The Far Shore
Page 31
She calls the temp agency once or twice, a polite follow-up.
They are equally polite.
But in the end, as of yet, there is nothing for her.
Meanwhile, she’s beating her keyboard to death, trying to coax something about Gray out of the internet.
Spelunking, this.
Going ever deeper into the rabbit hole.
The internet really goes on forever, doesn’t it?
If you think you’ve reached its boundaries, what it’s capable of, it’s not a failure of the internet and its content, but rather a failure of vision on your behalf.
There is always more there—parallel realities and dream states, little nodes and modes and ecosystems that have been there all along—pockets of information, revelation unlocked when one finds the right hyperlink, the right search term.
The obvious Wikipedia version of Bodh Gaya is that it is where the Buddha was supposedly enlightened two thousand five hundred years ago.
A destination for the Beat Generation and the Hippies after them.
Westerners after the Buddhist ideal.
Would-be meditators after enlightenment.
There are plenty of accounts of this: Americans, Europeans, South Americans.
There is no dearth of information when it comes to this.
Bodh Gaya is quite an open book, with no less than 2,150,000 results on Google.
Still, as she combs through them, she finds this problem: they are almost exclusively lensed through the Western eye—maybe because the search language is English—and it seems Bodh Gaya only came on the Western radar in the late 1950s.
Which would have been a full decade or more after Gray himself had gone.
She cannot find for the life of her an account of Bodh Gaya in the ’40s.
Which is surprising, given how the place is supposed to be the Mecca of Buddhism.
Represented in contemporary accounts as a place steeped in two thousand five hundred years of Buddhist history, the ground zero of enlightenment.
And yet apparently these are newer spins.
And not exactly what was actually happening on the ground in Bodh Gaya during the ’40s.
Apparently, this Mecca of Buddhism was more Hindu than Buddhist at the time.
But she doesn’t want to get lost in the weeds.
Because truth be told, she gives two cracks about Hinduism or Buddhism.
She’s only interested in the Mystery.
Gray.
And it may not in the end even be about him, this obsession.
Not even about the money.
But instead, about resolution.
About dogged determination and not giving up.
Because, in a lot of ways, this has been visited on her and her alone.
No one else on this planet—not one—had a guy with a Mike Ditka mustache knock on their door and reveal this singular quest to them.
This is her shot.
Her Cross.
Her reason.
It must be this.
Because why else would she stick with the enterprise, scorch her eyeballs for hours on end in front of her computer, run her financial reserves down to zero, all the while divorcing herself from the old-world mind-set of resume-building, of job-as-definition?
She is outside the wire now, escaped.
A terrifying and vulnerable place.
Yes, it must be why she is doing this: it gives her a reason.
To persevere.
To not shrink from the challenge.
What else could it be?
For days she has been putting out feelers.
Sending emails, posting on message boards.
She thinks of them as fishing rods, as bait in the water.
Each new email sent, each new message posted a new line out there for the world to seize upon, to bite.
She must have hundreds of lines in the water now—emails to historical societies, monasteries, religion departments of universities; message board postings to Beat Generation forums, meditation forums, travel forums.
She would have, as of a few weeks ago, never have known any of these existed, much less have had any interest whatsoever in initiating communication with them.
She’s finding it’s about a 50 percent hit-rate.
Half of the forays are ignored or lost to cyberspace.
The other half gets brief, polite responses that ultimately amount to we can’t help you.
No one has heard of Gray, of course.
No one knows much about Bodh Gaya in the ’40s, except overly complex political stuff about the state of India at the time, about how India was on the verge of independence, and various religious groups were battling over everything, including Bodh Gaya.
She patiently endures this, opening each email, each forum response with muted hope, but ultimately finds that there is nothing there for her, nothing she can use.
Maybe Bruce is right; maybe these things do take years.
She can’t do that.
She won’t.
She’ll force the world’s hand somehow.
She eats ramen.
She doesn’t mind ramen.
Besides, it’s only temporary.
The temp agency will call.
Or one of her lines in the water will yank, and there will be an email, one that will tell her everything.
In that light, ramen is fine.
She indeed gets a bite.
It is a little one, but it is a bite.
Some days back she’d posted on one of the meditation message boards.
Made a simple inquiry in a section entitled “Stories/Personal Histories.”
Included a brief thumbnail account of who her grandfather was, as well as his possible sojourn to Bodh Gaya in the ’40s.
Would anyone have any resources or ways to get information about pilgrims that went there?
For days there had been nothing, then came a post from Satori415.
“Only thing I could think is maybe you check with some of the older guys.
By older, I mean some of the first guys that went over there in a real sense, that started the whole Western Movement.
