It wasn’t long before he ran across a wandering monk, a thin, sunburned man who seemed old enough to have had a family with grown children. Gautama expected that the sannyasis he met would be very serious or very eccentric. But this monk, who gave his name as Ganaka, turned out to be cheerful and sociable.
“I’ve been away for twelve years now, lad,” he said as they walked along the road. “You meet all sorts. But now the local people know me, and I’m treated pretty well. Your first holdup’s a shock, though. The dacoits like you to know who’s boss.”
“Do you belong to an ashram?” Gautama asked.
Ganaka shrugged. “I’ve visited them. You get too hungry sometimes.”
“What Dharma do you follow?”
The older monk gave him a look. “Is that what you’re after? I didn’t know you were one of those.” He had nothing more to say for a while, and Gautama wondered with some puzzlement if the word Dharma had offended him. How could you be a monk without a teaching? When he decided to speak again, the older monk said, “Don’t let them fool you.”
“Who?”
“These teachers who promise enlightenment. Listen to the voice of experience. I’m not enlightened, and you won’t be either. They’ll feed you a pack of high-sounding ideas, you’ll work for them year after year, and then when they’ve worn you out, you’ll leave with the taste of ashes in your mouth.”
There was a lot to read in Ganaka’s bitter tone. In a sympathetic voice Gautama said, “Tell me your experience. I want to know.”
Ganaka sighed. “In that case, you’d better have some of my bread. I was going to save it until you were out of sight.” He reached into his shawl and pulled out a large round roti, or flat bread, folded into quarters. He ripped off half for Gautama, but not before blessing it. “I see myself in you,” the older monk began. “I left home after my wife died. I was a vendor of ghee and spices in a village, never rich enough to own a proper store but not poor either.”
“And you were devout?”
“Oh, yes. Raised by a strict father who sent us to the temple for lessons as soon as we could walk. As a child I believed. Even when my dear Bhadda died in so much pain, moaning pitifully for her suffering to end, I believed. I gave away all my earthly possessions, and with the blessing of the priests I set out on my journey.”
“I think you’re still devout,” said Gautama. “You bless your food. Even when no one is watching, I imagine.”
“Habit,” the older monk said curtly. “Anyway, the road is a hard life. I went to visit the forest ashrams, eager as a bridegroom the night after the wedding. I sat at the guru’s feet and waited, mouth open like a gaping fish. That’s why I see myself in you. You want them to drop their wisdom into your gaping mouth. You’re probably a philosopher. No offense, but I can tell by your accent that you never sold rubbish from a stall in the open bazaar.”
“I can’t disagree,” said Gautama diplomatically, caught between smiling at the older monk, who clearly had been dying for someone to talk to, and worrying about the tale of disillusion that was about to unfold.
Ganaka tore off a chunk of roti with his yellow teeth. “They’re shameless, these gurus. The garbage they spew as truth! Do they think we’re fools? They must, as I found out the hard way. I took some of the younger disciples aside and joked with them a bit. Little stuff. Does this guru get paid by the yarn, like a wandering storyteller? Does he think you can feed cows on moonbeams? Next thing I knew, I got thrown out bodily, like I came to steal their shoes. Hypocrisy.” His voice trailed off mournfully as he ran out of spleen. “Moonbeams and hypocrisy.”
“What did you decide to do?”
“I couldn’t go home. I’d given almost everything to the priests, and they don’t give back. But you’ve got some sense, you could see that I’m still devout. I pray, and I have a circuit of householders who feed me and let me take refuge from the storm.”
“Pardon me, but aren’t you simply waiting to die?” asked Gautama.
Ganaka shrugged. “It’s a life.”
Before Gautama could pose another question, they heard a commotion up ahead. A man was screaming curses, a woman was crying. Gautama’s steps quickened, and when he rounded the next curve he saw what the trouble was. A laden bullock cart going to market had run off into the ditch. Several bags of grain had spilled out. A woman was crouched on the ground trying to scoop up the scattered grain with her hands, while over her stood her furious husband.
“Are you an idiot? You’re putting dirt back in the bags. Stop bawling!” he shouted. He began to beat her about the shoulders with his bullock goad.
Gautama came toward them. When he saw a monk, the husband sullenly lowered his stick. “Is your animal hurt?” Gautama asked, noticing that the bullock, which was old and blind in one eye, had fallen onto its front knees.
Without answering, the man began to apply the goad heavily to the bullock, who lowed mournfully as it struggled to regain its footing. Out of panic it pulled the wrong way and tilted the cart farther over; more bags spilled out, and the woman began to weep loudly. Beside himself now, the man couldn’t decide which one to beat next, the bullock or his wife.
“Wait,” begged Gautama. “I can help you.”
“How?” the husband grumbled. “If I have to give you a bag of rice, you’re cheating me.”
“Don’t think about that, just try to calm down,” Gautama coaxed.
Once he got the husband to back off from his rage, Gautama helped him free the bullock from its yoke and unload the cart. Then he and the man shouldered the cart from the rear and with considerable grunting and groaning rolled it out of the ditch. While they sweated in the hot sun, the wife sat in the shade holding the bullock’s tether and fanning herself with a palm leaf.
“There.” Gautama stood back after the last bag of grain had been put back into place.
Without a word the man got into the driver’s seat. “Are you coming or not?” he said sourly to his wife.
She put her hands on her hips. “Why? So I can go home with a man who beats his bullock into a ditch and is so stupid it takes a monk to show him how to get it out again?”
Gautama could see that the man wanted to hit her again with the goad, but his shame kept him from doing it in front of a holy man. He bit his lip while his wife climbed into the cart, flashing a contemptuous smile at the young monk. The cart began to trundle off. Over his shoulder the man said, “Whatever rice you can pick out of the road is yours. Namaste.”
Gautama turned around to find Ganaka standing a dozen yards away laughing, and he was clearly laughing at him. “How long have you been standing there?” Gautama demanded, feeling the blood rising to his face.
“The whole time,” said the older monk nonchalantly. He was chewing a stem of sour grass he’d plucked from the roadside.
“Is there a stream nearby? I need to wash my face,” Gautama said curtly. There was no point, he thought, in asking why Ganaka hadn’t helped or if he had heard of the monastic vow of service. The older monk led the way to a fresh rivulet in the forest. Gautama poured water from his begging bowl over his head and shoulders while Ganaka watched, squatting on his heels.
“Those people didn’t love you for what you did,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t expect them to,” Gautama replied. The stream was shallow enough that the water he poured over his back felt as warm as bathwater. His tense muscles began to relax.
Ganaka said, “If you didn’t want them to love you, at least you wanted gratitude. You’re just too proud to admit it. And angry that I laughed at you. Imagine, here you are being a saint, and a monk, no less, ridicules you for it.”