The First Rule of Ten tnm-1
Page 26
I would have administered the antidote to Thomas Sr., either way. But this way was better. It meant a few less karmic boomerangs, for both of us.
CHAPTER 31
My house was spotless-I had spent hours going over every corner of it until it gleamed from the attention.
I poured myself a large glass of beer. I located Tank, lying in the sun on the windowsill.
“Happy Losar, Tank,” I toasted. “Happy Year of the Iron Rabbit.”
It was March 5th. Another new year, which meant another opportunity to reflect on things. I sipped, and I sighed with pleasure.
This morning I used my thangka as a focus for my meditation. I let my attention rest on the rich colors and abundant images of light and dark comprising the Eternal Circle of Life. Samsara. Illusion. And yet it feels so real. As I sat, I absorbed the harsh contradictions, painted on silk: compassionate deities and ignorant, but inspiring life forms, equally gripped in the talons of a ferocious Mara. Mara seems bent on their destruction, but shift the eyes a little, and it looks a lot like protection. It’s not always easy to tell which is which, you know?
It’s a paradox, a contradiction in terms, just like me.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on the concept of richness. Not Thomas Florio richness, but the richness of thoughts, flowing through the mind. Think about it: Our thoughts emerge unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, and then they’re gone. This process happens thousands of times an hour, and the abundance never stops, even when we’re asleep. To know this is to be rich. Lobsang loves to point out that each thought is an exact replica of life, and to open fully to the free flow of thoughts is to open fully to life itself. Yeshe insists that the opposite is true-that meditation has the effect of quieting the flow of thoughts, enabling us to experience a still point, where all thoughts cease for a time, and true wealth lies. But really, it’s both. Like I said: paradox. To be in touch simultaneously with absolute stillness and the flowing river of thoughts is the exquisite paradoxical backdrop of every Buddhist’s moment-to-moment experience.
I raised my glass again.
Happy Losar, dear friends. Blessings, abundance, and good health to you both. May your lives be filled with richness. I think of you every day, and today most of all.
I moved to my deck, Tank on my lap, waiting for everyone to arrive. The evening air was cool and damp, redolent with scents released by yesterday’s heavy rain.
I remembered sitting with my father in the monastery garden one afternoon, when I was eight or nine. A hawk was tracing lazy circles above us. Suddenly it dived, and reappeared with some small creature wriggling in its beak.
“Apa, why do we have to die?”
“It is a paradox, son. Life’s rich pageant. Paradox is everywhere we look, because we, the ones who are looking, are living paradoxes ourselves. We are wired for bliss, but we choose to make ourselves miserable. We are capable of speaking the truth, yet we choose to spin webs of lies. We are here to learn the greatest wisdom of mankind, yet we choose to gossip and rebel.”
I remember squirming. My father couldn’t help but turn every question of mine into an opportunity to lecture me.
“But why do we have to die?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. But I suspect we have to die, so that we may learn to live.”
An approaching vehicle snapped me back to the present, to my own rich pageant of life, about to become even richer.
John D and his daughter-in-law Becky, her bump of a baby now visible, climbed out of his truck and walked up the drive. Becky carried an apple pie.
I took the pie.
“Looking better, John D,” I said.
“Yeah, well, the treatment’s going pretty good,” he said. “I know it’ll get harder soon, but they say I could get maybe three more years this way. You have any idea how long that is in grandbaby years?”
I gave him two $100 bills and told him it was compliments of his mugger. With interest.
More cars arrived-Bill and Martha’s family van, two little redheads in back, strapped in their car seats and wearing matching Dodger caps. Julie followed, her car loaded up for the long drive back to Chicago. Casseroles and salads and fresh-baked bread collected in my kitchen. Deputy Sheriff Dardon and his wife pulled up with a big batch of meatless chili, and Mike and his spiky but sweet live-in Tricia carted inside a cardboard container of hot coffee and a dozen glazed crullers.
Everyone crowded onto my deck as the sun spilled red in the distance, where land and ocean met. I leaned the photograph of Norman with his brother and father, surrounded by almond blossoms, both sweet and bitter, against the potted impatiens, front and center on the table. I added his business card, the one he gave me way back when. I laid out three bowls of rice, and three homemade torma cakes magically conjured into being by Chef Julie. My Buddha statue was there, as was the feather and mangled bullet.
I asked Becky to light the candle.
I looked at Norman’s smiling face. I felt his hope. I felt his sorrow. He had lost his hero, and his faith. He had lost the love of his mother, and the respect of his father. And then he had lost his way.
I understood.
I couldn’t change the past. But I could address the present. Norman didn’t have to remain alone and without friends. I dipped the hawk feather in water, sprinkled it over his smiling image, and began to chant him home.
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