Everyone Burns by John Dolan Read Free Book Online Page A

him quote from Mahayana and Chán scriptures. He even likes kōans – paradoxical riddles which have no universal ‘right’ answer. Buddha is Buddha, he proclaims. Although there is really no Buddha to be found at all, he adds with a Zen twinkle.
    At length, he notices me. “Ah, the White Tathagata returns,” he says to me in Thai. (We always converse in Thai although we both know very well he speaks English.)
    “Old Monk,” I give him a high wai.
    “Are you looking to pierce the veil of reality this morning?”
    “That would be good. However, I fear it is beyond me today.”
    “Nonsense. Sit with me and meditate awhile.”
    “It’s too hot for me out here to meditate,” I say wiping away the perspiration from my neck and face with a handkerchief. “I’m burning.”
    “The whole world is burning,” he responds tersely, rising to his feet. “Have you not read the Fire Sermon ? Everything is burning, everything is aflame. The eye is aflame, the ear, nose and tongue, all the senses. Your body, even your mind is aflame. And you worry about a little sunshine? The sun is there to make us disenchanted with the corporeal world.”
    “Thus have I heard.”
    His eyes flash suddenly, “So why have you come here today, mmn? Is it to show your farang skin so that you will impress the ignorant ones here and they will come and do business with you?”
    It’s worked out well that way so far, I muse to myself. But I say, “I don’t think anything. I come here not to think.”
    “Hrmph,” he grunts. “Better. I don’t believe a word of it. But better. Give me one of your cigarettes.”
    I light us both a cigarette, although I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t be doing this.
    He looks at me for a while. “Your mind is cloudy and swirling with too many inappropriate thoughts. Like the proverbial teacup, full to the brim. You first need to empty it before you try to pour in anything else.”
    I have heard this speech before. “You are so right.”
    “Walk with me. Walk slowly: you should always walk slowly. And do not talk. If you do this you might learn something of use to you.”
    I follow him out of the garden and along a narrow track that winds upwards through the trees. He takes a final puff on his cigarette and crushes the butt beneath his sandal. I do the same with mine: everything is dry and I do not want to start a forest fire.
    A few minutes later we emerge into a small clearing with a view out to the sea above the tree-line. In a shaded spot there is a small wooden bench and he indicates for me to sit on it. I watch his bony frame draped in orange as he stands, unmoving, gazing out over the dazzling sea, looking for all the world like a prophet of the Old Testament. I start to relax.
    I allow my eyes to de-focus, then close them and feel the slowing of my heartbeat. I concentrate on my breathing and the space between the inbreath and the outbreath. The moving light images behind my eyelids steady their dance and I imagine them coalesce into a single candle flame. Because I am so wired this morning, I struggle to eliminate intrusive thoughts and my meditation is shallow and fragmentary. I become aware of sweat droplets running down my face, but I am partially detached, afloat on a strange sea. There is an incomplete melting of the barrier between I and Other , but at least I feel some sort of inner stabilising. Today I know, however, I will not experience that mysterious and inexplicable interpenetration, and the gateless gate will remain closed to me.
    I hear the Old Monk clear his throat and take this as a signal to reopen my eyes. In spite of my inability to achieve any depth in my practice, the tension in my neck and shoulders has disappeared. The colours I see are brighter, almost luminous, and my ears are attuned to the smallest sounds. Slowly, time starts to move again.
    After a few minutes more, without a word and careless of whether I am following him, the Old Monk sets off back down the path. When we