Читать книгу Deshi - John Donohue - Страница 14

6 HOLY MAN

Yamashita hates crowds. He has trained for a long time to be able to spot the subtle muscular shifts that signal murderous intent. But if you put him in a room with a crowd of people, he gets antsy. The Japanese say that everything has ki, a type of energy that can be sensed if you’re good enough. And Yamashita certainly was. The more mystically minded would say he is so sensitive to the energy force people give off that he’s overwhelmed.

I was trying to be open to the whole invisible-world stuff, so I asked him about this issue with crowds and tried out the ki explanation. We were standing around after a training session. The students had bowed and shuffled away. Some nursed bruises. All were worn out. I held a wooden training sword in my hand. It was made of white oak and the handle was discolored from the sweat and grime that had been ground into it over the years. After a good workout, Yamashita seems pleased with the world, and is often more talkative than usual. As his senior student, he’s also a bit more forthcoming with me. So I brought up the issue.

His bald, bullet head swiveled to look at me. The brown eyes glittered faintly. You can never tell whether it’s amusement or the excitement of the hunt that does it. My master let me squirm for a moment and then replied.

“I like it. It is a colorful explanation. The intense ki of crowds.” He made a slight rumbling noise deep in his chest. It’s his version of a chortle. “If I were writing for one of the cheap magazines American martial artists consume so avidly, I would use your explanation, Professor.” He always calls me that, even though he knows I’m not a faculty member at the university. Sometimes I think it’s a mark of respect. Other days, I can’t be sure.

We walked over to the weapons rack, where I placed the bokken down. He smiled a little at me. “I assume your question is sincere?” It was a rhetorical question. He knew that I had learned a long time ago not to waste his time.

“So…” he began in the characteristic Japanese way. “It is true that crowds present a mix of sensations. Noise. Heat. Smell. Even, I suppose, ki. But ki is like smoke, Burke. When you try to grab hold, it eludes you.”

“Do you mean you can’t sense ki in crowds, Sensei?” I am a plodding student, but I persevere.

“Oh, the ki can be sensed. Certainly. It is there. Always. In crowds, there is ki in great abundance.”

“And is this upsetting to you?”

He looked at me sharply. “Upsetting?” As if the idea had never occurred to him. “I think, no. The problem with crowds has nothing to do with ki.”

“Then what is it, Sensei?”

“Burke,” he said as if to a child, “too many people, too many intentions. It has nothing to do with ki,” A student bowed as he left the training hall floor and Yamashita bowed forward a fraction in acknowledgement. “Crowds,” he said to me finally, “make it hard to see someone coming at you with a short weapon.”

My master is a mystic with unique perspectives.

Changpa Rinpoche was scheduled to speak at the American Museum of Natural History as part of the opening for a traveling display of Himalayan artifacts. I should have been struck by the coincidence, but then it dawned on me that Yamashita probably knew this before he gave me the lama’s book. He’s full of tricks.

What was interesting was my teacher’s urge to see the Tibetan. I spent some time trying to figure this out. There were commonalities here. They were both probably about the same age. Both men were outcasts of a type—adherents of strange and foreign practices far from home. They labored in a foreign land to bring insights to people not always capable of understanding them. There must be a type of isolation in this kind of life. And loneliness. So maybe Sensei was drawn to him for this reason. It made me think of Yamashita in a different way. But then, again, they were old friends.

I wrangled some VIP tickets from a friend who worked in the research department there. His parents were farmers on Long Island’s North Fork, past Riverhead: stocky, perpetually sunburned people who made an increasingly difficult living growing potatoes and flowers in the sandy soil of Long Island. Their son, the archaeologist, labored indoors, digging in different ways.

Yamashita and I arrived the night of the holy man’s lecture and, if Sensei were a child, he would have been bouncing up and down on his toes. He looked, of course, totally placid when we got off the B train at the 81st Street subway station, but I had been with him too long to be fooled. We made our way up to the first floor toward the theater they were using for Changpa’s lecture.

I love this museum. I’d been there countless times and never get tired of it. We walked through the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall—TR shot and donated much of the big game trophies here. Part of it may have been guilt, but maybe not. TR didn’t strike me as a guy with much self-doubt. Besides, his father had been one of the founders of the museum in the first place—a well-connected philanthropist probably responsible for getting Ulysses S. Grant to lay the cornerstone for the first museum building on the West Side.

