Loner's Tip No. 16 - A Monk's Tale

His heart rate was perilously low, his brain waves disoriented. The monk continued to think of 'standing' - as his master had asked. The frozen lake was taking its toll on monk's body. Standing waist deep, he could not feel his lower body. Cold moved inside his veins like tiny iced-needles, piercing him at will and without jurisdiction. He focused - with hands joined in prayer, eyes closed, he waited for Buddha. The master had finally given him the secret - all the monk had to do was to stand meditating in the frozen lake and Buddha would come; Nirvana would come.
      It was no easy task: meditating waist deep in freezing water. Between those focused moments, his mind would wander more than he wanted. It would think of the body that stood dangerously close to death. Sometime, it would flash the sights of the long, arduous journey he had taken to reach the Lake of Kali. Those gazing women of the villages he passed; the kings who welcomed him and his great master; the poor farmer offering them their only morsels of food. But all those were only minor distractions. Most, and often, his mind wandered to Buddha. The serenity in bronze, those elegantly elongated ear lobes, and the orderly curls of hairs tied together. It was the closed eyes he lingered on most. Inside the peaceful eye-lids, they hid secrets of existence and salvation, happiness and the true meaning of it, the illusions and torments of mortal life, and that road that was only for a chosen few to be revealed... The monk forced his mind back: the eyes were dangerous, his master had told him. He only had to think of standing. This was his last chance. If he didn't get Buddha now, he would never will.
                                                             *
"Have you ever seen Buddha?" his master had asked, after he had persuaded the monk to try one last time.
      "Years ago," the monk had replied. "He stood in front of me. His eyes were closed. His open palm faced me. We stood in a dark cave whose roof couldn't be seen. We stood atop pillars. Between them was a dark, unending abyss. I flew with Buddha, pillar to pillar. The cave never ended, until my mind came back to the present."
      "What did you do then?"
      "I sat meditating again. I forced my mind. But he didn’t come. It has been so many years. It feels like Buddha would never come to me again," the monk sighed. "Why did he do it? Why come to me once and leave me with this torment for the rest of my mortal life?"
      The answer, the master had said, lies in the Lake of Kali.
                                                             *
The monk had difficulty breathing now. His lungs felt encased in blocks of stone, which didn't let them expand. The monk didn't let his mind wander.
                                                             *
"What will the lake teach me, master?" the monk had asked, standing in front of the Lake of Kali, watching its vast ends disappear in moving walls of mist.
      "Nothing that you don't already know," the master said with a smile. "Remember, the only thought you can harbor is about standing there. Buddha will come to you."
      The monk had looked at his master's serene face incredulously. "You must trust your master. May The Creation be with you," the master had said and vanished.
                                                             *
As if his mind was frozen, the monk didn't think of anything but standing. A thin layer of ice covered him till his neck. Breathing was laborious. His body trembled, his finger tips frozen to a rock. Then he heard a white swan sing. His time had come. He thanked his master, took his last breath, and fell face down on the frozen lake.
      The cave appeared again. And in there, was Buddha with closed eyes. The monk stood, hands joined, body frozen, but the shiver was gone. Buddha smiled, opened his eyes to him. He looked in those eyes and took a deep breath; felt his lungs break that shackle of stone and expand as if he would've been living.
      When his eyes opened, he found himself sitting with the master. The master smiled. He knew.
      "But I have a questions?" the monk said. All his weariness had vanished. He felt reborn. He continued, "Why today?"
      "Because today you didn't want him," the master said. The monk didn't understand. The master continued, "Every time you meditated, you did it with the desire of Buddha, of Nirvana. You bound yourself to a desire, and asked for freedom. That is something that The Creation cannot grant you. In the lake, I asked you to stand and meditate in the frozen lake and to think only about standing - only about what you were doing. And not about Buddha, not about what you wanted. The result is simply not yours to control. It is only your action that you control."
      The monk interfered, "But we are monks. We are liberated from material desires of a common man. It is the search of Buddha that liberates us from there. Why can't I want him?"
      "Monk or mundane, our bodies crave a desire. The body is not needed if you don't desire anything. Be it Nirvana. Being a monk doesn't make us separate from a worldly man. And like a worldly man, when we attach our actions to the desire of a result, the result eludes us. It stops us from giving our best. It stops us from achieving what we wanted in the first place. And when that happens, our minds are trapped in an unavoidable sadness."
