| |
––––––––
ONCE A YEAR THE COMMUNITY plans for a new planting season and discusses the needs for crops. This is important since crops provide healthcare and medical needs as well as food. But, before the meeting began, Kelv asks Mahá to meet with him behind the monastery. There’s something important he needs to say.
"The controversy in accepting any core belief structure of governments, religions, political parties, and on and on, etcetera, etcetera. Stems from our basic intellectual capacity to figure out the whole thing, fast, and to identify just how full of shit it all is from the first sentence."
Throwing my backpack to the ground on top of the thick wild grass, I held my hand up to signal him to stop. "Before you shut me up, Mahá, and start telling me how I need to take a few breaths and practice abandoning wrongful thoughts. Let me say—oh, how convenient. Yes, I'm a little sarcastic, but I am dead on."
Faust dropped below the apex now, so I take off my hood and rub my hands over my eyes, trying to help them adjust to the light. I notice my hands are shaking.
"From the anxiety," I tell him, seeing he too is watching them shake. We're standing in the small field behind the monastery. As we talk I'm facing him and I can see the back of the monastery behind him. While he sees, behind me, the barren wasteland of Planet 444.
Nobody could ever experience a better friend than Mahá. Since birth, we have known each other, but we weren't friends until our eighth year. Now and then, I think back to the years before we became friends; how he always seemed to me to be a know-it-all. I found him pretentious and arrogant. Over the years I gained a better understanding of him. It isn't arrogance; it's intellect. By age seven, I was already taller than everyone else in the school except for Mahá. He was a little taller than me back then, and we have always been the tallest of our generation. He's got an Asian face and skin tone, and I'm unmistakable—Punjabi. We are both strong, but neither of us is athletic. I like to tell people I'm coordination challenged.
Despite our facial differences, we always try to look alike. Our hair is black and long. Our beards are whole and natural. I am two inches taller than him but other than Vallena, we are much taller than everyone and nobody seems to notice the difference in our height.
For twenty years now, we were inseparable. I know his secrets and strengths, and he knows mine.
Though my heart is breaking, it's time for me to say goodbye. If there is going to be a success in this Humanoid experiment our ancestors threw us into, I must go into the wasteland of this planet to retrieve it. The 'it' I'm looking for is the missing Sutra. Rumored to have been given to the Buddha fifteen thousand years ago when he was on Earth, it carries the single purpose for transcendence.
@@@@@
The wastelands provide no food sources, no shelters, and no civilizations to discover. In the distance, we can see a few tall, rugged mountain peaks; this is all we know of what's out there. Vallena explored it a few times, but not very far from our city borders. I'm taking my ultraviolet and radiation protective robe and one spare, as well as a backpack of dried fruits and nuts. These are all I should need. I won't need anything else if I'm a Buddha destined to fulfill my bodhisattva vow.
First, I desire to state my case to Mahá and then I'll go. The wind brings in the early storm and is growing stronger as it blows into my face. I can smell the rice cooking in the monastery kitchen combined with the smells of ready-for-harvest crops carried on the wind.
"From the start, we found the core explanation of Buddhism right-intentioned. The Eight-Fold path has the first step on its path; Right Intention. Therefore, to get it right from the outset, we concede to intentioning. Our intention is to free our True-Self from this trap we call life. The catch though is the deception of having a self (we call me), and the bate that keeps us all caught in me's jaws are the dualities.
"First, there is the duality of the so-called subject and object. Where the subject is the ego and the object is everything our mind constructs based on inputs from our five senses. The ego clings to objects, craving to smell pleasant smells, hear beautiful sounds, see breathtaking images, taste the very best flavors, and enjoy the most luxurious softness."
My friend's eyes are filled with sympathy, and I look away from his eyes, or I would change my mind about leaving. What I feel about going cannot be spoken. Trying to use words for this is alexithymia when we struggle to define what anger feels like or what it means to dwell in the Buddha Fields. These situations are like employing words to describe what you encounter one mile north of the North Pole. I must, nonetheless try to express my case to him.
The expression on his face reminds me of the first day we went to school at the monastery. We were both very young and so nervous about learning mind control and cognitive development. We were holding hands and the abbot stopped us as we were walking through the huge assembly room.
