Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment

PART THREE.BUDDHA
16

While he lay motionless on the ground, Gautama became dimly aware that a shadow had fallen over him. When it moved, he assumed it must be the outline of a large animal, a predator drawn by his smell. The animal would most likely be hungry, yet it made no difference to Gautama how his time on earth ended.

“Please don’t die.”

The girl’s voice caused his eyes to look up, almost against his will. She was startled and moved back shyly. She must have been all of sixteen, and alone. Gautama closed his eyes and waited for her timidity to send her away. Instead, he felt soft warm hands on either side of his face. The girl raised his head slightly and wiped the grime away from his cheeks with a corner of her sari. It was faded blue and threadbare, a poor girl’s sari.

“Here.”

She pressed something to his mouth. A bowl, and its edge hurt his cracked dry lips. Gautama shook his head, and a croaked word came out of his throat.

“No.”

The girl said, “Are you a god?”

Gautama felt a wave of delirium; her words sounded meaningless. The girl said, “I’ve come to the river to be blessed by the god who lives there. It’s my wedding day in a month.”

A god? Gautama couldn’t even smile. He shook his head slightly and let his face fall back to touch the warm jungle floor. But from wasting away he had become weaker than the girl, so he couldn’t resist when she turned him over and held him upright in her arms. She did this effortlessly.

“You must.” She held the bowl to his mouth again. “Don’t be stubborn. If my offering is good enough for a god, you’re not better than him, are you?”

Now a smile rose inside Gautama. “Go find your god,” he mumbled. He clenched his jaw so that she couldn’t pour the contents of the bowl into him. There was no purpose in her being there.

“I won’t leave you here,” she said. “I can’t have people saying that Sujata did something like that.”

In the midst of his torpor, Gautama’s mind suddenly became alert. What she said didn’t seem possible. “Tell me your name again.”

“Sujata. What’s wrong?”

The girl saw tears streaming down the dying man’s cheeks. His emaciated body began to tremble in her arms. She felt terribly sorry for him. Weakly he opened his mouth, and Sujata poured a little food into it. She had cooked sweet rice in milk for the river deity. The dying man accepted more. His stubbornness had vanished, though the girl had no idea why.

In a stricken voice he mumbled, “What have I done?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl, confused. But she was no longer shy or frightened by him. “We have to get you home. Can you walk at all?”

“In a little while.” Gautama ate the rest of the sweet rice with painful slowness. Then Sujata left him for a moment and returned with some water. He drank it greedily, his cracked lips bleeding slightly as he opened his mouth.

“I’ll carry you as far as I can, and then I’ll get my brother,” Sujata said. Gently she lifted Gautama to his feet. His brittle legs looked like they might snap. He couldn’t walk, but he was light enough so that the girl could prop him against her shoulder. Together they hobbled their way up the narrow trail she had taken to the river. They arrived at a road, and Sujata placed him under a tree, propped up against the trunk like a limp doll.

“Wait here. Don’t let anyone move you.”

Tears started rolling down his cheeks again. Sujata found it hard to watch; she hurried away and soon disappeared around the bend. Gautama wished she hadn’t gone. He suddenly felt alone and desolate. Sujata. He hadn’t heard that name in fifteen years. But he had not forgotten her. This was the cause of his weeping, because five years of austerity hadn’t wiped out his memories. It all came back in a flood: his first sight of Sujata on his eighteenth birthday when his robes were gaudy enough for an elephant. Winding his red turban. The excitement he suppressed when he felt stirrings of desire for her. As soon as he recalled these things, it was as if a dead flower in the desert received the spring rains. His mind unfolded in layers, bringing back image after image from the past, and with them the emotions he had wanted to extinguish. He was badly dehydrated, and soon his tear ducts had nothing more to offer.

Gautama rolled his head back and stared at the jungle. It gave back nothing. It was neither a friendly haven nor a dangerous wilderness. The flowers weren’t smiling, the air was not luxuriously moist and enveloping. The blank face of Nature was all he saw, and a surge of horror ran through Gautama. He wanted to vomit, but with all his will he forced the sweet rice and water to stay down. Weak as he was, he could dimly hear his thoughts, and they told him he had to survive. Karma hadn’t died, and neither had he.