      "So that was my mistake - wanting to see Buddha each time I closed my eyes?"
      "Yes. Buddha is no destination. You don't leave this body the moment you achieve it. The body has to go on until destined. Nirvana, when achieved, becomes the driving force of this body for the rest of it’s time. Nirvana - freedom! It is the freedom from desire of a result. It is the fact that a man - worldly or monk - must focus on his actions, and true happiness would follow. Liberation would follow. Another master had said - a man must be like a good bonfire, one that completely burns the wood and leaves nothing but light, warmth and ashes. In his actions, a man must consume himself without thinking of anything else."
      The monk had one last question: "Does it mean that a monk meditating in the Himalayas is no different than a man sitting in an air-conditioned office?"
      The master answered, "The monk is no different to a worldly man. What applies to a monk, applies to a common man. But a worldly man is different to a monk. He does not know what a monk knows - the secret of Nirvana. The moment he finds the secret, the difference disappears without him having to leave his world like you and me did."
      The monk smiled and closed his eyes. The air smelled of arriving spring. He had his body to turn into a good bonfire.

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Loner's Tip No. 15 - Je t'aime Catherine

He hurried, a cigarette between his lips, hands in pocket, shoulders strained, a big black bag hanging on them. He stopped, momentarily, when he saw her – hairs dishevelled, skin of her Chinese face dry from the cold, skin flaking off her lower lip, an old, white fur coat covering her body, the fur on the cap of which made her look like a distressed, feathery bird. She sat on the park bench, a bottle of beer in her hand and a smile on her face that came when she saw him. She recognized him. He recognized her too – she was the waitress in a cafeteria he frequented.
      He had only started to walk when she called, “Excuse me surrr, can I have a cigarette, please?” He hesitated. Those were alien worlds – a different country, culture and language – and he had to a lot on him – cash in his wallet, three credit cards, a Rolex, an Oakley that he loved so much, a laptop, and a mobile phone costly enough to feed a family of eight for a month – all the reasons to be careful from all things pretending to be benign. She fumbled, from her pocket, pulled out a five dollar note and held in his face. “I'll pay,” she added. Her voice fumbled. He looked around. It was only evening. The park around him, in the middle of crossroads bustling with big cars and hasty humans, and there she drank without a care of time. Pigeons scampered around her purposelessly, an albatross guarded its nest by spreading its wings at the first sign of trouble, and behind her, an oversized, black squirrel chased another oversized chestnut squirrel. The sunlight was at those final brilliant moments that only grace the world below in the evenings, the kind that only lasts long enough to be observed before its replaced by twilight.
      He had only seen her a week ago, sitting in the same place, with another woman, who like her, would've been in her mid thirties. They sat on the same bench, at around the same time, drank out of one bottle, smoked cigarettes and laughed and shouted. They high-fived each other, embraced, abused, whispered, like they had all the time in the world. That is, before a police-car stopped by and took both of them on grounds of public consumption of alcohol and creating disturbance.
      There she was again, alone and completely different from the pretty, smiling girl he remembered her from his visits to the posh cafeteria. But she was no beggar, she offered money for the cigarette she asked for, so he pulled out one and gave to her, and declined the money. She shrugged her shoulders when he said no to the money and took another gulp. Somewhere inside him, a foolish pang of pity rose, the kind that often accompanies men in front of femmes in distress. “You must not drink in open,” he suggested. “Yeah,” she replied. He stood there. The ever-present feeling of a possible danger had lightened. “Your friend is not with you?” he asked, not knowing why he said that.”She dead,” she said casually, not bothering to look at him, her expressions not changing one bit. After a confused moment without words, he said, “I'm sorry.” “Oh don't be. Catherine was fun. She wouldn't be sad that she dead,” she looked at him with a serious face and guffawed. “Gotcha. Gotcha. Naah, kidding. But she was nice. She was...” Her face shrunk, she fought to keep tears inside. She gained control of herself, and quickly said, as if an alibi, “You're an Indian, aren't you. Have a seat. Have... have a seat,” she shifted around on the bench. “Oh no, no. I should be going,” he said defensively and stepped back a few steps. “Oh yeah, get running. Am gonna EAT YOU...,” she growled. He was stunned, a rogue thought told him that it must be her mensuration that swung her moods. He had to leave, he decided. Suddenly, she smiled, pointed her finger at him, and said, “Gotcha.” She guffawed again. “Come on, have a seat. What's the hurry?” He nervously took a seat, carefully maintaining distance from her. His feet wanted to run away, but his heart beat like it would come out. She offered him a gulp out of her bottle, he denied. “Am not gonna ask you money, have it,” she pushed the bottle closer to his mouth. He pulled back, said a nervous 'no', and then added, “I don't drink.” “Dont' drink? What are you, like, forty-five?” “Am only thirty-five,” he was offended. “Thirty-five? Noooo. You're kiddin' me. Only thirty-five and you've those big wrinkles on your forehead. Let me see,” without a warning she moved her palm to his face. He jerked back but her palm found his forehead. Her skin was... soothing, peaceful.. “Let those eyebrows drop. Feel the sun of the winter evening on your face. Listen to the birds around you...” she murmured.
