Miss Buddha (47 page)

Britt finally exhaled. “Okay, more for
me.”

“So, do you think that’ll work?”

“What?”

“Staying up to turn thoughts into
lasers.”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you try it and find
out?”

“I may just do that.”

And that is precisely what she did. Although
partly floating on the pot she’d already smoked, the curiosity
(there’s no other word for it) of what would happen if she didn’t
fall asleep kept her up not only through that star-filled night,
and the following rather warm day, but the next (overcast) night
and the following windy day as well.

Towards the end of that second day, the
clouds—that she was now studying quite intently—amazingly cleared
the sky in several directions, not unlike a huge, multifaceted
curtain opening to reveal the stage of clear sky beyond, now
admitting first one star, then two, then many.

Britt was toking it again, and again
offering Clare her fair share, but she declined, no, not for her,
not now, perhaps not ever. As darkness fell further and deeper
Britt eventually crawled into their tent and slumbered off. In the
new stillness Clare could hear her sister’s breathing: in, out, in,
out, then in again.

Clare, to her surprise wide awake still,
leaned back into the soft undergrowth, giving herself to mossy,
motherly arms. So cradled by the Earth she felt safe and secure in
letting go, in relaxing and simply looking. And looking she could
see a thought enter the heavens and travel, slowly, almost stately,
through that huge silence above.

This was her thought: “They were right.” It
spawned and sailed loftily between constellations, though whether
the constellations themselves were out there or in here, she could
not tell, just that the thought made its way between them, like a
slow—or on a universal scale, very fast—laser between them.

Eventually the thought evaporated—a wave
breaking into a trillion little pieces upon the welcoming shore—now
gone, and in its place: nothing. No new thought. And she was aware
of this: I am not thinking. Aware of not thinking, and this
awareness did not consist of thought, it was pure awareness being
aware of doing nothing but being aware of doing nothing.

She grew.

Again, whether inward our outward she could
not tell, she either absorbed the skies she saw or they absorbed
her (these were thoughts she had on reflection, at the time she
thought nothing).

Then she thought, actually and consciously
thought, “I am controlling my own thoughts.” She sent this thought
on its way toward the deep darkness above and then thought
nothing—again aware of thinking nothing.

Thinking nothing elated her, she felt like
she hovered above the moss and plants that supported her body.

Then she thought, “I have found truth. I
have come home.”

She watched those twin thoughts travel, one
after the other, into that utter stillness above, to eventually
vanish into the Milky Way.

Then she thought, “Am I the only one to ever
experience this?”

She watched this though shoot up and away,
speeding for some constellation she recognized but could not
name.

The reply to this question didn’t so much
reply as settle, softly and perfectly: This is the true human
condition. Headlessly, she nodded her acknowledgement of this: Yes,
of course it is. I am human. This is who we are beneath all that
tumbling about we call living.

Then, for many, many breaths, and perhaps
ten times as many heartbeats, she simply watched the stars and
wondered whether they were thoughts, too. Constant thoughts thought
by angels to light our way. She smiled at this, and thanked
them.

Again she realized—and with a shiver this
time—that her mind was absolutely still, that all that constant
chatter you normally live with had died down. That nothing
happened, that no thought occurred unless she occurred it. She
thought this and watched that thought rise and vanish into the sky
above.

Then she thought nothing again for many,
many breaths.

Then she thought, “Could there possibly be
something beyond this?”

Then, while watching that
thought rise and then take wing for the Milky Way, she
heard
, as if whispered by
someone else very close to her ear, or perhaps in it, the single
word: “Nirvana.”

At the fading of that word—which she both
recognized and did not—she felt a ripple, or the hint of a ripple,
in her feet. This hint grew to true ripple, to wave gathering both
strength and speed to then shoot up through calves and thighs and
abdomen and lungs and neck and head and out and into light.

And all was light.

Not a sea of photons, but living light.
Light, more golden than white. Light that breathed and pulsated and
filled her with the most divine feeling she had ever
experienced.

All was light. There was in fact no Clare
left to sense it. There was only the light experiencing itself,
radiantly, brilliantly, tenderly, lovingly.

For minutes? Hours? Looking back, she could
never truly tell. Her guess is minutes, say five.

Then, receding, the light
gave way to sky and stars and moss and tent and Britt breathing in
and out, and to Clare saying aloud to herself or to the stars or to
whomever had whispered that strange word which she knew
meant
Nirvana
,
“Now I know.”

Her next impulse was to
wake Britt and tell her all about it, but she knew right away that
this would not serve any purpose or come to any good. Britt would
not, not in her current state, understand that this had
nothing
to do with high
or stoned or pot in any way. This was truth. She had just been
kissed by truth, and you cannot explain that easily, especially not
to your stoned older sister.

Instead she sat up, walked over to the
little lean-to that sheltered their backpacks, found an apple and
took a bite.

Her mouth, if not her whole head, exploded
with the sensation of fruit. Never, never had an apple tasted so
loudly, and so good. She chewed, then swallowed, only to discover
that she could sense the bite sliding down her throat, could sense
it settle in the stomach. Could sense the clamoring of millions and
millions and millions of hungry little digestive microbes spreading
the word “mealtime” around, and found herself laughing at the
picture she realized was more than just picture.

She could still feel the apple-swallow in
her stomach, in fact she could feel all through her body, as if she
had suddenly turned all transparent, at least to herself.

She took another bite. Same
thing, except for the microbe part—apparently the “mealtime” alarm
had reached everyone and they are all intent on silently going to
work. Still, she was aware of
them
. Amazing.

Amazing.

