Report to Grego (52 page)

He turned left and right, before and behind; it was he himself who bellowed in beasts, who bellowed in men and gods. Love took possession of him, love and pity for his own self that was scattered and struggling throughout the world. All the suffering of earth, all the suffering of heaven, was his own suffering. “How can anyone be happy in this pitiful body, this skein of blood, bones, brain, flesh, mucus, sperm, sweat, tears, and excrement? How can anyone be happy in this body governed by envy, hate, falsehood, fear, anguish, hunger, thirst, disease, old age, and death? All things—plants, insects, beasts, men—proceed toward perdition. Look behind you at those who no longer exist; look ahead of you at those not yet born. Men ripen like grain, fall like grain, sprout anew. The boundless oceans grow dry, mountains crumble away, the North Star wavers, gods vanish. . . .”

Pity—that is the Buddhistic journey's unfailing guide. By means of pity we deliver ourselves from our bodies, demolish the partition, merge with Nothingness. “We are all one, and this one suffers—we must deliver it. If but a single trembling drop of water suffers, I suffer.

“The ‘Four Noble Truths' dawn in my mind. This world is a net in which we have been caught; death does not deliver us, for we shall be reborn. Let us triumph over thirst, let us uproot desire, let us empty out our bowels! Do not say, ‘I want to die,' or ‘I do not want to die,' Say, ‘I do not want anything.' Elevate your mind above desire and hope—and then, while yet in this life, you shall
be able to enter the beatitude of nonbeing. With your arm, you shall halt the Wheel of Rebirth.”

Never had Buddha's form towered up before me bathed in such brilliant light. Formerly, when I considered nirvana identical with immortality, I saw Buddha as just another of Hope's generals, leading his army contrary to the thrust of the world. Only now did I realize that Buddha urges man to give consent to death, to love the ineluctable, to harmonize his heart with universal flux, and, seeing matter and mind pursue each other, unite, beget, and vanish, to say, “That is what I want.”

Of all the people the earth has begotten, Buddha stands resplendently at the summit, an absolutely pure spirit. Without fear or sorrow, filled with mercy and good judgment, he extended his hand and, smiling gravely, opened the road to salvation. All beings follow impetuously behind him. Submitting freely to the ineluctable, they bound like kid goats going to suckle. Not only men, but all beings: men, beasts, trees. Unlike Christ, Buddha does not single out only humans; he pities everything, and saves everything.

In his heart he sensed the cosmos forming and vanishing—alone, without the aid of invisible powers. Ether condensed in his sun-baked skull and became a nebula, the nebula a star; the star, like a seed, formed a crust and put forth trees, animals, men, gods; then fire came into his skull and everything turned to smoke and perished.

I lived for many days and weeks plunged in this new adventure. What an abyss is the human heart! How the heartbeat breaks into palpitations and takes unforeseen routes! Was all my yearning and passion for immortality leading me then to absolute mortality? Or could it be that mortality and immortality were identical?

When Buddha rose from beneath the tree where for seven years he had struggled in his search for salvation, he went, saved now, and sat down cross-legged in the square of a large city. There, surrounded by lords, merchants, and warriors, he began to speak, preaching salvation. At first all these unbelievers ridiculed him, but gradually they felt their bowels emptying, felt themselves purged of desire, and little by little their festively white, red, and blue garments turned yellow, like Buddha's robe. I, in the same way, felt my bowels emptying and my mind dressing itself in the yellow robe.

One night when I went out to take a short walk in the Prater, Vienna's large park, a girl of the painted sisterhood stepped up to me beneath the trees. Frightened, I increased my pace, but she overtook me and caught hold of my arm. She exuded a heavy scent of violets; in the light I could make out her blue eyes, painted lips, and half-exposed breasts.

“Come with me . . .” she whispered, winking her eye.

“No! No!” I cried as though in danger.

She released my arm. “Why not?” she asked.

“I'm sorry but I don't have time.”

“Are you crazy?” said the girl, glancing at me with sympathy. “What are you, a monk? No one is looking.”

Buddha is looking, I was about to reply, but I restrained myself. The girl's eye, in the meantime, had caught sight of another solitary stroller, and she ran off to accost him. I took a deep breath. Feeling as though I had escaped a great danger, I returned posthaste to my room.

