Miss Buddha (48 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You are a Buddhist, are you not?” said
Ruth, ignoring her question.

“Why, yes. Yes, I am. How did you know?”

“Of the Theravada
persuasion?” said Ruth, for some reason seeming to mock the
word
persuasion
.

“Yes. Yes, to that, too.”

Ruth nodded. Then looked over at the old
monk—which she had to stop thinking of as the old monk, really.
Ananda nodded in reply to a silent question. There was a strange
connection between those two.

“I
am
Tathagata,” said Ruth.

Tathagata, the one who has
thus gone, the one who has thus come, Clare knew. “What are you
saying? You are the
Buddha
?”

Ruth did not reply, but she smiled and
nodded in agreement.

“That,” said Clare. Then lost her thread.
Found it again. Looked at Ruth then at the other two. Then back at
Ruth. “That, I must admit, is very hard to believe.”

“Of course it is,” said Ruth. “But
nonetheless true.”

Clare had serious trouble adding things up.
This was, of course, on the face of things, sheer fairy tale stuff.
But so was that night in the Canadian Rockies. Sheer fairy
tale.

But nonetheless true.

She looked at Ananda and Julian Lawson who
seemed to take Ruth’s declaration in stride. “It’s true?” said
Clare.

“It’s true,” said Ananda. Julian Lawson
nodded as well.

“Just like you said,” said Clare, looking at
Ruth—who smiled and said, “Just like I said.”

Melissa, now at the door with a tray, “Some
daughter, huh?”

Clare knew with grim
certainty that if she had not fallen into the Canadian sky that
summer, none of this would have made any sense at all, would simply
mean a bunch of strange people pulling her leg, and very hard at
that. But she
had
fallen into the Canadian sky, and she had woken up, and if
that was real, well, so was this.

She looked at Ruth Marten
again, who smiled at her
as if she
knew
. As if she knew about her falling,
about her awakening.

Melissa put the tray down, and served
her.

“How about you,” said Clare, realizing she
was the only one taking coffee.

“We’ve just had breakfast,” said Julian
Lawson.

“Ah,” said Clare.

Clare blew on the surface of the coffee to
cool it a little, then sipped. Delicious and warm. Very much a
spot-hitter.

She turned to Julian, “I read your
paper.”

“The dry version?” he said.

“I guess. Yes, a little drier that Ruth’s.
But fascinating nonetheless. You really have achieved something
stellar.”

“I know,” said Julian.

“And now, this,” said Clare, not entirely
sure herself what she meant by that.

“You mean the chair? The rising?” said
Melissa.

“Yes, I guess I do.”

Ananda Wolf was shaking his head. “It’s a
mess, that.”

“Amen, to that,” said Melissa.

“Federico Alvarez can be about as
insensitive as they come,” said Clare, looking at Ruth.

“Yes, he can be that,” said the girl, the
Buddha. But she left something unsaid, something quite
tangible.”

“But what?” said Clare, sensing the
unspoken.

“It was not Alvarez,” said Ruth.

Clare looked from face to
face and said, “If not Alvarez, who was it?” Then asked, “It
was
a hoax,
right?”

“No,” said Ruth. “It was not a hoax.”

“That’s. That’s,” said Clare. Then managed
to form a sentence, “So, what was it?”

“A rising,” said Ruth. “And a lesson.”

Clare took in this young girl, this Buddha,
this Tathagata, and tried to understand. For a moment she made
sense of it, but not for long. And then again she did while
wrestling something to the ground, something that decried all this,
that accused her for falling prey to an even worse hoax.

“You did this,” she finally told Ruth. “And
it was not a trick.”

“I did this,” Ruth confirmed. “And it was
not a trick.”

Clare looked to Melissa for some help with
this. Her host noticed, nodded and said, “Afraid so.”

“So why did you just tell us, the
reporters?”

“It’s better that way,” said Ananda. “And we
trust that you will honor our request for discretion.”

“Sure. Of course,” she said.

“No, really,” said Melissa.

“Yes. Absolutely,” she said, sounding less
flippant.

