The Devil's Vial

by Brumbaugh,Byron

  “You come back to monastery?” asked his teacher again. He spoke to the translator in Tibetan.

  “Rinpoche says the best way to help others is to concentrate on becoming enlightened yourself. Then you will know what needs to be done and how to do it.”

  Richard continued to stare at the floor. Finally, he said, “There is nothing that I’d like better.” He paused, then looked up and saw his teacher nod. Richard shook his head. “But I can’t. There’s too much suffering out there, in the world. I can’t turn my back on all those people, on all those beings. Even if I can’t stop the suffering, I think I can alleviate some of it. Maybe, on occasion, I can point at least some of them in a good direction.”

  “Excellent,” said his teacher, who then spoke to the translator in Tibetan.

  “Rinpoche says that one day, you might be a great bodhisattva. Just don’t sacrifice your practice to help others. You can help more by acting from a place of knowledge than from one of ignorance.”

  Richard stood, put his hands together and bowed. “Thank you, Rinpoche,” he said. “I understand the wisdom of what you have said. Thank you.”

  The Lama rose from his cushion and walked toward a second door on the left side of the room. “Come visit monastery in one year or so,” he said and then left the room. The translator followed. His Lama seemed to carry away with him the greater part of the burden of Richard’s guilt and regret. Richard looked at the door, took a breath and sighed heavily with a deep sense of relief. Left behind were still painful wounds that ran very deep; the horror of taking another human life, not once but twice, and everything else he had been through, would not go away easily. But for the first time since that ghastly basement long ago, Richard felt his wounds would eventually heal. Now he had to leave behind what did happen and focus instead on what will happen. Turning, he walked through the door and into the hall.

  He found his shoes in the foyer where he left them. Sitting on a nearby chair, Richard bent over to tie the laces. As he did, the face of a six-year old little girl flashed in his mind, unbidden. She lay on a gurney with wires and tubes attached to her. Her eyes were closed and she lay quiet, deathly quiet. The monitor above her head beeped and bright green lines wiggled across its face. Her chest rose as a respirator pumped air in, then fell with the subsequent exhale. Nothing else moved – arms, legs, eyelids. Nothing. Minutes went by – too many precious minutes. An alarm went off and Richard was gently, but firmly, pushed out of the way as the code team applied their skills. To no avail. All because the nearest place that had the life-saving drug she needed was too far away to get it to her in time. A drug that in normal times would have been stocked in the hospital. But not now, not in the muddled mess things had fallen into.

  Tears came as they had when it happened. He couldn’t help it. An intense, aching, sorrowful lump of frustration choked him. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and searched in the most profound part of his being for that soft quiet place that was at the crux of all he experienced. It felt warm and nourishing, joyful. Some labeled its essence as loving kindness, but whatever you wanted to call it, it was beautiful, soothing. As he was taught in the monastery, Richard took in a large breath and as he did so, he sucked in all the pain that poor little girl felt as she died. He inhaled all the suffering of the little girl’s parents and family, all the angst of the caretakers who couldn’t revive her. His mind’s eye visualized all this misery as a thick, hot, black fluid. In absorbing it, he imagined he reduced the distress of the other people. Reaching down with his awareness into the core of his being, he exhaled. As the air left his lungs, he envisioned it carried with it a large bolus of tender caring. It infused those in agony with a cool, light, refreshing breath of air. Again easing the agony of the others. He focused his attention for several breaths – taking in all the torment to himself, giving out only loving kindness. If only he could infuse all of life with that vision.

  Why couldn’t he? His only reality was what he experienced. Although he couldn’t choose everything he experienced, everything other than his immediate experiences were totally his creation. The shoes he just put on, the chair he sat on, the door in front of him, all were ideas he projected as objects causing his experiences. They had to be consistent with what happened to him, but he would not, could not, ever know if these objects really existed, no matter how well they explained what he experienced. They were just guesses. Why couldn’t he take a more poetic approach to these conjectures, be a little creative in what he projected as truth? Many of the visualization techniques he learned as a Buddhist could be thought of in this way.

  He opened his eyes and there were multicolored beams of loving kindness radiating out from him. His eyes didn’t see this light, but his mind and heart saw it clearly. The beams were as bright as the sun, shimmering blues, luscious yellows and gold, verdant greens, vibrant reds. They came from his fingertips, from his eyes, from every pore, every cell in his body. He breathed in all that was wrong with the world, and radiated out pure loving kindness. And the more he radiated, the more he was filled with it; as if he stoked smoldering coals in some deep internal hearth. These rays bathed everything around him in a flood of loving compassion that permeated everything.

  Every being suffers in life and who can’t use all the kind compassion they can get, no matter the source or the means of delivery? And, you know, out in the world there were people really hurting. A lot of people.

  Richard stood, put on his coat and reached for the doorknob in front of him. Bracing himself for what was beyond the door - not just the wintery weather, but all the trouble out there, he took a deep breath. Enlightenment wasn’t within his reach - at least not yet. But he would not, could not rest, until he’d done all he was able to do.

  He took the bodisattva vow a few years ago. Now, with an understanding that can only be gained from direct personal experience and a conviction born from the marrow, Richard rededicated himself to the way of the bodhisattva:

  With a wish to free all beings

  I shall always go for refuge

  To the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,

  Until I reach full enlightenment.

  Enthused by wisdom and compassion,

  today in the Buddhas’ presence I generate

  the Mind for All Awakening

  For the benefit off all sentient beings.

  As long as space remains,

  As long as sentient beings remain,

  Until then, may I too remain

  And dispel the miseries of the world.

  There lay the path he must follow. It wasn’t a path built on self-promotion or even self-realization - its paving stones were made of compassion and its direction was set by loving-kindness.

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