Zen and Gone

by Emily France

  “Oh, Micah,” Essa said, shifting close to him on the bench. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Micah ran a hand through his hair, looked directly into Essa’s eyes. “I kept thinking it would be over soon, you know? Like she’d get the surgery, get the chemo, and then . . . done. Like everything would go back to the way it was. But she’s still so sick. And we don’t know if the cancer will come back. If she’ll really come back. The way she was. It’s like I don’t know if things will ever be like they were.” Micah looked back in the window, watched his mom fill a teapot with water, set it on the stove. “And she keeps giving me all the Buddhist shit about—”

  “Change?” Essa asked. “How it’s the only constant. How nothing is immune. How it sucks.”

  “Duhkha,” Micah said with a sad smile.

  “Duhkha.”

  “And no offense, but it’s why I’ve still been hanging out so much with you guys. At the End of the World.” Micah looked down. Even in the darkness, Essa could see a flash of embarrassment on his face. “I haven’t even really met anybody at CU. I go to class, I go home to help Mom, she takes her medicine. And I guess I take mine.”

  Essa saw such a small, pitiful sadness in his eyes. No Micah, Big Man on Campus. No Micah, Dormitory Cavalier. Just Micah, with his breath getting quicker, with tears pushing through.

  Essa reached her arms around him.

  “Getting high doesn’t help, Essa,” Micah said. “I promise. It’s all still there when it wears off. It’s all still there.”

  Essa pulled back.

  “So is it hitting you yet?” he asked. “The gummy? You only took one, I hope.”

  Essa put her hand in her pocket and pulled it back out in a fist. She opened her fingers, and there in her palm was a single sugar-coated cherry gummy.

  “Didn’t take it,” she said, with a sad smile.

  “And you know where you should go.”

  “I do. I totally do.”

  It was almost midnight by the time she reached the garden. The wildflowers were closed up in the darkness, curled tight, patiently waiting for the dawn. The water fountain was still tinkling into the small pond; the Adirondack chairs were still waiting in the lawn; traffic was still zooming down Arapahoe Avenue. Lighter. But still there. The light was on, casting a warm glow on the sign: blue spruce inn.

  Essa made her way through the sleeping garden and past the Buddha statue in the half-boat next to the Zendo. Out of habit, she kicked off her shoes and left them there, peered in the window. The room was dark. The zafus were all perfectly round and perfectly plump, waiting on meditators to come sit, to try to arrive in the moment, breath by breath, kalpa by kalpa. The incense on the altar was smokeless and cold, ready to be lit. The vase was empty, content to wait for flowers. She tried the door.

  It was locked.

  She knew it would be.

  She took a few steps back and eyed the second floor.

  Do I?

  There was a wooden staircase that zigzagged up to a little covered porch and another door on the second floor. This one was painted a rich pine green.

  I’m going.

  Barefoot, she ascended the stairs, taking them slowly, as quietly as she could. The wide slats of the covered porch creaked as she walked onto them, and groaned louder still as she leaned toward the window.

  A light was on.

  The curtains were drawn, but they weren’t opaque; she could see through them just enough to make out the light of a candle, the glow of a small desk lamp, and a silhouette. His silhouette.

  She was trembling, rattled by nerves. She’d met with him in the Zendo before. He’d helped her write gathas. He’d worked with her on the sanctuary koan. She’d been a student during his Dharma talks. She’d had tea with the sangha in the garden.

  She’d never been up to his apartment above the Zendo.

  Alone.

  At midnight.

  I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t knock on his door.

  She thought about going home, about carrying the pain and worry about Puck behind her like a ten-thousand-pound boulder. She thought about trying to sleep, trying to eat, trying to do anything. She couldn’t sit zazen. She couldn’t recite gathas. She didn’t want to smoke or eat gummy edibles that would only make things worse. That would only let her little sister down right when she needed Essa most. There was only one thing to do—knock on the door.

  She heard a shuffling inside, footsteps across the wooden floor, the lock turning.

