A writer friend of mine moved to India to write. At one point, she blogged about going to a meditation retreat, and I started fantasizing about what I’d do and how I’d react to the kinds of things she saw there, and the kinds of things that I supposed were happening behind the scenes (because get people on a retreat, and certain things are bound to come up from time to time). So yeah, this is a total Mary Sue story, that is, a story that’s really about me. Although I certainly couldn’t translate Tibetan to save my life.
HHDL is “His Holiness the Dali Lama,” and the magic here is the magic of shared books. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bonded with someone upon discovering that we’ve both read and liked a particular book. It’s like finding out you’re distant cousins or something.
Day 1
Monsoon season is over.
One day, you’re hoping that the ledge in front of your door that’s meant to keep out ghosts is also high enough to keep the rain on the steps from blowing under your door; the next, you’re thinking, I think I saw a monkey on top of the next roof down the mountain; the day after that, you’re thinking, I have to get out of this place.
The water…the earth gives birth to water, screaming and thrashing and threatening her husband. The instinct to hole up in a safe place until it’s over, but of course you can’t. The storm lasts for months, and the lack of refrigerator in my apartment is a kind of hell. Real Indians act like it’s nothing big. I drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of dal. Sometimes I scuttle from overhang to overhang, watching the tiny cars slewing through the streets. Water running down the street shoves them into the opposite lane, but they don’t slow down. The drivers who slow down too much have their engines stall and have to have their cars dragged out of the way by small groups of men cheered on by the old women from the laundry at the bottom of the hill. Two days ago I jumped over the runoff on the way to the market but was almost knocked off my feet on the way back, because the rain was coming down even harder than before, if that’s possible.
I pushed through the first draft of translating the trilogy on the advice of my neighbor downstairs, who is from Nepal but has been living here for nine years and promised me the monsoon would be over soon. I sent the “final” version off. Cult Sci-Fi surrealist novel in three parts, now safely ensconced in the Tibetan tongue. It was complete and utter crap. Aliens come to earth to worship (and destroy) HHDL based on a mistranslation of a radio transmission made in 1959 by Allen Ginsberg. Commando monks. The Deadly Lotus. Murder by sutra. Apparently HHDL thought the little bits that the author read to him via translator were funny. I hope he likes it, but I think if he does that it’ll kill my respect for him a little.
I hate finishing things. Until you sign off on something, a project never has flaws, only development opportunities. So, as usual after “finishing” a big project, I panicked and ran.
This time, I ended up at a ten-day meditation class and retreat at a semi-nearby Tibetan Buddhist monastery. The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill, which meant a long walk up stone steps with no railing, passing signs that said, “Silence Please” in English, Standard Hindi, and Standard Tibetan. The Indian practicality of packing as many possible living spaces into an area still applies. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one building stops and another begins, and they were all making use of the monastery’s steps, staining them with streaks of runoff in places. The higher up you go, the less worn the steps are. The building itself is surrounded by trees and greenery and is itself plain and white, more like an apartment complex in the States than a building of worship.
I have a dorm room with five other women. Squat toilets and a line for the (cold) shower. It’s a lot colder up here, harder to breathe due to the altitude (damned steps). My feet are swollen and I feel cranky and stupid and tired. I’m glad I brought my sleeping bag, even though they do have blankets and sheets.
Ninety people.
It’s supposed to be a silent retreat, but nobody shuts up. Arguments, bragging about who’s met HHDL, who’s been in India the longest. A lot of white people. Most of the Indians are from North America or Europe, here on retreat. Even the teacher’s a white guy, a Norwegian. Thor the Buddha.
For wanting to get away from it all, I sure picked a place with a shitload of people. I caught myself almost ready to strangle a pair of college girls from Sheboygan, Wisconsin: ignorant to nine decimal places and in a hundred and ten languages. Flirting with the teacher. Asking too many stupid questions. It’s like grad school all over again. Everyone overanalyzes; nobody gets their hands dirty. Grad school: the reason I’m not a writer. This class will probably be the reason I’m never enlightened, although I’ll probably get an ironic job offer out of it, just like when I dropped out of grad school. “So you know Tibetan…”
I’m a single, middle-aged, sweaty white woman trying to stay out of a discussion about which is the “best” flavor of Buddhism while I try to figure out what to do with my life instead of just falling into it by accident. The problem is that I’m jealous. I wish I were a college kid again, my whole life ahead of me, actually giving a shit about the different types of Buddhism on a philosophical level. The teacher’s kind of a hottie. I wish I weren’t too old to flirt with him.
