Epilogue

 

Three Hundred Years Later, Mauryan Empire

 

 

Mercy, mercy, mercy, whatever am I to do with this strange “confession,” passed along from monastic to monastic over the generations, ending with my eldest brother handing it over to me? I’m his far younger half-sister, a Sangha member like him and already fifty years old, my seventy-year-old brother not wanting to die with this wooden box full of inscribed palm leaves still in his possession. But am I to believe these written words? My brother told me the Venerable Ananda, Second Patriarch of the Sangha, bestowed this document to his closest friends, the venerables Kavi and Naveen, and told them to do with it whatever they thought best. So far, the decision has been to keep handing it down, recopying it over the years when the script becomes worn. Still, I’m probably not the first monastic to ask, “Should I throw it in the fire?”

This confession certainly casts new light—or maybe it’s better to think of it as shadow—on the Blessed One’s discourses. They’re still not written down, although writing is becoming more and more common—look at our King Asoka, who works so tirelessly to spread the Dharma throughout the Empire. He’s inscribed every boulder, pillar, and statue he can get his hands on with his own version of Dharma, even while the spoken word remains the only proper vehicle for the Buddha’s teachings. By this time in my life my ears have received most of them, including the one where he warns of a counterfeit Dharma as the only thing that could bring the true Dharma to an end. Is this what I now hold in my hands?

Or is the counterfeit Dharma to be found among the spoken discourses themselves? Contradictions lurk in so many of them, although the basic tenets—descriptions of suffering’s true nature, its causes, and the way out of it—seem clear enough. But sometimes the teachings appear to imply that godlike powers necessarily accompany awakening—and other times not. The judgments of women and stories about Ananda and others living back then are even less consistent. Yet it’s clear that we women were accepted into the Sangha in the Buddha’s day and that many became enlightened. Were the stories of these first nuns Ananda’s contribution to these original discourses? Did he provide the balance he spoke of between his view and Kassapa’s? (I use the male term only because of my own perplexity. Until reading Ananda’s purported confession, of course I assumed he was male.) And what should I make of his eventually taking over the leadership of the Sangha? According to the history we’ve been told, it was handed over to him by Kassapa himself, designating Ananda as his true successor.

Maybe this document is a forgery, but surely if a forger wanted to discredit Ananda or the teachings, he would have made certain that as many people as possible read it and not just hand it to Ananda’s friends with no instructions whatsoever—and without really finishing it. Also, consider this: Ananda lived an extremely long life—some claimed he reached the age of 120—and after his death, his body was burned on an island between two rivers as a way of avoiding favoritism of one group of followers over another. As a result, few people viewed the cremation and even fewer saw the unwrapped body. Perhaps the then-holder of this document was the only witness.

Still, I’ve thought about burning these pages. Even if they’re true, their appearance in all likelihood would only stir controversy and cause division. With women’s position in society continuing to erode, despite the Dharma’s success this so-called confession could discredit Ananda, not to mention the Buddha himself, even more than in the time it was written. On the other hand, the admonition not to cling to any aspect of oneself—including one’s sex—as an essential identity remains crucial to the teachings. Perhaps one day this distinct feature of the Dharma will be taken seriously enough for attitudes to change.

No, I cannot destroy these pages. The story of Ananda is such a mystery, and this confession might one day illuminate it in a way that helps people find the true Dharma. Especially considering that Ananda’s enlightenment is perhaps the greatest mystery of all.

The official account is that he decided to spend the night in the contemplation of the body—which the confession relates as well. But, needless to say, the oral tradition has nothing about him feigning enlightenment. Instead, the monks relate how, near dawn, he decided to lie down after meditating all night. In accordance with proper practice, he’d been mindful of his body in the positions of standing, sitting, and lying down. Yet his enlightenment—when he finally abandoned all clinging—occurred in none of these positions. It happened “before his head touched the pillow and his feet touched the ground.”

How could this be? He seems to have awakened in mid-air.