Miss Buddha (7 page)

And so they walked. They stole out of the
palace, and they walked.

Perhaps Siddhattha had more questions for
the old woman, and perhaps he had expected to find her there, but
she was gone. In her stead sat an old man, leprous arms twisted
into a permanent plea, and fingerless hands forming a mockery of a
bowl. “Please, Sir,” said the old man, revealing two dark
teeth.

Again, Siddhattha was first repulsed by this
sight, but curiosity soon rose the larger. “What happened to you?”
he asked.

“Please, Sir,” repeated the leper, motioning
his make-believe hand-bowl toward the Prince.

Siddhattha had brought nothing to give, but
Ananda had, and dropped a small piece of silver into the
permanently cupped palms.

“Thank you, Sir,” said the leper.

“What happened to you?” asked Siddhattha
again.

“What do you mean, Sir?”

“What happened to your arms, and your legs,
and your hands?”

The leper did not understand. He looked down
at his hands to see if some strange change had beset and perhaps
healed them, but he found them as damaged as always. He then looked
at Ananda, perhaps he could explain such a strange question.

For the third time, Siddhattha asked, “What
happened to you?”

“You mock me,” said the leper.

Siddhattha turned to Ananda, and Ananda knew
what question was coming. “No,” he said. “As the old woman was not,
nor is this leper mocking you.”

“Leper?” said Siddhattha.

“Yes.”

“Have you never seen such as one as me?”
said the leper.

“No,” said Siddhattha, “I have not.”

“You must have lived a very sheltered life,”
said the leper, “for we are no strangers to the world.”

Siddhattha looked at Ananda again, then back
to the leper. “Yes,” said Siddhattha, “I believe I have.”

Siddhattha insisted they take a different
way back to the palace, and Ananda—who expected Channa and horses
at any time—could but agree. The winding street led to the river
where a small gathering of solemn people were placing a corpse upon
a pyre. Ananda saw this first, and tried to steer his friend away
from the banks, but then Siddhattha saw the funeral rite, too, and
would not be led aside. Instead, he wanted a closer look. What
could Ananda do? Princely wishes reign supreme.

Arrived at the pyre, Siddhattha looked down
at the very still man, dressed in fresh linen, decorated with newly
cut, still fragrant yellow and white flowers.

Two women sang a soft hymn, while the men
prepared the fire, and soon the base of the pyre was speaking its
own language of snaps and sparks. Smoke rose, and the edge of new
linen that had unfolded caught fire with a hiss.

Siddhattha, stunned by the sight, could not
take his eyes of the face that did not react at all to so much warm
strangeness.

“What is wrong with him?” asked the
Prince.

The little congregation—having recognized
the Prince—did not know whom he was addressing, perhaps the Prince
did not either. None answered.

Until Ananda did. “He is dead,
Siddhattha.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, Siddhattha. The body ages, then it
sickens, then dies. It is what time does to life.”

The prince did not answer. Instead he looked
from Ananda back to the corpse, now beginning to smolder under the
onslaught of flame, befouling the smoke with strange odors speaking
of what once was but no longer.

They made their way back toward the palace
in silence, Siddhattha, now dark of eye and of mind, much consumed
by what he had seen.

Within sight of the palace the two friends
were approached by a thin, smiling man, dressed in a clean but much
worn robe, alms-bowl in hand.

Noticing Siddhattha, the man said, “You seem
troubled, friend.”

Siddhattha looked down into the most
tranquil face he had ever seen.

“I am,” answered the Prince.

“Tell me,” said the ascetic.

“Yesterday,” said Siddhattha, “I saw an old
woman. This morning I saw a leper. And just now I saw a
corpse.”

“Yes,” said the smiling man, and nodded.
“Yes.” Then said no more.

When Siddhattha, too, would not find words,
the smiling man briefly touched the Prince’s shoulder, then walked
away, still as tranquil a presence as Siddhattha had ever seen.

The two men watched the ascetic—who never
once looked back—walk away. Finally, Siddhattha asked, “Who was
that?”

“He is a holy man, an ascetic,” said
Ananda.