I had submerged myself in Buddha. My mind was a yellow heliotrope and Buddha the sun; I followed him as he rose, reached the zenith, and disappeared. “Water sleeps, but souls do not,” an old Rumelian once said to me. It seemed to me during those days, however, that my soul had entered a beatific sleep, submerged in Buddhist imperturbation. Just as when you dream and know you are dreaming, and all you see in your sleep, whether good or bad, arouses neither joy, sorrow, nor fear in you because you know that you will awake and all will be dispelled, so in this same way, feeling neither joy nor fright, unperturbed, I watched the phantasmagoria of the world pass before my eyes.

In order to prevent the vision from dispersing with great rapidity, in order to solidify perfect salvation with words so that my soul could feel it in a tangible way, I commenced to write a dialogue between Buddha and his beloved disciple Ananda.

•  •  •

B
arbarians had descended from the mountains and blockaded the city. Buddha sat cross-legged beneath a blossoming tree, smiling. Ananda had leaned his head on Buddha's knees and closed his eyes to keep the world's phantasmagoria from leading his thoughts astray. Around them stood a multitude of auditors who longed to
become disciples; they wanted to hear the words of salvation, but as soon as they learned that the barbarians were waging war, they became incensed.

“Get up, Master,” they cried. “Lead us to repel the barbarians. The secret of deliverance you can tell us afterwards.”

Buddha shook his head. “No, I refuse to come.”

“Are you tired?” shouted the others angrily. “Are you afraid?”

“I have completed the journey,” replied Buddha, his voice beyond fatigue and fear, beyond patriotism.

“Well then, let us go ourselves and defend the soil of our fathers!” cried all the rest, and they turned toward the city.

“Go with my benediction,” said Buddha, lifting his hand to bless them. “I went where you are going, went and returned. I shall be sitting here beneath this flowering tree, waiting for you also to return. Then only, when we all sit beneath the same flowering tree, each word that I speak and each word that you speak will have the same meaning for all of us. Now it is still much too soon. I say one thing and you understand something else. We do not speak the same language. So, pleasant journey! . . . Till we meet again!”

“I do not understand, Master,” said Sariputta. “Are you speaking to us in parables again?”

“You will understand upon your return, Sariputta. As I told you, now is much too soon. For years I have lived the life and suffering of mankind; for years I have filled out and ripened. Before this I never attained such complete freedom, my companions. And why did I attain this freedom? Because I made a great decision.”

“A great decision?” asked Ananda. Raising his head, he bowed to kiss the sole of Buddha's holy foot. “What decision, Master?”

“I do not wish to sell my soul to God, to what all you others call God; I do not wish to sell my soul to the devil, to what all you others call the devil. I do not wish to sell myself to anyone. I am free! Happy the man who escapes the claws of God and the devil. He, and he alone, is saved.”

“Saved from what?” asked Sariputta, sweat dripping from his forehead. “Saved from what? Some words remain on your lips, Master. They are burning you.”

“No, Sariputta, they are not burning me, they are cooling me.
Forgive me, but I do not know if you have the endurance, if you can hear them without becoming terror-stricken.”

“Master,” said Sariputta, “we are going off to war and may never return, may never see you again. Disclose these final words to us, your last. . . . Saved from what?

Slowly, heavily, like a body falling into the abyss, the words fell from Buddha's compressed lips. “From salvation.”

“From salvation!” exclaimed Sariputta. “Saved from salvation? Master, I do not understand.”

“So much the better, Sariputta. If you understood, you would be frightened. Nevertheless, I want you to know, my companions, that this is my form of freedom. I have been saved from salvation!”

He fell silent. But now he was no longer able to restrain himself.

“I want you to know that every other form of freedom is slavery. If I were to be born again, I would fight for this great freedom, for salvation from salvation. . . . Enough, however. It is still too early for us to speak. We shall say it all when you return from war—if you return. Farewell!”

He took a deep breath. Seeing his disciples hesitate, he smiled. “Why do you stay?” he asked. “Warfare is still your duty. Off with you then, off to fight. Farewell!”

“Until we meet again, Master,” said Sariputta. . . . “Come, let's go, and may God be with us!”

Ananda did not move. Buddha eyed him with satisfaction out of the corner of his eye.

“I am going to stay here with you, Master,” said the disciple, coloring strongly.

