Tantric Coconuts

by Greg Kincaid

  Ted rested in bed waiting for sunrise. He closed his eyes and concentrated on several of the meditation exercises Angel taught him. He continued with these exercises for twenty minutes and found it easier than he had before to occasionally find the space behind the Ted chatter. Still, even twenty minutes was a long time to work at it, so he turned to one of the books on Buddhism that Angel had given him. He heard Argo bark and this broke his concentration. Argo was having quite an adventure of his own, palling around with No Barks. With all his preoccupation over leaving Angel in a week, it hadn’t occurred to him until now that Argo might not be that happy back in Crossing Trails, alone all day while he worked. Ted would not be the only one regretting the end of their pilgrimage.

  By six o’clock the sun was up and a cool breeze was coming off the meadow behind Singleton’s inn. Incongruent sounds—distant car horns, music playing, sprinklers running, and cattle lowing—passed unfiltered through the window and diverted Ted’s attention from another of the exercises Angel had given him: Ted was to periodically take an inventory and notice, really pay attention, to his surroundings.

  He walked over to the window and stared at the cattle grazing in their fields under the Nebraska sun, which was now well above the horizon. The sun slipped out occasionally from behind white clouds like a worried mother checking on her earthly children. Outside the second-floor window were window boxes spilling over with red and blue pansies. Ted tried next to notice the rich scents lingering in the air. The smell of strong coffee and freshly baked scones came up the stairs from the kitchen below, triggering hunger pangs in Ted’s stomach. Suddenly it clicked: this was the smell of a very old house. Over the years, many owners had scrubbed the old wood floors and dusted the woodwork with a wide range of cleansing agents that had lingered and coalesced into the old house’s smell. Ted imagined generations of housekeepers scrubbing floors—vinegar and water giving way to Pine-Sol, Mr. Clean, and others. But the scent that hung in the air now was distinctive. It reminded him of Angel. If Ted had asked Singleton, he would have discovered that his host was using an old-fashioned, handcrafted natural antibacterial soap made from sodium laurate—the by-product of lauric acid after it has been neutralized by sodium hydroxide—or, put more simply, coconut oil and lemon juice. The scent was sweet, clean, luscious, and inviting.

  Ted could hear water running through the pipes from a nearby room and Singleton talking on the downstairs phone. He decided to end his noticing exercise and join his newest spiritual comrade at breakfast. Ted straightened the room and took a quick hot shower. As he dressed, Ted put at the top of his morning wish list some hot coffee.

  Singleton was of medium build, his blond hair giving way to gray. Wearing a T-shirt that touted his own business, he leaned patiently against the frame of the kitchen door, discussing rental prices with a caller. “No, we only offer half-day or full-day rentals. That’s right. No hourly … Yes, plenty of bikes available for this afternoon. You won’t need a reservation.”

  He had a gentle smile and glowed in a way that suggested pleasure, or at least contentment, with life. Finished with his conversation, Singleton hung up the old landline phone, quickly crossed the galley-style kitchen, and extended his right hand. “Good morning, Ted. How are you? I trust you slept well?”

  “Yes, thanks. I got up early this morning. I had to do some legal research and I also read through some of the Buddhist writings Angel gave me. I got halfway through your book, The Biking Buddhist,* before I realized that you wrote it. I was very impressed. It was excellent!”

  Singleton was also appropriately pleased with his book—he thought it was one of his best. He had poured his life energy into it in the hope that he could share with others the understanding he had worked so hard to achieve. “Good, I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I thought that a little preparation would allow us to better use our time together.” Ted hesitated. All at once it occurred to him that he was not sure why Singleton, Mashid, Father Chuck, or even Angel, for that matter, was bothering to guide him, show him how to do the Work. In today’s world, who just gave things away? Was spiritual knowledge less valuable than tax, medical, or legal advice? “It’s so kind of you to share your time with me,” Ted stammered, “I don’t mean to barge into your life like this.”

  “You needn’t feel that way. Do you know what happens when the tide rises?”

  Ted didn’t offer an answer, just smiled and waited for Singleton to continue.

  “When the tide rises, all ships come up with it. It may not seem logical to you, at least not yet, why we are generous with our time. You may feel like others are more deserving. You will feel this way only if you are approaching the situation from the third level, rather like a lawyer who wants to follow the rules or an accountant who wants the ledger to balance. Today we are going to suggest another outlook, but first sit, eat, and relax. Then we’ll get to talk more about Buddhism.”

  Ted was pleased to be sitting in Singleton’s kitchen on a late-summer morning. He filled his cereal bowl and poured in some milk. “The books Angel loaned me have all been good, but Buddhism is nothing like I expected. I see why all of those Hollywood types are so attracted to it.”

