Miss Buddha (57 page)

“Rumi also said, ‘Out beyond ideas of
wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk
about.’

“And he said, ‘I am a bird of the heavenly
garden, I belong not to the earthly sphere. They have made for two
or three days a cage of my body.’

“Again, as many of you may already know,
Rumi, or Jalal al-Din Rum, was born in 1207 in what is now
Afghanistan and, again as you probably know, is best known as a
Sufi-inspired poet. In his youth he traveled here and there with
his family eventually to settle in Konya, in what is now
Turkey.

“In 1244 he accepted the friendship and
religious guidance of Shams al-Din, a dervish—which is what we
sometimes call the devotees Sufism—from Tabriz, Iran. To say that
Rumi fell in spiritual love with his master would be to put it
mildly, for Rumi set out to devote his life to creating poetry
expressing his feelings for Shams al-Din.

In 1247, however, Shams al-Din disappears,
without a trace. Over the next many years Rumi composed nearly
30,000 verses expressing his feelings at this loss.

“Later spiritual
friendships again inspired his poetry, notably the
mid-13
^th
Century epic poem Masnavi-ye Manavi, which has had an enormous
influence on both Islamic literature and thought.

“The real point I make here is that someone
who can say ‘What you seek is seeking you,’ or ‘Sit, be still, and
listen,’ knows and appreciates the same stillness as all true
mystics do, although, I must confess, Rumi does this slightly more
ecstatically than others, and can’t seem to stop dancing.”

Ruth paused again, and helped herself to a
swallow of water, then to another one. She softly replaced the
glass. Looking back out over the stillness that was her audience,
she continued:

“Mystics will, and do, rise from any
discipline, whether religious, philosophical, poetic, or even
music.

“Take Bach. I’d venture to say that the
stillness he found to create the Air on a G String held much of
what truly matters.

“Or take the Second Movement of Beethoven’s
Pathetique Piano Sonata, or many of his String Quartets for that
matter, I think ‘unearthly’ goes a fair way to describe the sheer
beauty of his music. Whoever said Beethoven was a wild man did not
really know him. Nor the stillness he knew.

“In this stillness all things are simple.
Things only grow complex when we try to capture this stillness in
words which then as often as not collide with not only our own
conceit and opinions but conflicting conceit and opinions as well
and then with the wars fought about these opinions and all of a
sudden you find yourself immersed in the most complex edifice you
could ever wish for, blinded and hurt, and, of course, none the
wiser.

“Many of those who experience this stillness
consider it futile to try to convey it, and so say nothing. Lao Tzu
is reported to have tried to leave the city for a private
wilderness without saying a word, and had it not been for the guard
at the gate recognizing the philosopher and entreating him to write
down this stillness as best he could, we would not have the Tao Te
Ching today.

“Even the Buddha, upon awakening, seriously
considered saying nothing—feeling, we hear, as do many of those who
swim these waters, the experience too deep to convey, too
unfathomable to explain.

“Legend has it that we owe his teachings and
the Pali Canon to Brahma Sahampati, the deva who descended and then
twisted Gotama Siddhattha’s arm into sharing his insight, which he
then spent the remainder of his life doing.

Here she paused again for another sip of
water. And a second one. Then she said, quite emphatically:

“This stillness is not imaginary.”

Another long stillness. It was as even the
fan had stopped to listen. Ananda could hear no sound. The room,
and all beings and things in it, holding its breath.

“This stillness is the most real thing there
is. There is no thing realer. It is also the most easily buried and
lost thing there is.”

Then she said no more.

Until she said, “Any questions?”

It took those in the hall a few moments to
realize that she had finished, and another few moments to collect
themselves sufficiently to consider questions to ask. Meanwhile,
this was the cue to raise the lights again.

Ananda turned to his right to see a young
girl negotiate her way through those who sat in the aisle and then
step up to the microphone now in place for this very purpose. The
question should have come as no surprise, not really.