  “Essa?” The priest narrowed his eyes in the darkness of the porch.

  “Hi.” She opened her mouth to explain. To apologize for showing up at midnight, unannounced. For being there at all.

  “Are you all right?” he asked softly, interrupting her before she could even utter one word of explanation. She shook her head.

  His apartment was sparse. A long wooden table cut through the center of the room, its top well-worn. A small box garden of herbs sat in the middle. Little labels were affixed to the sides. Dill. Basil. Rosemary. A sofa and a wicker rocker were in the living room, where a painting of Bodhidharma hung from a nail. The portrait of the sixth-century Indian monk showed him wrapped in a white robe, sitting in full lotus, staring at a rock wall only inches from his face. His eyes were downcast and seemed submissive somehow. But his eyebrows and full bushy beard made him look cross. He was the one who brought Zen (Chan) to China.

  “Jeff, who’s here?” The priest’s sleepy wife emerged from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. Behind her, on another wall of the living room, hung their young son’s artwork. Crayon renditions of boats, rocket ships, dogs.

  “Hi, Clara.”

  “Oh, Essa.” Clara crossed the room in her wrinkled nightgown, put her arms around Essa. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Is there any news?”

  “No.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. I’ll make you tea.” She glanced at her husband. “And let you two talk.”

  Essa eyed several zafus next to the sofa and headed toward them. They always sat on zafus when they had practice discussions. But the priest stopped her.

  “Why don’t you just sit in the rocker?” he asked. “It’s a great one. I love to sit there in a storm.”

  “Thanks,” Essa said, sitting down.

  He sat on the sofa, folded his hands in his lap. Essa wanted to say that she couldn’t survive without knowing her sister was okay, that she couldn’t survive without her sister, period. She looked at the priest and wanted to say all that.

  But she didn’t.

  The look in his eyes was a familiar one, and it silenced her. It was a look that only people who’d spent many, many hours meditating had. It was like his eyes were pools fed with clear running water. There were lazy fish swimming circles in the deep. Green reeds rolling gently with the current.

  “Have you been able to sit zazen?” he asked gently. “Since she’s been gone?”

  Of course Jeff knew about Puck even though they hadn’t spoken. The whole town of Boulder did. Essa had seen Puck’s name everywhere—on the news, on Missing Child posters, on the front page of the online Daily Camera. Essa shook her head no, wiped her eyes, tried to somehow shove the tears back in. “I can’t sit.”

  “Please cry. Don’t try to stop it,” he said. He leaned forward on the sofa. “To deny what we feel is to be violent toward ourselves. Be kind. Let it come. Let the clouds come.”

  The tears came quickly then. Essa closed her eyes as a warm wetness coated her cheeks. Then she felt a delicate tap on her shoulder. It was Clara, holding out a cup of tea. It was in a sea-green clay mug with no handle.

  “Drink this,” she said. “Careful. It’s hot.”

  Essa’s tears slowed, and she took the cup in both hands. The tea had a strong smell she didn’t recognize. She took a sip from the steaming mug, and a strong, bitter taste
stunned her tongue. And something else. “It’s smoky,” Essa said. She took another sip. “Really smoky.”

  “It’s lapsang souchong,” Clara said. “It’s strong and smoky and can’t be ignored. It’s what I drink when my mind is a storm. It brings me out of the wind and into the tea.”

  Essa loved that image. Coming out of the wind in her mind, the turbulence, the rain, the thunder . . . and into this small mug of hot smoked tea. Somehow the cup suddenly seemed like the safest place in the world.

  “A teacher of mine used to say that sitting was the only way to truly calm your heart in times of trouble,” the priest said. “Even if your crop fails. Sit. Even if you are ill, sit.” He looked at Essa with his flowing-water eyes. “Even if a child is ill. Or gone. Sit.”

  At the word child, pain pierced Essa’s chest. She thought she couldn’t breathe. She thought she couldn’t keep holding the cup of lapsang. She thought she was going to die. She thought of her mother, stoned and happy on Pearl Street. Stoned and happy with Ronnie.

