BODY Chapter 2.0 & 2.1

BODY  Chapter 2.0

“You drink like a theologian,” sd the Fat Man,

before they expunged it from the record.

We do not stagger upon words,

like flagstone walkways

zigging through some wilderness,

keeping our feet unnaturally dry & clean

in whatever weather.

“We do not wrestle with angels and principalities.

We stagger among soft & succulent bodies,”

paraphrasing the theophanist.

                                           Rev Roshi D.

Fish: red, gold, yellow, white, all the saturated colors running together, as if god were an impressionist painter roaming through Monet’s garden. The ten-inch fish seemed to be carefree, but really were constantly being watched from above—circled by the thirsty birds of heaven and stalked by the clever neighbor cats; someone is always thinking three steps ahead. But this garden was nothing like the lusciousness of a Monet. It was designed to be harsh, sandy, rocky, with combed sand to show false swirls of imaginary water, ripples in the crust that led outward from the larger stones, planted like the Sarcens—not Saracens—at Stonehenge. Those phallic stones that breathe are almost alive in the otherwise desolate landscape of the zen garden. Only the pond, with its noisy precious fountain, trickling through a strange skeletal collection of bamboo chutes and canals, rescued the garden from a deathwatch and brought some life, some grace to it.

            Fortunately, a metal screen was still firmly attached to the pond. Even so, most of the Koi were hiding or sleeping in the crevices of the faux rock walls and among the boulders left for their protection. A kind of jail for fish, Jack thought, as one brave big bull-koi kissed the surface of the water, pursing his fish lips, eager for manna. Of course, Jack thought philosophically, the water itself is the real prison.

            Most had already moved through the open door of the Zen Center. But Jack stayed outside. No one spoke to him though one old man nodded nervously his acknowledgement before he went inside to wait. The sitting started at 6:30. It was 6:30. This group included mostly older retired or young unemployed people, but some others were like Jack trying to get the sitting in before work.

            Jack was always surprised by the palpable apprehension people had about chatting at the Shadow-less Tree Zen Center. It was like this was supposed to be a solemn thing and that chat would damage it irreparably. When he first came to the sittings almost a year before, a woman named Marcia came and always talked with animation before the session. In time, some kind of unspoken anti-bodies of attitude attacked invisibly and rejected her from this body. But talking out in the garden never bothered Jack. It reminded him of AA meetings with people smoking and talking casually outside with strangers, whom they knew were just like them, people that made them comfortable when the rest of the world judged them harshly, and preferred criticizing, acting like the enemy.

            Most of the sitters had gone inside—some 24 or so people were a full house. They had taken a seat on the Tan perch, legs crossed, some with their legs in a full lotus, some half lotus and the rest, as Jack said, half assed. Their clothes were notable for their natural fabrics, rough weave, and earth tones. The clothing designs were so cheap looking, Jack thought, they must be expensive. Most sitters had a properly made zen cushion or two, some of the cushion sets cost as much as $150. But you could get a clay-colored buckwheat-filled zafu and 30X30 zabuton, filled with kapok for a little less. Jack had a cushion he brought from his home, something he bought at Walmart for $15. But it worked just fine, keeping his ass upward and his feet comfortably on the deck of the Tan, the smooth wooden ledge that ran three feet high, along both sides of the zendo. The sitters gradually filled the hall sitting in silence facing inward. When meditating they turned around, face to the wall. But now they waited for Roshi to walk through the door. Not impatiently, certainly not anxiously, because such things were not permitted in the zendo. Maybe this was itself a kind of test, the sitters wondered, a test of their mindfulness and detachment. The Roshi was cleverly watching how they would react to the upsetting of the normal schedule. So such moments were perhaps a crucial time for vigilance. Nothing was ever certain in this kalpa.

            Ten minutes late, Sensei George came out of the office and made his way into the zendo. He was by nature shy and by choice reticent in any situation. It was his chosen meditative practice. Some day inevitably he would swear off talking altogether, Jack thought, and carry one of those chalk boards around his neck to scribble messages. His only duties, day-to-day, were to assist the Roshi in managing the Center and to strike the wooden blocks, the gongs and the bells that signaled beginnings and endings. Otherwise he sat watching silently like a chaperone, a zen dueña, while the others sat. Perhaps he was charged with waiting for some catastrophe, an intruder intent on doing mischief, or a violent outburst, which, Jack knew, Sensei would be completely incapable of responding to. Sensei George, who seemed to have a choir of sticks poking against the fabric of his robes, fiddled for a moment with the large beads that hung from his sash. He sat uncomfortably in the Roshi’s place at the head of the room.

            It was colder inside the zendo than outside. The meditation hall had been carved out of the lower floor of the old house by removing a central, presumably non-loadbearing, wall between two rooms to make one long narrow hall. You had to enter from the zen garden in the backyard because the front door had been sealed shut when the room was redesigned. The room was all in shades of brown, the wood polished mostly but unfinished. It was a mishmash façade that was impetuously fastened purposely to the original walls in an effort to transform the reality of the place.

