meant. I was out of breath then, though I shouldn’t have been.
And he said he could not think of anyone who deserved agony less than me.
We went on a while in silence, then he put out his hand. He waved it in front of me; I looked at him questioning; he had to say, “Go on,” before I took it. We walked and walked. The trees shook and the bushes tugged at our legs like lonely children. When we skirted a clearing, the low sun flying sideways in strobes between the trees made our shadows blink on and off. I felt muscles in my legs, as if I was strong.
Ralph said, “Have you noticed your hair and my hair are so alike?”
(6 Different times are different.
Ralph and I became inseparable.
Our relations were beautiful, like a foal we held in common.
No one would be careless with the delicate foal.
We walked down halls and they became true halls.
Rooms we stood in, shone.
Then it was over.)
September
We added a day of exercises on Saturday: that brought in 400 dollars a week. Though it started as a joke, Ralph’s tape, Buddha Management, was picked up by a catalog and sold 140 copies. Vegan restaurants, aromatherapists, “green” butchers, bought advertising space in our brochure. The first, for-real, fat-ass donations came in.
Eddie spent it all and more. He bought a motorbike he couldn’t ride, he bought a bear skin. He bought cocaine, lap-dances, drinks for the house. He flew to Hawaii but returned the same night, complaining that it was “all muggy and fat chicks.”
He bought a leather sofa, then didn’t like it when it came: it was left in the yard, where it mildewed and sank to its knees. Then he failed to set it on fire, even some.
When I confronted him, he barked, “Yeah, I’m trying to have a good time. I don’t know what you expect –”
What you expect
and looked daggers.
We were in the Land of the Lost, alone, I can’t remember why. The morning sun was too bright: it made the gravel colorful, like aquarium pebbles. Eddie put his hands on his hips, pissed. I spluttered, “No, I’m worried about you. It’s real cry-for-help stuff, what you’re doing, it’s scary.”
Eddie made the cool, mock-surprised face of Humphrey Bogart not falling for the bad guy’s ploy. “Spending lots of money is killing me, not.”
“But I never –”
“Not.”
“No, I genuinely –”
“Not.”
We stared at each other for an improbable length of time without speaking. The smug tension in Eddie’s face relaxed. Then we were just looking.
He looked older.
“Well,” he said finally, “got to go cry for help.”
“Yeah,” I said equally finally, “Have fun.”
October
The first residential weekend was sold out: thirty people came to stay in the house. When Jasper arrived with his suitcase, three hours early, it was like a pajama party. He tried on my new boots, we made a Bundt cake together with the wrong ingredients. But then the others came too:
Meditation: on faith
The gravel has been raked, the chairs removed, the glass is blue with clean. It’s sunset, and the Land of the Lost is dim under the massed sky. Everyone is whispering and expectant but me
(because I fret about the practicality of evening lectures. It’s all very well the lighting rental’s more than covered by the takings, but should something break. Heating this is bad enough but if we have to light it –)
Ralph walks in. I stand up automatically, handing him his notes. And for the first time, everyone stands up behind me. The cross-legged people twist to see, then anxiously, hurriedly, scramble to their feet. They stand extra-straight, to compensate for their tardiness.
Ralph stops in his tracks, deadpan. He surveys us and then looks at the glass stars overhead. As he raises his hand, the rain begins.
For a long held breath, no one moves, allowing for the washing sound and the changed air. Then Ralph makes a pressing-down gesture, and we sit.
Throughout the talk, there is a special restlessness in the audience. Something has been achieved.
Afterward, I overhear Matthias, the civil engineer who travels all the way from Sacramento:
“. . . and everyone stood at the same time, that’s what blows my mind. I mean, we knew.”
“Of course,” says Kate Higgins. “I just felt it. Didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” says earnest Matthias. “I don’t know what happened. I just found myself on my feet.”
Kate nods, “That’s it. And that’s why it happened.”
“You mean the rain?” Matthias says, balking.
“Well, of course! Rain-making has been happening for thousands of years. Just look at the Apache – or that story in Brazil, did you read about that? It was in the New York Times.”
Matthias looks at his feet, searching. Kate smiles, maternal toward his novice surprise. Finally she touches his shoulder and helps him out:
“Do you feel ashamed that you never stood up before?”
He looks at her, bewildered, then decides: “I guess . . . we’re so out of the habit of respect . . . in the West.”
“Oh!” says Kate. “That’s so what I felt. I’ve just got to give you a hug for that –”
You Can’t Go Home
1 Name a Buddhist text, Ralph can recite it from memory.
1.1 He meditates, immobile, for five hours at a stretch.
1.2 There is no triviality in him, and he cannot be vulgar.
His
• fear
• ill-temper
• sexual desire
• self-pity
don’t show. He has no problems: he never makes mistakes.
1.3 When he fixes the air-conditioning, there is superstitious awe.
2 He’s amazed at the purity of Tom, Dick and Harry’s auras.
2.1 Kate Higgins must be patient with others who lack her deep insight.
2.2 “I’m giving you the mantra my teacher gave me,” Ralph tells the needy.
2.3 He tells me and Eddie:
“I think I do fairly well for a complete fake.”
“Watch me awe this cunt realtor.”
“I guess you two despise me.”
3 Only those with a mantra are admitted to Tonglen meditation.
3.1 Tonglen graduates may progress to Higher Practice.
3.2 There are stages and titles: I’m an advanced-level meditation adept, but Tantric Healing is by invitation and I’m not invited. Embittered, I suggest we call them “guppies” and “dolphins,” but Ralph doesn’t laugh. I am to understand he has his reasons. And he
4 • got college-educated adults to believe chanting made them into good people
• improvised secret teachings, attributing them to a guru named after his mother’s Nepalese drug dealer
• healed the sick with a silver wand, formerly a chopstick
• never laughed about it, was first condescending, then vengeful – like a lover too slavishly adored
5 But I was happy for the longest time.
Another Point of View: Mine
1 I woke with the program of my morning duties, primed to get the porridge on, peel apples, ring the bell.
1.1 I was late. I must get around to those receipts. I’d have to skip the meditation again, I must see the printer. If Jenny couldn’t help out with lunch, I was doomed.
1.2 So much for my early night.
2 • “Could you ask, Chrissie, cause I don’t want to bother him?”
• “So what do you two talk about, when you’re alone?”
• “When he said that, do you think Ralph meant I’m always stupid, or just that was stupid?”
2.1 Walking with me, people stood self-consciously erect, flaunting their fraternization with the A group.
3 I worked so hard, it must be doing good.
3.1 I practiced fortitude every time I spoke in public; humility in scrubbing floors. I asked nothing in return and I thrived.
3.2 That Christmas ’98:
We had a Christmas tree, complete with lights and heaped gifts. Twenty people stayed and we cooked from scratch. Anything that smacked of rejoicing, we did. We drank punch, we mulled wine and sang. For the first time, Ralph spoke passionately, invoking brotherhood. People wept, and couldn’t stop smiling. Strangers held hands. My and Ralph’s love would boom and proliferate, sufficing all, all, all California would thank –
3.3 And he told us the story of his mother, the beautiful gypsy, who got into a Ford Zephyr once with a man when only a girl and loosed her braids as the wind began and never looked back