“He seems not concerned about anything.”

When Ananda said nothing, Siddhattha added,
“And untroubled.”

“That is their way.”

“That is my way,” said the Prince after a
brief silence.

:

Thus it came to pass that at the age of
twenty-nine Siddhattha Gotama, the once-to-be heir of a small, but
prosperous kingdom, took a long and meaningful look at the palace,
at his wife, at his son, at his father the King, at the beauty of
the gardens, at the abundance that did its very best—but failed—to
cover up the underlying and much larger truth: things are born,
they grow, they decline, and pass away. And he saw that there is no
hiding this truth under any manner of ease. He saw that there is no
hiding from it, no escaping it.

And at seeing this, the palace life struck
him as confining, as one large lie, which he could no longer abide.
That day he told Suddhodana that he was leaving. He would pursue
the life of an ascetic, to seek a permanent truth.

No manner of pleading, promises, nor even
threats would change his mind.

He asked Ananda if he would join him, but
Ananda declined. Although he was sympathetic to Siddhattha’s
decision, there was much he had yet to do and accomplish that he
could not abandon.

“As you will,” said Siddhattha. “Perhaps
we’ll meet again.”

And so, early one morning Siddhattha slowly
opened the door to his wife’s chamber, where his child slept as
well, and from the doorway took one long last glimpse at them,
knowing full well that if he woke them to say goodbye, he would
likely not be able to leave, he loved them too much. Instead he
blew two kisses in their direction, one for his wife, and one for
his son, then turned away and left he palace.

The sun had yet to rise.

:

Eight years later, his commitments now
fulfilled, Ananda—along with his half-brother Anuruddha, as well as
Devadatta and several other Sakyan nobles—set out to join
Siddhattha. They caught up with him at Savatthi.

The now enlightened one could not have been
more pleased. Seeing his old friend approach from a distance, he
halted his discourse, rose, and strode to greet him.

“And so we meet again,” said the Buddha
after asking Ananda to rise, and embracing him.

Eighteen years later, when they were both
fifty-five years old, the Buddha called a meeting of the monks and
declared: “In my twenty years as leader of the Sangha, I have had
many different attendants, but none of them has really filled the
post perfectly; again and again some willfulness has become
apparent. Now I am fifty-five years old and it is necessary for me
to have a trustworthy and reliable attendant.”

Several of the noble disciples offered their
services, but the Buddha, while thanking them all, declined their
offers. Then he looked to Ananda, who had held back modestly, and
asked him to volunteer.

This—being the Buddha’s wish—Ananda then
did, and would for the rest of Gotama Buddha’s life remain his
constant companion, attendant, and helper.

The two friends were truly together
again.

:

Not long after Ananda had accepted and
assumed the role of the Buddha’s attendant, they arrived—along with
three hundred some monks—at Kusinara, in the Mallas’s Sal-grove.
After taking evening tea and briefly discussing one or two issues
concerning the Sangha, the Buddha told Ananda he wanted to retire
for the day.

When Ananda did not answer right away,
Siddhattha took a closer look at his friend, and in his face
recognized a budding question, held in check by consideration for
the Buddha’s wish to retire.

“What is it, Ananda?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Ananda. What is it?”

Ananda hesitated a while longer, as if
weighing whether to burden the Enlightened One with his
concern.

“Ask me,” said Siddhattha.

Ananda drew breath, and then said,
“Venerable Sir. For over eighteen years I have faithfully practiced
the Dhamma. Under your tutelage I have practiced higher training.
For over eighteen years no sensual perception has arisen in me, no
desire, no perception of hate has arisen in me. Yet, I have not
reached arahanthood.

“If I, your faithful servant, your vessel
and Guardian of the Dhamma, have yet to land on the arahant shore,
have yet to see Nibbana after these eighteen years, how long is not
the road for the ignorant farmer, the jealous mistress, the greedy
merchant?

“And with so many beings in the world, with
so much suffering, is our task truly possible?”