            George began to speak in such a low tone that people strained to hear him. The Roshi is ill. I am going to go to his house to look in on him. Please go forward with the sitting. I would like Jack to go with me to his house. I should be back before the hour is over. Suddenly, a white haired man with a great deal of suavity and confidence in his bearing stood up and said, Maybe I should go with you. It was Phillip. He was Chair of the Board of Directors of the center. The idea distressed George. Anyway Jack was stronger and he might be useful. He did not know what to say to Phillip. He was afraid of offending him. Jack could see something like a look of panic darken George’s face. He decided to intervene. I think Sensei George wants you to stay because you are the most senior member of the center here, Jack spoke forcefully, and maybe you should be here to lead the group while Roshi is not around. That seemed to immediately satisfy Phillip. It was more levelheaded than Phillip expected from Jack, who always seemed to him to be a little marginal. George almost made a noise when he expelled his sigh of relief. And they left before Phillip could change his mind.

2.1

The Roshi’s house was startlingly ordinary, a curious kind of carriage house on a larger property in the expensive Golden Gate Heights neighborhood down Funston. George navigated the winding streets in his noisy, boxy Hillman Husky, which had a strange mossy or musty or moldy smell. That was it.  A dark mold film was growing on the steering wheel. Maybe it was made of soybeans or some other pre-petroleum version of plastic. It came off on George fingers. The streets of this neighborhood were not a checkerboard, squared off like the other neighborhoods, like the Outer Sunset or the Richmond. These roads waggled impulsively, with their privileged permission, flaneuring their way through the hilly terrain around Grand View Park. For Roshi to live here, in the lap of conspicuous consumption and luxury, seemed out of place, except he occupied a carriage house not a main house. The rent could have been reasonable at one time. Roshi had been living there for almost 25 years, after leaving the quarters provided by the Zen Center, the upstairs apartment.

The carriage house was in a strange way a miniature of the big house, Italianate, with fluted columns and stucco walls of some kind of terra cotta color with red tiles on the roof. When Sensei and Jack approached the house, the front door was strangely open, but George moved unhesitatingly around the side, entering through the gate and into the backyard. He found the latch as if he had done it a thousand times. He did not shillyshally, but went with unusual assertiveness and a methodical chill through the sliding patio door that was left open as well. When Jack followed him, the Roshi’s orange and black cat screeched as it snaked between Jack’s legs and the doorframe running outside. 

George went immediately into the living room. But Jack hung back in the kitchen and only slowly moved to the doorway. There he saw Roshi slumped, sitting in a reclining chair. The room was sparsely decorated and dark, but it surprised Jack to see it decorated at all. The sofa and one chair, the coffee table and the end tables were bamboo with excessively bright floral prints and lit by vulgar pseudo-Hawaiian lamps with hula dancers on the stands. Nothing that looked like an electronic device was in view. Maybe a TV was hidden in the large teak cabinet on the wall facing the chair where the Roshi was sitting. The only obvious appliance was an old turntable record player with a record going in circles and rhythmically popping every time the needle skipped the deep groove in the dead wax at the end of the vinyl record. Jack walked over to take the needle off the record but really to see what the Roshi had been listening to. Ella Sings Cole Porter. Jack moved his lips when he said, Torch Songs, but no sound came out. He inhaled the words. 

            I think he is okay. George said. Help me get him up. Roshi was not small. He was well over 200 pounds and dead weight. Maybe we should just leave him here. George finally said and stopped to take a deep breath. No, I can do it, Jack said with resolve, and he put his arms under the Roshi’s armpits and swung him to the nearby sofa pivoting him on his heels.  George went to the bedroom and got a quilt to cover him. By the time he returned the Roshi was snoring loudly. George said as he tucked in the quilt, He must’ve been up very late maybe meditating and lost track of the time. Jack kind of gave him a sly look behind his back. Okay, he said. It was clear there was a strong smell of alcohol in the air, not to mention the evidence of a bottle of rum lying on its side under the coffee table. To be honest there was even an aura of repeated intoxication on the man’s weathered, rosy, and slightly puffy face. He was turning into WC Fields. George looked with resignation at hr old man and let out a breath. Thank you. He said to Jack with what seemed to be grave seriousness. I will go back to the Zen Center and finish the session. Can to stay here to make sure he is okay? Sure, Jack said. I don’t have to be at work until 9. George said, I’ll be back by 8: 15. At the latest. Jack nodded as Sensei finished his useless kibitzing and finally left, this time by the front door.

The snoring was now epic. So Jack went outside to the patio to sit down. But first he looked around for a book. The books he saw were all frivolous sounding. He couldn’t find one that suited him. There was a pile of tell-all biographies of movie stars, some romantic paperback fiction with florid covers, and garden books, many garden books. No books on Zen or meditation at all. Jack grabbed the Roshi’s laptop as he passed through the kitchen. It had been left open on the circa 1955 red and white mottled linoleum table in the breakfast nook. Maybe he could read something online. When he looked the browser was already open. He hesitated. If he searched for something, Roshi would know. Immediately he thought that he could look at Roshi’s search history. The cursor hovered over the menu. What did the Roshi search for? You can tell something of value by looking at what people impulsively search for. Really, Jack thought, invasion of privacy much? He whispered into the air of the patio and closed the laptop. He would have to think it over. The snoring got louder. Then stopped.

