Nareesh simply smiled. “We have been taught the answer to that question all our lives, in all our traditions. The essence of all religion is in the practice of compassion. Is this not Christianity’s highest commandment? Are not wisdom and compassion the root of Buddhist teachings? Ram Seva teaches that through self-awareness, we may know god-consciousness, peace, and consideration for all sentient beings.”
At sunset, an evening chill settled over the camps, and still Christian remained in his position under the tree, meditating. Deciding. When he finally opened his eyes, it was to find that Nareesh still sat beside him, offering the comfort of his presence and the invaluable gift of time with patience. A waning moon hung low on the horizon.
Christian looked toward him and smiled, finally sure of his path. The theological college offered a settled future as a minister, but that life could only be static after knowing Lama. What really excited him was the function of mind-energy, the many mysteries Rinpoche understood but had not taught, the course of study that serious contemplation in a monastery would unfold.
“In Bodh Gaya, I chose, Kathy,” Christian murmured softly.
They sat together before the fire of the cabin, naked, facing each other, legs crossed in lotus, knees touching.
“I understood that my father saw the world in black and white, in terms of duality. Lama saw a multifaceted existence and a unified human experience. My father would reach heaven through belief in God, Geshe-la in understanding man’s God-like nature.”
“Did you tell your father?” she whispered.
“At the end of the trip to Bodh Gaya, Nareesh and I traveled to Amritsar. My mother and father were there visiting with friends at another mission. The slow transition on his face from shock to horror to anger. I should have told him about my relationship with Lama. I know that now. But he could never see that it was my karma. For my own reasons, Lama and these lessons had come to me. He couldn’t see that my life was not his.”
“So, I both won and lost,” Reverend Brooks mumbled as he stood staring from the window. “I have gained Nareesh, but I have lost my own son.”
“You haven’t lost me,” Christian pleaded. “Meet the Lama. Set your mind at ease.”
“You have betrayed your own people … your own church … me …”
“Christian,” his mother cried, “please reconsider.”
“I don’t expect it to be easy,” Christian pleaded. “But I need your support to make it less difficult. I believe I will find God there.”
“You didn’t find God through our Christian teachings?” exclaimed his father, aghast, his face red.
“And with the Tibetans, of all people!” his mother cried. “You’ve seen the way they live in the camps. An aggressive people. Nomads. Primitive. What can you possibly learn from them? Do reconsider.”
“Mother,” Christian retorted with equal frustration, “most of the Tibetans living in camps have nothing because they’re refugees. They’ve left everything behind!”
“Charles,” Reverend Birchwald intervened, trying to mediate for the family, “perhaps we need to give Christian some time to think. Say nothing, do nothing in haste.”
“Have you told this Lama of your decision?” Thomas asked.
“I have. I’ve taken refuge in him—a formal binding of student and teacher. I’ll be going to Nepal to study at a new monastery. Lama Loden is to be the abbot.” Christian wasn’t finished. “Ram Seva and Daya Nanda are in Amritsar to discuss the final details of the new ashram in Delhi with the benefactor. And Lama Loden is visiting with them. A brief stop on his way to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama. Please come. Please meet Lama Loden.”
Ignoring the request, Reverend Brooks said, “Just … go to your room. Give me some time to think.”
The stars were already out when Christian decided to slip from the house to meet Nareesh. He couldn’t face his father again, not just now. As he passed the library of the Birchwald home, he heard voices, several people engaged in conversation.
“Jeannie,” his father’s voice, “one of the servants tells me there’s something happening in the city near the Hindu temple.”
“What is it, Charles?” His mother.
“A riot’s started between Hindu and Sikh. Something about the slaying of a cow.”
“A riot? How bad is it?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’m not sure. I knew something like this was bound to happen again—religious differences tearing this country apart,” his father pronounced indignantly. “Where’s my pipe?” Christian could hear a rustling of papers over the desk as he searched. “Has Christian left yet?”
