Practicing Resurrection (Buddhism)

·期刊原文
Practicing Resurrection (Buddhism)
by Van Der Pas Elly
Whole Earth Review
No.78
Pp.70-72
Spring 1993
COPYRIGHT POINT 1993

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WHEN I WAS NINETEEN or twenty, I had a lucid dream that greatly
affected me. I found myself in a place whose inhabitants didn't have
physical bodies, although they were obviously present. I'd say they
had light bodies, but maybe not even physical light. No gender. They
communicated in an intimate, nonvocal way, like a voice from inside,
that seemed to be very understanding and compassionate. I felt
welcome there, as if this were my real home. It seemed as if I
stayed a long time, although when you don't have a physical body,
you don't gauge time in the same way -- by interruptions such as
eating or sleeping. After a while, I decided that since I was
finally having a lucid dream, I should take advantage of the
opportunity and fly out over the ocean. I flew over, and then into,
the ocean. I kept diving, and then found myself back in my body,
with a big smile on my face.
I asked around, but nobody I knew could explain where I'd been, or
what these beings were. They didn't seem strange to me; they seemed
to be what people really should be like. Even though I kept looking,
though, I could never find anyone who really was like that -- until
almost twenty years later, in 1989, when I went to India and met the
Dalai Lama.
After that, I only wanted to study more Tibetan Buddhism. So I
finished my master's degree and fixed up my house to rent. In 1991,
I quit my job and went to Nepal. Asia is cheap, and I figured I
could live on my savings. Luckily, I bought health insurance before
I left. I was ordained as a Buddhist nun in December, and then went
to study in Dharamsala, in northern India: the center of the Tibetan
exile government.
I sublet a one-room stone house from a woman who was going home to
Iceland, and I stayed in retreat there all winter. The house was in
a pine-and-rhododendron forest, on top of a hill, near a retreat
center for Westerners. So it was great for solitude and also for
company. I often went walking in the hills, to places where you
could see snowy mountains all year 'round.
From March until July, I went to Buddhist philosophy classes at the
Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. In July, while I was in
retreat again, I got sick: fever, pains all over, headache, and
exhaustion. At first I thought it was some kind of flu; people often
get sick as the hot season turns to monsoon. I was getting weaker
and weaker, however, and one night I decided it would be a good idea
to leave the door unbolted, in case I was too weak to get out of bed
the next day.
The first thing I can remember, after I fell asleep that night, is
being in a dark place. It seemed that I was moving, yet holding
still. My mind was scattered, and I had no idea what was going on. I
wasn't afraid, and there was no real sensation of pain.
There was no reference by which to gauge time, but after a while,
thoughts appeared. I wondered where I was. It seemed that I was
being held against my will. I wondered how I'd gotten there. Between
thoughts was chaos: not really confusion, but drifting, like
floating in a stream on a warm summer day -- except that everything
was dark.
I badly needed to pee, and I decided they couldn't keep me for more
than a day: they'd have to let me out to go to the toilet. It seemed
as if it had already been more than a day. As I floated, I could
occasionally hear the voices of my captors, speaking a language I'd
never heard before. Maybe I was in a Chinese prison camp.
How did I get here? The last thing I could remember was that I was
in retreat, and hadn't finished. So if I didn't get out of here
pretty soon, I'd break the continuity of the retreat and have to
start over.
I'd never heard of any kind of torture like this. If I managed to
escape, I would tell everyone so that these people would be stopped
from imprisoning anyone else.
It seemed that it might have something to do with espionage.
I still had to pee, and I had no idea how I'd managed to hold it
this long.
When I wasn't paying attention, they must have put tubes into my
body. There wasn't much
I could do about it, but I wondered if they were pumping me with
some kind of mind-altering drugs. That would explain a lot.
I tried to continue my retreat. Maybe if I could remember what I'd
been doing before I got here, I would be able to find my way out of
here. But I could only concentrate for a few moments at a time, and
I couldn't remember anything. It had definitely been more than a day
or two; it seemed that they weren't going to let me out to go to the
toilet. The thought made me discouraged; that had been my only plan
for escape.
I had no idea how or when I could possibly get away. They obviously
weren't going to let me go.
There was a new tactic: every so often I'd find myself in a room
with an interrogator dressed in white. She would torture me in
various ways -- with needles, or by pouring fluids into one of the
tubes in my nose. If I tried to ask any questions, she'd push me
down, or even slap me.