But I could tell that Yamashita wasn’t really interested in the trivia I was sharing with him about the museum. He was anxious to see the Tibetan. And this revelation heightened my own curiosity about Changpa. So I guided him quickly through the exhibit halls. As we sat down in the packed auditorium, I began to ask Yamashita something. His hand came up. “Hush.” He was focused on his anticipation, enjoying it with a deep focus. Like a predator drowsing in the sun.

So I watched the crowd.

There was the usual mix of people: senior officials from the museum, a smattering of academics and graduate students. It was even rumored that the local real estate magnate who had largely funded the exhibit would attend. I wondered how a Tibetan monk would relate to that old gangster. The event had also drawn many people from the community: aficionados of things Asian. And others, some looking eager for enlightenment, others just looking for entertainment. It’s the lifelong bipolar condition of many Americans.

We sat on the end of one row toward the rear of the big room. Yamashita would put up with only so much, and he liked to be in a position that gave him some defensive options.

Changpa Rinpoche was ushered in with all the fuss of any prestigious visitor. He had been in the news lately, advocating for greater freedom for occupied Tibet and appearing at rallies outside the U.N. I suspected that the Chinese were not crazy about him. So I wasn’t surprised to notice that there were uniformed security guards as well as plainclothes people scanning the crowd. The audience was a typical jumble of voices and gestures, but I watched the mass of people with a seriousness not too different from that of the guards. My sensei’s habits are rubbing off on me.

Changpa was a teacher, a lama, dressed in the saffron and deep red robes of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. His title, Rinpoche, was an honorific meaning “Precious Jewel.” He was thicker than I had imagined, more energetic looking. It’s a bias, but I tend to picture noodley, pale bodies when I think about the effects of long periods of seated meditation. I’m sure I wasn’t alone—everyone expects him to be a clone of the Dalai Lama. But he wasn’t. He looked more like a wrestler—solid and competent. But he had the same calm, gentle look as his more famous colleague.

He mounted the stage to applause. A small platform with cushions had been set up for him to sit upon. A simple vase filled with flowers stood next to it, echoing the yellow and crimson of his robes. Behind him, a large banner with calligraphy hung down against the stage’s curtain.

“Can you read that?” I murmured to Yamashita. It looked like Sanskrit, with curves and angles and diacritical marks.

He shook his head. “No. I believe it is Tibetan script.”

A young guy with a scraggly beard next to me leaned forward. “It’s the mantra, Om Mane Padme Hung,” he said with smug self-satisfaction. He had the bright-eyed look of a true believer.

“Ah,” I said.

The Rinpoche stayed standing and began speaking. His voice had a clipped, British accent to it. It wasn’t a surprise. Most of the lamas abroad today had made the tough hike across the Himalayas to India, the Chinese hot on their trail, and the cadences of the Raj still lived on in their English.

He was an engaging speaker; I’ll give him that. Changpa seemed comfortable on the stage, with the audience. I had studied enough about Buddhism and its varieties—Theravada, Mahayana—and had been exposed to enough over-informed enthusiasts to know, however, that it was anyone’s guess how the night might turn out. Especially with all the hype about Changpa’s “powers.”

I was really dreading an evening of mystic mumbo jumbo. I knew, deep down, that most people here hungered for a revelation of the powers of the mysterious East. But I thought they were doomed to disappointment. Revelation for me has always been a subtle thing, and as an object of desire is much like trying to grasp smoke. There are probably better ways to spend your time.

As the evening progressed, however, my fears were quieted. Changpa was pretty much what he appeared. Instead of a hyped-up mystic, what you came away with was the impression of a sincere man advocating the teachings of the Buddha and the benefits of belief and compassion. His voice was calm and clear. It had a cadence to it that gathered the audience in. You could almost feel the heightened intimacy, the sensation of the room growing physically closer, and of being gently drawn in upon a still center. Where Changpa stood.

I had experienced this before, with my own teacher Yamashita, when he chanted the warrior’s mantra and showed me the ways to draw an ancient grid of power. Now I could sense a similar event unfolding. On one level, I was observant enough to see this. But the knowledge of what was happening did not prevent it from affecting me. What we were experiencing was a type of autohypnosis. Any good ritual contains it. But the astounding thing was to see the ease with which Changpa created the mesmerizing effect with such a large crowd.

The lama finished his presentation, and the crowd sat motionless for a moment, still held in the power of his words. Then the applause began.

I looked at Yamashita. He sat there, quietly intent, his eyes slightly narrowed as he watched the Rinpoche. “Wow,” I said. My teacher nodded.

Then there was a period of question and answer.