And that question was: “I’m sorry, but I
have to ask. Are you the Buddha?”

If Ruth was surprised at the question, she
did not show it. Instead she smiled and said, “Ah, the folly of
youth.”

“What?” said the young girl, slightly
offended.

“Oh. No, not you,” said Ruth. “No, I’m
referring to me. The folly of my youth.”

The girl relaxed noticeably. “So, you’re
not?”

“Does it matter?” said Ruth.

“Of course it does,” said the girl.

“I beg to differ,” said Ruth. “Your
stillness, my stillness. Both nameless.”

That answer hit some sort of mark, for
Ananda noticed the young girl swallow—once unsuccessfully, once
successfully, then smile, before she cleared her throat and said,
“I see. Yes.”

A small line of students had now formed
behind the girl, each with a question or two for Ruth. The girl
thanked Ruth and stepped aside, letting the next person, a young
man, perhaps twenty-five and with very long hair, up to the
microphone.

“You’ve got quite a reputation, of course,”
he said. When Ruth didn’t answer, he continued. “Why is it that
you—since you are a famous particle physicist—went on to doctor in
Theology and Philosophy here at USC instead of continuing your
research at Cal Tech or at some other such research facility. Like
the CERN facility in Geneva.”

“Have you read my dissertation?” asked
Ruth.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he replied,
making sure this fact was clearly heard by one and all.

“Then you already know the answer,” said
Ruth.

“This stillness you talk about, there’s no
such stillness in particle physics, is there?”

“There isn’t?” said Ruth, feigning surprise,
but not so hard as to offend the young man, which Ananda saw as a
nice touch.

“There is?” he said.

“There is,” said Ruth.

The young man struck Ananda as someone who
had more to ask but who now had lost his train of thought, and
instead—after some uncertain movement and a look around the
hall—thanked Ruth and gave way to the next student in line.

“How do we find this stillness?” she
asked.

“Ah,” said Ruth. “That’s for another
lecture.”

“Seriously?” said the student.

“Seriously.”

Then, looking around the hall, the girl
seemed to gather the strength to then say, “What if we can’t wait?”
Which brought some laughs and many smiles.

“Patience,” said Ruth, “is so important that
lacking it, you will never find the stillness.”

“Ah,” said the student, and stepped aside
without thanking Ruth.

“One more,” said Ruth.

An older lady stepped up to the microphone
and adjusted it a little—she was very tall. “Is it meditation that
will lead us there? To the stillness, I mean?”

“Yes, it is,” said Ruth. “That and other
things.”

“What other things?”

“Again, that is for another lecture,” said
Ruth.

“I see,” said the lady. “Thank you.”

:

This much anticipated opening lecture was
filmed not only by the college but by some students as well (who
had secured permission both from the school and from Ruth—who in
fact insisted on allowing her students to make any records they’d
choose of her lectures), and soon the lecture was posted in full on
the Internet and also made available through Mortimers
worldwide.

Ananda could not have been more pleased.
Ruth had selected wisely from the many choices he had helped her
select from sea of choices available.

She had made light of the Buddha question,
and—partially by her presence, and partially by the content—raised
a fair amount of healthy interest in the stillness she wants to
share.

Over the next few days the several video
recordings of the lecture went what Ananda soon learned was called
“viral”—meaning that first thousands, then millions of people on
the Internet saw the lecture, and as they told others about it, the
number kept exploding in size.

Ruth seemed happy enough about it, and she
had reason to be. Ananda could not help feeling a little uneasy,
though. Was it going “viral” for the right reasons? Was this much
attention good or bad for her mission?

“The more the merrier,” Ruth suggested.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I hope so, too,” said Melissa.

“Oh, you two,” said Ruth.

::
107 :: (USC)

While Melissa did not attend all of her
daughter’s lectures, Ananda made it a firm rule to be on hand every
time, if for no other reason (he told her within Ruth’s hearing)
than to keep her honest, and from doing something unwise.