She finished the rest of her coffee. “This
is all unbelievable. I guess you know that.”

“We do,” said Ruth. Understanding precisely
what she meant.

Then the professional in her stirred and
asked, “So what am I to do with this? I’m a television reporter.
This is amazing news. This is the story of a lifetime. And that’s
putting it mildly.”

“But, as you pointed out, unbelievable,”
observed Ananda.

“Yes. Good point. I did say that. And that
is true. It is unbelievable.”

Julian Lawson rose and walked up to the
window behind her. She turned to see him peek out from behind the
curtain. “They’re gone,” he said.

“Good,” said Melissa.

Clare looked back at Ruth.
“So what
do
I do
with this?” she said.

“To be honest, we haven’t had a chance to
think about that,” said Ananda. “Any suggestions?”

“You are going to maintain that this was a
hoax,” Clare not so much asked as stated.

“That would be best, don’t you think?” said
Melissa. Ruth nodded in agreement.

“I guess,” Clare said.

“Ruth’s paper deserves a fair hearing,” said
Julian Lawson. Again, Ruth nodded in agreement.

Clare found herself nodding as well.
“Especially in light of recent events,” she said.

“Especially in light of that,” agreed
Melissa.

“How did you do it?” said Clare. The
question finally seeing daylight.

“That’s beside the point,” said Ruth,
seemingly unwilling to elaborate.

“No, seriously,” said Clare. “How did you do
it?”

Ruth looked at her as if taking stock, as if
deliberating, as if making up her mind. Which she apparently did.
“It’s one of the things I can do.”

Simple as that.

“Lifting things without touching them,” said
Clare, knowing each word to be superfluous.

“Yes.”

“I see,” said Clare, and she did see. It was
one of the things the Buddha could do. Why should that be
surprising? “I see,” she said again.

“Ruth’s paper deserves a fair hearing,” said
Julian Lawson again, getting things back on track.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Clare.

“How about,” said Ruth, as if thinking
aloud. “How about you interview me? But not live. And I want to
approve the final edit.”

Again, the professional in her sprang to
attention, “Tell me when and where.”

“Here, tomorrow,” said Ruth. Then she looked
over at Ananda to see if he had any objections. He didn’t.

“One o’clock?” suggested Clare. “You’d have
to let Lars in though, my camera guy.”

“Of course,” said Melissa.

::
96 :: (Pasadena)

Lars Sanderson was a wizard with lighting,
and had set up a nice interview spot in the living room, Ruth in
one armchair, Clare in the other, facing each other at slight
angles. Comfortable. Homely.

“Ready when you are,” he said to Clare.

Clare looked over at Ruth. Again, she was
struck by her startling eyes. Close up they stood in such amazing
contrast to her hair that they actually detracted from an otherwise
remarkable face.

“You okay?” said Clare.

“Yes.”

“You’re happy with the questions?” She held
up a sheets in her hand, of which she had given Ruth and Melissa
each a copy. She also had a copy of Ruth’s paper handy.

“Yes. They’re fine.”

“I may expand on some of them.”

“Fine.”

Melissa was sitting in the sofa, behind and
to the right of Lars. The old monk, Ananda, stood in the corner,
not really frowning, but not really smiling either. Clare had a
hard time putting her finger on exactly how he fit into this
household.

“Okay, let’s roll,” said Clare. Lars nodded,
and the red light came on above the camera lens. Recording.

“How do you define ‘non-local communication’
Ruth?”

That was not the first question Ruth had
expected, apparently, for she straightened slightly, then smiled to
herself, as if gathering things, and took a deep breath. “Non-local
communication was at the core of the much overlooked experiment
that Doctor Lawson successfully performed in 1999.”

Clare was about to restate her question when
Ruth continued:

“By ‘non-local’ we mean that there is no
locality involved, no geography, no geometry, no world—no space, no
time. And ‘communication’ may be a misleading word in this scenario
for that word implies that something is emanated from one point, to
then travel a distance and arrive at another. This is never the
case with non-local communication. It is best described, I think,
as instant co-knowing, regardless of physical distances between
what is doing the co-knowing.”

