Paradise Park

by Allegra Goodman

  One day while I was at my Good Earth register, I started watching the monks who used to come and deliver lettuce to the store. There were four of them who came every week. They grew hydroponic butter lettuces, and they used to carry them into the store on cardboard flats. Soft green lettuces on pure white stems, their little brown tendril roots like pubic hair. The monks wore orange robes, and they had fuzzy shaven heads. They were small spry men, although after a while I realized one was a woman. They had this beautiful sexlessness about them. They looked like local people, tan, and somewhat Oriental, and they always came on the city bus. But the thing I noticed most about them was that although they murmured to themselves, they did not speak to each other. They did not even glance at me.

  After they left, I couldn’t get those monks out of my head. I stood there ringing up bulgur, and cashew butter, and weighing plantains, and I imagined the monastery where the monks must live. It would be way high up in the Ko’olau Mountains, right up there in the crags. And it was all tile roofs and secret courtyards, like the Hidden Fortress, cloaked with mist.

  I began to wait for the monks to come every week. I’d watch for them, and when they came, I’d strain my ears, but I never understood what they were murmuring. I wanted to ask them a million questions. I wanted to ask them about their lives, and about their devotions, and if they ever taught people who were seeking God. But, of course, I couldn’t approach them, because they were so silent and looked so peaceful. I envied them that. Peacefulness. When in my life had I ever even come close? Monastic quietness. Man, I loved the thought of that.

  “Kim,” I said to my manager, “I wish I could be a fly on the wall at the monastery, just for one day.”

  Kim shrugged. “Why don’t you go on a retreat at the center, then?”

  “What center?”

  “Consciousness Meditation Center. That’s where they all live. It’s in Kailua. They have weekend retreats every couple of months.”

  “You’re kidding me!” I was shocked. You just didn’t have weekend retreats at the Hidden Fortress.

  “They’re not bad,” Kim said.

  “You’ve been?!”

  “Sure.”

  “How many times?”

  “Just once,” Kim said. “They’re two hundred bucks.”

  “Two hundred bucks! For a weekend? No way.”

  “Yup.” She got a kick out of my sticker shock. “But it clears your mind,” she said.

  Well, yeah, maybe, I thought, but I’d already been washed white as the driven snow for free. Except then I couldn’t stay clean. “Do they have work-study or something?” I asked.

  Grumble, grumble, but for two months I saved up. I wrote a check. I went.

  I took the bus out to Kailua and got off and followed Kim’s directions, and I got to the center, which was surrounded by a high white wall. Some other people were arriving in cars. About ten of us waited at the gate, and the robed monks ushered us in.

  The place was a spacious ranch house with add-ons. An enormous 1950s Buddhist ranch. The floors were white tile, and the walls in a lot of places were made out of those glass bricks that let light in, but you can’t see through. I remember it was raining, and the garden was full of orchid plants, whole hedges of orchids, which the monks grew, and there was a pond with goldfish and a tiny bridge, and no grass, but white gravel, and some larger black stones.

  Instead of a living room there was a meditation room where we all sat with our instructor. He was a tall heavyset haole man, although a monk just like the others. He wore an orange robe and had peach fuzz on his head like them, but he was about six foot four, and he had blue eyes, and wire-rimmed glasses, and he actually talked to us. Each day in addition to our meditation, and our breathing exercises, Michael told us about himself—the path that he took in his life, and how he had come to that path, and how it was right for him. He said, “Ten years ago I used to be totally caught up in my desires. I had an addictive spirit, so even though I was a lawyer in New York, and I seemed like any other suit, inside the only thing driving me was alcohol. All my spirit knew was what it wanted,” he told us.

  I just looked at him and shook my head. You couldn’t imagine this man wanting anything anymore. He seemed so at peace, in his robes and his shaved head, so stripped down, and, I don’t know, ergonomic. He had such a gentle voice, and such calm blue eyes that seemed out of place at the beginning, being so haole, but you got used to them. And really he was one of the most quietly inspiring teachers I’d ever seen, just sitting on the floor in front of us talking with such simplicity, and not only telling us, but being what he was telling, being in his speech and in all his tiniest movements so mindful and just so in the moment with all of us. The way he spoke about Tibet, you could tell it was his true home country. The way he showed his understanding, you could tell he was a person who had found not so much his calling in life, but his listening. He was so open; his whole body and breath were so big. I thought, he is so at home in his skin. You couldn’t imagine he had once been in such a mundane state, with all those bourgeois appendages, an apartment, and a car, and dress shoes and cuff links, a marriage, and a divorce.

  Yet, after a while when you got to know Michael, it turned out you really could imagine him as a lawyer wearing a suit. Despite him being essentially a cleric and, you know, a black belt in meditation, he was one of the most uptight people I’ve ever known. For example, if by some chance you were late for meditation, he got all tense, and he looked at you, and he glared this unmistakable glare, like all the neurotic New Yorker was coming out in him, and he was bringing it to bear on you. And if you happened to interrupt him in class because suddenly a question or a burning insight came to you, he’d blow his top! And he would say, “Sharon!” in this sharp tone of voice like the crack of a whip, like the tone my own dear dad would take when I was thirteen and reeling around in my pubescent fumes. “Sharon!” As in, How dare you. You couldn’t help but flinch. Yet I didn’t get to know Michael that well until later.

