Miss Buddha (61 page)

“Done right, Samadhi has the qualities of
purity, clarity, stability, strength, readiness, flexibility, and
gentleness.

“Samadhi is the harmonizing of the various
voices of the mind with the single wish to see.

“Samadhi is the one step that must be taken,
and taken well, to reach the stillness.

“However, taking this one step, achieving
true Samadhi, is far easier said than done.”

Here she paused again to survey her
audience.

“When you close your eyes and attempt to
focus on a single thing, say your breath, you will soon discover
that you are not alone. You will in short order perceive that
you’re sitting smack in the middle of a noisy and very opinionated
city council, say that of Chicago.

“It is such a din that you can scarcely make
yourself heard, let alone make anyone respect your wishes. No one
wants to hear about your breathing.

“Which begs the question: are you the only
life in your body? Closing your eyes and trying to focus will make
you wonder. And it’s a relevant question.

“Look,” she said, holding up a finger,
“Who—or what—is making your heart beat? Who is working your lungs
while you’re asleep? How does the liver know what to do? Or your
kidneys? And how do they carry out their complex chemical functions
with such faultless precision day in and day out, month in and
month out, year in and year out?

“And how do the T-cells, or B-cells, or the
natural killer cells know what to do? How do they recognize an
invading virus, and how do they know that a healthy dose of
perforin will kill these invaders? How do they know to produce
perforin, and how to do it?

“When was the last time that
you—personally—singled out a virus for attack and shot these small
cytoplasmic protein granules in their direction to fend them off?
Have you ever knowingly done this? Ever?

“Have you
any
idea how much
is
going on
in
your body at all times? Have you any idea how much is going on in
your mind at all times? You’re basically just along for the ride.
And, to be honest, you’re mostly hanging on for dear
life.”

Ruth waited for the trickle of nervous
laughter to die down.

“My point is: you are not alone. That much
should be obvious to anyone who stops for just a second and
reflects on this. Another pertinent question arises: How sentient
is this other life? How aware are these other little, or sometimes
not so little lives? The millions and trillions of them.

“That. my friends, is for us to find
out.

“The more immediate point is that as long as
the city council rages on, you will never reach the stillness of
Samadhi. You will never reach a silence deep enough to let you see
clearly what truly gives.

“That’s the bad news. The
good news is that you
can
make the city council listen. You
can
bring them all
together. You
can
calm them down and have them all look in the same direction.
You
can
unify your
mind.

“You
can
concentrate.

“Interestingly, the word ‘concentrate’
breaks down into the Latin ‘con,’ which means ‘together’ and the
Latin ‘centrum,’ which means sharp point, or middle point of a
circle. Concentrate, in other words, is a perfect English replica
of Samadhi: to bring together to a focus. To unify.

“The Pali has another applicable word:
‘Ekaggata,’ which in essence means ‘one-pointedness’ or a mind all
pointed in the same direction, or upon the same object.
Concentration, in other words.”

Again, Ruth paused as to ensure that she
wasn’t losing anyone. She wasn’t.

“To reach the requisite stillness the entire
mind—all of you, them, it—has to want the same thing, and the good
news is that if you will this well enough, deeply enough, strongly
enough, tenaciously enough, long enough, often enough, and with
enough focus, and, again, long enough: the mind will listen, it
will quiet down, and it will fall in with you.

“It will focus.

“The good news is that the mind does respond
to gentle persistence. To steady and gentle insistence.

“But you have to take charge, you have
to—gently but sternly—impose your will, your intent, your wish to
focus, upon the multitudes of thoughts and images that as a rule
come and go as they please. No one has ever said that this was
easy. In truth, many spend entire lives trying to achieve the
perfect stillness, and fail even so.

“True Samadhi is elusive, but it is
achievable. And it is the most important achievable in this, or
any, world.

“So how then? How do we achieve Samadhi? How
do we concentrate cleanly enough, and tenaciously enough, to
approach and reach the stillness?

“There are many techniques leading to
Samadhi, but for me—and I honestly believe for most of you—the
short answer is Anapanasati.

“Anapanasati is the Pali word for ‘awareness
of breathing in and breathing out.’ It is the meditation practice
that focuses on the breath.

“‘
Ana’ means breathing in.
‘Pana’ means breathing out. ‘Sati’ means mindfulness or awareness.
‘Anapanasati,’ then, means being aware of breathing in and
breathing out. Awareness of breathing.

“Buddhist lore has it that Anapanasati was
the technique that the Buddha practiced before and as he achieved
enlightenment. And since I have no reason not to believe that to be
the case, it seems, then, that Anapanasati has a pretty good track
record.”

Again, she waited for the now not so nervous
wave laughter to fade.

“As I said, in order to still the mind, to
get it to all pull in the same direction, you, and it, need
something to focus on. This is known as the meditation object.
There are many such objects in many different traditions of
meditation, but the breath has qualities as a meditation object
that make it uniquely suitable.

“For one, it is portable.

“For two, it is the one bodily function that
you and the body share control over. The body will breathe on its
own if you don’t pay your breath any attention, but you can also
assume control, and breathe, or not breathe, at will. In other
words, breathing straddles the line between the conscious and the
unconscious.

“Also, the breath is always there. If not,
in its absence, well, you’re dead.

“The breath is subtle enough to require
fairly close attention, yet strong enough to hold it firmly once
you land on it.

“Another thing about Anapanasati is that if
practiced right, and diligently, it can and will lead you all the
way to the ultimate stillness, Nirvana, or Nibbana, which is the
Pali word for it.”

Here she paused again, as if deliberating
her next sentence.

