Bride of the Buddha Read online

  13

  Over the next fifteen years, the Sangha grew. We monastics traveled and taught in pairs or larger groups except during the monsoon, when most of the Sangha would gather in some king or merchant’s pleasure park or settle down in an ever-growing number of monastic viharas. During the rest of the year, we walked from town to town through every kind of weather, on wide roads next to fields breathing sweet pollen and sun-baked dung, or on narrow paths through jungles where everything seemed to sprout out of everything else, and the sharp scent of fresh greenery trilled over base notes of mold and decay. We slept on bare pallets on the ground or in palaces, one day swallowing down gluey rice mucked at the bottom of our begging bowls, the next day savoring lotus root and spiced peaches from China served on golden plates. Treat everything equally, the Tathagata reminded us, for the goal was to cultivate disenchantment with it all. Take only what was freely given, and cultivate compassion for all beings.

  As I said, I counted myself happy. And even though I knew happiness can never last, I made one of the most common mistakes of an unenlightened being. I forgot that impermanence applied not only to happiness as a generalized whole, but to each of its components, every one of which happiness relies on to exist.

  One of my greatest joys back then was being in the presence of my son. As fellow monks, Rahula and I saw each other often, and even though I still at times longed for him to love me as his mother, I’d learned to use this craving as grist for my meditation’s mill. I was grateful for the kind of love we did share. He seemed eager to hear me recite his father’s Dharma, and often he helped me and the younger monks carry water from well to wash house. I was most grateful that he seemed happy in his life, reflected in his kindness toward everyone around him, including his grandmother—my dear Ama—whom he visited at least once a year. Ama was now a widow; my father had died under the wheels of a chariot while wandering the streets of Kapilavatthu in a drunken stupor not long after Jagdish was replaced as head of the Sakyans.

  Rumor has it that my father was never the same after Siddhartha dishonored our family by abandoning me, but I knew better. According to Ama, he was hardly bothered by Siddhartha’s leaving, especially when Jagdish used his absence to advance his own ambitions. But when Jagdish returned home in disgust, if not disgrace, my father took to strong wine in ever greater amounts. Did I grieve him? The way you grieve a hole that will never be filled. My main concern was Ama, whom I couldn’t visit—because there was no reason for Ananda to visit his unknown cousins. I could only hope that Ama knew she could always join the nuns’ Sangha. Perhaps Rahula could persuade her, although I never wanted him to do so by resorting to his thousands of protective deities, a subject I never discussed with him.

  By now I was in my mid-forties, although I was often taken for much younger, thanks not only to the delicacy of my features but also to a youthful appearance in general, similar to my mother’s. (I didn’t disabuse people about my age—better to be taken for young than for female.) We were back at Bimbisara’s bamboo grove in the middle of a pernicious monsoon season, reminding me of the one after Deepa’s death. Every day, storms galloped through our encampment, and even on rare sunny days, thunderheads promenaded across the sky like an emperor’s army parading through conquered lands just to remind us of its power. One couldn’t escape the sounds of pounding, rushing, slashing water, rivaled only by the moans and howls of the wind. When the wind calmed, it was replaced by fog, hulking over fields and swallowing jungles, themselves exhaling the mounting odor of rot. Even the green bamboo trunks were slick with moisture that never had time to dry. Disease stalked us all.

  The possibility of sickness was a perennial concern for me, for I could allow no one to take care of me lest I be found out. Luckily, the three humors of my body—phlegm, bile, and wind—almost always remained in balance. Fainting during my pregnancy was the sickest I’d ever been. But I still took precautions. Wherever we stayed, I’d acquaint myself with the local doctors and herbalists who doled out medicine to the monks in the same way as almsfood, as monks were forbidden to procure them on their own. Since I knew herbs, I could make recommendations and give advice, welcomed for the most part, and I always made sure that the basic medicines—ginger, fenugreek, coriander, rice starch, tulsi leaves, holy basil, and other herbs—were easily available. My efforts were supported by the Venerable Sariputta, who also concerned himself with the health of the monks. He stressed cleanliness and—like me—was known for taking up mops and brooms whenever necessary, much to Devadatta’s disdain.

