The Schopenhauer Cure(50)
The routine at the ashram had indeed begun to offer some mind-calming. Her mind fixated less on John, but now Pam was beginning to feel that the insomnia was worse than the obsession. She lay awake listening to the sounds of the night: a background beat of rhythmic breathing and the libretto of snores, moans, and snorts. About every fifteen minutes she was jolted by the shrill sound of a police whistle outside her window.
But why could she not sink into sleep? It had to be related to the twelve hours of meditation every day. What else could it be? Yet the 150 other students seemed to be resting comfortably in the arms of Morpheus. If only she could ask Vijay these questions. Once while furtively looking about for him in the meditation hall, Manil, the attendant who cruised up and down the aisles, poked her with his bamboo rod and commented, “Look inward. Nowhere else.” And when she did spot Vijay in the back of the men’s section, he seemed entranced, sitting erect in the lotus position, motionless as a Buddha. He must have noticed her in the meditation hall; of the three hundred, she was the only one sitting Western style in a chair. Though mortified by the chair, she had had such a back ache from days of sitting that she had no choice but to request one from Manil, Goenka’s assistant.
Manil, a tall and slender Indian, who worked hard at appearing tranquil, was not pleased with her request. Without removing his gaze from the horizon, he responded, “Your back? What did you do in past lives to bring this about?”
What a disappointment! Manil’s answer belied Goenka’s vehement claims that his method lay outside the province of any specific religious tradition. Gradually, she was coming to appreciate the yawning chasm between the nontheistic stance of rarified Buddhism and the superstitious beliefs of the masses. Even teaching assistants could not overcome their lust for magic, mystery, and authority.
Once she saw Vijay at the 11 A.M. lunch and maneuvered herself into a seat next to him. She heard him take a deep breath, as though inhaling her aroma, but he neither looked at her nor spoke. In fact, no one spoke to anyone; the rule of noble silence reigned supreme.
On the third morning a bizarre episode enlivened the proceedings. During the meditation someone farted loudly and a couple of students giggled. The giggle was contagious, and soon several students were caught up in a giggling jag. Goenka was not amused and immediately, wife in tow, stalked out of the meditation hall. Soon one of the assistants solemnly informed the student body that their teacher had been dishonored and would refuse to continue the course until all offending students left the ashram. A few students picked up and left, but for the next few hours meditation was disturbed by the faces of the exiled appearing at windows and hooting like owls.
No mention was ever made again of the incident, but Pam suspected that there had been a late-night purge since the next morning there were far fewer sitting Buddhas.
Words were permitted only during the noon hour when students with specific questions could address the teacher’s assistants. On the fourth day at noon Pam posed her question about insomnia to Manil.
“Not for you to be concerned about,” he replied, gazing off into the distance. “The body takes whatever sleep it requires.”
“Well then,” Pam tried again, “could you tell me why shrill police whistles are being blown outside my window all night long?”
“Forget such questions. Concentrate only upon anapana-sati. Just observe your breath. When you have truly applied yourself, such trivial events will no longer be disturbances.”
Pam was so bored by the breath meditation that she wondered whether she could possibly last the ten days. Other than the sitting, the only available activity was listening to Goenka’s nightly tedious discourses. Goenka, garbed in gleaming white, like all the staff, strove for eloquence but often fell short because an underlying shrill authoritarianism shone through. His lectures consisted of long repetitive tracts extolling the many virtues of Vipassana, which, if practiced correctly, resulted in mental purification, a path to enlightenment, a life of calmness and balance, an eradication of psychosomatic diseases, an elimination of the three causes of all unhappiness: craving, aversion, and ignorance. Regular Vipassana practice was like regular gardening of the mind during which one plucked out impure weeds of thought. Not only that, Goenka pointed out; Vipassana practice was portable, and provided a competitive edge in life: while others whiled away the waiting time at bus stops, the practitioner could industriously yank out a few weeds of cognitive impurity.
The handouts for the Vipassana course were heavy with rules which, on the surface, seemed understandable and reasonable. But there were so many of them. No stealing, no killing of any living creature, no lies, no sexual activity, no intoxicants, no sensual entertainment, no writing, note taking, or pens or pencils, or reading, no music or radios, no phones, no luxurious high bedding, no bodily decorations of any sort, no immodest clothing, no eating after midday (except for first-time students who were offered tea and fruit at 5 P.M.). Finally, the students were forbidden to question the teacher’s guidance and instructions; they had to agree to observe the discipline and to meditate exactly as told. Only with such an obedient attitude, Goenka said, could students gain enlightenment.
Generally, Pam gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was, after all, a dedicated man who had devoted his life to offering Vipassana instruction. Of course he was culture-bound. Who wasn’t? And hadn’t India always groaned under the weight of religious ritual and rigid social stratification? Besides, Pam loved Goenka’s gorgeous voice. Every night she was entranced by his deep sonorous chanting in ancient Pali of sacred Buddhist tracts. She had been moved in similar fashion by early Christian devotional music, especially Byzantine liturgical chants, by the cantors singing in synagogues, and once, in rural Turkey, was transfixed by the hypnotic melodies of the muezzin calling the populace to prayer five times a day.