Then the gong sounds and you have to eat. You have to get up from your cushion, put on your shoes, walk to the dining hall. You have to decide what to eat and how much. You start wondering whether it’s better to be served first when the porridge is piping hot or later when the banana mob have grabbed their loot and gone. You start to watch the others, to think, to criticize, to calculate. You want to eat frugally, to be virtuous, but then your food is finished and you’re still hungry, no, you’re hungrier than before. You go back for a second bowl of porridge, pile up your plate with toast, slabs of butter, spoonfuls of jam, two apples, two oranges. Stuffing yourself, you remember the pig-outs after concerts, beer and biryani, joints and whisky. Then you see yourself four in a bed in some slum hotel or hostel. Doncaster. Dortmund. Or huddled together in sleeping bags in the van. Carl, Zoë, Frank. A huge hand for Frank Halliday on DRUMS! Suddenly you realize how peaceful you were ten minutes ago in the hall on your cushion and how completely that peacefulness has gone. It’s gone. The porridge is poisoned. The apples are sour.
Don’t eat, Beth. Stop eating.
I skipped meals. It’s never been a problem for me not to eat. It’s harder for me to eat moderately than to cut out food altogether. One thing or the other, that’s me. Gluttony or starvation. But you have to eat at the Dasgupta, the same way you have to meditate. Not eating is not allowed. The same Dhamma workers who count you in for the hour of Strong Determination are there to check that you go to lunch. Course managers is their official name, though they don’t really manage anything. They have their registers and clipboards. You have to meditate with the Dasgupta method and you have to eat Dasgupta food at Dasgupta times. Vegetarian. Six thirty and eleven a.m.
‘Elisabeth.’ Mrs Harper took me aside. ‘You’re not eating.’
This was before I became a server. I’d been here a month maybe, sitting one retreat after another. They’re free after all. Obviously they’d realized I was a case.
‘I’m off food. I want to purify myself.’
Mrs Harper smiled. She was firm. ‘Fasting is not allowed at the Dasgupta, Elisabeth. You must go and eat now.’
And she meant that to be the end of the conversation. Fasting is not allowed, that’s what it says in the Dasgupta Institute rule book, so there is no need for discussion. Whenever you talk to the people who count at the Dasgupta, they close the conversation quickly. It’s not that they don’t want to help you. They have a whole schedule of times when you can go and talk to them. One day when I’ve thought of the right question I’ll go and talk to Mi Nu. But they always close the conversation quickly. There’s a rule, so obey it. Things are clear at the Dasgupta. Discussion would inflame the mind. They identify your problem and provide the solution: meditate. If you’re in pain, make an objective note, say to yourself, Pain, pain, not my pain. If distracting thoughts keep churning in your head, say, Thoughts, thoughts, not my thoughts. And that’s that. They see you are breaking a rule and very politely they remind you not to.
‘Fasting is forbidden, Elisabeth. Now let’s be silent again.’
‘Why is it forbidden?’
I do want to be like them. I want to have what they have, to sit stiller than still, like Mi Nu. Only someone perfectly peaceful inside could sit so still for so long. But I need to provoke them too. I want to make them squirm.
‘Tell me why it’s forbidden.’
Mrs Harper was smiling her surprised smile. She’s like a headmistress with a favourite who’s got into mischief.
‘We’re not masochists, Elisabeth. We don’t believe in punishing ourselves. That’s not the way to purity.’
‘I eat like a pig,’ I told her. ‘I hate myself.’
She cocked her head on one side.
‘Look, I’ve done some bad stuff,’ I went on. ‘But really bad. I don’t want to be reincarnated as a pig!’
I meant it, but then I couldn’t help laughing. I spluttered. Mrs Harper said nothing.
‘You’ve no idea,’ I wailed. ‘I’m sure I’ll be better if I don’t eat for a week or so. Just let me starve for a week. I’ve got to do something about myself. I want to be pure.’
Mrs Harper said, ‘Not eating after noon every day is purification enough, Elisabeth. The important thing is to learn to eat with moderation. Starving yourself will only lead to pride and self-importance.’
‘But that’s the point,’ I yelled. ‘I can’t do anything with moderation. I just can’t.’
I burst into tears. She said nothing, but I knew she was watching me. I stopped and snuffled. She offered a tissue.
‘You see,’ I told her, ‘I’m such a drama queen.’
‘You’ll learn,’ Mrs Harper said. ‘That’s what the Dasgupta’s for. Actually, you are already learning, Elisabeth, you’re already changing. Now you want to speed up that change. You want to purify yourself all at once. That’s understandable, but it is a mistake. Change comes at its own pace. Meditate and observe, Elisabeth. Develop your equanimity. Observe yourself as you are and as you change with an equanimous mind. There is no hurry.’
If Mi Nu had told me this I’m sure I would have found it very beautiful. I was furious.
‘I killed someone,’ I told her. ‘That’s why I came here. Someone died because of me. Maybe more than one. That’s why I’ve got to purify myself. OK?’
Mrs Harper sighed. Her shapeless chest rose and fell in her grey dress. She thought for a moment then said: ‘I am not your confessor, Elisabeth. There is no God seeking to punish you. There is no priest to absolve you. For the moment it’s enough for you to know that fasting is forbidden at the Dasgupta Institute.’
Lunch was almost over. She pointed the way and led me to the dining hall. I filled my plate with curried pasta, helped myself to a mountain of apple pie and ate like a hog.
Your Pain is a Door
MY DIARIST WISHES he hadn’t come. He’s angry. He hates the evening videos, the Dasgupta discourses. He can’t sit still. His legs and back are killing him.
Ninety minutes. And the man’s so damn smug. As if we were in a Bombay Rotary in the sixties.
That made me laugh. Dad was a Rotary fanatic. The diarist is looking for an excuse to leave.
You chose the worst time to come here. You were running away. Too bad you can’t run away from your thoughts.
These few words filled a whole page. He really scribbles sometimes, like he’s writing in a big hurry. Actually, you can’t run away from the Dasgupta either. Not easily. They won’t let you have your mobiles and credit cards back without an almighty grilling. ‘Leaving now you are putting yourself in danger.’ I’ve heard Harper say that. ‘You came here to change the way you think and live. You made a solemn vow that you would stay the whole ten days. Strong in that knowledge, we began a delicate operation on your thought processes, an operation that penetrates to the core of your mind. Going now is like walking out in the middle of brain surgery.’
Harper sounds pretty convincing when he says this stuff. And it’s true your mind changes here, deep inside. The diarist keeps talking about his GREAT DILEMMA. He can’t concentrate on his breathing. He can’t want to concentrate. Your life has come to nothing. One bad decision after another. He hates himself. UNFINISHED BUSINESS. The capitals are huge.
I flicked back and forth through the pages but couldn’t find what the dilemma was. There’s stuff about a company going under, someone called Susie throwing away her talent. Flushing it down the toilet. Two people he talks about with initials T and L. I reckon L must be his wife. Laura? Linda? Lucy?