  But now we’d heard that people in town were succumbing to the worst sort of swamp fever, the kind that boiled the blood and voided the bowels, leaving many corpses behind. The Sangha could do little other than keep the quarters clean and make sure our suppliers among the laypeople had the correct herbs on hand. Then one morning I awoke to a headache and a heavy chill shuddering through my body. I had a fever, but, steadying my mind in meditation, I became convinced I could wait it out. For now, I needn’t put on the white robe I kept hidden under my folded-up yellow ones. It was not yet time to crawl off to the charnel ground to die as an anonymous widow and be devoured by beasts. Ananda was not ready to disappear.

  A week later, except for residual stiffness, I was back to nearly complete health. It was morning; the weak sun pushed half-heartedly though sagging clouds as I opened the flimsy pine door of my hut into a green world of stems and leaves, which struck me as wildly intricate after days of having white muslin’s opacity as my only view. I made my way through the bamboo grove to its main clearing where the monks were lining up for almsrounds. The group was smaller than the week before.

  Something dark tore through me. In my illness, I hadn’t thought much of who else might be sick. I glanced around, catching sight of Kavi, Naveen, and most of the younger monks. Most.

  Where was Rahula?

  I took several deep breaths. Rahula could be with his father and his chief disciples dining with the king, and even if he had fever, he was young and strong enough to fend it off, as I had done. Nonetheless, my feet carried me directly to Devadatta, who headed up the line. “I notice many monks are absent this morning,” I said, trying to prevent myself from swaying on my still quavery legs, suddenly much more unstable. “If you tell me who is ill, I can collect medicine for them.”

  Devadatta raised his long chin, an almost triumphant expression on his face, like that of a soldier full of lust for a battle he’d been long awaiting. “The fever is taking many,” he said. “There are so many clutching fingers, which now finally have to let go of this delusion we call health.”

  “And who has been taken?” My throat was throbbing.

  Devadatta told me the names of five or six monks, mostly elderly, and I allowed myself a breath of relief along with my sadness for the loss of these venerable ones. “And others—are there monks who are seriously ill?” I asked.

  Devadatta’s expression hadn’t changed. “Illness is a concept,” he said. “One of our finest awakened brothers is about to enter his parinirvana,” the word for the death of an enlightened being.

  “And who is this, that I might honor him?” Not Rahula. It can’t be.

  “The Tathagata’s own son has chosen to be an example to us all.”

  I did my best not to run until I was out of sight.

  I knew he would be in his hut; he was never ostentatious, not even in dying. By the time I arrived there, I was possessed by a blinding terror. Even now, as I record this, I can’t remember who was standing outside—Sariputta or Mogallana or the Tathagata himself, or all three of them—when I pushed my way through the door.

  Rahula lay on his mat, skeletal and with a fiery yellowish glow, his skin like glazed terra cotta, as if no longer alive. A young monk I didn’t know attended him.

  My son looked directly into my eyes and smiled. “I waited for you.”

  “You need medications,” I said, glancing at
the young monk, who I was sure had neglected him, caused his death, murdered him. “I can get them to you by noon.”

  Rahula nodded at his caretaker. “Please leave us now,” he whispered to the young man, and I had the feeling he was protecting him from my anger.

  As the monk left, I knelt over my son, desperate. He was still so beautiful. He looked like his father but slenderer even when healthy, with larger eyes and longer eyelashes. But now his eyes were sunken and his jaundiced face was glazed with sweat. A fecal atmosphere filled the tiny room. “I know the kind of fever you have,” I said, trying to tamp down my terror for his life. “You need cinnamon and sweet wormwood, and I can boil some grapefruit. These will bring down the fever and restore the balance you need—”

  “No,” he said, raising a trembling hand, yet smiling, and I realized he had been smiling all the while. “I’m done with this body. I am in bliss and love fills my every breath.”