“I could use the next few hours with a
detailed lecture on Anapanasati, but I think that would be a waste
both of your time and mine. As far as the mechanics of awareness of
breathing meditation, there are many good books out there, most of
them online, and most of these are free. I will suggest a few over
the next few days, and email them in your direction. Still, you can
probably find them yourself if you Google ‘Anapanasati.’

“What you must take away from this lecture,
however, is that if you want to reach the stillness that speaks, if
you truly want to see for yourself what makes this universe of
ours, and all life in it, tick, then you must make mediation your
first priority in life.

“You are all mostly young. You have your
entire life ahead of you. At your age death does not even exist,
and it will certainly not happen to you any time soon, if ever.

“Death does strike others, some even your
age, but those are not even close calls. Anomalies is what they
are, those deaths. As for you, you will go on and on and on.

“The truth, however, is that death can come
at any time, to anyone. He’s a most unpredictable fellow, and a
very inconsiderate one. And when he picks a target he does not
check with you ahead of time if you’re ready. He just invites
himself, sits down, and that’s that.

“As I said earlier, even those who practice
a lifetime may not reach the Samadhi of perfect stillness. Point
being, it is never too early to begin. Nothing, when all is said
and done, is, or ever can be, more important.

“Nibbana, Nirvana—the deathless—is real.
Yes, you’ll have to take my word for it right now, but you can
experience the truth of that personally.

“The deathless is the only thing that is not
conditioned, that will never fade away—like your youth, your life,
your possessions, all of this world, all of which are impermanent.
Nothing is more important than reaching that stillness.

“Unless you make meditation your first
priority, and unless you discipline yourself to stick with it come
what may, you will not reach it.

“That is what we here in the west would
refer to as the bottom line.

“The many causes and effects that make up
life are like ripples on the water. In a storm—that is, in the
middle of a raucous City Council meeting—the waters are too
agitated for any ripple to be discerned.

“To see—and to understand—these fine
ripples, the waters must calm, the surface must still. It is on the
mirror of the placid lake that these fine ripples may be detected.
Samadhi is the way to still the waters.

“Anapanasati is the way not only to gain
Samadhi, but to view and decode life’s many fine details.

“The Buddha Gotama said that he or she who
is concentrated sees things as they truly are. Anapanasati is the
way to see things in the light of truth.

“Anapanasati is the way to the deathless, to
Nirvana.”

Here Ruth fell quiet, and remained so for
over a minute. Then she bowed gently to her audience, turned, and
walked off stage.

:

As he listened, George Roth did his utmost
to reconcile what he heard.

There was no mistaking her words. And they,
despite his professional aversion to the topic, made sense to him.
He knew all about the Chicago City Council. He knew the shouting
each other down across the conference room table. He also knew the
stillness under starry sky when the entire committee seemed to have
agreed to pull in the same direction, to see and find the same
thing. For didn’t his very secret rest right there, in the
unification of mind? In the amazing concentration that allowed him
to spot that minute variation in pattern that spoke supernova.

Yes, she made a lot of sense, this young
Ruth Marten. So, how could she be public enemy number one, or
something not too far from that if Phil Anderson, and the holy
chain of command, was to be believed? This is what Agent Roth tried
to reconcile.

And things refused to fall into place. The
pattern he had been looking for, the disturbances he had expected:
the clear agitation that could seep into a group unseen, to then
flower into baby violence and to then mature into a real threat if
not checked, this pattern was nowhere to be found.

He had assumed that this agitation would be
noticeable to him, that he would find and gather proof of this
young woman’s sedition if only he listened hard enough, perceived
deeply enough, focused on this like he would focus by his telescope
at night.

He did perceive deeply enough, he was sure
of it, but he saw no agitation, only a calm, receptive gratefulness
among the audience.

And speaking of reception, there were times
he could have sworn that the young lady’s voice not only entered
through his ears but through his mind, as if whispered from within,
stunning the city council to absolute silence, stunning himself
into goose bumps.

He had done his homework. He knew her
credentials. A prodigy if there ever was one, and one with strong
Buddhist leanings. But don’t be fooled: she’s a prodigy bent on
sedition, this is what Phil Anderson had stressed, and his marching
orders were to gather the evidence, document something actionable,
something that would allow them to step in and stop this potential
avalanche before it started its rush down the mountain for
real.

But try as he might, Agent Roth could see
nothing pernicious in her words, in what they evoked in him and in
those around him. He could see nothing but good here. Even the
voice that seemed to spring from within was not a threat to
anything, it was as welcome as a kiss. A friendly whisper that
spoke of possibilities he had not even conceived of yet, but which
he nevertheless knew, just knew, were worthwhile to pursue.

Yes, she had the audience spellbound. But
that had more to do with the subject, and the obvious interest in
it, than witchcraft (which, in effect, was what he had been ordered
to ferret out and persecute).

He let his reconciliation run its course,
which it did. And in the end, the columns did add up.

Phil Anderson, however, would not like the
answer.

:

As the house lights rose the hall came alive
with listeners again realizing where they were and then setting out
to leave. Ananda, Melissa, Kristina, and Julian followed suit.

Before they could join the slow—and
surprisingly silent—river of audience drifting toward the exits,
however, the very smiley student appeared again, tapped Melissa on
the arm and said, “Would you come with me, please.”

The four of them gladly turned and followed
the young woman backstage, where they soon found themselves seated
in a small, quite comfortable lounge along with Ruth, who was
sipping spring water from a bottle.

“What do you think, Ananda?” she said.

“Well presented,” he said. “You had their
ear.”

“I’d say,” Kristina said, with a smile.
“Eating. Out of your hand.”