Master, how can I make a million dollars?
Cherry blossoms shake in the rain.
Have you tried decorative switch covers?
Yes, but the process was too expensive
with much breakage. Moon-dabbed
bush clover. Have you tried a dog toy
made from two tennis balls united
by a short length of rappeling rope?
So the novice goes off and does this
very cheaply and sells 35,000 in a week
at 200% above cost then Purina Dog Chow
offers to buy him out for a mill.
But still, as evening collapses
upon the orangeade drinkers carousing
the boutiques, he puts his hand down
his throat to touch his own heart
and it stings. A million isn’t
all that much. So he goes back up
to the hut on the mountain and asks,
Is it the lion in the cave or
the lion coming out, roaring?
Neither in nor out, what is that?
suggests the Master. But isn’t there
something more, pleads the novice.
Have you tried love? taunts the Master.
So the novice goes back to Berkeley
and eats crab with an undergraduate
who makes him feel in danger but
also volcanic, the crab cracks like fire,
her breasts shine like the sea glimpsed
through a broken wall but he’s afraid
she won’t leave and at the same time
afraid she won’t stay and she keeps saying
she wants to be an aromatherapist so
the novice decides he must quit this world
and give everything he owns to a group
protecting the coyote. There are two kinds
of people and the right ones think it’s okay
if a coyote eats the occasional chihuahua.
So the novice returns and says I have done
everything you said. What things? explains
the Master. There is no doing, no not doing.
No two kinds of people. There is only the fluid
that drips from the dragon’s mouth.
But what about the effect of glucosamine
on synovial joints? People actually say
they feel better. What about Beethoven’s
deafness, cunnilingus, what is the best way
to cook fish? Cover with wax paper and marinate
for two hours then sauté rapidly in hot
olive oil. Do you have any spare change?
proposes the Master. But what about
walking in the rain and being miserable,
what about being happy with nothing,
how the clouds that are nothing completely
consume the mountain? And they go on like this
for years, learning nothing, sleeping late,
getting drunk until the Master dies
like snow melting from a fence. So
the novice writes a book called Dog Toy
that becomes a best seller then he goes
on a talk show with someone who fell
from an airplane and survived and
someone else who had been struck
by lightning many times and survived
and a woman who had exhausted all
conventional treatment but when
all hope seemed gone,
she just started concentrating
and drinking a lot of water
until she was completely healed
and able to move paper clips without
even touching them. What are you
waiting for? You’ve already
been given your free gift.