The light began to fade. Gautama knew it was close to noon, so he must be fainting. His head grew light; a cold sweat beaded his chest. It was a relief to lose consciousness, so he allowed himself to sink into the sensation of falling and falling. Scarlet parrots scolded loudly overhead; he lay so still that a couple of curious monkeys began to advance down the tree trunk with caution. Gautama wasn’t aware of this. His mind was captured by the face of Ganaka, which he saw clearly. It wore an expression he couldn’t read. Grief? Contempt? Compassion? Blackness swallowed up whatever it was.

SUJATA’S HUT WAS FLIMSY, its mud walls cracked. There was almost no protection from the weather, which meant that spring could enter as it pleased. Gautama lay in bed, weak and feverish, for some weeks before he noticed this. One morning a white sal blossom floated down from the trees, slid sideways on the breeze, and came in through a large crack in the wall. It landed on Gautama’s face and rested there. The fragrance opened his eyes.

“Aren’t you pretty?”

Sujata laughed and lifted the flower to her nose. “Thank you, noble sir.” She pinned it behind her ear. The girl took her nursing duties lightly, hiding any worries she might have from her patient.

“Nothing seems pretty to me,” Gautama said. He had taken to speaking his mind.

“I don’t believe you,” said Sujata.

They were alone together every day. The hut had been abandoned after her grandmother died, and she had begged her family to let the stranger recover there. Her family didn’t want to set eyes on his skin-covered skeleton anyway, so Sujata got what she wanted without objection.

Gautama lifted himself up on his elbows. It was the most effort he had expended since arriving there. “I want to go outside.”

“I won’t stop you,” said Sujata with mock indifference.

Gautama gave a wry smile. “Since when did you become so cruel?” He fell back onto his pillow. She was right; he wasn’t strong enough to be helped into the sunlight yet. “Are you still marking the days?”

Sujata glanced at a piece of bark nailed to one wall; it had twenty X’s scratched into it. “There, see?”

“You must have left out quite a few. Has it been a month, maybe three months?”

Not wanting him to know that he had been ill for five weeks, Sujata defended herself. “I’d have no fiancé if you stayed three months. It’s bad enough already.” She began to feed him a mixture of boiled rice and lentils. She wasn’t complaining. Her good-hearted husband-to-be didn’t mind waiting a while longer; they had been engaged since she was eleven.

“Will you go home when you’re well?” she asked.

Gautama turned his face away, avoiding the next bite of food. “I’m sorry,” Sujata said. “You’ve taken vows.”

He gave her a serious look. “Would you respect a man who would keep a vow even if he died?”

“You mean you?” She shook her head. “No.”

Gautama didn’t mind that he was as passive and dependent as a baby. All he basically knew how to do was be still. There wasn’t a scrap of enlightenment left. The gods had had their joke. Now he was just another starving wretch who had been found, addled and lost, wandering in the forest.

Because his healing was so slow, time slowed down with it. He’d idle an hour watching a sunbeam move across the floor in the morning. Specks of dust floated hazily in it, and a holy verse came to mind. “Worlds come and go like dust motes in a beam of sunlight shining through a hole in the roof.” He used to think those words were beautiful; now they were flat. He got stronger every day, but inside he never lost his horror. Nature’s blank face continued to stare back at him wherever he looked. His eyes would move from the sores on his skin to the sun shining through the open window, then to Sujata’s face and the sal blossom in her ear. They were all the same dull nothing.

“Starting tonight, I’m going to feed myself,” Gautama announced. “And tomorrow I’m going outside, even if you have to carry me.” Sujata smiled. “You’ve gotten too fat. I’ll drop you.”

Because he couldn’t stop himself from speaking his mind, Gautama said, “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

“Oh!” Sujata had picked up a broom to sweep the packed-mud floor. Her hair was roughly tied back; she was too poor to own any makeup, and she rouged her cheeks with berry stain when she knew her fiancé was coming. “Why do you talk like that? You said you took a vow.” She looked embarrassed and displeased.

“My vow must be very powerful. I can see that you’re beautiful, but I don’t care.”

