Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

(Pop. . I can hear you muttering, “Cut to the chase. That’s where the money is.” Which is true, I suppose, but in that moment something happened to Lacey. We were both drunk and disoriented and trying to stay on the point with Lama Yeshe when suddenly he leaned over to Lacey and snapped his fingers in front of her. She jumped as if she’d been hit but he just smiled at her, not taking his eyes from hers until she relaxed, which was amazing because I’ve seen her relax no more than five times in our marriage. About as much as I have with you or you with me. In retrospect I suspect that Lama Yeshe was trying to prepare Lacey in some subtle mysterious way for what happened later. Certainly in terms of the film I know you’d give such a prototype character as Lama Yeshe some flash, at the least a little prescience or holy mojo. So I’m not loading up the scene with messages and instructions about death. You’d automatically eliminate all of that anyway as, in fact, you do in your own life. But those demons were up there on the roof and Lacey must have picked them up because when Byron returned she started asking questions about death and what was going to happen with her after she died and how could she deal with her fear of death and so on. Lama Yeshe very sweetly gave her some textbook answers: “When death comes, if you have a relaxed mind you will be safe from the lower realms. Let go of whatever you might see or think and direct your attention upward, through the top of your head toward the light. Imagine the image of a precious deity above you and dissolve into the pure light of its essence.”. .“That’s all very well for you to say,” Lacey replied. “But I don’t know how to do any of that. I don’t even watch television.”. . Lama Yeshe very patiently explained it to her in another way: “When the moment comes, be like a child, not distracted or clinging to any thought, open but not active or emotional.”. . Finally Lacey’s anxiety dissolved into a kind of temporary acceptance and Lama Yeshe asked Byron to read a section of Clementine’s letter, which returns us to the script if we haven’t been there already.)

. .With Byron shuffling through the long letter he finally finds the one page Lama Yeshe wants to be read. . “It’s true, Rinpoche,” the letter says. “My faith is so precarious that often I think I need a vulgar miracle to pull me through. My mind wanders and I have trouble with even the simplest part of the visualization you gave me. You warned me this would happen, that the purpose of this practice is the purification of obscurations, that original mind is encrusted with intellectual delusions and defiling passions and that the ego inevitably resists any attempts to purify it. Maybe so, but I’m still discouraged and resistant. My practice is willful and stale, and I have to force myself to do even a little bit. All I think about is packing my bags and getting on a plane for Bali or Goa and indulging every sort of hedonistic desire. I’m full of self-pity and narcissism, enough to wonder how a rich, fairly attractive young woman who just wanted to play the sitar in a rock-’n’-roll band and fall in love with the lead singer ended up doing prostrations alone in a cold damp shack in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s even worse than I’m saying, Rinpoche, because I’m too inhibited with you to describe my despair, which is not a good omen for our relationship insofar as it deals with surrender. But every time I think about surrender I always seem to end up shutting more doors. How can any of it work? We can’t speak to each other without a translator. . Hi, Byron, Please write me. Your last letter made no sense at all. . You’re caught in the stiff robes of formal religion while I’m caught in the naive mind of the deluded seeker. I keep wanting something from all of this, and the more I want the more I seem to fall apart. The most basic precepts elude me. I don’t really know what is virtuous or what isn’t, so how can I know what karma or cause and effect is? When I sit I don’t really sit. When I listen I don’t really listen. When I speak I don’t really speak. I don’t recognize my center of gravity, and my mind is endlessly full of speedy concepts that never give me a moment’s peace. I have no idea what it means to attain realization, especially now that I see that those first experiences were nothing more than a slight crack in the outer layers of my conditioning. And yet I go on because I don’t know how to go back. You say that the source of all phenomena is the mind, and true freedom comes from understanding that the individual mind is fundamentally fallacious. But I have trouble in simply watching my mind much less understanding it. . So what am I doing about all these complaints? Nothing. I get up in the morning. I make tea. I do my practice. I take my medicine, although no one seems to know what’s the matter with me. My prayers are empty and hollow. Who am I and why am I here is my only mantra. And so it goes. . ” Byron hands the page to Lama Yeshe, who replaces it in the rest of the letter. Then he reties the entire package with a red ribbon. Reaching down he touches Lacey lightly on the hair. He looks at her for a long time with such solemnity and compassion that it unnerves her until finally he stands and leaves the roof. . “Rinpoche showed you that letter as an example of what a serious student your sister is,” Byron explains. “He also doesn’t think you should meet her in Benares.”. .“Of course we’re going to Benares,” Jim says. “Especially now that she’s sick and in some kind of depression.”. .“I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a depression,” Byron objects. “More like a turbulent passage.”. . Jim is shocked by this casual attitude. “She’s flipped out. All she talks about is what a miserable creature she is.”. . Byron spreads his arms, shrugging his shoulders. “Listen, I’m only a poor pilgrim myself, but I’m very close to your sister. Too close, actually. I would love to see her. I even need to see her, but Lama Yeshe knows her mind more than I or even you do and no doubt Clementine herself.”. . But Jim is determined. “At this point I’m not trying to find her mind, only her body. I just want to get her back home and then we can deal with all that other stuff.”. . Lacey places her hand inside his and they present a united front. . “Well sure,” Byron says sadly. “Good luck to you. By the way, do you need any religious artifacts? Offering bowls, tankas, statues, skull cups, butter lamps? Buddha’s tooth? I’m raising money for a plane ticket to the States. One way, no return.”. . Lacey writes out a thousand-dollar check to Byron, who tells her Lama Yeshe might be going over as well. Impulsively she writes another check for a thousand and that closes the deal. . Byron takes the checks, writes his address on a slip of paper and hands it to her. .

EVELYN sat in the dressing room of Conchita de Paragon, the ancient Peruvian actress, consort, and business magnate. They were both wrapped in terry cloth robes and sat together on a low divan waiting for their hair to dry. Beneath them, through latticed French windows, they could see Wesley sitting in a wicker armchair on the far side of the lawn reading Walker’s last pages and occasionally firing a small hand-tooled Smith and Wesson at a target attached to the trunk of an oak tree three hundred feet away. A bemused gardener stood behind the bench, bringing back the target for Wesley’s inspection after each round.

“You have read these pages?” Conchita asked. It was to her estate in Connecticut that they had come for the day, to return that night for a television interview that Wesley had agreed to.

“Last night,” Evelyn said. “Wesley was too drunk to read them.”

“His son writes the script?”