The venerable Magallan told us, "The Humanoid's experiment with the people on Planet Four Forty-four began in hopes the inhabitants would transcend. The Humanoids could then confirm that the DNA-altering serum was a success and they would develop plans to make all humans transcend. The accomplishments of Planet Four Forty-four will be the blueprint for all humanity. The blueprint for our ultimate freedom from Samsara. For Mahayana Buddhists, this is the First Priority. Because no one can reach Nirvana until everyone reaches Nirvana. You two are here in my school to learn how to make the experiment a success."
Mahá is looking at me with that same look, right now. Shocked and bewildered.
That freak show we call The Oracle is to blame for putting this idea that there is something outside the city into my head. Something important. Something we all need for this crescendo event to reach Nirvana—ending this Humanoid experiment. It was a duel prophecy where Mahá would either become King or Mahá would wander the planet as Guardian. So as it turns out, Mahá is on the path to becoming the King. The gods invoked a duel prophecy. Once invocation is spoken, the prophecy doesn't go away.
I know there is something out there The Source wants to be discovered. Therefore it is up to me to go. I'm compelled, if not controlled, unwitting to fulfill the second of the two prophecies.
Before I can wander the wastelands of this planet, I must, that is, I feel the need to explain myself to my friend—my King. The wind carries the smell of cooked rice and now it adds baked bread. I see and hear the monks preparing the tables and preparing the meal. I take a long breath and then continue exposing my suffering mind.
"Second is the duality implicit in every object. Such as night and day, up and down, in and out, and well, the list is endless once you start. Or is it? But, let's continue onward with this broad knowledge of—Right Intention. The next thing you notice is that the mind is the key to deliverance. Gaining an objective place where you liberate yourself, excuse me, I mean you separate your—True-Self—requires everyday and ceaseless effort.
"This effort is the second step on the Eight-Fold path; Right Effort. Meaning everything you do, from thought to dreams, are a duality of the second kind. First, if it is right effort, you earn merit, and if it is anything but the right effort, it condemns you to rebirth. Because effort is karma, you remain in the trap until you are liberated. Birth, suffering, illness, aging, and death, Repeat.
"There is one last thing to cover before the bullshit of all of this becomes very obvious. Like it hasn't already caused more than a few red flags to shoot skyward."
Mahá gestures for me to look behind me. When he does his malas hang down from his wrist and hand. I look around to see what he is pointing to. The wind formed tempests, and they dance across the barren, forbidding landscape raising dusty bowl shapes beneath them.
I turn back toward him and continue, "The Buddha, as most people call Siddhartha Gautama, Sid for short. Sid discovered the techniques, methods, and right efforts to allow the mind to be liberated, but he also went a step further and shared the knowledge with everybody. Later, after he passed [Sid], he was never born again. He was liberated and returned to the source.
"But wait, we don't have to work out the mental effort alone because there are bodhisattvas. This is equivalent to the Wicca, Witchcraft, Catholicism, and Hindu, deities they call—an angel. Bodhisattvas are the individuals who comprehend the liberation path while they are still alive, and instead of returning to the bliss of the source after they die, they stay around to help the rest of us. They help us from a special existence plane we call the spiritual plane. That way, you can guess, they don't need to be reborn, but they are, in a blessed way, stuck in the same trap with us."
A flash of lightning and the sound of thunder follow close behind. I can smell the rain not far away. The wind feels damp against my face.
"And, here it is, get ready; if you don't understand any of what I said up to now, then you are wrong efforting. Your entire life's hope for reconciling your suffering essence now requires you to invoke, pray to, call out to (whatever word you call it) the bodhisattvas for their divine assistance."
His shoulders droop and his head falls. He performs the Varada Mudra; palm of the right hand facing forward and fingers extended and left-hand palm placed near omphalos with extended fingers. The mudra offers charity, compassion, and sincerity. My words have struck a nerve, and Mahá is without a doubt feeling miserable that I debunked everything I'm leaving to go find and verify. It's been a rapid and challenging mind dump. Or should I call it a regurgitation of all I love and hold true about Dharma? He's the one person on this planet who can understand my suffering in all of this.
@@@@@
"Even though it is easy to cast shadows of doubt on a philosophy, I'm more scared by humanity's belief and sole focus on 'life.' We've wasted one hundred and fifty thousand years of human existence learning about and singing about—life. Why do we spend so much energy studying life? Life is temporary. Every time there's a birth, it comes with a single guarantee—it will not survive."