Now Sujata looked more displeased. Turning her back, she swept the floor with a vengeance, throwing up clouds of dust. For half an hour they had nothing to say to each other. But then two monkeys fighting in the yard made Sujata laugh, and when she adjusted Gautama’s bedclothes, her eyes regarded him mildly, without a hint of resentment.

After that, as promised, he fed himself and was taken on wobbly legs out into the yard. He wasn’t a limp doll anymore, so he could be sat in a wicker chair instead of being propped against a tree. Sujata was surprised that he didn’t care where he was put, in sun or shade. One day she came out to find that he’d stepped on some foraging red ants, and now a hundred of them, fierce biters, were climbing up his leg. Gautama didn’t wince; he didn’t even look down at them.

Brushing the attackers off, and with them the blood from their bites, she said, “What are you doing to yourself? I didn’t pull you out of the woods so you’d care about nothing. Find something, and do it quick.” She turned away and began to cry.

“I’d obey you if I could,” said Gautama. “I owe you everything.”

His voice sounded humble and sincere, but inside he was as detached from her distress as from everything else. Sujata sensed this, no doubt. Otherwise how to explain the fact that he woke up the next day to find the hut empty? She left pots of food but nothing else. The door was locked, the floor still damp from being washed. Gautama took this all in and waited. He wondered, as an impartial spectator might wonder watching a stranger, if his mind would grieve or feel abandoned. When nothing happened, he went outside to watch the clouds, something he did every day.

Every day that he grew stronger, he felt more removed from that fiercely certain monk who had been willing to die for God. Gautama wasn’t a zealot anymore, but there was nothing to put in its place. He took his eyes off a camel-humped cloud and looked at his hands. They had fleshed out again, and so had his wasted arms and legs. He tried to remember how old he was. Thirty-five seemed right. Young enough to take up honest labor or return to the monk’s life, or even go home and become the good prince again.

It was time to choose one, since he couldn’t remain alone in Sujata’s hut. Choosing seemed impossible, though. He was a blank. At best he was a vaporous, drifting cloud, like the ones he stared at. After a while, Gautama decided to imitate a cloud by going nowhere in particular. He cleaned the hut of any sign that he had ever stayed there, shut the door behind him, and walked away.

When his sandals contacted the familiar packed dirt of the road, his gait settled into a mechanical tread. Soon he passed other travelers, but they didn’t look his way. Maybe he’d lost his presence too, or perhaps it was just his half-starved appearance. Gautama’s eyes saw the sights of the jungle-birds, animals, the light streaming in bright bars through the still leaf canopy-and he had the impression that every sensation was passing through him. I am water, he thought. I am air.

This wasn’t unpleasant. If he was going to spend the rest of his life as a blank, feeling transparent wasn’t the worst thing. He walked a bit farther, and he had another thought. I am not suffering. When had he stopped suffering? He didn’t know, because his body had been in pain for those weeks, which distracted him. Physical pain wasn’t the same as suffering, he realized that. Suffering happens to a person, and he was fairly sure he had turned into something new, a nonperson.

He stared at the sunset, its red-gold streaks breaking through tall white clouds. Over the jungle canopy he saw the crest of a tall tree and headed for it. The ground around the tree was soft and springy, free of fungus. He looked up and saw that this was a pipal or fig tree. The sky darkened quickly; soon it was barely possible to see sapphire patches between the black silhouettes of the foliage. Gautama sat down to meditate.

He wondered if a nonperson needed to meditate, and at first the answer seemed to be no. When he closed his eyes he didn’t sink into a cool, safe silence. Instead, it was like being in a lightless cave where there was no difference between having his eyes open or shut. But since he had nothing to do and nowhere to go, he decided that meditation was as good as anything else. He caught sight of the waning moon, which was three-quarters full. Vaguely Gautama thought it would be nice to be the moon. And then he was.

It didn’t happen immediately. He sat, and the waning moon turned into a sliver, then a hairline of luminescence in the sky, before it waxed again. He caught a glimpse of it only once a night; otherwise he had his eyes closed. Nothing was changing inside him. Only by the moon did Gautama realize when seven weeks had passed.