  “But why? Why be here when here is so awful?” She gripped the cup tightly, the smoky steam rising up to her nose. “What’s the point?”

  “There is no why,” he said. “If you try to grasp a certain result, you’ll miss it. But sit anyway. I think you’ll notice joy there. Strength. A store of peace that will ensure you don’t capsize.” He looked at her again, and this time she saw sadness. A deep compassion that made her feel for a moment that he understood. Even though it wasn’t his sister who was missing. Or his child. He understood. “If you sit, you’ll remember that there is pain. Often unbearable pain. But the pain is a cloud.”

  “And I’m the mountain.”

  Her gatha.

  He nodded. “Not detached from it. Not oblivious. Not numb. Don’t push against it. Don’t aim for a blank mind. For nothing. For no thoughts. Let them come, but return to your breath. When your mind is located somewhere else, in the past, in the pain, in the future, return to your experience. Your body. Say to yourself, Just this. This very mind is Buddha.”

  “Just this.” Essa looked into the darkness of the tea. “This very mind is Buddha.”

  “Kalpa by kalpa, comfort is available, Essa. Solidity. Safety.” His eyes. So calm.

  Kalpa. The smallest divisible unit of time.

  “I almost got high,” she said softly. “I just want . . . away.”

  “Escaping won’t work,” he said. “If it did, I would tell you to go.” He smiled softly. “You don’t have to act on your thoughts. You can feel them. And you can let them pass.”

  Essa watched the tea and its steam. Felt its warmth slowly fade. She put her cup down on a small side table. But before she stood to go, she took a breath. And then another. And then another.

  Pain is a cloud drifting by a mountain.

  Watch it. Tend to it.

  But know

  You’re the mountain.

  PART III

  THE THIRD NOBLE TRUTH:

  Duhkha arises; duhkha can cease.

  What goes up can come down.

  June 27

  32

  ESSA

  In the morning, Essa walked out of her bedroom and down the hall. She was going to shower, get ready for another day in the mountains, helping search parties. Looking. She was ready to look forever.

  Don’t look in Puck’s room.

  Don’t look.

  Don’t.

  She did.

  She saw the awards on the wall. The kites on the ceiling. The lumpy comforter on the bed. Essa felt like she couldn’t take one more step. She thought her legs would give out from the ache, the pain, the sorrow. She sat on the floor in the middle of the hallway, her chest cracking open. Her heart spilling out.

  She leaned against the pain, trying to shove it back. Memories of Puck came knocking, and she pushed hard against those, too. Puck swatting at Essa with a wind-sock fish at Above the Clouds. Puck running through the store in her tap shoes. Puck spinning on the stool in front of the computer with a pile of lollipop wrappers at her side. Essa tried to will them out of her mind, but the memories seemed to grow louder somehow. Sharper. Bigger.

  She thought about what the priest had said: To deny what we feel is to be violent toward ourselves. Be kind.

  She stopped pushing.

  The pain rushed in.

  She thought she couldn’t breathe. She thought she couldn’t survive.

  Sit zazen.

  Just sit.

  Slowly, she pulled her legs underneath her; she straightened her back. She brought her attention to her trembling breath. In and out. In and out. Her mind spun into the woods, into the darkness. It watched Puck head into the forest to go look at stars on her own. It watched Puck get lost and not be able to find her way back. It watched Oliver trailing her. Oliver hurting her. Like he hurt his own sister.

  Just this.

  Just this.

  This very mind is Buddha.

  Gently, Essa brought her attention to the now. To what was actually happening in that very moment. She noticed things around her. The hum of the refrigerator coming from the kitchen. The rough, twisted carpet underneath her legs. The soft coolness in the back of her throat as her breath came in. And out. In. And out. Her heart slowed. The air seemed to slow around her. A stillness wrapped around her shoulders.

  Pain is a cloud drifting by a mountain.

