The Failure of Nonviolence
The Failure of Nonviolence - Killing the Buddha
I
The mantra-wheel pavilion unnerved me for the duration of my brief stay at the Buddhist retreat center. It was prominently placed on the property and loomed, lit, at night. I got a nightmarish feeling when I even approached it, especially after dark.
The retreat center’s inhabitants spent many years raising money to build these enormous motorized mantra wheels. They contained millions of mantra rolled into giant scrolls, spinning continuously under an ornamental roof. The Buddhists said the mantra were very powerful and the wheels’ constant spinning sent huge amounts of positive energy into the world, but I found them creepy. Their grinding groan was anything but sacred to me.
I would hurry past the pavilion only to come upon a four-story sculpture of some mythical Buddha-being wielding a giant scepter. Its painted eyes were wide and crazed, and this, too, was frightening. At that point in my walk I’d sprint back to my cabin and cower on the sleeping platform, grateful for the darkness.
II
I wanted to write for a few days in the midst of a traveling summer. The midwife who delivered my brother’s college best friend now lived at this Buddhist center in the mountains of northern California. They could rent me a retreat cabin for $20 a night. You could actually live there for free if you did chores and took an oath to their leader. “That’s like, Plan Z,” said another kid who had been delivered by the same midwife.
The practiced empathy of the Buddhists was very soothing to the temperamental artist in me. “What are you going to work on today, Emily?” they would ask over breakfast.
“I thought I might work on this real whopper of an essay I’ve been chugging along on. I’m trying to draw a connection between decadence, tourism, and the exploitation of indigenous people through the lens of a love affair. It’s about fifty pages, which is kind of an odd length, but I think it’s really starting to come together…”
The Buddhists, fresh from their prostrations and on their way to their mindful chores, would look me straight in the eyes. “Well, I hope that goes well for you,” they would say, shaming me into deep focus with their total presence. If they could clear poison oak from the paths or slice vegetables for dinner with such purity of intention, the least I could do would be to give the morning my best shot.
III
One of the residents gave me a tour of the center’s significant landmarks. He showed me the spinning mantra wheels and the place where the original lineage holder’s ashes were buried. After the previous lineage holder died, he said, a special committee went to Tibet to find his successor. This was achieved by giving baby boys a choice of various objects, some of which the lineage holder had owned and some of which were decoys. The baby boy who picked the object the lineage holder had actually owned would reveal himself as the new lineage holder.
But how did they know which baby boys to show the objects to?
“So our leader, before he died, he gave some hints on where he was going to reincarnate, because he has conscious birth.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to ask. “If he is capable of conscious birth and knows where he’s going to reincarnate, why doesn’t he just tell you exactly where that’s going to be before he dies?”
“That’s a good question,” he smiled. “And I don’t know the answer to it.”