“You don’t suppose he’ll get caught up in it, do you?”
“Better put everyone on alert. You never know which way things will go when people get angry. Be prepared. We’ll probably need to help in the church infirmary. In fact, I think it best if I go there now. Perhaps there’s something I can do …”
Christian left before he could be confronted. The thought of a far-removed riot did not matter to his plans. All he wanted was to be with Nareesh and in Lama’s presence.
For a few wonderful moments that evening in Ram Seva’s lodgings, everything was in balance. The room was lit softly with candles and scented with burning incense. Tea was served. Ram Seva and Daya Nanda spoke of the village and people known to Christian and Nareesh since childhood, discussed the ashram and proposed medical center in Delhi. Lama Loden gave details of the journeys and speaking engagements the Dalai Lama was to make, His Holiness’s presence one of growing international acclaim. Nareesh promised Christian a visit at the Kathmandu monastery the following summer.
Then, into that moment of blessed peace, a clamor at the door interrupted laughter and thoughtfulness.
“Ram Seva!” a man shouted. “Men are fighting! Looting! A store has been set on fire!”
“I heard there was a riot,” Christian told them uneasily. “Just before I left the mission. Sikh and Hindu fighting.”
“What started it?” Ram Seva asked, standing and trying to calm the excited man.
“Someone cut off the head of a cow and placed it on the Temple steps!”
Ram Seva briefly closed his eyes. “I must go. Perhaps I can help.”
Nareesh stood with him. “Father, you and I have both seen riots before. You can’t …”
Ram Seva held up a hand. “I may save a life. Lama Loden,” and Ram Seva bowed to him, “you will understand.”
With the words, both he and Daya Nanda left the room and entered the street, questioning the man who had come to tell them of disaster.
Nareesh, at first unsure what to say or do, apprehensively eyed the door. Then, he moved quickly toward the entrance and stepped out onto the pavement, his eyes searching. Already, his father and Daya Nanda had disappeared into the miasma of a mob, one that was gathering in strength. A conflagration had lightened the night sky. Billowing clouds of black smoke drifted through the street. The fire was spreading, leaping from building to building.
“What should we do?” Christian shouted over the noise, standing at Nareesh’s side.
“I’ve got to bring them back before it’s too late! No one can stop this madness!”
Before Christian could argue or stop him, Nareesh was off. Horrified, Christian tried to grasp the scene. Where fire had not reached, heavy clubs of wood or metal shattered the doors and windows of shops. Looters were grabbing what could be carried. The fire continued to spread. Canisters of gas exploded, engulfing new structures and illuminating the streets in yellow and red and gold, the firelight wavering against the walls of buildings opposite, the air hot and filled with smoke and bits of debris.
Following Nareesh, desperate to reach him, Christian slid along the facades of the storefronts, searching the frenzied crowd. Suddenly, there was a break in the press of people, and ahead, through narrowed eyes, he could just make made out Ram Seva in a cart, his arms upheld, saying something Christian could not hear. Daya Nanda stood at his feet, and b
eside them, Nareesh. A mob of angry men bent on destruction was moving toward them, to be met by Sikhs defending their property. The clash had become a battle.
The groups of men attacked each other with fists and rocks, boards and glass, with traditional knives. An old sadhu carried part of the crowd, crying for vengeance and pushing Hindus to enter the homes of Sikhs to search for the bloody clothes that would convict the killers who had beheaded the sacred cow. Sikhs regrouped, their hidden knives unsheathed. Above the tumult, the fire raged and grew.
Heart racing, an arm raised against the heat of the burning buildings that tore at the skin on his face, Christian screamed hoarsely, “Nareesh!”
Nareesh turned to the sound of his voice just as the mob reached the cart, spilling around it like a tsunami. The wave carried Daya Nanda away, while Ram Seva managed to hold to the cart’s sides. Nareesh pushed through to where Christian stood with his back against a wall. He grabbed Christian by the shirt and cried to his ear, “I’m going to find Daya Nanda. Stay with my father!”