The guys like Jack Kornfield and Larry Rosenberg and Joseph Goldstein.
Now, they went in the ’60s, so they’re probably twenty years too late, but you never know.
Maybe they encountered some of the older monks and seekers somewhere along the way.
It wasn’t a terribly big community then.
If there was an older Western meditator there, you know, a guy that had been there for a long time, they’d have known it.
It would have been a real outlier.
Don’t know if this helps…Good luck on your search.
Metta.”
She immediately searches for the guys named in the post.
Most of them are now running long-established meditation centers in the US.
She fires off emails, inquiring about their time in India, about whether they might have seen an old guy like Gray when they were there.
More lines in the water.
She knows she has already called the temp agency, twice.
It is one thing to appear motivated, another to appear stalkerish.
Maybe if she changes the shape of the inquiry?
Maybe if it’s not the same call, the same meek, overnice check-in?
Maybe if she just stops by, say?
Like she is already in the area.
Maybe that changes the shape of it.
So she does this, goes to the agency.
Acts suitably carefree.
In fact, carries a shopping bag with her from the market across the street, a prop if there ever was one.
She sees her friend, the Lady.
Hey, Lily says, I was literally just walking by.
She says this as if she is as surprised she is here as the Lady is.
(You are definitely a stalker, Lil.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease, though.
[Thus spake the stalker.])
Any, uh, any possibilities?
The Lady smiles that nice, overbusy smile at her.
Come into my office; we can talk.
Listen, the Lady says.
Things didn’t exactly check out on your resume.
Oh?
How so?
The, uh, the references didn’t check out.
Lily cringes inside.
Wes.
(Oh no.
You overripe Santa Claus son of a bitch.
Oh no no no.)
But she nods, receives the news with a searching silence.
Like she’s accepting of it, proactive about it.
Like it’s a speed bump and nothing more.
Okay, she says.
The Lady meets eyes with her—yes, definitely the first time they’ve actually made true eye contact—pupils finding pupils—a direct line and none of this semi-connected to-the-left, to-the-right, near-the-face or over-the-shoulder stuff.
We can’t in good faith put forth candidates who don’t check out.
I’m sure you understand.
No, Lily says all too eagerly, I do understand.
If it doesn’t check out, it doesn’t check out.
The Lady nods, surprised by how well Lily is taking it.
I just have to get my references straight, don’t I?
Iron out whatever that issue was, huh?
The Lady shrugs.
Sometimes that’s the way, yes.
Lily stands, shakes her hand, thanks her profusely.
I’ll iron it out, Lily says, I’ll iron it out.
Then she leaves, carrying her largely empty grocery bag with her.
It’s my grave and I dug it, Lily thinks.
Maybe with an assist from Wes, who knows.
Maybe it’s more Wes and less me, maybe it’s more me and less Wes, whatever.
Doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t.
Head down, get on with things.
Don’t dwell.
(Though it is a problem, you have to admit.
Because, really, that’s been your main job for the better part of your adult life.
It’s about all you can put on your resume.
Because if you omit it, you’re going to have this massive gap in your employment history.
“What have you been doing for the last ten years,” they’ll ask.
How are you going to answer that?
You can’t do the whole I-stayed-at-home-to-raise-the-kids thing.
Because you’d have to make up some kids to do that.)
And she’s not going to make up kids.
She’s not going to make up anything.
(Oh son of a bitch.
When did lying become so hard?)
XX
From: JKornfield@*******.com
To: Lily212993@******.com
L—
Thank you for reaching out to me. This inquiry brings back warm memories of my young days as a seeker. Regarding your question: the good news is that there were virtually no gringo seekers back then. So, if there were an older Caucasian in Bodh Gaya, he’d be easy to single out. But, to my recollection, there were none. At least none that I crossed with. Now, in describing your grandfather’s situation—which sounds interesting to say the least!—it’s unusual for westerners who wish to study meditation and become monks to be runaways, which is, if you will allow me, how I might describe your grandfather’s plight. To become a renunciate like that, to tell no one in advance, well, it does happen, just not that much. But I think here is the larger point…say that a seeker comes to the monasteries under such circumstances: he (or she) tells no one that he is “checking out” from the world. He may start like that. But if he stays on in any real measure, undergoes the training, he tends to contact the people back home at some point, because part of the training is to become intimate with suffering, and in doing so, they realize the suffering their disappearance has caused back home. I don’t think a seeker or monk could be a seeker or monk for any extended period of time without coming to this realization and rectifying the situation. I don’t mean to dissuade you, because I think you’ve got a fascinating mystery on your hands, and one that I have particular interest in, given that if there were western forebears in the Buddhist search in India before me, I’d love to know about them.
