Is that the question?
She is here now. It must be getting on for six. When Mi Nu arrives I open my eyes. Only for her. Only for a moment. She tosses her shawl round her shoulders and in a single movement sits and is still. I love to watch that. It’s a graceful movement that accelerates to stillness, the way a good song swells to silence. A single moment, a single movement, and she is wrapped in stillness, cloaked in silence. Watching her, the words fade. The chatter fades. The questions fade. Now I am walking by a stream, wearing a long gown. My feet are bare in deep grass. The water bubbles through the grass, fresh and pure and full of life. It’s beautiful. I’m happy. There are no banks, just the grass and the clear, bubbling water. I’m tall, straight, solemn. Oh, I’m so beautiful. My gown is bright red right down to my bare feet and a small smile curls my lips. I’m smiling. With each step I take, the hem of my gown brushes the grass and dozens of tiny, startled birds fly up all around me. They fly up in twittering clouds of turquoise, gold and white. They’re very brightly coloured. And the twittering of the birds is the bubbling of the stream. They’re the same sound. They fly up from my feet in the cool grass. Beautiful twittering thoughts. The green grass and the red dress are one. How can that be? How can green be red? Birds be bubbles? How can my feet be my hands and my hands be my feet?
Ananta pūnyamayī.
The chanting has begun. The oats are going into the pot.
Ananta gunyamayī.
Don’t tell yourself there’s only half an hour to go. You are here for ever, Beth.
Dharama kī nirvāna-dhātu. Dasgupta’s throaty voice. Chanting and singing. I’ve no idea what it means. I’m suspended, floating in the sound. Dharama dhātu, bodhi-dhātu. Absolutely still, but not fixed. I’ve expanded across the whole hall. It’s blissful. And I’m in pain again. I’m floating in blissful stillness, but my ankles are crushed on the floor. This is vipassana. The blissful suspension comes from the pain. It is the pain. Floating above the ground is being crushed to the ground. The chanting is harsh and guttural. The singing is sweet and fluid. The chanting is the singing. To say what I feel, I talk nonsense. I say a thing and then its opposite. This is what I feel. Deep down this is what I have always felt. I was always a thing and its opposite. I am Beth and I am not Beth. The in-Beth, the out-Beth. Something very distinct and very indistinct. I am everyone who is not Beth, everything that is not Beth. And I am Beth. Sabake mana jāge dharama. I must stop using these names, Beth, Elisabeth, Marriot, Jonathan, Carl, Zoë. Names are shallow, names are divisive. We are all one. The chanting is in my pulse, the singing is in my skin. My body dissolves and flows. It flows from my cushion with the outgoing tide. Though my knees are burning rocks. My knees are fucking killing me. Roma roma kirataga huvā. I know this recording backwards. I know exactly how long is left before breakfast time and porridge and cereal and prunes and toast. I am here for ever. Now the verse Dharama gaňga ke tīra para. Ten minutes left. Five. The chanting goes on for ever at the Dasgupta. It was here before the Metta Hall was built, and when the institute is forgotten and the recording lost the chanting will go on. Whether Dasgupta is dead or alive makes no difference. Dasgupta was always dead. Dasgupta is always alive. Saba ke mana ke dukha mite. The chanting came from long before and after. I don’t know the words but my lips move to them anyway. My lips know the words. In a few moments it will end and the meditators will rush for their bananas. It will not have ended. There will be no bananas. The porridge will be terribly real, the smell of the porridge, above all the lumps in the porridge. Thank you, Paul, thank you, Rob. It won’t be real at all.
‘That’s not me at all,’ I told Jonathan when he showed me his painting. ‘I never wear long skirts, I never wear red, I never walk barefoot. I’d be scared of dog shit.’
‘This is as much you as any painting ever will be, Beth.’
‘And the birds? I like the birds.’
‘The birds are also you, Beth. And so is the stream. Perhaps especially the stream. Or perhaps especially the sky.’
‘I can’t see any sky.’
‘I adore you, Beth,’ he said.
How can something be what it is and its opposite too? How can it be free and trapped? How can it be hard and liquid? How can life be blissful and terrible? How can that be, Mi Nu? How can a man adore me and not want me? How can love be hate and hate be love?
Saba ka maňngela, saba ka maňgela, saba ka maňgela, hoya-re. For the closing verses a woman’s voice joins in. It’s as if she were there walking beside her man as he chants in his harsh, guttural voice. She sings beside her man, fluently and sweetly. I can see her swaying in her sari. Saba ka maňgela hoya-re. She’s not in time and she’s not in tune, but it’s absolutely right. It tears at your heart. How many times did I tell Zoë: a hair’s breadth out of synch, a suspicion out of tune? It’s through that tiny gap that life pours in, yearning pours in, passion pours in. That tiny wound between being in tune and out of tune. Tears are pouring down my cheeks. I will not cry in the Metta Hall. I am not crying. I am perfectly perfectly happy. I am no one. I can live at the Dasgupta Institute for ever. I can be free for ever of all attachment, free of all aversion. Bavatu sava mangelam. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be liberated liberated liberated.
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.
The Dasgupta Manual
IT ISN’T WORKING.
If it was working I wouldn’t be writing. I wouldn’t be taking refuge in writing. I want to be in jhana. I wanted jhana to make me new. It hasn’t. I have experienced anicca in my flesh, constant flux, constant flow, every atom of mind and matter arising and passing away, arising and passing away. It hasn’t brought me wisdom. I have felt my body melt into air. I have walked out of the meditation hall and been one with the trees, the grass, heard great cathedrals of leaves rustle in my chest, seen my eyes blink in the bark, felt my head full of sky, my fingertips glow like petals. It hasn’t brought me peace. I have lapsed into the humming of a bee, bumbling through the flowers. I’m not cured. I haven’t achieved paññā, let alone nibbana.
You’re a dumb girl, Beth, playing with things you don’t understand. You go to the dining hall and everything solidifies, everything’s gross. You’re piling up cereals, piling up toast, piling up apples and oranges. Everything hardens. Your body is gross and hard. Your jaw chomps. Your throat swallows. Your stomach swells. Your mind is grasping and purposeful. These are Dasgupta’s words. Grasping and purposeful. You must get the last piece of toast. You must get a place facing the wall. I don’t want to look at anyone. I don’t want to share with anyone. The misery comes back, Beth is back. Jonathan is back. Everything is the same again. The breakfast, the bathroom. After a shit, I lie in the field hoping bliss will return. I love shitting. I love the smell and the bowels moving. We all have soft shit at the Dasgupta. I love wiping myself and pulling up my pants. Now bliss will return. It doesn’t. I’m lying in the field but I might as well be back on the dunes, beside the tent, beside Carl. ‘What’s up, Beth? Come on, we’re on holiday.’ The gong sounds. I did wrong to Carl. I wronged him. I told him I was pregnant to cover my back. It wasn’t his child. The gong calls us back to the Metta Hall. Start again. And again. Cross your legs again, Beth. Another hour, another two hours, another three hours of surrender. Work diligently, diligently. Behind closed eyes sensations open into landscapes. I am exploring a huge brown concave shell, following narrow red paths over acres of baked earth. It is very barren, very beautiful. I am moving along red paths inside a smooth sphere. Is it the world’s crust, from within? The paths meet and divide meet and divide. Where are they going? Where am I? Inside my skull. I’m trapped in my skull.