Miss Buddha (55 page)

“Yes,” confirmed the monk. “They study the
Dhamma, naturally.”

“The Sutta Pitaka?”

“Yes, of course.”

“The Vinaya Pitaka?”

“Yes, of course. But more than this, the
Abhidhamma Pitaka.”

“And the Visuddhimagga?”

“Oh, yes. Most of all the
Visuddhimagga.”

“But,” Ruth pointed out. “The Abhidhamma and
Visuddhimagga are not the Buddha’s words. They are organization,
speculation, and commentary. Granted,” she added, “quite brilliant
in places, and often true—especially the Visuddhimagga. But why
focus on the mostly true? What is wrong with the Sutta Pitaka?”

“Oh, there is nothing wrong with the Sutta
Pitaka, how can you say that?”

“I am not saying that. I just don’t
understand why speculation and commentary take precedence over the
word of the Buddha.”

“Not precedence,” the monk said. “We focus
on the clarification.”

“The Buddha’s words are not clear?”

“Not always.”

Ananda had to agree with that, of course.
Viewed from today’s much more informed standpoint, the Sutta Pitaka
left a lot to be desired as canon, but it was all there, and better
discover it for yourself than have someone else interpret for you,
even if that someone was as brilliant as Buddhaghosa.

Ruth didn’t respond, but asked instead.
“Everyone meditates?”

“Yes, of course. Mostly, yes.”

“Mostly?”

“Our Pali scholars are sometimes too
busy.”

“Pali scholars?”

“Those who study the Pali Canon to
clarify.”

“The Sangha is not versed in Pali?”

“No, only our scholars. They translate into
Sinhala for the rest to read, for those who can read.”

“Not all Bhikkhus can read?” Ruth sounded
alarmed.

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

Bhante’s attendant thought about that for a
while, then answered, a little embarrassed, “I don’t know.”

Ruth said nothing and they walked in silence
for a while. Ananda could hear Clare point something out to Lars.
The long screech of a bird in flight crossed the sky overhead. It
was answered from the forest to their right. The sun had now
cleared even the tallest trees and the air seemed to heat up by the
minute. Ananda then stepped up alongside Ruth and the attendant.
“How many arahants in the Sangha?” he asked.

“The Venerable Bhante Mahathera,” he
answered.

“No one else?” said Ruth, again with
alarm.

“No.”

Ruth looked over at Ananda, perplexed.
Ananda echoed the expression back to her.

The Ruth asked, “Do they speak English?”

“Yes,” the attendant answered, “most of us
do.”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” she
answered.

:

The Sangha had gathered in a large, open
semi-circular amphitheater. Looking out at the seated wave of
orange, Ananda estimated perhaps a thousand bhikkhus. Twelve
hundred, perhaps.

Two bhikkhus were busy arranging the public
address system, testing the microphone with what sounded like
Sinhala counting, one, two, three, one, two, three.

The Venerable Bhante Mahathera sat by Ruth
conversing quietly, holding her arm for assurance or comfort. Ruth
nodded, then looked out at the congregation and nodded again.

The two bhikkhus finished adjusting the PA
system, then spoke with Bhante’s attendant, who nodded, and went
over to Bhante. He whispered something to him. Bhante nodded, and
taking his attendants arm, rose to his feet. Then approached the
microphone. Quiet fell not only over the congregation, but over the
surrounding forest as well, as if nature had decided to hold her
breath.

Bhante addressed them in Sinhala. Ananda had
no idea what he told them; perhaps he had mentioned to Ruth what he
intended to say. Then Bhante said no more to his monks and stepped
back, took his attendant’s arm again, and walked back to his seat.
He nodded to Ruth who rose.

Approaching the microphone, she struck
Ananda as an inch or two taller than normal, or was it just that
everyone around them seemed short. No, erect and purposeful Ruth
had grown, he could almost swear to it. The setting sun reflected
on her hair in a glitter which died as she stepped into the shadow
cast by forest on the front of the platform where the microphone
stood, awaiting.

Arriving, she adjusted the microphone to her
height, bending it upward. Then she tapped on it twice. Then she
spoke.

“I understand that most of you speak
English, which is a good thing for I don’t speak Sinhala.”