Day 2
Why is everything in India freaking red/yellow/orange? Okay, sometimes you get some blue. But mostly red/yellow/orange. Then I looked outside (it’s a mistake, I tell you, to make people try to meditate where there’s a window) and realized that everything out there is green and thick. Contrast. All the bright colors are there to keep you from disappearing into the aggressive landscape.
What I meant to say was, “My mind wanders a lot during meditation.”
I wish they’d let me do something mindless with my hands while I’m meditating. When I was a kid, mom canned things. She gave away more stuff than we ate, I think, because we were all damned picky as kids. But I loved helping her get stuff ready. Snapping the ends off beans. Hulling strawberries. Grinding up tomatoes with the hand-cranked sauce maker clamped to the table and oozing out red paste. Listening to my mom and her sisters talk, not really understanding a word of it. That was peaceful. This is hard. I hate having to face my judgments of myself. My whole life has been wasted.
Too much overanalysis at supper again. Why are these people so excited? I feel exhausted.
You know what I love about Buddhism? The sand mandalas. I want to skip learning how to meditate and just make sand mandalas. The last grain of sand is placed, and then they’re destroyed. There is no moment of being finished: no judgment, no admiration, no self-criticism. Just busy work. Sweeping up.
Some woman, one of those backpacker types who’s one-hundred-percent practical until, suddenly, she’s a complete spiritual airhead, keeps looking at me funny every time I come into the room. I don’t get it.
Day 3
Today I meditated on the question, “One of the people in this room is an alien. Who is it?” I kept thinking about the books. The more time I spend here, the more they make sense. In the books, only Buddhists (and even then, not many of them) can resist the powers of the aliens’ mind-control rays…because they have no minds.
Clearly, nobody in this class is going to retain their independence if the aliens take over. Why did I feel “called” to come to India? Aliens!
No, I have to take that back. Ted from Manchester, a.k.a. Mr. Offensive, clearly will not be mind controlled. He constantly shows up late to class, sprawls full out on the floor, farts, belches, stares into space, falls asleep during meditation, and gets into arguments with the teacher. When he gets bored, he stares at breasts. Backpack woman talked to him about his wicked ways twice already. The word “should” was mentioned several times.
Last night was initial hook-up night. Yes, everyone’s supposed to be chaste while at the monastery. No, it ain’t gonna happen. People high on “spirituality” will always find a way. Awareness of the universe = horniness. Or maybe that’s just the nature of retreats. I’ve seen it at banking conventions, summer camps, self-help seminars. Grad school was almost incestuous.
It’s times like these that I feel like an alien, an outsider even in the middle of people who are supposed to be practicing solitude. Of course—why didn’t I realize it? When you’re playing the “who’s the alien” game, you should always start with yourself.
One of the Sheboygan girls was overly happy this morning. The other was not.
Why am I here? Why am I doing this? I am so restless I want to scream.
Backpacker woman has been tiptoeing in and out of the room all day with exaggerated carefulness, like we’re babies and she’s trying not to wake us up.
Day 4
I fully intended to walk out and leave this morning. I don’t belong here, I shouldn’t have come here. I need to be on the move. Nothing about this is right. It’s pointless. A waste of time.
As I was heading out the door, one of the monks stopped me. “Wait,” he said. If he’d touched me, I would have hit him. He had enormous front teeth but didn’t look anything like a rabbit. His face was too narrow to be cute or handsome or anything but a face.
“What?”
He struggled to say something, and I didn’t feel like making it any easier on him by telling him I could speak Tibetan. I was angry and fed up with myself, and I felt blaming it on him.
He gave up and pulled a copy of a worn book out of his robe. I looked at it: it was one of the first things that I’d worked on, a regency romance of all things. I had done a terrible job on it, but they’d paid me: a victory, by my accounts.
Eventually he managed to get out, “Will you sign this?”
I sighed. This was the kind of thing that happened to authors, not to people like me. But the pen in his hand was shaking, he was so excited about it.
