‘And sometimes the sensations are painful. Oh dear. This is not so good. We find gross, intensified, solidified sensations in our legs, our shoulders, our backs, our ankles. We hurry away from them, we don’t want to know them at all. What do you want me to explore these sensations for, Mr Dasgupta? Oh, they are terrible. They are painful, very painful sensations. You say you want me to experience these? What are you? A torturer? A sadist?
‘And once again, my friend, you are multiplying your misery, you are laying down deep deep sankharas, this time of aversion. Sankharas of aversion. Yes. When we find unpleasant sensations we must show them the same indifference, the same equanimity we show to pleasant sensations. We must …’
I wondered then if maybe the diarist wasn’t right and Dasgupta had been dead for years. How would I know? Now his voice is out there. Some podcast on a forgotten site. Or words that repeat in your head, years after they were spoken. You’re soaking, Betsy M, soaking! Our minds are not strong enough to have the right relation to certain things. Children find it easier. It was unfair of Rob to say that. So offhand. So unfair. I’m not in tune with life. Otherwise I would have found it easy. I could have gone to meet it. With Carl’s guitar, OK, I was in tune there. Or with Zoë, singing harmony. But not with life. Music isn’t life, Dad said. About a million times. Music isn’t life, Beth. Get serious. Marry Carl. Take your place in the firm. The family firm. I could explain it all to GH if I wanted. He would ask why I was in his room and I would explain all my problems. He will stroke me and calm me and make love to me. Like men do. I’ll make fun of his pompous diary. I’ll tell him how old he looks, with those wrinkles and the small stains on his hands. That drove Jonathan mad. He’s looking at me now. I’m sure of it. His eyes are on me. He’s marvelling how straight I can keep my back while he wriggles and struggles with his cushions.
Dasgupta had started his bit on attachment, on craving. We’re getting close now. ‘This is what we must learn, my friends, from our reaction to these pleasant and unpleasant sensations: that even wholesome things become dangerous attachments. Even the most natural relationships. And then, how strong that attachment is, how difficult to overcome. Let me give you an example. One day, in the town of Kapilavastu, Krsa Gautami, the wife of a very rich man, was plunged into grief when her child died. Her only son. You see, my friends, she could not accept that her baby was dead. She would not give up her baby boy for burial. “He isn’t dead!” she screamed. “He isn’t, he isn’t!” She could not accept things as they are. “He can’t be dead.” No, no, no. Krsa Gautami was so attached to the future that she had projected for herself and her son that she could not accept reality.’
I came to try this story out on myself, I realized. To see where I am up to. I came to take this cut, and watch the blood.
‘“Help my child,” Krsa Gautami cried to the doctors. “You must help my child. I will give you anything, anything you ask. My husband is a rich man.” She ran around Kapilavastu pestering all the physicians. “Oh, crazy woman,” the wise men shook their heads, “your son is dead. Can’t you see? Are you a mad woman? He has been dead for two days now. You must give up his body for burial. It will begin to smell.”
‘Now, no doubt because of some merits accumulated in the past, some good action that this poor woman had accomplished, in another life perhaps, somebody told her to take her child to the Buddha. He could help her. Yes, Krsa Gautami had the great good fortune to go and meet Siddhartha himself.’
Dasgupta paused. I don’t need to open my eyes to see him nodding and smiling, nodding and smiling.
‘“Krsa Gautami,” the Buddha told her after he had listened to her story, “you must hurry into town, knock on any door and ask for three sesame seeds. Just three small sesame seeds. Then bring them back to me.”
‘Oh, this is wonderful, Krsa Gautami thought. This is wonderful. The Buddha is going to use the sesame seeds to work a magic spell and save my child.
‘“But …” the Buddha said.
‘“Yes?” Krsa Gautami asked.
‘“The seeds must come from a household where nobody has ever died. Before you accept the seeds you must ask if anyone has ever died in that house.”
‘“Yes. All right, all right.” Krsa Gautami was in a hurry. She must get those seeds quickly so the Buddha could bring her little boy back to life.’
Dasgupta is brilliant at these stories. It’s true what GH says, that he loves the sound of his own voice, but maybe that’s why he’s so good. And then GH certainly likes the sound of himself written down in his diary. I wonder if it was a relief when Dasgupta recorded these talks and could finally stop repeating them for every retreat. Or maybe he misses his own performances. Assuming he’s still alive. It’s so much fun to perform, really to be there with people watching you, falling under your spell, yelling for more. You shake your tits. You pout your lips. You dance dirty with Zoë, or beside Carl. Poor Carl. Couldn’t dance to save his life. Now all I have is an old guy’s eyes on my back. Can’t he see I’m not relaxed at all? I’m rigid. I’m in trouble. Rigid with envy.
Krsa Gautami is knocking on doors asking for her sesame seeds. Dasgupta is great at doing the voices.
‘“Of course, my dear, if the most Perfect One told you to ask for them, here you are. Take three pounds of sesame seeds, never mind three. What’s that? Has anyone died here? Oh, but why do you want to remind us of our grief? My husband died in the spring. Our mother was carried off by a sudden fever. Many of our relatives passed away in the epidemic.”’
I envy this woman in the story who is about to understand, about to be liberated. If she had gone to Jesus he would have resurrected her boy and she would have been back to square one, happy again, waiting to be unhappy, waiting for the next accident, the next illness.
Instead, she is about to understand.
‘Then at last Krsa Gautami realized that there was no household in which no one had died. Death is universal. This was the Buddha’s lesson. And she accepted it.’
Simple. Her grief was so simple. She lost a child. OK. But she still has her rich husband. Still has herself. She hasn’t betrayed anyone, or been betrayed. She wasn’t responsible for her child’s death. Now she can give him a proper funeral. An expensive funeral. Fantastic. Now she can go back to Siddhartha and he will teach her Dhamma, he will show her the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. Where’s the problem?
I’M IN INTENSIVE CARE.
WITH YOUR MOBILE, BETH?
DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME, JONNIE?
TEXT ME THE NAME OF THE HOSPITAL AND I’LL CALL.
YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME. YOU WON’T COME.
BETH, I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING A MURAL HERE. I CAN’T FLY BACK AT THE DROP OF A HAT.
I NEARLY DROWNED. I’M NOT OUT OF DANGER. I’VE GOT THE MOST VIOLENT HEADACHE.
BUT YOU’RE TEXTING EVERY TEN MINUTES.
THEY WILL HAVE TO PUT ME IN A PHARMACOLOGICAL COMA. NURSE SAYS I SHOULD INFORM MY LOVED ONES.
CHRIST, BETH. ISN’T CARL THERE? AND YOUR PARENTS? IF THEY ARE, THEY WON’T WANT TO SEE ME. THEY WON’T UNDERSTAND.
I HATE CARL. I HATE MY PARENTS.
No reply. hours.
JONATHAN, THEY’RE GOING TO PUT ME UNDER NOW. I’M GIVING THE NURSE MY PHONE. SO SHE CAN TEXT YOU. IN CASE THINGS GO WRONG.
No reply.
No reply.
No reply.
IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, MR ARTIST PLAYBOY, READ SOMETHING ABOUT DROWNING ACCIDENTS. MY BRAIN IS SWELLING! CONTROLLED COMA IS THE ONLY WAY.