            Maybe I should check on him, Jack thought. Instead, he walked aimlessly into the small garden. Drunk is drunk. Let him sleep. It was in every way the opposite of the garden at the Shadow-less Tree Zen Center. Lush with plants, overgrown in fact as if someone had neglected it, a pergola covered the patio hung with the vines of mature but not ancient wisteria, cascading down the wooden beams, just now blossoming, the pungent aroma filling the air even in the dewy gloom of morning. The pergola let in quite enough light, maybe the wealthy get better sun than we do. Jack mumbled. The covering also provided a kind of shield against whatever watched from above. It was a promise of discretion, a sanctuary in the otherwise intrusive world.

            This garden had a pond too, full of scum, but clear enough to see some colorful anonymous fish swimming unprotected in the shallow water and a large lily pad in the center. Jack took a wooden pole from a pile of sticks, kindling I guess. And he poked the pad to see if it was real. It looked almost like a fabrication, a trick. Bending over the water, he teetered and had to catch himself. Did I ever tell you the metaphor of the lotus? Roshi startled him, speaking in a long-suffering voice with some resignation, not his usual voice of energetic inspiration, resonant with solemnity. Maybe you know the story, he said. No I don’t, Jack responded, sitting down in a metal patio chair. Roshi sat too. The pad of course blocks the sunlight and stops the blooms of algae from growing and killing the pond eventually. Quite a sound reason for having them. Roshi stopped speaking and looked somewhere into his own forehead.

            Jack interrupted the penetrating glance. That is not a metaphor. Jack said with authority. I know because I am going to college, where I am studying such things, and my mother is a University Professor and my father sold poetry books for thirty years. Roshi looked at him with more interest than he had ever shown in the year they had been acquainted.

            Why not? Roshi burst out. Why isn’t it a perfectly appropriate thing to say. We all need protection, speaking metaphorically. We all need some way to keep the algae from growing out of control and choking us to death. He paused and sighed. But no that is not the crucial metaphor. You’re right.

            Roshi stood up and walked to the end of the patio to look at the white flower that stood triumphantly above the green pad. He pronounced the next sentence sententiously. We grow in crap and mud and muck. Then this delicate filament of a stem rises from the almost occlusive depths. We reach up to heaven and into the air above the muck and water something beautiful and unearthly blossoms. He smiled at Jack. It is a nice metaphor.

            Pretty obvious. Jack said. Roshi changed the pace of the conversation. When did you arrive and why? He said without seeming at all confrontational. Well, Jack said, you missed the beginning of zazen and Sensei George thought … Roshi interrupted. Ah! George was here. Jack continued. We got here about a half hour ago. Sensei went back to tell the group that you are alive but ill. Jack looked at Roshi with a witheringly sarcastic look. Yes, George would say that. Roshi said thoughtfully. And George would believe it.  Jack said, You were a little out of it when we arrived. Maybe passed out is the phrase. Roshi looked a little pale. I was  well … celebrating is not the right word…. I was remembering the death of a loved one. A family member.

As he said this absentmindedly, he got up and went to a large flagstone that had a narrow pottery vase on it and an incense holder, an altar of sorts Jack thought. Stark but softened by the flowers. Roshi pulled out the dead joss sticks and put a few new ones in the case, which he lit. The air was immediately full of the smoke redolent of cumin or something like wok fried vegetables, Jack thought. Sahi Jeera the box read.

Roshi then sat back in the chair and thought for a half a minute. Have you seen Barry? He asked.  I didn’t see anyone but you. Jack said puzzled.  I mean the cat. Did Barry come home last night? Roshi looked around him. Yeah, I saw the cat go out. Jack suddenly said. Calico, right? Jack thought Barry was a peculiar name for a cat. Roshi’s voice then grew in volume, deepening to its usual timbre, and he seemed to grow in height as well. Well, thank you Jack, for your help. I am okay now. We need to have a meeting to discuss this whole thing sometime next week. He paused. I hope you are not disappointed in me. He looked at Jack with remarkable steadiness and calm. Not at all. Jack almost shouted. I used to think you were a jerk-off to be honest. Maybe I like you a little more than I did yesterday. Jack was getting to his feet. Jack reminded Roshi: Sensei said he would be back at 8. Okay. Roshi shrugged. Jack lingered in the garden when Roshi turned his back and walked into the kitchen. He looked again at the deep green cushion of the lily pad. It was almost three feet across, an impossible monster of a leaf that grew miraculously in the cold slap in the face of the Pacific coast. It is a metaphor all right, he murmured, a metaphor for being where you do not belong. By the time he got through the fence gate and to the meandering sidewalk of the estate, he could hear the tea kettle whistling obnoxiously in the distance. It was almost ten blocks back to Judah and the Muni. He had to move. But he walked deliberately. All the time he thought, it is never a good idea to be running in the rich neighborhoods in any big city with a hoodie on. So he pulled it off his brushy head to show he had nothing to hide.