Is there anything else you can tell me about your grandfather?
From: Lily212993@******.com
To: JKornfield@*******.com
Mr. Kornfield—
I’m so appreciative of your response. Unfortunately, I’ve really given you everything I have on him—his name, history, etc.
OH! He had a clawed hand, does that help? War damage.
From: JKornfield@*******.com
To: Lily212993@******.com
Let me shake some trees. Talk to some of the old guard. See if anything comes of it.
And do tell me in turn if you’ve found something! I’m quite curious!
XXI
Lily dreams of Gray once or twice during this time.
Very real, visceral encounters with the man.
But nothing stays with her.
Not the details at least.
Not once she awakens.
It’s all half-remembered in that peek-a-boo nature of dreams.
Only a faint emotional residue remains.
That is the language of dreams, isn’t it?
Not the specifics, not the plot of things, but the feelings.
And all she knows is that there is family in this man.
Frightening and deep.
The inexplicable connection of shared DNA, even if one has never crossed paths with the other.
It is a heavy thing, family, a warm, expansive abyss.
And she, of course, doesn’t know him, has only seen that one picture with his eyes steeped in shadow.
Has read his letters and heard the stories of him.
But he’s ingrained himself into her dreams, and nobody gets into your dreams unless there is an emotional angle to them.
Unless they have evoked something in you.
What, Lily, what has been evoked?
Do you even know?
XXII
From: JKornfield@*******.com
To: Lily212993@******.com
L—
Good news. I kicked around your idea with some of the other guys. And believe it or not, I may have someone who encountered him. At least I would guess it was him. My friend’s name is Bennett Daniels. He’s a long-practicing meditator—what we call an anagarika, which is sort of between a monk and a layman. He studied for many years in the East in the ’60s, and some people remember him talking fondly of one of his teachers, whose name escapes me, but who was an older American who’d been there for many years before him, and most importantly, had a badly damaged hand from the war. Do you think this could be your grandfather?
The one problem is that place was nowhere near Bodh Gaya or India for that matter. It was in Burma.
Not sure this helps. Let me know.
Burma?
Lily has to look it up.
Ah, next to Thailand, known today as Myanmar.
A near-failed state, bejungled, one of those many anonymous map-fillers she’s been oblivious to all these years.
A whole country, right there on the globe all this time, one whose name and borders and cities she’s never looked directly at.
Burma?
From: Lily212993@******.com
To: JKornfield@*******.com
Yes, please send more. Not sure Burma is the place, but frankly I’m not sure of anything!
From: JKornfield@*******.com
To: Lily212993@******.com
L—
Burma’s got a thriving Theravada Buddhist community, and has seen a flow of Western seekers over the years, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a gringo to be seen there. But, like before, your grandfather would have been early to the s
cene if it turns out it was he who Bennett encountered. All I can remember is that Bennett would talk at length about his teacher over the subsequent years—we all did and do, because we owe them a great debt—but Bennett’s teacher was the only one that was Caucasian. We used to laugh internally, because half the reason we went all the way to Asia, even if we didn’t know it or publicly acknowledge it at the time, was to learn from an Asian master! There was a kind of romanticism going on, or an Orientalism as they used to call it. We thought we’d only learn the dharma if it came from the mouth of an Asian teacher! So we always joked that Bennett had gone halfway around the world from America to then learn from an American! But he did sound intriguing. The clawed hand, the history in the war. I’m sorry I can’t give you more on this, because these aren’t my memories, they’re Bennett’s. I’m relaying them to you second-hand. If I really stretch my old brain, I’d say the teacher’s name was Ratha. Anagarika Ratha. This is not something to get worried about—the fact that his name was not Gray Allen—most monks and anagarikas go by their given Pali names. So there’s a very good chance—at least I hope—that Ratha could have been your grandfather.
I’ll send more if it comes to me…
Again, hope this helps…
From: Lily212993@******.com
To: JKornfield@*******.com
Is there any way I could talk to Bennett?
From: JKornfield@*******.com
To: Lily212993@******.com
L—
Hmm. I guess I neglected to include that, didn’t I?! Bennett’s alive and doing well, but it’s going to be tough talking to him. I’m not sure how well versed you are with Buddhism/meditation/etc., but he’s currently observing Noble Silence. He’s on a two-year silent retreat in the Catskills. As such, he won’t be breaking that silence, or receiving anyone until the retreat is up.
From: Lily212993@******.com
To: JKornfield@*******.com
He won’t talk to anyone? Even if it’s an emergency?
From: JKornfield@*******.com