  What we did with Michael was Dzogchen practice, which was this very basic no-nonsense silent meditation with your eyes wide open. And we did it in the morning and we did it in the afternoon, and in between we walked. We walked up and down the street, which was a quite lovely quiet suburban-type street. We walked like monks and we spoke gathas to ourselves, which were mindfulness prayers, like this: I feel my feet walking. I feel my legs moving. May I walk gently. May I tread lightly on this earth. We just followed Michael in our shorts and T-shirts, like we were these spiritual ducklings and he was our father bird. We all ate together and slept in one sleeping room and meditated together, but yet, I had no idea where anyone else came from or what they did for a living or any of that, because we didn’t have any discussions or conversations. We respected the silence. We listened to our own minds. We were busy remembering who we were.

  And I sat, and you know what? I didn’t think about anything. I just looked straight ahead, and I breathed, and I focused, and I thought about absolutely nothing. I just emptied my mind, foosh! of all the clutter. Just shut down my hyperimagination, until there I was, totally blank. Just white, like a big white unfurnished room. Just plain vanilla, without a cone, without a spoon. I sat and I breathed. I was so focused, the only distraction I had in the whole two days of meditation was every once in a while thinking, Whee! I’m good at this! Because it was true, I was a natural!

  I was so good that by the end of the weekend I was an inch taller than when I’d started, just from all the tension melting off my shoulders, and from being mindful of my posture. And I was so good at it that my lungs grew, I’m sure, from getting a workout for once and giving up that shallow breathing that I’d been doing for years. All my perceptions were sharper. Everything about me was more expansive. And I saw that this was where I needed to be right now. This was what I needed to be doing. And the most amazing thing was that Michael and all the other monks saw it in me too. I started coming to the center every chance I got. I started comin
g just to breathe, just to get some oxygen, just to return to myself. I started practicing; I started seeing the way before me, and every day and every retreat, I grew more calm. And then one day, about three months after my first weekend, I brought all my money and valuable things, including even my silver watch, and I gave them to the center, and I attached myself to Michael as his student, or groupie, or what have you, and I stayed.

  All my connections to the outside world—like balloon strings—I just let them go. All my valuables—just gave them up. And the giving didn’t mean a thing. I didn’t feel a single pang. Except for Grandpa Irving’s watch. I have to admit, I almost kept it. I almost hid it in my clothes. I’d rubbed and rubbed the silver case until my hand was worn from rubbing. What would I do now to rub away my worries and my fears? But that was the point—I was giving up my superstitions. I was sacrificing my attachments that weighed my soul. So when I thought of keeping back the watch, I knew right away I should give that thing up first, because it was more precious than the others. And when I mourned its loss, I thought, Well, that proves it was just a big distraction.

  I stayed at the monastery, and for months and months my soul just grew. Not from experiences or hard knocks or from revelations that were at hand, but by itself in the meditation room, just hydroponically, like the lettuce heads in their tubs of water, without any roots in the ground. I stayed, and my mind opened. My spirit hummed to itself; it rose and fell on my breath. I walked and I breathed. I sat and I simplified. I ate only lettuce and fruits and a few grains. I drank only water. I took almost nothing from the world, and the world took nothing from me. I wasn’t running around looking for some Western conception of God—as if any day I’d turn him up under some rock. I’d exchanged that whole crusading questing Holy Grail hang-up for something so much better; this smooth stillness.

  So of course, that was too good to be true. Pretty soon, deep into my stillness, like a guy you’ve broken up with who can’t believe you aren’t still attracted to him, my imagination came around to tempt me. My imagination started whispering at me, “Sharon! Shaaaron!”

  And I’d hiss inside myself, “Stop that, you fool.”

  “Shaaaron! The color blue.”

  “No colors.”

  “Purple.”

  “Sh.”

  “Periwinkle, lavender, plum, oregano.”

  “Oregano? That’s a spice.”

  “Made you look.”

  “Sh!”

  And then all would be quiet, until he’d start up again, my imagination, and now he’d take some other form, like of a little kid, “Sharon. Sharon, can I touch the Buddha? Can I touch him? Is he real gold?”

  Because there was a benevolent gold Buddha sitting on the table in the meditation room, and he was so soft and rounded he looked like he was cut from pure buttery gold. But, of course, I would never dream of touching him, except this little voice inside me kept bringing it up. I began to have some very hard days. I began to feel like Satan was inside of me trying to subdivide my spaciousness.