  “I’m honored to be your guide. We can’t get too far in one morning, but we’ll do what we can. I’ve devoted my attention to these teachings for most of my adult life. They have been richly rewarding for me and I hope, no matter how limited our time together, they will be for you.” Singleton paused, refilled Ted’s cup of coffee to the brim, and added, “Let me say first, Ted, that there will be no pressure to accept what I share with you. The Buddha taught that you should take what is of value from his teaching and leave the rest behind. Buddhism, at least the way I see it and the way I believe the Buddha originally conceived it, encourages its aspirants to evolve, grow, and not remain stagnant—locked into a centuries-old worldview.”

  In a nod to his other spiritual teachers, Ted wondered aloud, “Perhaps when properly read, Jesus and Muhammad had the same message?”

  “Ah,” Singleton playfully responded, “I can see you were listening when Father Chuck and Mashid spoke with you. They’ll be pleased.”

  “I tried.” Ted took a long sip of coffee. “I appreciate not being pressured into something just because it works for you or for the Dalai Lama.”

  Singleton pointed to a small side table against the west wall of his kitchen. “Grab some of those pastries if you like. We’ll let Angel sleep awhile longer while we do some preliminary work. Once she’s up—it’s such a beautiful morning—perhaps the three of us could walk along the Cowboy Trail and talk more about this ancient tradition from India.”

  In Ted’s mind, Angel’s idea of eating was more like fortuitous foraging. Happy to be sitting down to a real meal, he heaped food on his plate, sat down, and readied himself to do more of the Work, but this time with the luxury of a full stomach and a sizable dose of caffeine in his bloodstream.

  Stephen watched Ted eat for a few minutes before he began. “Buddhist teachings, practices, and knowledge are sometimes all rolled up and described by one word: ‘dharma.’ It is said that the dharma has two wings, compassion and wisdom. Put another way, Buddhism cannot be realized—wisdom—unless it is also practiced—compassion.”

  “I think you’re saying that it is interactive. You must experience it before it can truly make sense for you.”

  Singleton politely smiled and said, “Without the practice, without the walking on the path, the doing of the Work, Buddhism is just another set of beliefs or rules, and its practical impact on your life will be negligible. You’ll end up just being another ‘bookstore Buddhist.’ Meditation and studying the mind are very important parts of this practice.”

  “Angel has started me on some meditations and other sensing exercises.”

  “This requirement to participate and practice has sometimes made Buddhism seem a bit esoteric, like a secret or tantric path, but the core teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha a
re all trying to deliver the same message: transformation of the self.”

  Ted thought about it for a minute and interjected, “Seems strange that three men so far apart in geography and in time would share similar ideas.”

  “Maybe not as strange as you think. Perhaps Mashid told you that Muhammad lived along an important trade route? Well, he wasn’t alone.”

  “Jesus?” Ted asked, surprised.

  “That’s right. Some scholars believe Jesus may have also been influenced by the Buddhist travelers that made their way along the Silk Road and stopped to trade in Galilee. It’s not far-fetched to envision Jesus coming into contact with Buddhist teachings. Likewise, Muhammad lived among Christians in Medina. But that’s not important. What’s important—for me, at least—is that the world’s brightest and greatest spiritual minds seem to end up at a similar place.”

  “And the place, this spiritual path that you, Father Chuck, Mashid, and Angel work on, is what you are calling a tantric path?” Ted asked.

  “Yes, the tantric path is where Angel, Father Chuck, Mashid, and many others of us are moving and what we believe the Buddha, Jesus, and most other spiritual seekers were trying to communicate. But before I describe this path to you, just like ‘repent’ is a lousy translation for ‘metanoia,’ as Father Chuck is so fond of explaining, please don’t confuse New Age, or what some people describe as ‘California tantra,’ with this ancient practice. Tantra is not about enjoying our bodies and it is not about sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with sex, but this is rather like equating French fries with French food.”

  “What does it really mean, then?”

  “Tantra stands in contrast to asceticism—the renunciation of the world and all its pleasures and pains, which are seen as mere illusions and distractions from our godlier selves. The ascetic path is about the annihilation of the self and the denial of the importance of our humanity. Tantra goes the other way. It embraces life. To realize our humanity we must transcend our ordinary consciousness so we can get above and beyond our small, ego-bound self. Some people call this ‘Christ consciousness’ or ‘Buddha mind.’ There is a subtle but important difference between the two paths.

  “Both the ascetic and the Buddha recognize that life is flawed in some fundamental way. We do suffer a great deal. The difference between the tantric path and the ascetic path is in the reaction to that suffering. The ascetic believes that we must exile ourselves from life and its pleasures as much as possible to obtain an ecstatic and mystical union with God. The hedonist seeks, during this brief time on earth, what pleasures he can. The Buddha taught what he called the middle way. By seeking pleasure, you never find happiness. Nor does self-mortification get you to nirvana. The middle way, the tantric path, is akin to letting go and becoming more attuned to what life is really all about.”

  “The Four Noble Truths?” Ted asked.

  “Yes, but even more than that—the tantric path ushers us into the fourth, fifth, and sixth levels of awareness. At these higher levels of our development, there is no need to push life away, like the ascetic, or cling to its pleasures, like the hedonist. The Buddha helped us to realize that it is our very clinging to what we want and our aversion to what we detest that cause much of our unhappiness. These very natural human habits take us away from the realm of the now, where happiness resides, and either drag us back into the past or catapult us into the future.”