After a brief cycle of lectures about the
various world religions that was well received by both students and
faculty (who increasingly had taken to attending Ruth Marten’s
lectures as well, absent scheduling conflicts), later that spring
Ruth returned to the subject of stillness.

Melissa was not on hand for this, but Clare
Downes was, and was seated next to Ananda. Surveying the room,
before the light dimmed, Ananda saw the now familiar class filling
the hall, along with not a few members of the faculty—some of whom
he now recognized. He also noted three men by the door, slightly
aside from the rest, who, for some reason he could not put his
finger on, appeared to him sinister, perhaps because they seemed to
make an effort not to.

The light dimmed.

Again, she opened the lecture with that one
word that had caught the entire hall’s attention in her opening
lecture, and now did so anew:

“Stillness.”

Once voiced, she watched it settle on her
audience, deeply.

“The consumer world of today would have you
believe that there is no such thing as true stillness, or that if
there indeed were such a thing, it certainly would have nothing to
do with happiness.

“On the contrary, look around you in any
store, watch any commercial, any advertisement, take in any
billboard, you are being told, loudly, colorfully, and cleverly,
that one,” she held up a finger, “you are not happy. Two,” a second
finger, “that being unhappy—that is to say, unsupplied with this
particular item, whatever it is, a television set, a new computer,
a two-pound steak the way only we can make it—is not only utterly
unnecessary, but also uncool. And three,” a third finger, “it’ll
hardly cost you anything, for we not only finance but will give you
zero payments for the first twelve months.”

Again, she looked around the room. Smiled at
Ananda and at Clare. “Does it sound familiar?” she asked the
class.

A susurrus of agreement.

“We are told again and again, in guises more
varied than you can easily spot, that happiness depends on
consumption, that consumption breeds happiness, that they in fact
are synonymous. Happiness is consumption.

“Yet, this happiness of eating, drinking,
acquiring, consuming, is at best fleeting, and at worst, a
disaster, something you could not afford, and which not only didn’t
make you happy but also exceeded your budget and gave you
heartburn, to boot, perhaps even an expensive doctor’s visit to top
it off.

“What you obtain when you buy happiness this
way is basically a ton of garbage to effectively muffle, conceal,
and even outright drown your true happiness, your stillness.”

Ananda felt more than saw heads nodding at
this, yes, they were tracking with her nicely, she made her point
well.

“We are over-consumers to
an obscene degree,” said Ruth. “In fact, one of the saddest
elements of this consumption society is that while almost half of
the world’s population goes hungry, here in the western, developed
world we have to
advertise
food, and stage sales, to get rid of it. Obesity
is a scourge, a runaway epidemic, while emaciation is the balancing
act performed by much of Africa and now Asia as well, especially
after these many and terrible drought-years.

“How much goods can you accumulate? Check
your garage, or check your parents’ garage. Notice how there is no
longer room for a car, even in a two-or three-car garage. And what
doesn’t fit in the garage, has now been carted off to some nearby
storage facility—with more of them springing up all the time to
house more acquisition overflow.

“These are things you don’t use but tell
yourself you may need someday. Well, you never needed them in the
first place and would have realized as much had you stopped to
consider it before you gulped them down.

“The stillness is still
there, but now is buried under a mountain of acquired but
unnecessary things. And not only under a mountain of
things
, more and more
these days, but also under a flood of prescription drugs, coming,
as you know, in all manner of shapes and for all manner of
purposes. They’ll calm you down, they’ll put you to sleep, they’ll
make you happy—yes, if you’d care to look, or reflect, you’ll see
that this is one of the most repeated pharmaceutical slogans today:
‘We will make you happy.’

“Happiness for all those who may, in their
heart of hearts, suspect that things cannot make you happy, and now
feel depressed about it. One pill, three times a day, they promise,
will fix this nicely. Consult your doctor. He’ll be only too happy
to help.