“Nareesh!” Christian screamed to the retreating figure, then shaking uncontrollably, made his way to Ram Seva. “Master! Please!”
A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, and Christian drew back in terror, his face dancing with shadows from the firelight.
Lama Loden!
“You must leave,” Lama told him. “You are in danger. The mood of the crowd shifts. Attacking anything that is different. Your gold hair gives you away. Leave now.”
And just that quickly, everything changed.
Hands tightened on Christian’s clothing. Within moments, he was pulled away into the center of the fighting throng, blows striking him. He gasped for air against the crush of bodies. From one corner of his vision, he saw a man in flames. Stumbling, he found just the space to hit the cobbled street, then the space was no more. People tripped over him, some with armloads of looted goods. He shoved and elbowed his way to the surface, recoiling from nearby flames, struggling to stand. Ahead, he saw a side street, and reaching it, took the road. A moment’s respite, breathing hard, his back against a brick wall, he took stock of his body. His ribs were tender, his wrist beginning to swell, a hot trickle of blood oozed and would not stop from a cut above his eyebrow.
“You!” someone shouted at him. “What have Christians to do with this? Now the Hindus burn the shops and businesses of our people.”
“No … no,” Christian stammered, desperately trying to brush away the blood that covered his eye, partially blinding him. “Why should a Christian want to cause this?”
“That is what you will tell us,” the man shouted, his dagger moving menacingly and pointed toward him.
A crowd gathered. Christian looked right, left, searching for escape.
“You defile our country!” another shouted.
The crowd circled. To the left was a hole, closing fast, another second and it would be too late. With a howl, Christian leapt forward, racing between two men. He passed them, started to pick up speed. Then he was down, sprawled in the street, a body atop him.
The rest happened too fast. Dragged to his feet, arms pinned behind his back, the crowd parted for the man with the dagger.
“Oh, God …,” Christian mumbled between gasping breaths.
The man walked slowly toward him, his eyes wild and filled with malice. Christian wanted to close his eyes against what he saw in them, but couldn’t. The man walked stealthily, each step smooth, deliberate, one step faster than the last, his dagger held at his side, ready for the upward thrust … and then … a body moved into the space between them.
With disbelieving eyes, the world stopped, sound evaporated, only his heartbeat was loud in his ears, his vision narrow, focused on the space before him, and then, unmercifully, his heartbeat moved slowly forward as, incomprehensibly, he saw Lama Loden slump to the ground at his feet.
“No!”
Unaware that he had screamed, the sound echoed down a long tunnel of cracked time.
“The holy man,” someone called. “He gives his life for the boy.”
“No!” Christian screamed again, now on his knees, his shoulders heaving with sobs. “I don’t want this lesson! Rinpoche, please, please don’t die!”
“What … what I would have taught …,” Rinpoche said slowly, deliberately, “… is a moral life …”
“I don’t want your life!” Christian moaned, holding Lama in his arms.
“It is not … this life … that I give. It is the wisdom that compassion is most important. Remember,” he whispered, “what I have taught you of death.”
“No!” Christian cried, the word now a mantra. “No … no …”
From far away came the sound of police whistles and army rifles. More people ran down the side street as they dashed from the worst of the fighting and the fear of arrest. Christian was only dimly aware of those who passed, of shouts of pain or fear or anger.
For a long time, he sat rocking back and forth, trying to understand what had happened. He had never known loss, and to learn this kind of loss first, the loss of a loved human life, was beyond him. Grief gave way to anger at his own human limitations, his own impotence. That he could do nothing for Lama Loden drove him past sanity, and perhaps, at just that point, he found calmness, a certain resignation.
He would accept Rinpoche’s gift. The search for wisdom would be his way of life. Compassion would determine his actions.