  I started oversleeping in the mornings. Instead of getting up before dawn with Michael and the rest of the community, I’d be fast asleep having these wild dreams. I’d dream about Molokai and the guavas hanging down from the trees, and I’d dream about Tonic and the birds, and they’d be speaking to me with their intelligent beaks. They’d be speaking to me in tongues, yet I’d understand them. “Where are your feathers?” they’d scream at me. “Feathers! Feathers! Where is your chick? Where are your wings?”

  Ding! Ding! The little wake-up bell would ring far away, yet my eyes just would not open. I kept lying there. And being my own personal mentor, Michael was pissed.

  Four months into my stay I was sitting in the meditation room with the monks and teachers, and the visitors retreating on that weekend. We were observing three days of silence. The whole community was round and still with listening. The ears of every human in the place were open; every pore was awake. Now. Now. We are breathing now. We are living now. That was the rhythm like a drum inside of us. But all of a sudden I felt myself about to speak! My hand flew up to my mouth to cover the words before they spilled out. I was so embarrassed.

  We rose up and went walking through the neighborhood. There were about thirty of us, and I was walking next to Michael, and I felt the words burbling up inside of me, and again I had to cover my mouth with my hand, like when you’re trying to stifle hiccups, but the words kept coming, and they were question words, like “How come? … How come? …” All of a sudden my whole being was itchy with questions; I was just growing questions all over my body. It was as if I were three years old again, when everything you see makes you ask why. Like “Where did the stars go now that it’s morningtime?” Only, my questions were about our meditation practice—like “How come you guys chose this day to be a silent day? Why this day and not a different day?” And “Why is it important for us all to walk together now as a community?” And “How do you maintain your focus when sometimes everything seems to be distracting you?” And “Why, all of a sudden, is this stuff not working for me?”

  We walked along through the neighborhood, which was damp and misty and green. We walked past these pretty tract houses with lychee trees in their yards, and mango trees laden with purple mangos, and occasionally little decorative ponds with teensy arching Oriental bridges, and once in a while a Shinto shrine. I started to pull at the sleeve of Michael’s orange robe. He averted his face from me. He was absorbed in his own steps. So I tugged a little more. “Michael,” I whispered.

  He looked at me, aghast. I’d said a word.

  I started gesturing at him like this was urgent. I made the time-out signal with my hands. I looked at him imploringly.

  No good. He was furious. He began walking faster. I ran along trying to keep up. Yet the New Yorker in him was starting to come out. Even on those side streets off Old Pali Road you could see it happen. His pace was quicker and quicker. His eyes glazed over. He was striding through the community to the front, just to get away from me. Like saffron flowers the monks drifted to the edges of the road as Michael marched through. Like a hyper Scotch terrier I ran after him, worrying the edges of his consciousness. Faster and faster, he kept walking. His legs were long; his mouth was set, until finally we left the rest of the community behind.

  “Michael.” I panted. “I’m sorry. I really am. I tried not to speak. I couldn’t help it. I’m probably not ready to be this quiet. I’m probably not even deserving to be your student. But I have to talk. I have to say something. This silence isn’t working on me. My brain is going haywire. I’m hearing voices. My imagination and my ego and everything else. My whole subconscious is out of control.”

  He stopped walking and turned on me right there in the street. He said, “You have broken my peace.”

  I threw up my hands. Now, all of a sudden, no words would come.

  “How dare you,” he said to me. His face was turning red. “How dare you!”

  My voice came back. “How dare I what?” I shot back at him. “And since when is it your peace? I thought it was all of ours”

  “You said you came here to learn.”

  “I am here to learn. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “And I was trying to teach you!”

  The monks had caught up to us, but in their serenity they didn’t bat an eye. They walked right by us, and the weekenders followed—except they turned back to stare like rubberneckers at a traffic accident.

  Michael’s hands twitched against his orange robe. His jaw was working. “I’ve tried to put up with you,” he said. “I’ve tried to be patient with you. When you interrupt. When you start with your questions …”

  “You are not patient,” I told him. “You haven’t been patient at all! You’re an anal-retentive control freak, that’s what you are!”

  He breathed in, and he breathed out, and he said between clenched teeth, “I am expending every ounce of energy right now not to wring your neck.” And he gl
owered at me, huge in his robes, and beads of sweat stood on his brow and on the stubble on his shaved head. He looked like the Jewish-Tibetan version of Friar Tuck.

  “Learn to listen,” he said, and he left me standing there on the gray asphalt, and all the car ports on the street blurred together, each with its own copy of the Honolulu Advertiser rolled up in a rubber band.

  “But, but …” I called after him. Michael was gone. And one last question died on my lips. The one I really wanted to ask. Which was: How could you devote your life to contemplation and practice meditation for so many years and still be such a tight-ass?

  Yet I calmed down by evening, and Michael regained his cool. The truth was, this guy was teaching me a lot. He was just understandably protective of his inner space. So over the next few weeks I respected his boundaries and stifled my own nagging curiosity. I realized I and only I could put to rest those nagging voices inside of me. I focused, and I practiced. I lived in the present and did not bother the community or the day students or weekend visitors around me.