Miss Buddha (56 page)

Lars, bless his big heart, agreed.

::
105 :: (Pasadena)

One year later almost to the day, Ruth Marten
received her Cal Tech Doctorate in Particle Physics. Her thesis,
which was a thorough elaboration of hers and Julian’s EPROM
experiment, exploring all physical ramifications of their findings,
was hailed in science circles as something of a wonder.

And not only that, of course. Ruth Marten,
at seventeen, was the youngest Doctor of anything that Cal Tech had
ever awarded, and they were rather vocal about it.

Although there were some attempts to fan the
Federico Alvarez incident back to life after her return from Sri
Lanka, once she made it clear that she would neither react to
allegations or insinuations, nor give any interviews, and once it
was equally clear that Alvarez himself would also maintain silence
(he was now on a self-imposed sabbatical), the media let go of the
incident altogether. What little was said about Ruth Marten
concerned the EPROM experiment, which finally seemed to be gaining
some belated general traction as a story.

She had already been accepted by USC to
attend three graduate programs: Western Philosophy, Contemporary
Religion, and Traditional Theology. Her aim was a combined
doctorate in Philosophy and Theology based on the three programs
and one thesis. At first the admission committee had balked at her
request, but after a word from Abbot White reminding them who she
was, and that she already had a doctorate in Particle Physics—this
girl is a genius, ladies and gentlemen—they saw the light and
admitted her.

Over the next two years Ruth did little else
but study. Not only did she attend all lectures and conferences but
she also did additional research both in the extensive USC library
and online via her Mortimer. Melissa, at times, was a little
concerned, Ruth’s focus was that intense, but Ananda would reassure
her that all was fine, the Tathagata was on a mission, and needed
these credentials to address the world on the world’s terms. Ruth
told her mother as much as well, and Melissa would again relax.

Both Abbot White and Clare Downes developed
and maintained friendships with the Marten household and were often
guests in the Pasadena house; often at the same time, so they came
to know each other as well.

Julian Lawson and Kristina Medina were two
other frequent guests, and often the house and guests would be
drawn into long discussions about the current state of the world,
its politics, its spiritual dearth, how to approach and wake it up.
It was generally agreed that Ruth had chosen the correct course for
a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the more time she put between
herself and the embarrassing Alvarez debacle (as Ananda called it)
the better. Let the world forget it completely.

Secondly, there was an almost insurmountable
agreement not only in academia but on the street as well that no
truth could possibly be observed and shared unless you had been
properly educated. And properly mostly meant that you could attach
“Ph.D.” to your name. Short of that, you were more than likely a
charlatan out to cash in on people’s anxieties or inability to lose
weight.

:

Two years later, in June of 2029, Ruth now
nineteen years old, her doctoral thesis entitled “Science,
Philosophy, and Religion — Shared Ground, Shared Goal” (see Part
Four: Thesis for the full transcript) was accepted by USC, and she
was awarded Doctorates in both Philosophy and Theology.

Her thesis was published in several
journals, as well as a book, and was, by most readers and reviewers
considered not only a work of art, but as a wake-up call.

:

That fall she was offered a professorial
position at USC, to teach Contemporary Religions, a position
she—after some deliberation, but on the advice of Ananda—accepted.
She did however stipulate that she would be allowed to visit and
lecture at other colleges, as long as she fulfilled her teaching
requirement at USC of two graduate classes per semester. This was
agreed.

:

By her twentieth birthday Ruth felt—and
Ananda agreed—that she had finally established a stable and
credible platform. She had won recognition in her fields, she had
found her voice, and she could finally and truly embark upon her
mission.

By now, the Alvarez incident was all but
forgotten. When her name was mentioned, whether privately or in the
media, it was always as that marvel of a girl, three doctorates and
now teaching graduate courses at USC.

Yes, they all agreed, the rudiments were
finally in place.

::

Part Three — Teacher

::
106 :: (USC)

USC’s Taper Hall was standing room only, and
a densely packed expectancy not only filled every available seat,
but also lined the walls, while others sat in the center aisle.

It was the fourth of January, a Friday, and
this was the enigmatic Ruth Marten’s first lecture since accepting
her teaching position at USC.

At Ruth’s insistence, first row seats had
been reserved for both Melissa and Ananda, and they were now
settling in. Ananda, somehow both looking, and not at all looking
his age, leaned back and closed his eyes. He could hear Melissa
take her seat next to him and then turn and draw breath to say
something, then changing her mind, perhaps because his eyes were
closed. They were closed quite often these days, signaling to the
surrounding world his wish for privacy, something the world seemed
to both respect and grant, age bordering on antiquity commanding
this.

The anticipation of the room was palpable.
The sometimes chatter sometimes murmur sometimes almost roar rose
and faded like long, sometimes loudly sometimes softly crashing
waves. Ananda took several slow breaths, wishing the Buddha well in
her endeavor. Ruth did not reply directly, but nonetheless
acknowledged him with an immaterial smile, which made Ananda smile
in turn. He opened his eyes. Melissa must have noticed.

“I’m sure she’ll do fine,” she said. But it
was a question.

“She will say or do nothing unwise,” said
Ananda.

“That’s not what I meant,”
she said. Then, after brief reflection, “Actually, that
is
probably what I
meant.”

“She has promised to tread watchfully. All
she wants to do is gain trust, earn the world’s ear.”

“That’s how she put it to me as well.”