      For a few moments, he didn't know how many, he felt he would fall asleep. He felt his eyebrows coming down and the wrinkles on his forehead – that he never knew were there – disappear. Like a burden had been taken off his head. He felt light. He heard the birds, as if for the first time. And every hurry drained out of him. It was peace he had never felt before, away from all the worries. Then he woke up, with a jerk, he removed her hand almost rudely, and stood up. She pulled her hand back, as if her senses had come back, she laid back on the bench, took another drag and said, “Oh yeah, yeah. Busy men. Big men. So much responsibilities. So much money to be earned. Big house, big cars, big money,” she smirked. He felt insulted. He was not going to take lessons of life from a woman who drunk in broad daylight. He shot back, “At least am better than you.”
      He stood up, put his bag on his shoulder and started to move. She said, without bothering if he listened or not, “Catherine knew she'd die. Cancer. Girl wanted to die out of the damned hospital.” He stopped. He didn't know why. “We sneaked out. And we drank. Partied. Like there was no tomorrow. Quiet bad the cops got us. But she laughed that out too. Said everything must be experienced, even jail,” she turned to look at him. “That day, I spent all the money I had. All that I had saved. Was gonna move to a better place, but all gone to drink and smoke and dance. Today I have nothin'. Nothin'. So, yeah, you're better than me. You've a lot a things I don't. I lost my money, my savins. I'll still live in a stink-hole of a place for a couple more months. But you know what? I have memories. Your money would dry up. My memories won't. And she died happily,” she took another gulp. The cigarette had reached its end, she threw it in disgust. “Go away,” she added. He came back, opened the pack in front her face. She pulled another cigarette without asking. “Sit down if you're not going,” she said. He obeyed. “Tell me, have you ever lost someone?” she asked. He remembered – yes, he did. Friends, who like him, lost in the race of acquiring that never ended. Family, whose only proof of existence remained a voice that he heard on his mobile phone. And those honest, belly-bursting laughs that used to be so much in abundance when he was a kid, that were taken for granted, now all gone. As if they were never there. “Have you ever lost someone?” she repeated. “No,” he lied. “Noooo. Liar. Everybody loses someone. Why should you be different?” she touched his nerve. It showed on his face for that one extra moment that she caught. “See, see,” she said with joy, almost like a child. “You're a good guy. Here take one. Its one me,” she offered him the bottle again. He took it. “Good boy. I knew you were a good guy. And you're hot too,” she winked and smiled. He hesitated, “Oh, am... am engaged.” “Oh of-course you are? Doesn't stop you from being hot, eh?” she winked again. He blushed. “Gotcha. Gotcha,” she guffawed again. “Thought I was hittin' on ya? Come on, lets drink one for Catherine,” she offered. He took a gulp, she took one. She kept one hand on his shoulders, held the one holding the bottle high, and said, almost shouted, “Je t'aime, Catherine.”
      The trees around him stood naked, devoid of all leaves. Soon the Canadian winter would be gone and leaves would spring out. The world would be colourful again. The air would have the fragrance again. The birds would sing. He had decided. He was done chasing money. It was the memories that he had to earn now. He decided, this time, he would hold it, hold everything and everyone that he had ignored for long, as long as he could. “Je t'aime, Catherine,” he whispered.

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