How long has it been going on? I’ve no idea. All grand thoughts have gone. Enlightenment, change. All memories have gone. Mi Nu has gone. The Metta Hall has gone. Just this huge rock, this vast rock in my chest. Let it crush me.
Then it moves. Oh, Christ, it moved. It’s moving. Just observe. Don’t smile, Beth. Observe.
The pain had started to push upwards. It was on the move. Like an animal inside me. It knows where it’s going. It pushes up into my neck. Jesus. There’s no space for it. It can’t pass. It’s too big. I’m swelling. There really is something inside me pushing to be out. A creature is pushing up through my neck. Now my head. There’s a sort of core of scalding paralysis pushing up through the left side of my brain, behind my eye. My eye is swelling now. My left eye is swelling. It’s horrible. But weirdly beautiful too. I know relief is coming. We’re almost there. How do I know? Just observe. My eyeball will explode. Let it, Beth. Don’t fight. It’s the size of a football. It’s awesome.
It’s gone.
A sudden rush of deflation, liberation. It’s gone. The pain rushes out through the socket behind my eye. Deflates. Everything is fine again. In a second everything is absolutely relaxed. No pain, no pressure. Tears are flowing. Just observe. My cheeks are wet. Don’t react. Don’t rejoice. Don’t ask yourself if something important has happened. All sensations are impermanent, Beth. The pain was, the relief is, impermanent.
Anicca, anicca, anicca.
Stillness. At last only stillness in the Metta Hall. It is midnight. Right now. For some reason I know it is midnight. The stillness deepens. It is like soft breathing on dark water. It’s beautiful. I have never known such stillness. The mind floats on stillness, on emptiness, like feathers on a dark lake. It is vast and still and utterly empty, blissfully empty.
God.
I opened my eyes. Oh, at the best moment I stopped. Why? How long had it lasted? A second, an hour, a lifetime? I felt scared. Or just too present, too there. The hall was in darkness. A faint glimmer came from the high windows. I was alone in a sea of cushions. Nobody had stayed behind.
Why had I stopped? Why was I scared?
I got to my feet and felt shivery, but not stiff. My body was relaxed. My breathing was soft and easy. I had seen out the pain. I had pushed myself to the limit. Then right when everything was perfect I had stepped back.
I had failed again, failed to stick to the plan.
My blanket round my shoulders, I walked between lines of cushions to the porch. Mine were the only shoes left. It was nice of them to let me stay in the Metta Hall alone, to give me this chance to sit through the night alone.
Why hadn’t I stuck it out?
An owl hooted. I looked out into drizzle. The air was cold and damp on my face and hands. The owl called again. Tu-whoo. It must be close. There must be a family of owls round here. All beings visible and invisible. Perhaps I had heard it in my trance. Perhaps it was the owl called me out.
I lifted the blanket over my head. I hate drizzle in my hair. I hate the stickiness. Despite this sudden change of plan, I felt calm. I wasn’t going to be angry with myself. I had seen through the pain. At least that.
Tu-whoo-oo.
All at once the Buddha smile formed on my lips. The corners of my mouth turned up and I smiled, involuntarily. I smiled for the owl. I blessed the owl. Maybe you did the right thing, Beth, I thought. Maybe the owl did the right thing calling you out of there. Why did I like those words so much? All beings visible and invisible? When the owl hooted it was inside me, or I was inside it. There was a vibration. The owl is Mi Nu, I thought. Meee Nooo, meee nooo. It was the sound of an invisible being, calling me out of the Metta Hall. That’s why I smiled.
I walked round the hall, away from the dormitory blocks. The rain fell steadily on the grass and bushes. The puddles gleamed.
Mi Nu
THE BUNGALOW DOOR was unlocked. Sex is forbidden at the Dasgupta Institute, there’s no need for locks. Everyone here has taken the Five Precepts. They will not steal. They will not harm another living creature.
It was dark in the porch. I kicked off my shoes and put them by the wall. I had to reach out and touch to find it. I pulled off the blanket and shook out my hair.
Where was the door into the house? I reached out and my fingers found the handle at once. I just put out an arm. As if I had lived here for years. Strange.
The passageway opened to my left, lit at the end by a dim light, just above floor level. I took a step towards it. There was definitely a smell of incense. Something lemony. And the light was smiling. The light was the Buddha, an orange Buddha on a low table with a bulb inside.
Then came the growl. I stopped. It was the same I’d heard when I escaped from the Dhamma recording. There was a growl and a wheeze, like a kettle. A whimper, like a seagull. My heart was racing. I almost ran. But the stillness of the Buddha held me. Don’t react, Beth. Be calm. The quiet of the corridor reassured me. The quiet of the incense. I love incense. Jonathan sometimes lit incense when he painted. Every painting has its smell, he said.
I padded barefoot another step or two. The sound came again. The growl. Almost a snort. What was it? I had reached the Buddha at the doorway. Beyond must be the main room.
I looked in. The place was really large. But how could it be? I had no sense of where the walls were. Was there a face? High up? I stopped. It might be a picture. Or more than one. I couldn’t make it out.
I took another couple of steps and banged into a bed. My shin. So much for emptiness. It was a low single bed. I waited for the pain to go. Someone sighed under the blankets. Only the hair was visible. A gleam of black hair. I had found Mi Nu and she was asleep. Fast asleep in her bed. There are only single beds at the Dasgupta Institute.
I pulled off my T-shirt and top, my jeans and pants. I let my clothes fall to the floor. Was I bleeding? I don’t think so. I didn’t check. I lifted the sheets and slipped in. You’re reckless, Beth, completely reckless. She would wake, horrified. They would throw me out. But I needed to be beside her.
As soon as my body was under the bedclothes I started to shiver. I get that after meditation. I find a warm place and shiver. The body beside me stirred and growled. She whimpered. I was so surprised. I almost burst out laughing. I had to clench my teeth. Mi Nu was snoring! What a weird snore. Worse than Jonathan’s. Like a little pig and a little bird in one. A grunt and a tweet.
For five or ten minutes I lay still trying not to touch Mi Nu in the single bed, trying not to laugh when she snored. She was turned away from me. I lay right on the edge. I observed my breath, I tried to relax. I didn’t want to scare her. Then the snoring stopped. I couldn’t hear her breathing at all. Had she woken? She would be frightened when she woke. She would jump up and shout. Mi Nu wouldn’t be used to people climbing into her bed.
She’ll wake, I told myself, and you’ll be thrown out of the Dasgupta. You’re doing this on purpose to be thrown out. For months I had wanted to get Mi Nu’s attention, to hug Mi Nu, to melt into her, to share that strange light she has. But Mi Nu will never hug anyone. I was clutching at the moon. If you were going to get into anyone’s bed, I thought, it should have been your diarist’s. Or Ralph’s. Or Meredith. Then there would have been some piggy pleasure.
I was on my back and as my eyes got used to the dark I began to make out the faces high up on the wall. Pale faces with crowns, with snakes, with jewels. Posters, I suppose. It seemed strange to hang them so high. Almost on the ceiling. Perhaps the roof was slanted. I was safe with Mi Nu. Unless she went wild when she woke. What if I was bleeding? I should put my pants back on. I stared at these pale, floating faces high up in the dark. They were all smiling. But solemn too. When my hands and feet had warmed I turned and snuggled up to her back. There’s no point getting into a bed and not touching.