“I’m here. You can open your eyes now.”

Gautama was past having delusions, so the voice must be real. He opened his eyes. A yogi with long locks and a beard had found him and was sitting with crossed legs under the tree. The moonlight was bright enough to reveal the face of the doomed monk Ganaka.

“You don’t have to disguise yourself,” said Gautama. “I was expecting to see you, Mara.”

“Really?” The form of Ganaka smiled. “I didn’t want to shock you. I am, as you know, basically kind.”

“Kind enough to show me an image of grief? I am past grieving,” Gautama said.

“Then take this image as a greeting from Ganaka instead. I know him well,” said Mara. “He is in my care now.”

“Then he must be in a place of torment. But I am beyond horror too. So tell me quickly why you’ve come, with as few lies as you can.”

“I’m here to teach you. Remember, that was my offer when you were young,” Mara said. “But you misjudged me, as everyone does. Now you must be wiser.”

“You think it’s wiser to have a demon for a teacher?” As they bantered, Gautama felt nothing toward Mara, neither fear nor dislike. Even wondering why the demon had sought him was a faint impulse on the edge of his mind.

“You still misjudge me,” Mara said in a cajoling voice. “I know the secrets of the universe. No knowledge can be kept from me since my role is to see into the crevices of every soul. I will share all that I know with you.”

“No.”

“I didn’t hear that. You’ve craved knowledge ever since I met you. I saw it in your eyes. Why turn your back on me now? I’m greater than these yogis you’ve wasted your time with,” the demon said.

“The one who wanted to know everything no longer exists,” said Gautama. “I have nothing left to ask.”

“Stubbornness doesn’t become you, my friend. I’m disappointed.” Mara’s tone of voice was smooth and assured, but he was sitting close enough that Gautama felt the demon’s body tremble with suppressed rage. Mara said, “I thought you were above other souls. But if you insist on being common, let me satisfy what you really want.”

These words were greeted with peals of laughter. Through the trees came three beautiful women carrying oil lamps; incense swirled around them. As Gautama watched, a pool of water appeared in the forest. The women began to disrobe, casting glances at him and giggling softly.

“My three daughters,” said Mara. “They never fail to charm, so why pretend? You want them.”

The women had silky pale skin and full breasts. Gautama looked on while they bathed themselves, using every suggestive gesture they could find; their hands were delicate, and the way they touched themselves only faintly hinted at lewdness.

“I told them you weren’t coarse, but as you can see, they will adapt themselves to your every desire,” said Mara.

“Yes, I see that,” said Gautama. “The man who once had a wife no longer exists. I can accept your daughters as new wives. Tell them to approach.”

Mara smiled with satisfaction. The three women emerged from the bathing pool and draped themselves with gossamer saris that showed their naked bodies in the moonlight. Mara made a gesture, and the first daughter knelt submissively before Gautama.

“What is your name, beautiful one?” Gautama asked.

“I am Tanha.”

“Your name means ‘desire.’ I will take you for a wife, but unfortunately I have no desire for you. If you marry me, you will never feel desire or be desired ever again. Is that acceptable?”

Before his eyes the lovely face of Tanha turned into the face of a long-toothed demon, and with a howl she vanished from sight.

“Let me see your second daughter,” said Gautama. Mara, looking displeased, waved his hand abruptly, and the second young woman knelt before them.

“What is your name, beautiful one?” asked Gautama.

“Raga.”

“Your name means ‘lust.’ I was born a male, and therefore your appeal is well known to me. I will take you for a wife, but if we marry, you must respect my vows. Your heart of fire will be turned to ice, and you will never lust or be lusted after again. Is that acceptable?”

In an instant Raga was transformed into a ball of fire, which rushed at Gautama to sear his flesh. Instead, the fire passed through him and vanished.

“Show me your last daughter,” Gautama said. “The first two won’t have me.”

Mara jumped to his feet in a rage. “You treat my gentle girls badly. They only want to serve you, and in return you cruelly abuse them.”

“But your third daughter is so beautiful, I can’t possibly mistreat her. Bring her to me. I’m sure we will be married,” Gautama said gently. Mara regarded him with dark suspicion but made a small gesture. The third daughter knelt before them.

