A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations

Considering the seriousness of the situation we find ourselves in, Uncle seems light of heart, amused, like a young boy traveling into town to watch an evening of wrestling, his steps quick and eager despite his age. I walk at the back of our small procession, my hands folded at chest level. Little Bat walks in the lead, Uncle in between us, Little Bat’s baby face as placid as Uncle’s is jovial. In his hands Little Bat works an ancient set of ivory prayer beads carved from the teeth of a walrus. To my eye Little Bat looks even more tranquil now than he does an hour ago as we crawl one by one out of the Machine. His face remains serene though the world seemingly comes to an end, Little Bat a man who accepts whatever the universe parses out. A man who asks nothing of anything. His detachment attained after many lifetimes of practice. Though he shows no agitation, Little Bat believes we should not be going in search of help, that there is no help to be found, and that we ought to stay by the Machine and use what resources we have to help ourselves.

I focus on what Little Bat is saying, as I often have trouble understanding him. When he speaks, it is obvious that something terrible is in his past. His voice as if he once swallows a river of burning sand, his vocal cords damaged to the extreme, his voice the voice of a hundred-year-old man but somehow planted in the body of a forty-something baby-faced giant. The very first time I hear him speak at Gandan Tegchenling Monastery, I wince. It is painful to listen to him produce each word. At the sound of his voice, Mun remembers a man he sees in Ulaanbaatar, the man with a hole punched at the base of his throat and the sound gurgling up from the puckered skin. Besides his voice and his immensity, Little Bat appears unremarkable in every other aspect. I do not know what resources he is referring to, but when Little Bat suggests this course of action, Uncle vehemently shakes his head. No, Uncle insists, first we look.

When we hit the sinkhole, only Mun, who makes his living driving tourists across the vastness of Mongolia, is not wearing a seatbelt. Surprisingly, the Machine looks undamaged, its hood sunk up to the windshield in the ground like an animal burrowing into the earth. My eyes still sting from the smell of gas, the plastic jugs that are strapped to the roof having rocketed into the dirt, one of them cracking on impact, the leaked gasoline making the air go wavy. Standing there beside the Machine I notice a small bruise already marbling Mun’s forehead, the thing pale blue like the spring egg of a bird.

I gotta go with you, Mun says, as we three monks set out to look for aid. My brother is sincere in his desire to help, but when he stands he wobbles drunkenly, a newborn foal finding its legs.

Uncle laughs. For the first time since we make his acquaintance at Gandan Tegchenling he speaks to us in English. A famous American cowboy says a man’s got to know his limitations, Uncle explains. The twinkle deepens in his eyes. He taps his own forehead in the same spot where Mun’s bruise lies shining. My young friend, he says, switching back to Tibetan, your third eye is opening nicely. Pray that it may continue to light your path.

Mun sinks back down in the shadow of the Machine, defeated, the bruise like pale blue dough rising on his forehead. Now would be a good time for him to practice the Buddhist reflection on death, the fact that we are of a nature to die, that as humans we do not evolve beyond dying, but already he is popping in his earbuds, he is tuning the world out. I know the reason why, despite his injury, he struggles to stand and come along with us to find help. It is because he resents that I am able to go in search of aid while he must stay behind. This is not the first time I step forward to make things right, our childhood filled with other instances, other places where I am the one to sweep up the broken glass, glue the world back together in the wake of his actions. The one time as children when I fire a gun at him, it is to save him from himself.

As I prepare to head out with Uncle and Little Bat, I feel the anger welling inside my twin as he once again finds himself dependent on me. Chuluun who is both doctor and medicine, Mun thinks, the sarcasm coloring his thoughts. Chuluun who nurses all the sick beings in the world until each is healed.

I am waiting, Brother, I silently respond. I am waiting for the day when things reverse, when you come and rescue me.

I consider reminding him that the tögrög wrapped in my robe is paying for this journey. Out here, I’m the boss. He is merely the driver hired to take our small party across the country on our journey in search of an ancient light. But for the time being, I let it go. Honestly, I am not sure if our relationship can ever be anything other than what it is. Me praying for the peace of all sentient beings. My twin looking out only for himself.

Still, I should be thankful he is with us. In two weeks’ time when we return to Ulaanbaatar, most likely he no longer has a job. On our way out of the city in the old Soviet 66 owned by his boss, Mun calls Ganzorig, asks him to explain to Tuul that something’s come up, that he is needed on this private tour. Though I do not know him, I suspect that Ganzorig is pleased not to have to drive to the ends of Mongolia and beyond. As for me, this is what life brings: two weeks on the road with my twin. It is more than a year since he disrobes.

Then Uncle claps his hands together four times, each clap offered in a different cardinal direction. When he finishes, he pulls a pair of stylish sunglasses out of the folds in his robe and puts them on. Sometimes I see young monks adorn themselves in the trappings of the modern world, mostly items such as headphones and sneakers, their demeanors changing as they robe themselves in such things. But Uncle? With or without sunglasses he is the same man who greets us just days before in the Abbot’s study, instructing us to call him Uncle and leaving it at that though his full epithet is the Lotus of the Deep. Like my brother, he is a tulku, a reincarnation of a spiritual teacher, a light who walks the earth many times before and on and on eternally.

Shall we, he says. Because I cannot see his eyes behind his sunglasses it takes me a moment to realize he is talking to me.

If it please you, I say, bowing, and then the three of us set off, Little Bat in the lead. Each time Uncle addresses me, I have to fight the urge not to touch the ground at his feet with my forehead.