I sat up a little straighter. This could be interesting. Personally, I find the prospect of fielding random questions from strangers tremendously unsettling. Like waiting for multiple attackers in a darkened room. I’ve done it, of course, but I would never volunteer to repeat the experience.

Fortunately, most of the people who spoke up were tremendously respectful. I suspected that the museum staff had arranged it. There were would-be Buddhists asking questions about the Dharma. The Sangha. Prayer wheels. You knew, deep down, that everyone was interested in the Rinpoche’s reputed clairvoyance. And some people sort of hinted at possible connections between meditation and “higher powers.” But no one broached the subject directly. Until the scraggly guy next to me stood up.

He had a brittle, intense voice that matched his looks. “Changpa Lama,” he started, making a point of avoiding the Rinpoche title, “I wonder if you could comment on the allegations of your psychic abilities.” There was a note of skepticism in the young man’s voice. “And how this is consistent with the Buddha’s teachings.” A murmur, half expectation, half hostility, grew in the crowd. But the man wasn’t deterred. He seemed, if anything, to be energized by the anger he was creating. He stood there, his chin pointing aggressively at the stage.

At the head of the room, Changpa looked placidly into the audience and held up a hand to quiet them. The lama smiled sheepishly. It was, I thought, the most genuine moment of the night. He had a good smile. A human face. I liked him.

“This is, I know, a thing of intense interest for people.” He looked around the room. “There is, even in a place like America, where science is so powerful… there is this need for mystery.”

I nodded to myself. I had seen the same hunger in the dojo. Many trainees worked long to get behind the veil of technique and effort and practice, hoping to find a mystery. Each student had his or her own idea of what the mystery should be, of course. And what many found depended on what they had set off to see in the first place. If you stayed long enough, however, I thought that what you discovered after hard training and discipline was simply more discipline. And maybe a small, tiny voice, whispering that the human spirit’s ability to endure was the greatest mystery of all.

“There is no mystery here,” the Rinpoche continued. “No magic. Please. I have no desire to appear on the cover of your supermarket tabloids.” He grinned at the appreciative laughs from the audience.

“And I do not know what to call the… experiences I sometimes have.” Changpa looked around. “You cannot turn it on and off like a light switch. It is not a conjurer’s trick.” Again, the smile. “So I will read your minds just once tonight and add that, no, I will not be able to demonstrate this experience to you further.” There was some laughter again and a smattering of applause. Then he grew more serious. “But I have thought long and hard on a question very much like yours.”

Changpa looked into the rear of the room, toward his questioner. For a brief moment, I saw the flash of focus in his eyes. It transmitted a sense of power and perception that was almost frightening in its directness. It was similar to what I often glimpsed in my own teacher: a revelation of an ability as intriguing as it was scary. I could see the young man standing next to me almost sag at the impact of Changpa’s gaze. I don’t know what he had hoped to achieve through his question. I only know that he got more than he bargained for. He sat down then, slowly, collapsing like a deflated balloon.

The lama continued his explanation as if nothing had occurred. But I noticed the tilt of Yamashita’s head: he had seen it, too.

The holy man’s words grabbed my attention again. “Certainly Chenzerig, the Buddha of Compassion, provides people with an awareness of many different things in different ways. Some people hear the beauty of music more clearly than others. Artists are more attuned to the subtlety of color. These are sometimes vehicles to lead us to dharma, to truth.”

The room grew quieter as people listened intently. For the first time that evening, Changpa sat on the platform provided him. His hand reached into his robes and drew forth a string of prayer beads. He gestured with the beads. “But sensation often can serve as an impediment. Each bead on this mala represents four obstacles to truth. There are twenty-seven beads here, and four times twenty seven is one hundred and eight.” I saw a number of heads nodding in recognition of the point. Changpa smiled again. “We believe that there are one hundred and eight basic obstacles that need to be removed or purified to reach the True Way.” His fingers worked the beads almost automatically. “In our daily lives, the endless details of existence can sometimes obscure the dharma, the true path. It is like the old saying you have: a man cannot see the forest for the trees.” He looked around the room.

“My gift is that I can sometimes be elevated to a place where I can see the forest. Or even beyond it. I do not think it a mystery. Perhaps it is that, for a brief time, the Way is less…” he struggled for a word, his eyes remote. Then he finished. “… less occluded.” He smiled sadly. “It is, I believe, what the Lord Buddha seeks for us all.”

Out of the corner of my eye I had noticed Yamashita leaning forward, as if to better catch Changpa’s explanation. As the lama finished, my teacher sat back, slowly exhaling in a sound that telegraphed a release of tension and a sense of deep satisfaction.

