The meditation hall, when I entered it, rustled with saffron and mauve robes. It was painted red and gold, like the monasteries of Nepal. The men and women both had shaved heads, and were counting their beads with various signs of attentiveness and devotion. I sidled down the crowded aisle and found myself a seat at one corner. Finally, a big gong went off. Bigyan, surrounded by a big entourage, walked briskly down the hall. He strode briskly down the hall while people rustled and bowed around him. I almost laughed out loud.
"Lets talk about peace," Bigyan said. I hid my grin behind a cupped palm. I was feeling revived. The microphone whined for a moment, and then went back to a normal level. "If water is left undisturbed, water remains clear and transparent." He gave a big smile, like he had just made a big statement. "So with our minds. To let the mind rest in a state of peace is Buddhist spiritual practice."
The whispers quieted down. For a moment, the hectic work-day, frantic buzz of the airport, the mad rush of the highway - all of which had hammered their way into my body for the last eight hours - seemed to fall away like a someone who makes me uncomfortable in the ripples of that quiet voice. It seemed to float down the cool, dim hall. I had forgotten what a gentle voice he had.
"There are lots of obstacles to peace," the voice continued. "Before, people used to live in simple lifestyles. Simple food, simple clothes. Now it's more jealousy, more competition. Wealthy countries and children suffer because there is no meaning."
I felt embarrassed by the simplicity of his ideas. Was this going to turn out to be a discourse on the meaningful East versus the meaningless West?
He gave a big smile. "Disturbing emotions arise from the things we see, things we hear and things we taste. But these things have no reality. No reality."
The silence resounded in the hall. "What we mean by practice? Practice is to change the mind in positive way. In practice, we heal our own minds with a sense of clarity and brightness."
I would be watching the news on television if I were home at this time, I thought. There was something about my classmate's voice that was infinitely more soothing, more calm than any CNN announcer. As I sat there listening to him talk on the different types of consciousness, I suddenly felt like these were things I had always known. Yet he explained it with a freshness that could not be explained away by mere déjà vu. He put intuitive understanding into words so clear I could almost see it. That vague yearning that never left me - which I had attributed to my own restless and fickle nature - suddenly came back.
I had, in the scheme of both East and West, done pretty well for myself. I had graduated with a double degree in computer science and economics from an Ivy League college (the environmental science major had been chucked out of the window after my first year), fallen in love and married a beautiful woman, had a lovely child who attended one of the best schools, bought a house in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Palo Alto, and drove a Jaguar. I had felt so complete in my assurance about my own superiority - intellectual and material - in comparison to the least successful boy in class. But had I missed something I was not even aware of, I wondered. All those black holes of comprehension and yearnings for something otherworldly had not been filled by a spectacular rise in salary, or even an employee of the year award. Even that splashy exhibition of my paintings which acknowledged my inner artist and was attended by the edgy glitterati of NYC, had not been enough. Even the women I had slept with had not done anything to fill the vastness of the void.
"Compassion," Bigyan said. Then he coughed. The hall waited. "Compassion is something…" He stopped to search his memory for an appropriate word. "…intrinsic," he continued, smiling at his inadequate vocabulary - "to all sentient beings." That was the moment when I felt a peculiar feeling of awe and shame, a sudden awakening of neurons that flooded my body. Compassion, that overused word, was something I would never get to feel or understand, unless this was it - this flood of kindness that washed away my existential tiredness, my feelings of inadequacy that no matter how hard I tried it would still not be enough, the feeling that love would always elude me even when I was in the midst of it - and the gentleness I felt was for myself, for my own beliefs and assumptions, my own life. Bigyan, finally true to his name, had dissected life with the simple science of inner knowledge. And I, sitting in the corner with my own baggage, could only wait for him to finish so I could ask him some questions.