I said, “You are too kind,” took the pen and the book, and turned past the swooning British woman in the arms of her lover and opened it to the front page. It was brown and fragile with age: cheap paper. I riffed through the pages; naturally enough, the spine of the book was bent slightly wider near the two (tame) love scenes. The smell of libraries rose from the pages so lightly that I stuck my nose between the pages to get a fix.
I smiled at him, went back to the front page, and braced the book against the thick-painted wall to sign it. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Sonam,” he squeaked.
To Sonam - May this book continue to bring many pleasant hours - Randi Henderson. I wrote it once in English and once in Standard Tibetan.
“What is our next book?” he asked.
“Um,” I said, wondering if I should switch to Tibetan but figuring he wanted to practice his English. “Very strange. A request by His Holiness, about aliens from outer space.”
His face lit up, and he asked by the series by name. Rumors had been going around, apparently.
“Yes, that’s it. I sent the final draft to the editors…” I counted back. “Five days ago. It will still take six months to publish.” I handed him the book and the pen.
“Thank you,” he said. His hands were still shaking. “I look for it.”
“Thanks.”
He put the book back in his robe, bowed, and went out through the front door, skipping down the steps, where a small groups of monks was waiting outside. They circled around him, asking questions. I could see from the back of his head that he was blushing furiously.
I put my bags down by the door and headed into the sunlight. The monks hushed when they saw me, trying to look serious, but it didn’t last for long. Nobody spoke in Tibetan. Everybody wanted to show off their English skills. I shook a lot of hands, too, which was not something I had known you needed to practice but apparently they wanted to.
It wasn’t something that they talked about (or that I’d thought about before), but I got the impression that there weren’t a lot of modern books being written in or translated into Tibetan. Everyone in the West wanted the wisdom of the ages; the monks were craving the complete idiocy of the times. I kept getting a kick out of knowing that I was probably going to get them all in trouble for talking, smuggling books into meditation sessions, etc. Shit. I was going to be banned by Tibetan monks. Wouldn’t that would be something to put on my resume?
I went back inside. Seventy-five students left out of the original ninety. I sat down. Seventy-six. It changed things, to know that I was getting a little taste of what those monks had been studying (and taking for granted) most of their lives, and I felt a stirring of curiosity.
Day 5
My curiosity is dead. Bored. Booooored. Monks are boooored. They are so boooooored that it messes with their heads. Secret wisdom technique: make them boooooooored.
I spent the day observing Mr. Offensive. Whenever he caught me at it, he adjusted his crotch, which I hope is not his way of flirting with me. Also, I wish I had the balls to pick my nose during meditation, but I don’t.
At lunch I sat next to him in the picnic area, with my bowl of thenthuk with squash, barley bread, and paneer. My bowl rattled as I put it down. The tables are so tiny that there’s no escaping each others’ company. There’s no personal space, no table space, no elbow space. An Indian microcosm. I am almost ready to go back to my apartment, just because it’s the only place on this freakin’ subcontinent where I can have any privacy. After yesterday’s sunshine, it was raining again.
His eyebrows wiggled at me like those of a monkey who sees what’s in your bowl and is trying to decide whether you’re an easy mark for a grab-and-snatch.
“Normally,” he said, “I think it’s funny when people confront me about breaking rules or violating etiquette like a passed-out sorority chick at a kegger. But I’m not up for it today, so piss off.”
I snorted and started eating. “I’m bored,” I said.
He grunted. The rain came down harder and harder, soaking through the awning and oozing and dripping everywhere. The monsoon was not over.
In the afternoon, he deliberately sat next to me and did not pass gas. I think that meant I made a friend.
I looked over at the statue of the Buddha at the front of the room; it was gold with all kinds of red and orange cloth on it. My, I thought, what big earlobes you have, Buddha.
All the better to hear you with.
I hiccupped back a laugh, and Mr. Offensive snorted under his breath.
One of the Sheboygan girls was gone, the one who had been so happy yesterday. Other students were gone, too, and I wondered if she’d run off with one of them. I hoped she was all right. At supper, the remaining Sheboygan girl wouldn’t stop pacing. Backpack woman fussed at her, trying to get her to talk about what was bothering her—so she could “fix” it, I suppose. I got a lot of dirty looks from her.
None of the doors are shutting properly, due to the humidity. At least it’s drier up here (and cooler) than down at my apartment.
Day 6
In the middle of class, Miss Sheboygan said, “How am I supposed to learn this? You can’t learn this stuff.”