There was a reception for Changpa after the lecture. It was an invitationonly deal, but Yamashita’s name and mine were on the list. It was held in a special exhibition gallery near the auditorium—not because the space was conducive to crowds, but, I suspected, because there was no furniture to move.

Even so, it was packed. The audience streamed out of the theater, setting up currents of movement, eddies of conversation. I tried to work our way through the crowd, but gave up and took my teacher around to the gallery’s back entrance. A few people had the same idea. And they were being screened by a large guy with a clipboard. He wasn’t wearing a museum staff uniform. And there was a subtle undercurrent in the air around him, a hint of barely suppressed anger. Or fear.

As we moved closer, I got a better look. He was in his mid-twenties, and had the easy stance of an athlete. Maybe six-two or three. Not huge by NFL standards, but big enough. He certainly loomed over me. I don’t think Yamashita, who’s even smaller, noticed. He’s not even concerned, with these things. Size to him is merely part of an equation of angles, distances, and lines of attack. It’s certainly not an element of intimidation.

But you could see that this guy liked to use his bulk that way. He was dressed all in black; an affectation that I vaguely associated with show biz or the art world. The dark clothes hid the musculature, but you could see the hint of power in the neck that swelled from his stylish little turtleneck. The guy was a people-handler. He seemed an odd companion for the Rinpoche.

We got to the head of the line.

“Hi,” I said, giving the man my card. “I’m Dr. Burke. My guest and I should be on the list of invitees.”

He took the card and didn’t look at it. He looked down at his clipboard, flicking back and forth among the pages. His face took on a hard look. “No. Uh-uh. I don’t see it.”

I glanced at Yamashita. My job as his student is to pave the way for him. He is, after all, my sensei. It was embarrassing to have this sort of snag pop up. But I stayed calm.

“Sure, I understand,” I told the man guarding the door. “Arrangements were made through the Office of Special Events.” I could see that none of this made the slightest impact.

The man shook his head. “Yeah, well look. I don’t know about that.” You could see him make his final decision: it was like watching a shade roll down behind his eyes. His hard look got harder. “I’m gonna have to ask you to move along, now.”

“Maybe we should talk to your supervisor…” I offered. “I’m sure the head of security can clear this up.”

The man moved closer to us, trying to use his body to reinforce his request. Yamashita watched dispassionately, like a scientist viewing an interesting, yet routine, experiment performed by a colleague. But he didn’t budge. And I got the subtle message: this problem was mine to deal with.

“I’m telling you once,” the guard said tightly. “You’re not on the list. You don’t get in. Now beat it.”

You could sense the shove coming. It was in the way his tone of voice began to cycle upward. A slight adjustment of his feet. I think his nostrils even flared slightly. In Yamashita Sensei’s dojo we call it telegraphing. So I wasn’t surprised when he tried to move me.

He shoved, and I could see his eyes narrow with anger when I stayed rooted to the spot. It’s a pretty basic skill, once you get the hang of it. Without balance, my teacher says, nothing can be achieved. The naive think he’s waxing philosophical. In reality, he thinks fighters should avoid falling down.

“I want you out of here,” the big man hissed at me. He was getting ready to do something else. This was not the place for a shoving match. And I got the sense my friend here was getting ready to take things to the next level. It worried me. Not in terms of the physical stuff. But I could see the headlines in the paper: Museum Mayhem: Martial Artist Crashes Party.

“Is there a problem?” a woman’s voice asked from the room beyond the door. I got the initial impression of an attractive, fit form with dark hair. She had a list on a clipboard, too. But I was mostly focused on the guy at the door. The man glared at me as I went through my explanation again to her. Presented my card. She looked at an index card clipped to her papers, and then put a hand on the arm of my wrestling partner. “It’s OK. They were a late addition to the list.” She said it in a calming way. But it was a firm tone, and not apologetic. The guard looked at us with resentment, but he stood aside. You could tell that deep down he wanted another go at me. And part of me was annoyed enough to oblige. For the first time, my teacher spoke. “Come, Burke. Let us go in.” It was a mild command, but an order nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Burke,” the woman said as she started to lead us inside.

“There have been some changes in Changpa Rinpoche’s arrangements. Different staff…” She smiled.

I smiled back at her and gestured for Yamashita to go in ahead of me. The man in black looked at us like we were reptiles.

I waited until she was out of earshot. “You think I’m hard to move,” I murmured to the guard as I passed him, “you ought to try the Japanese guy.” I grinned wickedly and entered the reception.