“Don’t ask me my name,” she said. “I am free of all desire and lust. I am as indifferent to you as you are to me. We are perfectly matched.”

“You’re very subtle,” said Gautama. “But I already know your name. It’s Arati, or ‘aversion.’ You want nothing because you hate everything. I will make you my wife, but only on the condition that you open yourself to love. Is that acceptable?”

Arati’s face assumed a look of unspeakable disgust. In alarm Mara reached his arms out to hold on to her, but he was too late. In an instant she vanished like the others. The demon gave a howl that grew louder and fiercer until it filled the whole forest. He swelled in size, and the form of Ganaka dropped away. Mara began to grow his four horrible faces.

“I’m going to see you as you really are. Good,” said Gautama.

“Arrogance!” Mara screamed. “You shall see me, all right, and the moment you do, you will die.”

He began to make mysterious signs in the air that Gautama didn’t understand, and like magic, the kingdom of the demons descended to earth. The forest floor crawled with poisonous snakelike demons, slithering over Gautama’s lap, while batlike demons tried to bite his face. A phalanx of elephants crashed through the trees, trampling other demons of damned souls whose bodies were crushed underfoot. Because the demon world consists of the most disgusting and terrifying forms that the human mind can conceive of, there was no end to the waves of Mara’s subjects that emerged in the moonlight.

Mara himself rode a massive bull elephant that held writhing souls between its jaws. At first he remained aloof, waiting for his army to annihilate Gautama by sucking it into a maelstrom of torment. But when he saw the calmness of Gautama’s gaze, Mara became agitated.

“Resist me all you like. I will never depart from you, and neither will my subjects. This spectacle is what you will see for the rest of your life.”

“I am not resisting. You are all welcome to stay,” said Gautama. “You cannot attack what isn’t here, and I am not here.”

“Not here?” said Mara. “You’re insane.”

“Or perhaps I just lack a soul. Doesn’t it take a soul to be damned?”

The calmness of Gautama’s speech not only infuriated the demon king but caused his subjects to begin to fade away like shadow puppets on a screen or summer lightning inside a cloud.

“Prove it to yourself,” said Gautama. “If you can find my soul, it’s yours. I have stopped caring, myself.”

Mara leaped from the elephant and crouched on the ground in front of Gautama. “Done!” he hissed. He had never experienced any creature, mortal or divine, without a soul, and now this fool had freely surrendered his. “You’re mine, and I will claim you when it pleases me.” Every other spectre had disappeared by now. Mara’s four malignant faces lingered for a few more seconds before he too vanished.

Gautama doubted he would ever see him again. The existence of his soul, like everything else, held no interest. Total detachment is the one great healer of karma. Yet the whisper of desire softly said, “Do not kill me. Have pity. Let me know even your slightest wish.”

He looked up and remembered the moon, which was perfectly full as it floated above the jungle canopy.

“Let me become the moon,” Gautama replied. “I have nothing to wish for down here.”

He had only wanted to have sway over his own destiny. It was the simplest of human wishes, yet it had been a source of fear and uncertainty his whole life. Everyone had told him, directly or indirectly, that it was impossible. Gautama felt a slight resistance even now, as if the gods would destroy him on the spot for usurping their power. Instead, he felt the last veil fall away from his mind, a sensation a hundred times more delicate than dropping a layer of gossamer. Then he became the moon and experienced what the moon experienced. It was impossible to put into words: a cool serenity that thrilled at its own existence. A concern for nothing but light itself. Gautama was aware of all these ingredients, yet the thing itself was ineffable.

The moon seemed to know that he had arrived, and he felt it bow down. I have waited. His gaze searched the sky, and these words seemed to come from everywhere, not just the moon but also the stars and the blackness between the stars. His heart began to swell.

I have waited too.

The sky bent down to envelop him. Now he understood why he had to become a nonperson. He had to be naked. Only in innocence does the mask fall away. So this is it, he thought. The truth. Gautama gave his heart permission to swell beyond the sky. He didn’t know what lay beyond, or how far he could go. He had found his freedom, and in freedom everything is permitted.