  “Your deities! They’re deluding you!” I was filled with a vision of Mara’s hallucinatory legions glimmering in the costumes of angels, plotting the death of my son. All these years they’d deceived him! “You’re needed here in the Sangha, where you teach and inspire.” I was gasping for air. “Only Mara would deny this.”

  His voice, barely above a whisper, remained calm in the way of his father. “I wasn’t meant to teach in that way. There are people here, in this city and in this sangha, who will awaken because of my passing. You can be one of them.”

  His peacefulness only added to my despair. “What do I care about awakening if you die?” I had given up all pretense of concealment, but I at least had the presence of mind to stop talking at this point and plead only with my eyes.

  He raised his hand and closed his icy fingers around my wrist, sending a jolt through my heart. We had not touched since the day he left for his father’s Sangha when he was seven years old. His grip tightened. “Don’t let your love for me overwhelm all you have learned.”

  My face was drenched with tears. “You know.”

  “Ever since I awakened. How could I not?” And now his still shining dark eyes softened with deep gratitude and great concern. Enlightened or not, they held the love of a son for his mother.

  I longed to clutch him in the embrace I had been denied for years, but even now the fear of someone seeing us ruled me. I did my best to bury my sobs deep in my chest. “Don’t leave me. Please. Please.”

  “Look at me,” he said. He had not released his grip. “All things pass away.”

  And for that moment, I saw. He and I reflected each other, our bodies and minds temporary manifestations of a splendor only suggested by the whorl of golden light that seemed to engulf us. No reason to mourn these manifestations, any more than grieving the ripples in the sea.

  I couldn’t let this insight go, not this one. I needed to hold on to this gift of eternity.

  But of course grasping after it threw me back into the nightmare of myself. I stared down at my son’s empty corpse.

  It was only my love of and ultimate belief in the Dharma that prevented me from howling in agony and tearing the brick and straw room apart with my hands and teeth. But Ananda composed himself. I spent some moments with the body waiting for the certainty to enter me. This cooling lump of clay was not my son.

  When I was ready, the monk Ananda opened the door and let in the others. “Rahula has become his nonbecoming,” I said. Later, the other monks and I washed the corpse and prepared it for cremation, a practice that was slowly replacing the charnel grounds. Locked away in my heart, Rahula’s mother screamed without ceasing.

  For weeks, although my mind accepted the death of my son, my body—the body of a mother—did not. It remained clenched into itself, assailed by typhoons of grief that made the storms outside seem merely a drizzle. Eating and sleeping were memories from another life; they made no sense now. I could barely drink enough water to keep going. Ananda’s mind was dedicated to teaching the Dharma. The mother’s body wished only to die.

  Yet I continued with my practice, remembering Rahula’s gift of faith.

  Most of all, I remembered my promise to the Tathagata when I first joined the Sangha, that I would expand my love for my son to include all beings. I intensified my efforts to create harmony in our community, comforting the little boy monks who missed their Amas, making sure the older monks received the medicines they needed, and reminding all the monastics that class distinctions had no place in our community. I also kept up with the routine tasks of keeping records, noting where repairs were needed, and hauling water to the wash house. Slowly, the feeling of walking around with my heart and throat torn out subsided into a quiet determination to keep busy.

  Not long after the monsoon ended, the Tathagata called a meeting of about sixty senior monks at Bimbisara’s pavilion, the place where I’d heard my first Dharma talk. The forest around us and the fields beyond radiated an intense green in the aftermath of the rainy season, and the freshness of revived vegetation filled the air, which even I could enjoy. It was early afternoon just before the daily Dharma talk, doves cooing in the branches, their liquid voices seeming to cool the breeze and fill the atmosphere with a tranquility at odds with the monks’ uneasy anticipation. The Tathagata stood at the edge of the pavilion, accompanied by Nagita, who sometimes served as his personal attendant and was now frail and elderly, his bent shoulders huddled together, the knobby fingers of both hands clamped shakily around a wooden staff. The rest of the monks were seated crosslegged in the clearing in front of the two men.