She probably meant for this as a jovial
opening, but no one smiled or laughed. The orange wave sat rock
still, curious, yes, but with a hint of hostility. Who was this
girl, and why was she talking to us?

Ruth, the Buddha Gotama, the Tathagata, was
obviously aware of this, and Ananda could see her hesitate, unsure
of how to proceed.

“My name is Ruth Marten,” she said. “I am
from Pasadena, California.”

She paused, everything was still. Then she
said:

“A little over sixteen years ago I was in
the Tusita heaven, where I had rested for a little over four
hundred of your years.”

The collective gasp was palpable, but Ananda
sensed it as a gasp of affront, not a gasp of surprise or
revelation. Then he perceived how Ruth expanded and filled the
amphitheater, making all of it a room of co-knowing.

Bhante smiled where he sat. Melissa looked
surprised, as did Clare. Lars was too busy filming to show anything
but concentration. And now, as Ruth continued to speak, her voice
was supported by her internal depth of meaning. The voice of the
speakers filled the evening air while the meaning resonating
inside. Ananda scanned the Sangha for signs of recognition.

Speaking slowly and clearly, she said, “I am
Tathagata.”

A thousand pairs of eyes rested on her, and
a thousand pairs of ears waited for the next word. But no next word
came, not over the speakers. The meaning, however, was repeated as
internal resonance: “I am Tathagata.” And again. “I am
Tathagata.”

Ananda strained to see sings in the little
sea of solemn faces. There was a smile, and there was another. Few,
though, and far between. Ten, at the most twenty, could hear
her.

“I am Tathagata,” she said again as internal
whisper. Existing smiles widened, but no new smiles budded. The
vast majority could hear nothing, and here and there the somber
faces tinged a perplexed annoyance.

Someone spoke up, and loudly into the
quivering dusk: “No, miss, you are not.”

“I am,” said Ruth aloud.

“No,” said another bhikkhu, “you cannot
be.”

“Why?” said Ruth. “Why can I not be?”

No one answered her.

“Because I am a woman?” she said.

Then they all discovered, Ruth, Ananda, as
well as the others, that the Los Angeles spectacle had indeed
reached these shores, and this monastery, after all. For a bhikkhu
near the stage rose and in a loud voice said, “You are the American
television Buddha. We have heard all about it and believe none of
it.”

Ruth turned to Ananda, her face a startled
question. Ananda shook his head, he had no idea. This was not the
time to begin explaining all that had taken place, if that were
even possible.

“Can you not hear me?” she asked silently.
The few nodded, but most, by an overwhelming margin, heard nothing,
and were now growing restless, angry even. They were being played
for fools. Someone else rose, then spoke:

“What do you want from us? Are you after
more clever television magic?” Some of them snickered at this, and
most of them turned toward Lars, filming all this, and Clare, next
to him.

It was as if a wind had reached the orange
tree of Bhikkhus, a thousand voices whispering like the susurrus of
a million leaves. Alive with irritation, it seemed. Ananda looked
over at Ruth. This was not going well.

At this point—with the help of his
attendant—Bhante rose. The susurrus died down to a much quieter
wind, but wind nonetheless.

Bhante slowly moved toward Ruth and the
microphone. Arrived. For the benefit of his guest, Ananda assumed,
Bhante addressed the Sangha in English.

“Friends,” he began, and the remnant of wind
quieted, too. “Friends,” he repeated.

Ananda knew that the Sangha had not heard
Ruth, and had not accepted her as one of them, much less the
Buddha. He also knew that there was nothing Bhante could say that
would convince them otherwise. They must know for themselves, and
they would only know if they could hear. Bhante, he realized, faced
an impossible task, and he wondered what he could possibly say
next.

“Friends,” Bhante said for a third time.
“Miss Marten is my guest.”

This he said with such weight that Ananda
could feel shame rise up through the orange sea.

“She came here with a message. She does not
lie.”

This stirred a fresh little wind among the
Sangha. Many bhikkhus begged to disagree.

“She does not lie,” repeated Bhante.

The wind rose to renewed rustle of many
leaves. The Sangha did not agree.

“What are you saying?” said Bhante. “Are you
saying that I lie to you?”