The salmon-pink billowing storm clouds fill the sky. The smell of the dust stirred by the wind mixes with the scent of humidity. The temperature drops a few degrees. I drop down on one knee and pack the discarded hood from my robe into the backpack. The hood material feels thick and rigid, and I struggle to fit it into my already overstuffed pack.
"It makes no sense to me why people want to understand life, research how to live a better life, a longer, healthier life. Our society develops technology to make life more comfortable and sophisticated. Meanwhile, we continue to ignore consciousness!
"Consciousness is the True Self! There is so much more for humankind to benefit from. If it would shift focus away from life and instead move all those efforts to enhance and understand consciousness.
"Consciousness versus life. That's what Buddhism is teaching. Too much time was wasted focusing on this brief life, building laws and ways of medicine to extend it, educate on life-sustaining lifestyles, and invent Christian, Muslim, and Mormon religions all focused on life. But consciousness goes forward forever. Consciousness is where life starts and continues after it ends. It seems humanity is insane. No one is concentrating on what consciousness needs."
After listening to me going on about the struggle I'm having and the tortured mind I suffer with, Mahá draws a deep breath followed by a long sigh. Then he blessed me by saying the mantra for success:
"Jehi Vidhi Hoi Naath Hit Moraa Karahu So Vegi Daas Main Toraa," which means, "O Lord, I am your devotee. I don't know what to do. So do at once whatever is good for me."
"When you are King," I begin to wrap up my rant, "of this Planet triple-four experiment, keep this thought close. These Humanoids are ruthless in their pursuit of the First Priority. Remember this, my brother, we aren't their sole human laboratory, and we're not their lone experiment. Humanoids are scientists; scientists don't run a single experiment.
"You gotta figure they exploited dozens of planets where they've injected who knows what into other ancestral families. My point is, they would not send us here alone. They're watching us, learning from us, and I'm sure they are still experimenting with our lives. You've got a Neuralink, man. You figure out who the spy is."
For all I know, this may be the last time I see my best friend, Mahá. I adjust the backpack over my back and fix the front straps across my chest and waist. Then, I spin on my heel and take a few steps away from him and the city before looking over my shoulder at him to say,
"Goodbye. Thanks for your love and friendship.Chibusa."
@@@@@
Mahá stood in the meadow outside in the back of the monastery, where he had been listening to Kelv. But, instead of providing his friend with ears to listen to him and discussion to console him. There is one thing he can do; watch.
"Every man deserves to go on one pilgrimage in his lifetime," Mahá thinks to himself. "It's the classic tale where the boy leaves his home and later returns as a man." He thinks about the harsh reality of the Humanoids and how they won't rescue the people. "We are just expendable lab rats providing data to an algorithm for their serum test . . . We need Kelv. I can't make this happen without him—I can't be the only one who knows this. I might be the key, but Kelv—he's the doorknob."
Kelv walks away while Mahá watches his trek around the bubbling mud pits and steaming bogs as he makes his way to the raised rim of the nearest meteor crater. There are few places where the panoramic vision of the planet identifies where the Humanoids stopped terraforming and preparing the landscape for civilization than here. The planet is decorated by a history written in volcanic extrusion fields and meteor craters as far as the eyes can see.
When Kelv reached the rim, he paused as he stood on a large flat ridge rock. The wind howled in his ears from a sudden gust. Then, for a moment, the clouds break overhead, and Kelly's bright light bursts through nearly blinding Mahá. He wondered if his friend would turn and wave once more, but instead, Kelv jumped down off the ridge and started down the steep slopes of thick, black volcanic ash.
Losing your childhood friend to a terrible fate such as this would normally bring outrage. One would never let his friend enter a dangerous suicidal expedition like this without a fight. Of course, there is no fight in a person who feels no anger. No revenge or vengeance towards the Humanoid cruelty from a person with altered DNA.
Mahá chants, The Green Tara Mantra, "Om tare tuttare ture soha"
This mantra is often chanted to overcome physical, mental, or emotional blockages, although it can also be used for blockages in relationships. This mantra helps release hope for a particular outcome and bring the energy back to yourself, generating inner peace and clarity.
After Kelv vanished from Mahá's eyesight and for many minutes afterward, Mahá stays mindful, with no thought, just being present for his friend. Until, after twenty or more minutes passed, he hears his wife calling out. "Everyone is here and waiting for you," says Visákhá.
He thinks, "She is right in more ways than one. But, without our spiritual leader (Kelv), How can our community snap out of this stagnation? How are we going to awaken them from this long slumber?"