Retreat into oblivion.
I thought that if I could repeat my mantra, it might insulate me
from whatever they were doing to my mind. I got a few words together
that sounded likely, but before I could repeat them, my mind had
scattered.
The torturer in white continued to check on me occasionally, and I
still had to pee.
Sometimes I'd look around to see if she was still there. Every so
often, if I couldn't see her, I'd try to get up to sneak out of the
room, but it seemed that she was always nearby -- behind a screen
somewhere -- and she'd push me back down.
She seemed to be Asian, tidy and brisk, with a no-non-sense
attitude, in a clean white uniform.
After she pushed me back into my dark chaos, I would drift.
Pieces of my mantra would float back to me, and I would clutch at
them, trying to use them as a life raft, but I could never quite
grasp them.
I woke up in a hospital in New Delhi a week after I had gone to
sleep in Dharamsala, with no memory of how I got there. I had been
in a hepatic coma for three or four days, given only a 10 to 20
percent chance of survival. My ex-husband Frank showed up about an
hour after I came out of the coma, wearing a bright blue shirt. He
came right over to me and asked how I was. I told him several times
that I was okay, because he didn't seem to understand. It was a
great effort to talk. I didn't recognize him, but I felt that he
might be safe. He told me that everyone had been praying for me, and
named some friends. I began to suspect a plot. How do these people
know who my friends in America are? I asked him where he came from
and why he had come here, and he told me that he had come from
California to help me. That sounded preposterous, but I was too weak
to argue. He said he'd stay as long as I needed him. Maybe my
friends really had sent someone to help me.
The woman in white, who was now claiming to be a nurse, was still
there, and I tried to whisper so she wouldn't hear. "Don't leave me
alone with them; they've been torturing me."
He stayed and held my hand, talking to me about the bad state of
California's economy, the Olympics (particularly the lineup of the
Dream Team), why it would be a good idea for me to try to pay down
my mortgage. I couldn't make sense of a word he was saying, but I
didn't want him to go away.
As seen without my glasses, he looked rather fuzzy, with four eyes
and curly hair. He seemed like a kind, sincere man. Whenever he left
the room, I felt anxious, and when the blue shirt appeared again, I
felt safe.
Talking was difficult at first. I was slurring words like a drunk,
and it took a long time to understand what someone was asking me.
After a few days, however, I could talk without too much slurring,
and after they brought me my glasses, I could see. I kept noticing
tubes going into my arms and nose, and I wondered what they were
for, but I could never remember what the answer was. Frank was
having a great time telling me all his old stupid jokes. Friends
came to visit; I was glad to see them. Karin, who had had hepatitis
the year before, patiently talked with me for a long time, and Rudy
and Kerstin, two friends from Dharamsala, came too. They were the
ones who had carried me unconscious from my house in the mountains,
by taxi and ambulance, from hospital to hospital, for what must have
been at least eighteen hours. Rudy told me about his battle with me
on the trip down, when I was delirious. He said I was a strong
fighter. "Like a tiger," he said.
Frank held my hand and talked to me for several days, as I looked at
him cross-eyed, and with tubes coming out everywhere. After that, he
supported me while I learned to walk. The first time I walked
outside, I was overwhelmed by the brightness of the colors. It
seemed as if everything was moving: the trees, the clouds, the cars,
the grass. I had to lean on two people to keep from falling over.
As I lay helpless, I felt very open and content, and I didn't worry
about anything. Everyone's concern that I had almost died seemed
almost like a joke. Relieved of the duty to worry about things, I
simply experienced my experiences. I would watch the ceiling fan for
hours, or observe my fingers as I tried different ways of moving
them. I became more aware of and grateful for my connection to other
people; everybody became my friend, even the nurse who came to draw
blood.
After three weeks, we flew back to California.
People assume that I must be upset by my experience. But in fact, I
haven't felt sad or angry much: just very deeply happy. There is a
sense of peace that comes from having decided to sever ties. It
doesn't seem that I'm any less connected to people, but it's not as
compulsive or painful. I've recently decided, after worrying about
whether or not I should get a job, not to worry about money, and
just see what happens. So the level of trust is increasing. I'm
looking forward to what I can do with the rest of my life.