  “Nagita has been an invaluable companion to me for many years,” the Tathagata said. “But he needs time for his own practice at this point in his life.” The Tathagata looked out over the yellow-robed group of his followers. “Today I’m seeking a new attendant.”

  My first impulse was to retreat into the bamboo forest. Already, I could see some of my friends from the Sangha nodding and smiling at me, thinking that I deserved this great honor. But the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself. Fortunately, my former husband would agree, I was certain.

  Already, monks were stepping forward to volunteer, but the Tathagata held up his hand. “I have already made my choice. My new attendant will be Ananda.”

  This couldn’t be.

  Surely, as was the case with his earlier views about women, something in his former nature was blinding him to the present reality. Or else he had to be testing me, expecting me to refuse. I stepped forward, prepared to turn down his offer.

  “I am deeply honored, Master,” I began. “But—”

  There was a stirring among Devadatta’s cohorts on the other side of the group. Not that Devadatta, who hadn’t even come to this gathering, would ever deign to be the Tathagata’s attendant, but I had a sudden fear that Devadatta would want control over whoever would serve in that way. Although he continued to spend most of his time in the forest these days, I never could shake the fear that one day he hoped to undermine his master. One way to do this would be to make himself privy to the Tathagata’s intimate life by receiving regular reports from a close ally. Which would not be me.

  My refusal died in my mouth.

  “But I can only accept this kind offer,” I continued, “if you will agree to the following provisions.” It was then I spoke the conditions that by now have become famous. The Master wasn’t to pass on any gifts to me or include me in any dinner invitations. I also made more positive requests, such as asking for the right to discuss any questions I had about the Dharma with him, and to make sure that he would let me memorize all of his discourses, including ones he might give in my absence.

  In this way, I hoped to stave off criticism, especially from Devadatta and his followers, that I was accepting the Tathagata’s offer for the sake of material comfort, and for awhile I thought I’d succeeded. As for why the Tathagata chose me as his attendant, I made a point of asking him as soon as we were alone to
gether. We stood at the door of his hut, the first crickets testing out their songs of night.

  His face seemed to fade into the twilight. “For many reasons. I trust they’ll all become clear.” He refused to say any more.

  I believed that at least in part his choice had to do with Rahula’s death. Although I assumed he was beyond ordinary grief, perhaps his body experienced the loss in the same way as he still felt physical pain during times when he was unable to seclude himself from it by entering meditative absorption. Perhaps he saw our new relationship as some kind of compensation, a way of redirecting love. Or at least my love. Certainly, we would be far more intimate than before, although I knew that there was nothing sexual in it for either of us. For better or worse, I had sacrificed that part of me. Beyond my motherly feelings, I hardly even thought of myself as a woman anymore. And I now remembered Stick Woman’s words, that saving the world required sacrifice, and I asked myself again: Was that what I was doing? Trying to save the world? Yet the Tathagata himself characterized the world as a dream, a mirage, a magic show, no more substantial than foam on a river.

  Then I thought again about Devadatta and his cohorts wearing dingy unwashed robes to express their utter hatred of the world. Perhaps the Tathagata needed me, who still believed in the world, to save it.

  14

  You can’t untangle karma, the Tathagata always maintained. It’s far too complex to explain in simple terms although easy enough to conceive of as the law of the universe, where every cause has its effect. But you never know when causative events, so complicated and multifarious, will come to fruition. All you know is that their effects cannot be escaped. In the Buddha’s seventy-first year, karma ripened for our Sakya clan in the worst way possible, which would eventually put the survival of the Tathagata’s teachings in peril.