Then, as Ruth now appeared, wearing jeans
and a loose sweater, the susurrus of the hall dimmed, then faded
altogether. Melissa’s daughter, the Tathagata, stepped up to the
podium, and tapped the two little microphones to test the sound.
The taps filled the room, and she seemed satisfied that all was in
order. On some cue or other that Ananda did not catch, the light in
the hall dimmed as well, and a faint spotlight highlighted Ruth’s
intensely black hair, as she grasped the edges of the podium with
her hands and surveyed the audience.

Ananda closed his eyes the better to
hear.

Ruth did not speak for some time, and then
did not speak again, and then she said:

“Stillness.”

Hearing that one word, Ananda expected Ruth
to now fill the room with her own stillness—something he had
already advised against, just in case there were those in the
audience receptive to it, and who might then, from either surprise
or overwhelm, cause a distraction—but she didn’t.

Instead she waited until every ear in the
hall sat silent, waiting for the second drop of rain to fall.

Then it fell, along with others.

“There is a place—obscured by rush and
tumble most of the time, for most of us—where whispers can be
heard.

“There is a place where the stillness
speaks, if only we are brave enough, and persistent enough, and
strong, and awake enough to listen.

“The odd thing, or perhaps
not so odd, perhaps it is a
wonderful
thing that this place is
not tied to any one religion; that this place bows to no man-made
view.

“As each of you know, every religion, every
philosophy even, has seen its share of mystics. Every religion has
seen its many travelers of the path less trodden, its many seekers
not content with dogma—thinkers who instinctively knew that
personal experience is the only foundation from which to judge, to
know truth.”

She paused. Ananda opened his eyes. Ruth was
surveying her audience, looking out across the hall, taking
everyone in. Considering them. Seemingly satisfied that she was
reaching them, she continued.

“And what is a mystic? If you pull the
etymological string all the way you find that in early Greece a
‘mystes’ was one who had been initiated, ‘mystes’ in turn grew from
‘myein’ which meant to shut one’s eyes in the odd sense that those
who were not initiated had to shut their eyes as they could not
witness secret rites.

“Up through history, however, the word
‘mystic’ has come to signify a person who seeks direct experience
of the absolute or ultimate, and who also, incidentally, believes
that full comprehension of the deepest truths lies beyond the
intellect.

“Plotinus, the Neoplatonic Roman philosopher
of the third century, qualifies nicely.

“He saw us belonging to two worlds, both to
that of the senses and to that of pure intuitive discernment, a
world beyond the senses.

“He considered the material universe the
cause of all ills and held that the true object of life should be
to escape the material world of the senses by abandoning all
earthly interests for those of meditation, and so, by mental
purification and by the exercise of thought, gradually arrive at
complete and ecstatic union with the One—that is, in his words,
God—a divine ecstasy he reported to have experienced on several
occasions.

“So convincing was Plotinus in his talks
that many of his listeners gave their fortunes to the poor, set
their slaves free, and devoted themselves to lives of study and
ascetic piety.

“What he said certainly resonated.”

Ruth paused again, and again surveyed the
room. Again, Ananda opened his eyes and looked around as well. The
only sound to be heard was the soft hum of either a fan or a
distant air conditioner, Ananda couldn’t tell which. The audience
was all still—rapt, gripped by her words, waiting for the next. He
smiled to himself, and also in Ruth’s direction: she was doing just
fine. She agreed. Then continued.

“Plotinus suggested that you withdraw into
yourself and look, and if you don’t like what you see, then—and I’m
paraphrasing—just like a sculptor of a beautiful statue-to-be will
cut away here and smooth the stone there, just like this sculptor
will make this line a little lighter, this other a little purer,
until he has unearthed a lovely face, so should you cut away all
that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to
all that is overcast, labor to make all of you one glow of beauty
and never cease chiseling your statue until there shall shine out
from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect
goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.

“Nicely put, I think.”

Again, she paused.

Then she said, “This kind of seeing, this
kind of sculpting has one major requirement. That requirement is
stillness.”

She let that sink in before continuing,
“Plotinus also held that we are all beautiful when we are true to
our own being, when we know ourselves. In self-ignorance, he added,
we are ugly.

“Plotinus, as you know, was a Roman
Philosopher and only one of a small army of mystics to rise through
the ages from many a tradition and discipline including Hinduism,
Zen, Sufism, Rosicrucianism, Islam, and Catholicism, to name a
few.

“And all these mystics, if you really listen
to what they say, sought and reached that internal stillness that
fosters a clear and deep look at what is truly happening here.

“Another good example was Saint John of the
Cross. As you may well know, he was a Spanish mystic and poet born
in 1542 who became a Carmelite monk in 1563 and then ordained as a
priest in 1567.

“In 1568 he opened the first monastery of
the Discalced Carmelites, which order emphasized a life of
contemplation and austerity. This approach, however, did not sit
too well with the powers in Rome and led to his imprisonment during
1576 and 1577—though, as fate would have it, it was in prison he
was to compose his finest work.

“The theme of much of his poetry explores
the reconciliation of human beings with God through a series of
mystical steps that begin with self-communion and renunciation of
the distractions of the world.

“The wonderful poetical achievement of St.
John of the Cross lies in his combining the non-rational—as in
beyond the intellect—the non-rational longings of mysticism with
the theological and philosophical precepts established by St.
Thomas Aquinas.

“‘
The soul,’ he said, ‘that
is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will
not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a
strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the
bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the
cord be broken the bird cannot fly.’

“Another quote from this small man with so
vast a heart, ‘If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire
for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your
appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what
is certain in them.’ And, ‘It is great wisdom to know how to be
silent.’

“If you were none the wiser you could easily
close your eyes and open your ears and not know whether I was
quoting the Buddha, or Plotinus, or even Rumi, who once said, ‘Your
task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the
barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’