The teacher smiled at her like she’d answered a particularly tricky pop quiz question. “That’s right.”
“Bullshit.”
He shrugged.
After a while, she got up and walked around and around the room, and I knew with every cell in my mouth and chest that she wanted a cigarette. If only she could get a cigarette, then everything would be okay. But of course she couldn’t, not here.
Eventually I started to want a cigarette too, even though I haven’t smoked for twenty years. The dangers of empathy. I wonder if she’ll still be here in the morning.
The monks have been ogling me, which gets annoying.
Day 7
I watched monkeys from the window in the gompa during mediation today. The nighttime cross-bed shuffle seems to have settled down as people get worn out or drift off. You’re always free to leave, after all. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him retreat.
I went back to the dorm after supper and cried for no reason. I’m a monsoon, dumping on everyone, and feeling bad about it makes it worse. Everyone in my room was super nice about it. Backpacker woman gave me a lecture on herb to use for treating menopause and a (cloth) handkerchief, then rinsed it out and hung it up when I was done.
I’M TOO YOUNG FOR MENOPAUSE!!!
This was the last day of classes. The next two days will be nothing but meditation. I don’t know if I can do it. I’m actually scared of it now.
Day 8
I meditated swear words today. Breathe in. Fuck. Breathe out. Fuckity fuck. Also, I cried, and a few times I had to pound the floor. It wasn’t hormones, I swear, but feeling like I was giving birth to something nonetheless.
After break, Ted dropped a flower in my lap, which everybody else ignored. I watched it wilt. Why not? I had the time. I literally had nothing better to do. Story of my life.
I listened to the birds and the monkeys taunting each other outside, people breathing and shifting, people talking, very faintly, outside. Leaves moving. Bugs (rarely) zooming by. I longed for the sound of kids playing outside and realized that I was imagining them yelling at each other in Hindi. I’ve been over here too long.
I tried imagining I was a monk and had been doing this since I was six, but instead I felt like I was trapped in a car on a long car trip.
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
“Soon.”
—After I used the squat toilet tonight, the backpacker woman laughed at me as I came in the room.
“What?” I said.
“You must be really mad at that door,” she said.
“What?”
“You’ve been slamming it for the last eight days.”
I tried to remember whether I’d been slamming the door. “If it bothered you, why didn’t you say something before?”
“We’re not supposed to talk,” she said.
I laughed, good and hard, sitting on the nearest bed. The rules hadn’t stopped any of us from babbling our fool heads off before now.
Day 9
This morning I woke up remembering one of our old car trips as vividly as though I’d just finished it. I was eleven. Brian was a baby and Maggie was six, and the three of us were crushed together in the back seat on a drive back from Montana to Ohio. Nothing to do, and our parents kept nagging me to keep the baby quiet. Maggie, when she was bored, would bug the baby, and I would get in trouble.
So I told her a story. I’d tell her part of it, then retreat into my own little world to dream up another section. If she interrupted me before a half hour was over, I would quit telling the story. The story was about supermice, and I forget how they did it, but they saved the world.
She didn’t interrupt me early once, although the second her pink Minnie Mouse watch showed a half-hour was over, she let me know.
As I was sitting, I went to that place I used to go to, before grad school, where the stories are. The rain started to really come down again, like white noise on a TV at three a.m. in some mythical period of my childhood.
I’m going to spend the rest of my free time writing it down. More tomorrow.
Day 10
As suddenly as it began, the retreat is over.
It’s lucky that mostly what we’re doing this morning is saying goodbyes. Nobody has the energy. Sonam and a few of the other monks came to see us off, and I shyly handed him a copy of what I wrote last night, in quick-scribbled, illegible Tibetan, on cheap notebook paper.
He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows asked all kinds of questions.
I whispered in his ear like I was ten and had just written him a note asking him to be my boyfriend. “I wrote a story last night. It’s not very good.”
He smiled and shook my hand. “Thank you, thank you.” I have no idea whether he understood a word I said.
The steps were a wet, murderous bitch to walk down, and the bus was late. Tomorrow I’ll get back on the internet to check email. If my editor doesn’t have comments, and if the ghosts haven’t come flooding over my front step, and if the monkeys haven’t gotten in and trashed the place and shat everywhere, I’ll take another look at the story and see if it makes sense. Or write a new one. I have ideas.
Monsoon season is over. Or not. I don’t mind.
***