Tim Parks - The Server

This was me with Carl in France. Definitely. I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. But how can you avoid a man in a tent?

Why is everything in this diary about me?

Day 6. Signed up for appointment with the retreat leader, name of Ian Harper. Pure curiosity. Not expecting him to help me really. A ten-minute slot in his bungalow living room. Guy seeing him before me wouldn’t meet my eyes as he came out. Sombre, with heavy jowls, bushy eyebrows. Harper in an armchair. Pink and proper. Grey jersey. Personnel officer for Waterstones sort of thing. Ordinary middle-class décor, table chair sofa, shelves with CDs. Somehow old-fashioned. Not sure why. Me in an armchair opposite. He asks how I’m getting on. Can I feel the breath on my lips, can I move my attention through my body finding sensation on all its various parts, can I keep still in the hours of Strong Determination?

Vipassana for Dummies .

When I open my mouth to answer I wonder if any sound will come out. I haven’t spoken for days .

It depends on my mood, I tell him. My voice feels thin, a bit high-pitched. I say I’m experiencing drastic mood swings. Euphoria. Depression. Sometimes I can hold the position, cross-legged, if I manage to concentrate on my breath, or some sensation somewhere. Then it’s quite pleasant. There’s a pleasant glow. Sometimes I have to move every few minutes. I’m in agony. I can’t understand how I ever sat through ten minutes, never mind a whole hour. I can’t understand those people who sit there seraphic, as if time didn’t exist. They are already in eternity. The leader on the women’s side, that Asian woman. Like a statue carved in air .

He nods sagely. He’s bored .

‘ The truth is,’ I confide, ‘there’s a bit of a crisis at home at the moment, with the result that I keep on and on thinking of what I’m going to be getting back to when I finish here. It’s hard to concentrate .’

Silence. He doesn’t want to go there. He doesn’t want to hear about my marital crisis. Hard to blame him. Absolutely neutral, he asks me what I do for a living .

‘ I run a small publishing company. Unfortunately, we’re on the brink of bankruptcy .’

He does his sage nodding again. He doesn’t want to know. I can’t tell if he’s really watching me very carefully or if he’s just waiting for the ten minutes to be up. Why does he do this job? Is it a job? Does he get paid?

I ask: Is there any way the meditation can help me? I tend to panic and I’m afraid I’ll really panic next week. Then I’ll do the wrong thing. There will be tough decisions. Can meditation help me? ’

He blinks. Maybe I’ve finally come into focus .

‘ Did you come to the Dasgupta to run away from this situation? ’

It’s an aggressive question, but he manages to make his voice relaxed and peaceful, as if it hardly mattered .

‘ Let’s say, to get some distance, before the shit hits the fan .’

‘ You suffer in these situations? ’

‘ I do .’

‘ Why? ’

‘ Well, who wouldn’t? I’m losing everything I’ve ever worked for. It’s my company. I built it from scratch.’ Then I tell him: ‘At the same time I’m splitting up with my wife. I’m going to lose my home .’

I wish I knew I was splitting up. I wish it was decided and done. Over .

He sighs. After a short silence, he asks: ‘Do you know the story of the Buddha and the second arrow? ’

‘ No .’

I’m beginning to feel angry .

‘ A student asked the Buddha a question very similar to the one you have asked me .’

His voice is precise, bureaucratic, as if recorded, but I suppose there is something kind in his face. It’s hard to describe. An impersonal kindness, if that makes sense. I try to pay attention .

‘ The Buddha replied to the student with a question of his own: ‘When someone is struck by an arrow, is it painful? ’

‘ Yes’, said the student .

‘ And then another question: ‘When this someone is struck by a second arrow, is it painful? ’

‘ Of course it is,’ said the student .

‘ Then the Buddha said, “There is nothing you can do about the first arrow. Life is dukkha. You are bound to encounter suffering. However, the second arrow …” ’

Harper hesitates .

‘ “The second arrow is … optional.” ’

He stops, end of story apparently. I have the impression he has told it a million times .

‘ Optional? The Buddha said optional? ’

‘ Yes. Optional .’

‘ I’m surprised the word was around. In those days. In Sanskrit? ’

Harper raises an eyebrow. He smiles. ‘Optional,’ he repeats. ‘The second arrow is optional. Meditation can help you with that choice. You can decline the second arrow .’

Long silence. Maybe a whole minute. Finally he says: ‘You have four more days to work. Maintain sila. Develop samāadhi and paññā. Above all, build up your equanimity in the knowledge of anicca, the law of impermanence. Work hard and you are bound to feel the benefits. Bound to .’

I could have strangled him .

Pretty good description of Harper. When I first came here I thought the guy was too ordinary and boring to be running the Dasgupta. Like an accountant, a job-centre info officer. Even when he sits to meditate he looks like a council employee who’s lost his swivel chair. He came into his office one morning and found they’d put a zafu there instead. Then suddenly you find another side to him: you realize there’s a deep calm behind the nerdishness. He changes. For a few seconds you get an inkling of why he’s running a meditation centre. I suppose this is the Buddha body inside him that’s supposed to be inside us all. A calm Buddha body beneath frenetic, chain-smoking, wired-up Beth. Can you imagine? Mi Nu is the opposite. Mi Nu never comes back from her Buddha body. A statue carved in air is good. Just occasionally there’ll be a grin, a sexy flounce, a flash of appetite. Amazing because you never expected it.

Walked round the field so often I decided to go for it in the dark after the last meditation. Needed to be on the move instead of alone in the room. So fed up with thinking about what happens when I get home after the retreat. Walked across the field in a dark mist, then into the little wood at the bottom. Completely blind. How many years since I did something like this, feeling my way between trees at night, blundering into things? Twenty? Thirty? Surprisingly like the meditation, come to think of it, never quite knowing where you are, even though theoretically you’re somewhere entirely familiar. Inside yourself. Just that it’s dark. Maybe you don’t know yourself at all. Then where the path comes out of the wood back into the field I suddenly brushed against someone coming the other way. What a shock. In the pitch dark and silence. For one split second I was frightened. I didn’t see or hear him coming at all. That’s strange. I presume it was a him since we were on the men’s side. Anyway, whoever it was was as surprised as me, I heard him catch his breath, but we both observed the vow of silence and he hurried on. Then the truly mad thing: I suddenly thought that he was me. I’d bumped into myself! In the dark at night. Then we’d split in two and he’d disappeared. God, I wish. I wish I could. Though then I suppose I’d have to decide which of the two mes I wanted to be .

I love walking in the field at night too. When it was still cold, a couple of months back, I’d take a hot cup of tea in my hands and stand in the pitch dark sipping it and smelling the steam. Still, in eight months here I’ve never managed to bump into anyone. And my eyesight is awful.