She returned to her bed of moss and happy
plants, lay down again and looked back at the stars. Again not
thinking, and feeling no need to do so. Only aware. An awareness
she felt hovering above the surface of a quiet and still forest
lake.

Tranquil.

And now she fell asleep, into a pitch black
dream-less rest that lasted well into the morning and her sister
shaking her gently and then not so gently, “Clare. Clare.”

Finally, the surface. “What?”

“God, Clare. How asleep were you?”

She had no idea. But she felt refreshed, and
still calmly elated. The sun had climbed past the eastern rim and
was cascading the canyon below into light.

“What a night,” she said.

“Did you stay awake?”

“More than that,” she said. “I think I woke
up.”

Although she tried a few times, she could
not convince her sister that the awakening (which is how she came
to think of it) was not just a belated pot-high, and eventually she
stopped trying.

But the event changed her life. Once so
awake, how can you go back to sleep? she asked herself. You cannot.
You cannot forget something like that.

Returning for her junior year at the
University of Minnesota, Duluth, feeling that she needed to find
out more about her experience, and that she needed to tell people
about what she had found out, she promptly changed her major from
English Literature (much to the chagrin of her English professor
who saw in her great promise as a writer, and over some—though not
too vehement—objections of her mother’s) to a double major of
Philosophy and Journalism. Philosophy to learn what others had
experience and thought about Truth, and Journalism to learn all she
could about pursuing clues.

She graduated cum laude not that much wiser
about what on earth had happened to her, but as an excellent
journalist, who, based on her summer and intermittent work with
KFCA, was hired the week after graduation.

“A face like yours will always have an
audience,” her editor told her, and apparently so, for she quickly
became quite well known as the fresh wind at KFCA and was soon
doing her own special assignments—none of which, so far, had been
very philosophical or religious, however.

She had the knack—which she had always had,
or acquired in the Canadian Rockies, she wasn’t sure which—to sense
when people were truthful with her, and she was gentle enough to
coax the truth out of people even when they set out to lie at any
cost.

Into her fourth year at KFCA, she received a
call from the owner of KCRI in Los Angeles which a promise of twice
her salary, a paid for house and car, and creative control if she
would move to Los Angeles. KCRI would also buy out the balance of
her contract (six months to go), he promised.

It was the creative control that clinched
it.

That, and an understanding boss.

That, and what appeared to be a
well-established Theravada Buddhist community in Santa Monica, for
in her continuing search for what her awakening was and meant and
what could possibly have made it happened, she had in the end
turned to Buddhism and Insight Meditation.

She had never forgotten the
word
Nirvana
, and
following where it would lead her she had arrived at the feet of
the Buddha.

She began to devour all she could find about
Buddhism and, to true and grateful joy, came to see that these
people, this order of Theravada monks, knew all about what had
happened that night. To them, it was no secret, and here—so they
said, and so their canon said—is how to get there.

A quick Mortimer search revealed this
blossoming Theravada community not far from her new house, much
better equipped than her local meetups to help her find answers,
she figured.

Naturally, being a player in a much larger
market appealed to her as well. The pay, house, and car were nice
too. The house was a Santa Monica bungalow, and the car a current
year—and very fuel efficient—Honda.

A car that she still drove, in fact.

A car that she, in the pre-dawn darkness of
this foggy morning, had driven all the way from her Santa Monica
home to the Marten’s Pasadena house.

::
95 :: (Pasadena)

Melissa closed the door behind them, shutting
out the reluctant commotion of the press corps retreating.

She turned to Clare Downes. “This way, Miss
Downes.”

“Clare
, please.”

Melissa felt a little self-conscious, no
doubt about it. Living with the Buddha as her daughter apparently
had not prepared her for standing this close to a television
personality or celebrity or whatever she should call her, and such
a beautiful one at that.

“Here, give me that coat,” she said.

Clare obliged, and handed her the coat which
dripped dew on the entryway floor as she did. “Sorry about this,”
she said.

“Oh, no. Don’t mind that.” Then she offered
her hand. “Melissa,” she said. The real live television personality
took it and said, again, “Clare.”

:

There were two additional people in the
nicely appointed living room. One, the older, looked like an
emaciated Buddhist monk, the other she recognized as Julian Lawson,
the Cal Tech physicist.

They both rose as she and her host entered.
Melissa introduced them.

“Ananda Wolf,” she said with a graceful
sweep of her hand. The old man smiled and shook her hand. “Clare
Downes,” said Clare.

“And here’s Julian Lawson, you may recognize
him.”

“Yes, I do,” said Clare, and shook hands
again.

Then, turning to her daughter, trailing
them, “And this, of course, is Ruth.”

“Whom all the fuss is about,” said Clair
with a smile, and shook her hand as well.

“Can I get you something?” said Melissa.
“Coffee, tea?”

“A coffee would be great,” she said. “You’re
right, it’s pretty cold out there, and I’ve been here a while.”

“How long?” asked Ananda.

“Since about four o’clock,” she
answered.

“Oh my,” said Ananda.

“Sit down, please,” said Melissa, and
pointed to one of the armchairs by the low table.

“Thanks.” And did.

Melissa vanished, and the remaining three
pairs of eyes were all trained on her, expectantly.

She turned to Ruth. And for the first time
noticed the startling blueness of her eyes, so contrasted to her
hair so black it shimmered blue in the lamplight. “So,” she said.
“Are you?”

And as she asked the purposely vague
question she knew that Ruth Marten knew precisely what she was
asking, knew even before it had left her lips.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“The Maitreya?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Clare looked over at the old monk, Ananda
was it? That was the same name as the Buddha’s attendant. His face
revealed little more than that he did not find the conversation
humorous.