“And not only living things can establish,
or perform, or execute this—I’m not sure which word is the best
here—but what we normally consider dead things as well, particles,
photons. Is that correct?”

“On the surface of it, yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am not so sure that we
can summarily pronounce these particles dead. They move, you know.
They wave—I mean move in wavelike patterns. Whenever we observe
them, or rather, observe traces or effects of their actions—for no
one has ever
seen
these particles, we have only seen the traces or shadows they
cast; but, whenever we do, there is motion involved. So can we
really call them dead?

“We consider something alive because of
motion. There’s a lot of motion about in life. Take the human body.
The heart beats, the lungs expand and contract inhaling and
expelling air. Blood rushes around, T-Cells fight wars with
bacteria and viruses, billions of microbes hustle to work every day
in your stomach to break down food—for which they charge very
little, just a small portion of the take.

“It’s motion. It’s activity. That’s what we
mean when we say alive. Now, while this tabletop,” and she knocks
gently on the tempered glass, “seems immobile, as in dead enough,
there is a small infinity of motion constantly occurring within. So
is it really dead?”

“Normal people—no offence, mind you—would
call that tabletop dead.”

“Yes, they would.”

“So, my question then is: why do we really
care? Why would the man or woman on the street give a second
thought to whether or not non-local communication occurs? I mean,
it occurs at a level that the normal person will never encounter in
a million years.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do.”

“So, why then? Whether subatomic particles
instantly co-know or not has absolutely no bearing on your
paycheck, or whether your wife loves you or not, or whether your
children come home safely from school.”

“You’re talking about reality? The reality
we know and love.”

“Precisely.”

“Well, that’s just it, Clare. The reality we
know and love, and where non-local communication—or
co-knowing—doesn’t mean a thing, this reality is just the very tip
of the iceberg we call life, of a much more comprehensive reality.
And this tip is not fundamental, and it is not, ultimately,
true.”

“But why should we care?”

“We should care because in truth we are not
of this tip-of-the-iceberg reality. Actually, most people suffer in
this reality. I think it was Thoreau who said that most men live
lives of quiet desperation. They’re just trying to survive one day
to the next, some even one moment to the next.

“The sea of pleasure we see portrayed on
television day in and day out, and the euphoric smile that this
sweet model flashes at you from behind her American Express card,
new dress in hand, is more often than not just an appearance.

“It may very well be that in her heart this
model, this person, is in agony. Her mom has just died, or her
boyfriend has just cheated on her, or she is hooked on prescription
drugs, or she cannot sleep at night: this is the normal, this is
the man or woman on the street. Suffering.

“And if not suffering today, in this very
moment, there is suffering tomorrow. In their heart of hearts every
sentient being wants to know why they are here and where they are
going. They are not satisfied with their lot. No one is. Even the
richest person on earth believes he needs ‘a little more’ to
finally be happy, as Henry Ford is reputed to have said even though
he was sitting on billions by then.

“This tip-of-the-iceberg reality we are
living is, quite frankly, a sham. It’s a surface manifestation
which we treat as truth. When we take a closer look, which our
EPROM experiment did, it falls apart. It yields up its secrets. It
displays a more fundamental truth. And this truth lies on a level
we have to reach unless we want to suffer forever.”

“You sound like a Buddhist.” It was the
natural thing to say, both the professional and the personal in her
agreed.

“I
am
a Buddhist.”

“And people really don’t care about this
more fundamental reality, do they? Not as a rule.”

“I think the public reaction to Doctor
Lawson’s 1999 experiment paints an unequivocal picture. His
experiment, for the first time on a macro scale, proved non-local
communication as fact. Proved it. Categorically. There were no
arguments in the scientific community about it. It was a done deal.
Proof. But, relatively speaking, it did not even cause a ripple on
the pond of news. A few mentions on pack pages, completely
overshadowed by who was terrorizing whom at the time, or what
strikes were staged, or what celebrity had slept with what
celebrity, and what kind of traffic to expect on the freeways.