But he would have no more of religion. No more candles and incense and robes. No more chanting and ceremony. No more prayer wheels and kata scarves. No more beads or prayer flags. No more crosses or communion plates. No more words or hypocrisy.
Only substance would matter. Religion had caused Lama’s death.
“What happened, Christian?” Kathy asked, tears uncontrolled on her cheeks, her body shaking.
“Hours later, my father found me at the police station, still holding on to Geshe-la. He pulled me away and took me back to Reverend Birchwald’s home. The cut above my eye needed stitching.”
Kathy reached up and touched the scar, knowing it still had not healed. Light and heat came from her fingertips. Living energy, all that she was, passed from her hand to his forehead, and she whispered, “Let me take the pain away.”
“Can you?” he asked with a kind of despair, the acid highlighting the emotions of his memory, forcing him to perceive the events of that night from too many heights, too many causes and effects. “He wasn’t supposed to be there! But he came for me. It was my fault. Lama was to be protected from all the base things of the world. How can this pain ever leave me?”
“And the others? Nareesh and his father? Daya Nanda?”
“Disappeared that night. By the next evening, I was on a plane bound for an aunt in Ohio. To keep me out of danger, my father said. Once I was there, I wrote numerous letters to Nareesh. At the village. At the school. None were answered. Nareesh never showed up at the college. No correspondence. Nothing. I have yet to hear from him.”
RICHARD, CHRISTIAN, AND KATHY
HUMBOLDT COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DECEMBER 1968
On the porch, Merlin closed the door behind him and smiled at Richard.
“Damn, where’s Marcie?” Richard mumbled.
“With a babe on her tit probably. Come on. I have something to show you.” He reached into a box on the porch. “I have a flashlight in here. I don’t think we’re going to get a moon tonight. Not with those clouds. It’s been a wet winter. Let’s walk up this way.”
“You know,” Richard licked his lips, “it would be nice to be with the women.”
Merlin laughed. “You’re right. What do you suppose is happenin’ with Christian? The energy in the cabin’s pretty intense.”
“I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know the dude that well.” Once again, he looked toward the trailer. “Why don’t we see what Marcie and Greta are doing?”
“Wait awhile, and the kids will be asleep.”
Richard shrugged his shoulders and
followed Merlin down the road. “Where we going?”
“I want to show you one of the things I’ve done. By the way, this is a nice dose. I feel clear and stoned, without being shit-faced.”
“A hundred mics. That would stretch a gram out.”
“It’s manageable, if there’s things you want to do stoned.”
His boots squishing in the wet mud, his breath heavy with vapor, Merlin focused the beam of light on a side road. “I have a friend livin’ up that road with his old lady and kid. Up at the top of the hill. There’s a nice view up there. It’s kind of rough on them now. They’re spendin’ the winter in a teepee. We took down a couple of trees and had them milled. The wood’s dryin’ out now. In a few months, we’re goin’ to frame the guy a house.”
“You know how to build?”
“I know some basic carpentry. The rest, we’ll learn as we do.”
Trudging through the forest felt good to Richard. The air was clean and fresh and evergreen scented, contrasting sharply with the hot, stuffy cabin. Walking furthered the sense of his body, his humanity, the extension of that body with the life around him.
“I wish you could spend more time than a few days,” Merlin told him. “After a while, you get out of your head, begin to smell things differently. Hear things. See things you never saw before. There’s a balance with nature up here, and you just kind of balance out with it—become a part of it—but it takes a few days to come down from the city.”
“That’s …” Richard hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was filed with the discomfort of guilt. “I think that’s what Marcie was feeling last summer.”
Merlin stopped, the glare of the flashlight just making out his face, and asked directly, “Were we into an ego game, Richard?”
“We weren’t. I was. All you did is offer me part of your happiness. A family. But I wanted it to be my family. I still wanted to be the boss, control everything, with you on the payroll. Like you were my kid or somethin’. When you left home, I was hurt.”
A Nation of Mystics_Book II_The Tribe Page 31