tablecloth. “Something very exciting better happen today,” says the couple beside me.
Rinpoche certainly tries. We are told he will lead a special fire ritual that morning in honor of the auspicious full moon. But he is late. As we congregate on the lawn in the hot sun, our numbers dwindle yet further. The ceremony, when he finally begins it, is impressive. A smoldering brazier of pine branches and burning pieces of red and yellow cloth sends a plume of thick white smoke up into the summer sky. Seagal chants the Tibetan verses, which he reads from texts bound up in a beautiful silk and lacquer reticule. The English translation is poetry of exquisite intricacy and refraction, speaking of unknowable worlds of bliss and terror—“The five realms of existence, including one called Hell”—unchartable beauties, nuances beyond our conscious comprehension. We are chastened into silent thought.
Arriving at the dining hall that night, we are informed that there will be an unprecedented evening session. I tell Meg that it smacks vaguely of eleventh-hour bang for the buck. Seagal is trying to make up for his “punctuality issues.” I say this lightly. Meg, whom at this point I would almost sooner saw my tongue off with a plastic knife than have another one-on-one conversation with, says, “Maybe it’s
our
issue. I view this time as a bubble. Maybe we should go with the flow like we’re in a monastery.” Unable to bear it any longer, I say, my voice far sharper than I intended: “Even in a Buddhist monastery—where I’ve been”—a bald-faced lie—“they show up at the time they say they will. I don’t think it’s invalid, having told two hundred people he’d be here at a certain time, for him to show up then.”
I frankly don’t care whether Rinpoche shows up at all. I am at this point thinking only about the next day, when I can take a cab to the Amtrak station and return to that nest of perversion and unenlightenment known as New York City, where the practice (and criminal nonpractice) of empathy and compassion has all the immediacy, importance, and conflicting allegiances of war.
Meg and I are so clearly sick of each other that her attempt at jocularity merely highlights, rather than defuses, her anger at me. “Wait, let me back up,” she says, leaning over toward me with strained Lotus Eater levity, assuming my position in my chair. “Let me learn nonresistance and try to align myself with you.” The corners of her eyes are shining, as sharp and gleaming as rat teeth. It’s moot, as it turns out, because by the time supper is over we are told that the evening session is canceled.
Disencumbered and disenfranchised, our evening suddenly stretching before us, we start to gather aimlessly in front of the Omega café. Larry Reynosa, who has so far addressed us in traditional Japanese martial arts garb, is there in street drag. A few of the seminarians are asking him questions about his life with Rinpoche. The crowd begins to grow, and a de facto evening session led (not surprisingly) by Reynosa begins to organically take shape in the gathering dusk.
On the periphery of the circle, I begin to speak with an older man whom I noticed earlier. “I’m here ’cause my son did a good job on my taxes and I thought I’d treat him to a weekend.” He is dressed in head-to-toe Early Bird Special: athletic shoes with white tennis socks, shorts, Izod shirt snowed with dandruff, and nylon jacket. He has always been a bit of a seeker, he’s studying Cabala in Philadelphia. I ask him what he thinks of this weekend.
“It’s okay.” He shrugs resignedly. “But I didn’t really sign on to spend twenty-five hours a day with him,” he says, indicating Reynosa.
He is a CPA who refuses to use a calculator. He is delighted when I tell him I’m a writer. “Oh, that must be the most wonderful thing in the whole world! That guy, what’s his name . . . James Michener wrote that book
The Drifters,
and I read it at age
Rinpoche certainly tries. We are told he will lead a special fire ritual that morning in honor of the auspicious full moon. But he is late. As we congregate on the lawn in the hot sun, our numbers dwindle yet further. The ceremony, when he finally begins it, is impressive. A smoldering brazier of pine branches and burning pieces of red and yellow cloth sends a plume of thick white smoke up into the summer sky. Seagal chants the Tibetan verses, which he reads from texts bound up in a beautiful silk and lacquer reticule. The English translation is poetry of exquisite intricacy and refraction, speaking of unknowable worlds of bliss and terror—“The five realms of existence, including one called Hell”—unchartable beauties, nuances beyond our conscious comprehension. We are chastened into silent thought.
Arriving at the dining hall that night, we are informed that there will be an unprecedented evening session. I tell Meg that it smacks vaguely of eleventh-hour bang for the buck. Seagal is trying to make up for his “punctuality issues.” I say this lightly. Meg, whom at this point I would almost sooner saw my tongue off with a plastic knife than have another one-on-one conversation with, says, “Maybe it’s
our
issue. I view this time as a bubble. Maybe we should go with the flow like we’re in a monastery.” Unable to bear it any longer, I say, my voice far sharper than I intended: “Even in a Buddhist monastery—where I’ve been”—a bald-faced lie—“they show up at the time they say they will. I don’t think it’s invalid, having told two hundred people he’d be here at a certain time, for him to show up then.”
I frankly don’t care whether Rinpoche shows up at all. I am at this point thinking only about the next day, when I can take a cab to the Amtrak station and return to that nest of perversion and unenlightenment known as New York City, where the practice (and criminal nonpractice) of empathy and compassion has all the immediacy, importance, and conflicting allegiances of war.
Meg and I are so clearly sick of each other that her attempt at jocularity merely highlights, rather than defuses, her anger at me. “Wait, let me back up,” she says, leaning over toward me with strained Lotus Eater levity, assuming my position in my chair. “Let me learn nonresistance and try to align myself with you.” The corners of her eyes are shining, as sharp and gleaming as rat teeth. It’s moot, as it turns out, because by the time supper is over we are told that the evening session is canceled.
Disencumbered and disenfranchised, our evening suddenly stretching before us, we start to gather aimlessly in front of the Omega café. Larry Reynosa, who has so far addressed us in traditional Japanese martial arts garb, is there in street drag. A few of the seminarians are asking him questions about his life with Rinpoche. The crowd begins to grow, and a de facto evening session led (not surprisingly) by Reynosa begins to organically take shape in the gathering dusk.
On the periphery of the circle, I begin to speak with an older man whom I noticed earlier. “I’m here ’cause my son did a good job on my taxes and I thought I’d treat him to a weekend.” He is dressed in head-to-toe Early Bird Special: athletic shoes with white tennis socks, shorts, Izod shirt snowed with dandruff, and nylon jacket. He has always been a bit of a seeker, he’s studying Cabala in Philadelphia. I ask him what he thinks of this weekend.
“It’s okay.” He shrugs resignedly. “But I didn’t really sign on to spend twenty-five hours a day with him,” he says, indicating Reynosa.
He is a CPA who refuses to use a calculator. He is delighted when I tell him I’m a writer. “Oh, that must be the most wonderful thing in the whole world! That guy, what’s his name . . . James Michener wrote that book
The Drifters,
and I read it at age
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