Siddhattha Gotama did not answer right away.
Perhaps because Ananda’s doubt—if doubt it was—resonated dimly
within himself, or perhaps because he was not sure how to frame the
answer. Then he spoke:

“Friend. This is a universe of plenty.
Still, given time, you can empty the ocean with a spoon. It is only
a matter of quantity.”

“It is a large ocean.”

“Yes, Ananda. It is vast. Yet this ocean can
only be emptied drop by drop.”

“It is possible then?”

“Yes. Drop by drop.”

::
10 :: (Still River)

In the quiet morning Ananda hears the
far-away wondering of Gotama Buddha, soon to be Ruth Marten. Soon
to set forth again from Tusita Heaven.

“Ananda, where are you?”

And in the same stillness, he answers him:
“I am here, Gotama. In this cabin. At this keyboard. Dreaming your
new arrival into being.”

Gotama Buddha asks: “Where
is
here
,
Ananda?”

“Here is a small town by a river.”

“What is it called, this small town?”

“It is called Still River. It is a clearing
in the large forests of the north-western United States, in the
state of Idaho. Not far from Canada.”

“What are you doing there?”

“I listen, I understand, and I take good
notes. And what are you doing, Gotama?”

“I am preparing to return.”

“I gathered as much. When are you
coming?”

“I will be born on the fourth of January
next year.”

“This is certain?”

“Yes, Ananda, this is certain.”

“Where are you now?”

“I am in the Tusita heaven.”

Ananda leaned back, and read the laptop
display of what he had just written. Then he saved the document,
arose, and went into his small kitchen: it was time for his morning
apple.

Chewing each bite well to make the small,
sweet meal last, and looking out the window, out at the trees and
the still river below though seeing none of this, Ananda recalled,
again, Gotama Buddha’s passing and the terrible darkness that had
all but drowned him with its grief despite his clear vision that
this was precisely what the grief meant to do. And knowing this, he
managed one more breath of air. And another.

And then, instead of drowning, Ananda
gathered himself and rose. Now that his friend had gone, only one
mission remained: to preserve the Dhamma.

That, and to see to his own liberation.

Once the funeral ceremonies were over,
Ananda went to his friend Kassapa—an arahant these many year—and
asked him for advice.

“We must gather soon to recite the Dhamma,”
Kassapa said. “But before then, you must attain arahanthood. Go to
the Kosala forest, live, dwell, and meditate in solitude there.
Find me once you’ve found liberation.

Ananda did as Kassapa suggested, but word
soon spread that the Buddha’s attendant was living nearby, and
before long Ananda was inundated with visitors.

Day and night Ananda would console lay
disciples about the Buddha’s passing, and he rarely, if ever, had a
moment to himself.

As legend has it, a forest deity, concerned
about Ananda’s spiritual progress and seeing how he could never
attend to himself, advised him to take himself deeper into the
forest, beyond reach of the many, and focus entirely upon his own
enlightenment.

Ananda, agreeing with the deity that, yes,
something must be done, took this advice and disappeared deep into
the forest.

Even now, however, left to himself, and
while meditating constantly with only a few hours a sleep a day,
Ananda could not overcome his lasts fetters and attain
arahanthood.

He was nearing despair when a messenger from
Kassapa, now the leader of the Sangha, found him to say that
Kassapa had called the council of monks to recite and strengthen
the Dhamma. Ananda was to come, but only if he had attained
arahanthood.

“Where?” asked Ananda.

“In Rajagaha.”

“When?”

“By the next full moon.”

The fading sliver in the western sky told
Ananda that this was only a little over two weeks away.

“What if I don’t reach the other shore?”
asked Ananda.

“Then don’t come,” said the monk.

“But I am the Guardian of the Dhamma.”

“Then come.” With that the monk bowed and
turned.

Ananda now saw that he must attain
arahanthood, not only for himself, but for the sake of the Dhamma,
and with renewed urgency he thrust himself into the task with a
resolve equal to the Buddha’s own.

So it was that the day before the first
council of Buddhist monks, Ananda, through clarity of eye burnished
by urgency, finally severed the final strands that anchored him to
samsara—the seemingly endless cycle of birth and rebirth—to finally
reach Nibbana for himself.