  Angel moved quietly behind Ted and rested her hands on his shoulders. Her long fingers gently massaged the muscles along his spine. “Did you sleep well, Ted?”

  Ted was delighted and somewhat surprised at Angel’s touch. He looked up at her and could think of nothing lovelier to wake up to than Angel Two Sparrow. Whatever irritation she had been feeling toward him before had apparently passed. “Yes, I did. And you?”

  “Very well, thank you.” Before Stephen had a chance to greet her, she joined the conversation. “Have you talked yet about the fourth level?”

  “Not yet,” Singleton answered, “but I believe we now have a better context to do so.”

  Angel walked over to the kitchen window and pulled back the simple white curtains to peer outside. “Let’s eat. Then, if the two of you are up to it, I’d like to get the dogs, take a walk, and introduce Ted to the fourth grade. He’s earned it, and I want to explore this Cowboy Trail that Stephen has been talking about for years.”

  * For a very similar book, see Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997).

  24

  There were other hikers and bikers on the Cowboy Trail that morning, so Ted and Angel put the dogs on their leashes. Neither dog seemed to mind. They trotted along with their humans enjoying all the scents that were floating in the still cool morning air. “Now that you’re ready to leave the first three grades behind,” Angel told Ted, “Spirit Tech will really get interesting! A certain amount of maturity, wisdom, and psychological health are required to move to the fourth level. It’s not an everyday achievement. To get here, one must accept both the suffering in life and our inability to control it. Mr. Digit comes to know that he is more than a ring-bearing finger. He begins to sense what is beyond his puny self.”

  “Is this the higher self I’ve heard you refer to?” Ted asked.

  “Yes,” Angel answered. “At this level, we use more than just our minds and our language; we use our hearts, and we move through life with compassion or love toward self and others and resonating—or becoming united with—the beauty that exists in the universe above and beyond us—no matter the name we choose to assign it. Our life goal and purpose shift away from protection and toward integration.”

  Singleton cemented the concept. “We move away from our small selves and toward our unique divinity, our true selves. It is a very big step toward becoming a fully actualized human being.”

  “Father Chuck told me, while we were in divinity school together”—Angel winced, realizing that she had just confessed to another one of her failed attempts at a career—“that this movement to the fourth level is rare before we are thirty years old. He thinks this is why Jesus’s ministry is mysteriously silent until Jesus reached that age.”

  Ted found it interesting that Angel was able to maintain all of these spiritual relationships—Father Chuck, Stephen, and Mashid. He regretted not having similar friends in his own life. He wondered too, for the first time, if—with a little effort—he could be initiated into Angel’s little band of coconuts. Could he fit in? He quickly decided that a lawyer from Crossing Trails, Kansas, was not a likely candidate.

  Angel noticed that Ted seemed to be losing focus, so she tried to dive deeper into the fourth level while his mind was still fresh. “Ted, for the first time, the fourth grader can say, ‘The answers need to be my answers, and not your answers.’ That is why we call it the level of reason. Using our intellect and logic is the first appropriate step in seeking the truth. The fourth grader is able to step away from her tribe or group and skeptically analyze conventional thinking, rules, and laws; she becomes postconventional. The fourth grader is capable of comparing the thinking of her group to the thinking of your group and allows that her group may not have all of the right answers. She either entirely lets go or at least disidentifies with her past affiliations. She realizes that where she went to high school or what church she attends or what neighborhood she lives in really says very little about her true self. She is no longer tribal but instead has a more global or world-centric perspective. She becomes less concerned about her rights, fears, and causes and more concerned about humanity and the planet as a whole.”

  Singleton added a few more characteristics. “The fourth grader understands her microscopic coordinates in the universe. The most remarkable aspect of the fourth grader is that she can direct her rational scrutiny not only onto others and onto abstract ideas but, more important, onto herself. The fourth grader becomes introspective and psychologically insightful.”

  Ted list
ened to their footsteps as they strolled across a wood bridge that took them over a slow-moving creek. The cottonwood trees that flanked the brook blocked the warm morning sun, and for a few moments they walked together in the shade. When he had Stephen’s attention, Ted asked, “Is meditation a fourth-grade activity?”

  “Yes, very much so. Being able to take a step back to really think about how I am thinking and how my thinking affects my happiness is a very sophisticated step and requires the ability to think abstractly. That’s why Angel and I associate Buddhism most closely with this level.”

  “And in the process,” Angel added, “we find not so much the answers to the questions that have eluded us on the first three levels but more of a way of smiling at the very questions we ask.”

  Singleton concluded, “When you can reflect critically about your own thinking, your identity is no longer tied to thinking in a particular way or coming to a particular, often comforting, conclusion. At this stage something very important happens that is key for your understanding of the next two levels. A new part of consciousness is beginning to take shape, wake up, and have a voice.”

  “Is this good?” Ted asked Angel with a hint of worry.