  Watch it. Tend to it.

  But know

  You’re the mountain.

  It wasn’t gone.

  She wasn’t fine.

  But for just one kalpa, she felt solid. Still desperately sad.

  But safe.

  She opened her eyes.

  Down the hallway, her mother’s door was open. Her bedspread was sliding off the bed as usual. The rising sun was coming in through her mother’s eastern window, casting a cool, bright light into the room. Memories of Puck crashed through Essa’s mind again like waves, threatening to overtake her.

  She brought her mind to her breath again. Kept her eyes open, but downcast, just like Bodhidharma in that portrait. She just looked. And breathed. For a few kalpas more.

  Just this.

  Just this.

  Just this.

  Essa noticed the dust motes floating in the ray of morning sun in her mother’s room, slowly drifting and careening like tiny drunken flies. She saw a tissue crumpled into a ball on the floor. A stray sandal under her mother’s bed. A small box.

  A small box.

  Essa unfolded her legs and crawled down the hall. She reached under the bed and pulled out the box. It was a wooden one. With pieces on the outside that slid this way and that.

  A Puzzle Kite.

  One of the wooden puzzle boxes Puck loved to solve. Her favorite thing from Above the Clouds. Inside would be a kite to put together. An owl. A horse. A princess.

  Essa’s hands flew along the outside of the box. The pieces clicked and clacked as she shoved them left and then right and then left again. Just like Puck’s had, her tongue slid out of the corner of her mouth as her hands danced over the puzzle. She thought maybe it held the horse kite Puck had wanted. Maybe Essa could put the horse kite together and go fly it. And feel close to Puck somehow. Like they were both high in the sky. It was a piece of her sister. A kite she left behind.

  Except there wasn’t a kite inside.

  There was a piece of paper.

  With a drawing on it.

  A wheel.

  A wheel with eight spokes.

  She recognized it. Pushing up from the carpet, Essa took the piece of paper and ran into Puck’s room. The poster on her wall, the one that won first place in the social studies fair. The one about Eastern religions. On the left side was an image of the very same wheel. A wheel with eight spokes.

  The wheel of the Dharma.

 
; The text on the poster read, Buddha gave his very first teaching at Deer Park, in Sarnath, northern India, and it contained the Four Noble Truths. It is said that with his first teaching, Buddha began to turn the wheel of the Dharma.

  Essa ran into her own room, fumbled as she reached for her cell phone beside her bed, and dropped it on the floor. She plopped down on the carpet and picked it back up with her shaking hands. She texted Micah and Anish. Come over. I think I found something.

  “So you think she left this here? As a message or something?” Micah asked. He and Anish stood in Puck’s room next to Essa, eyeing the drawing.

  “Maybe,” Essa said, her eyes wide. “What else do we have to go on?”

  Anish looked up at Puck’s poster. “So why is it called the wheel of the Dharma again?”

  “Dude,” Micah said. “You’re from India. You’re, like, from where Buddhism started.”

  Anish rolled his eyes. “A) I’m not from India. I’m from Fort Collins. B) India is roughly the size of another planet. I’ve probably been to .00005 percent of the towns in it. And C) my grandparents in India are Hindu.”

  “Parents?”

  “Presbyterian.”

  “Right,” Micah said. “Sorry, man.”

  Essa took the drawing from him. “Dharma is another word for Buddha’s teachings. And he gave the first one in Sarnath. The wheel is a symbol for the Dharma. By teaching it, Buddha started turning the wheel, sort of . . .”

  “Setting his teachings in motion?” Anish asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t know, Ess,” Micah said. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I know you want her back. And so do I. But I think this is a stretch. I mean, you don’t even know how long that box has been under there. It could’ve been there for a whole year or something.”

  “No,” Essa said. “She stole a Puzzle Kite from the shop a few weeks ago. She thought the horse kite was in it. I know this was the box. This was the one. She must have just put it under there.” Essa climbed onto her bed, glaring at the wheel. “Help me figure this out.”