“No, sir,” a voice called. “But we know of
the television shows. We have heard of the scientific experiments.
And of the chair trick. The Tathagata would never stoop to
that.”

Rising agreement cut him off.

Then another voice, loud and clear: “The
Buddha was not a girl.”

And the wind of the Sangha rose and rose.
Only those who had heard her remained quiet, looking about them
with a mixture of uncertainty and fear.

Bhante held up his hand, but to no avail.
The susurrus had risen to a thunder. He turned to Ruth and said
something to her that Ananda could not hear. Ruth nodded in
acceptance, and backed away from the microphone. Ananda could see
that she was on the verge of tears.

::
104 :: (In the Air)

Long ago I predicted that the Dhamma would
only last a thousand years. I predicted that the true and pure
Dhamma would by then have diluted into something less than its own
shadow, that the Dhamma-Vinaya that meant practice and certainty
gained by personal experience would by then no longer exist.

I foresaw this because when I walked the
earth as the Buddha Gotama, the world had already seen too much
acceptance of, and subservience to, rites and dogma. And I knew
that this river of rites and dogma was the ignorance that had to be
crossed.

That is what I tried to teach, this
crossing.

And I did succeed, then. So many awoke, but
not many enough.

And today, at this gathering of the modern
Sangha—the Sangha that, surprisingly, has access to television and
newspapers—so very few heard me, perhaps not more than I could
count on my fingers. Is the Dhamma then lost?

Ananda sits beside me, he pretends to be
asleep, but he ponders just like I do. What do I do now?

“Ananda,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he answers, without opening his
eyes.

“What are your thoughts?”

“I fear the Dhamma is all but lost,” he
said, mirroring my own thoughts.

“Yes,” I say. “I fear so too.”

“What will you do?” he asks. His eyes are
still closed. Then he opens them and turns to me.

“I was going to ask you that.”

“You still need that platform of
credibility, of authority, to speak from,” he says. “But now we
have to look elsewhere. The world-wide Sangha will not recognize
you, much less endorse you.”

“I know.”

When Ananda leans back, closes his eyes
again and says nothing more, I add, guised as suggestion, but I’ve
already made up my mind. “I’m going back to school.”

He turns to me again, “To study what?”

“I need that platform of credibility. I need
a doctorate in Philosophy and in Religion.”

“You’re not going to find those at Cal
Tech.”

“I know.”

“Where, then?”

“I’ll complete my particle physics doctorate
at Cal Tech, and then transfer to USC.”

“They would be thrilled to have you, I’m
sure.”

“I know.”

“I take it then that you plan to marry
science, philosophy, and religion.”

“Would that be a strong enough platform; do
you think Ananda? Would that carry the weight of the
Tathagata?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I should
think so.”

“I should like to vanish for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“To lick my wounds.”

He smiles, then leans back against the head
rest again, closes his eyes. “You’ve earned some peace,” he says.
Then says no more.

What other path could I take? None, that I
can see. This world no longer sees. The Sangha no longer sees. I
have to reach the world on its terms, in its language, I’ve always
known that. The Bristlecone Pine told me as much, and Ananda just
put it succinctly: I need to marry science, philosophy, and
religion. I have to show them as one truth. I have to prove them as
one truth. Then, perhaps, the world will listen.

:

Clare Downes decided not to air the Sri
Lanka footage, which did not sit well with her producer. Not at
all. Money down the bloody drain is what it was. Still, she stuck
to her decision and guns. She could do a documentary about the
monastery itself, but nothing about Ruth Marten. This was not good
enough, and her producer made that very clear.

“It’s that or nothing,” Clare
maintained.

Her producer finally saw that this was an
argument that she could not win, and Clare was simply too valuable
an asset to estrange, so she backed down. “Get back to work,” she
said.

Clare Downes remained convinced that Ruth
Marten was exactly who she said she was, for she had heard Ruth
(Miss Buddha, as she sometimes thought of her) again—again in Sri
Lanka—with her own ears, or whatever you’d call that which heard in
that room of co-knowing. She could not quite understand why the
Buddhist Sangha had not heard her as well, but that was not the
issue here. The issue was to protect, and help Ruth Marten any way
she could, and the first step along that road was to make sure that
the footage of her Sangha address never saw the light of day.