“From fear, Ananda, my beloved?”

“From love, Master.”

“Love is no longer enough, my faithful companion.”

“I know that, Master. As you spoke, I saw flames licking your mouth.”

“They were not flames, Ananda, they were my words. Do you understand those superhuman words, my young, faithful friend?”

“I think I do. That is why I remained with you.”

“What do you understand?”

“Whoever says salvation exists is a slave, because he keeps weighing each of his words and deeds at every moment. ‘Will I be
saved or damned?' he tremblingly asks. ‘Will I go to heaven or to hell?' . . . How can a soul that hopes be free? Whoever hopes is afraid both of this life and the life to come; he hangs indecisively in the air and waits for luck or God's mercy.”

Buddha placed his palm on Ananda's black hair.

“Stay,” he said.

They remained silent for some time beneath the flowering tree, Buddha slowly, compassionately caressing the beloved disciple's hair.

“Salvation means deliverance from all saviors. This is the supreme freedom, the highest, where a man breathes only with difficulty. Do you have the endurance?”

Ananda had bowed his head. He did not speak.

“In other words, now you understand who is the perfect Savior . . .”

He fell silent for a moment, but then, twisting between his fingers a blossom which had fallen from the tree: “It is the Savior who shall deliver mankind from salvation.”

•  •  •

With the twenty-six letters of the alphabet (the only stones and concrete I have) I paved the new road leading to salvation. Now I knew, and knowing, I regarded the world tranquilly, without fear, because now it could no longer deceive me. Leaning out of my window, I looked at the men, women, and cars, at the stores loaded with meat, groceries, drinks, fruit, books—and smiled. All these were just so many variegated clouds; a gentle breeze would blow and they would be dispelled. The Tempter's power had begotten them; now human thirst and hunger were holding on to them for an hour or two, as long as possible before the breeze blew and scattered them.

Going outside to the street, I mingled with a wave of people all running somewhere in a great hurry. I ran with them; I no longer had anything to fear. They are wraiths, I reflected, a mist composed of dewdrops. Why be afraid of them? Why not go along and see what they're doing? Reaching a movie theater with red, blue, and green lights, we went inside and enthroned ourselves in velvet-cushioned seats. At the far end was a bright screen over which anxious shadows were hurriedly passing. What were they
doing? Kissing, killing, being killed. Next to me sat a girl. Her breath smelled of cinnamon. I felt her bosom heave as she respired. From time to time her knee touched mine. I shuddered, but did not draw away. She turned and glanced at me for an instant, and in the half-darkness of the auditorium I thought I saw her smile.

Soon I had enough of watching these shadows, and I got up to leave. The girl got up also. At the exit she turned again and smiled at me. We struck up a conversation. The moon shining above us, we headed toward the park and sat down on a little bench. It was summer; the night was sweet as honey, the lilacs fragrant. Couples kept passing; others were embracing, stretched out on the grass. A nightingale hidden deep in the lilacs began to sing above our heads, and my heart stood still. It was not a bird; it must have been some cunning goblin. I had heard this same voice once before, I believe—when climbing Psiloríti—and I knew what it was saying. Extending my hand, I rested it on the girl's hair.

“What's your name?” I asked her.

“Frieda,” she replied, laughing. “Why ask? My name is ‘Woman.'”

At that point something terrible escaped my lips. The words I spoke were not my own; they must have belonged to one of my ancestors—not my father, who despised women, but someone else. The moment I uttered them, I felt overcome by terror. But it was too late.

“Frieda, will you spend the night with me?”

The girl calmly replied, “Not tonight. I can't. Tomorrow.”

Feeling relieved, I rose in great haste. We parted. I walked hurriedly back to my room.

And then something incredible happened, something which makes me shudder even now when I recall it. Man's soul is truly indestructible, truly august and noble, but pressed to its bosom it carries a body which grows daily more putrescent. While on my way back home, I heard the blood mounting to my head. My soul had become enraged. Sensing that my body was about to fall into sin, it had bounded to its feet, full of scorn and anger, and refused to grant permission. The blood continued to flow upward and mass in my face, until little by little I became aware that my lips, cheeks, and forehead were swelling. My eyes soon grew so small
that nothing remained but two slits, and it was only with difficulty that I managed to see anything at all.