The billboards should have come with a Surgeon General’s warning, or announced the availability of angioplasty at the next exit.
There were, on occasion, dead deer or possums by the side of the road. Rinpoche nodded his head once, solemnly, at each carcass. By then I’d almost forgotten my sorry outburst and my own questioning, and I’d fallen back into a place where I studied and then dismissed him within the whirl and tilt of my own thoughts. He was easy to be with,I could tell that already, a nice relaxed presence. And yet, it felt to me, surrounded as I was by the roar of American commerce, that his world must be a world of artificial calm, a world of nodding at roadkill and fingering beads. He didn’t know the strains of a regular life, of children’s demands, their tantrums, their occasional whining and perpetual neediness. He didn’t know the stress caused by irritating coworkers, or stupid bosses, or just ordinary chores and pressures—bills, home repairs, family emergencies. He wore his robe. He “sat.” He had his centers, whatever they were—ashrams of some kind, I supposed. With a life like that, why wouldn’t he be calm and pleasant?
“You know,” I said to him, after we’d passed through yet another work zone and a long stretch of silence and were making good time again on the open highway, “all this Zen stuff, the sound of one hand clapping and so forth, it’s fine, but I’d like to have an actual conversation with you. We’re going to be in this car together for, I don’t know, thirty hours or so, and if all your answers are going to be cryptic . . . well, that’s not much fun.”
He had turned his face to me and was smiling without showing his teeth. His skin was the color of the fine filament you find between the peanut and its shell, that silvery red-brown. His forehead and chin were strong, the latter cut by a shallow cleft. His eyes—I glanced back and forth between them and the road—were a sandy brown and speckled with flecks of gold. It was a wide face, open as a child’s, and yet hardened as if he’d worked outdoors for many years.
“What is cliptic ?” he asked.
“Cryptic. It means secret. Or not secret, exactly, but a kind of shorthand, a code. You know—cryptography is thestudy of codes. I ask you what you do, what Rinpoches do, and you say, ‘I sit.’ That’s cryptic. That’s not what we call in this country an open conversational style.”
“Ah.” He turned his face forward and made several small nods, as if digesting this lesson in American social behavior. “What do you work?”
“I’m an editor. I help publish books, on food. Big coffee-table books with pictures of beautifully prepared meals in them, or books with recipes . . . or, sometimes, smaller books about a particular kind of food, or a particular way of preparing food, or the history of food, or a biography of a famous chef. For example, one of our recent projects was a book about the history of the preparation and consumption of game meat. Elk, buffalo, venison, and so on. But that wouldn’t interest you. You’re a vegetarian, no doubt.”
He shook his head.
“Not a vegetarian?”
“Not any - arian. ”
“But you’re some kind of Zen master, a Buddhist at least.”
“Not any - ist. ”
“Not Buddhist? Not a follower of his teachings?”
“He doesn’t want the followers for his teaching.”
“All right. But surely you’re not a Christian.”
“Of course. Christian.”
“What kind of Christian then? Protestant? You’re not Catholic, are you?”
“Protestant,” he said, with his small smile. And then, a second later, “Catholic. All the - ists . All the - arians. Hindu, too. All the Hindus. Muslim. Sufi. I’m Sufi.”
“You’re playing again. Look at the straight answer I gave you, and you give me riddles. Nonsense.”
“Cliptic,” he said with a big smile.
“Worse than cliptic.”
The gas gauge had fallen close to the red zone. In place of billboards
There were, on occasion, dead deer or possums by the side of the road. Rinpoche nodded his head once, solemnly, at each carcass. By then I’d almost forgotten my sorry outburst and my own questioning, and I’d fallen back into a place where I studied and then dismissed him within the whirl and tilt of my own thoughts. He was easy to be with,I could tell that already, a nice relaxed presence. And yet, it felt to me, surrounded as I was by the roar of American commerce, that his world must be a world of artificial calm, a world of nodding at roadkill and fingering beads. He didn’t know the strains of a regular life, of children’s demands, their tantrums, their occasional whining and perpetual neediness. He didn’t know the stress caused by irritating coworkers, or stupid bosses, or just ordinary chores and pressures—bills, home repairs, family emergencies. He wore his robe. He “sat.” He had his centers, whatever they were—ashrams of some kind, I supposed. With a life like that, why wouldn’t he be calm and pleasant?
“You know,” I said to him, after we’d passed through yet another work zone and a long stretch of silence and were making good time again on the open highway, “all this Zen stuff, the sound of one hand clapping and so forth, it’s fine, but I’d like to have an actual conversation with you. We’re going to be in this car together for, I don’t know, thirty hours or so, and if all your answers are going to be cryptic . . . well, that’s not much fun.”
He had turned his face to me and was smiling without showing his teeth. His skin was the color of the fine filament you find between the peanut and its shell, that silvery red-brown. His forehead and chin were strong, the latter cut by a shallow cleft. His eyes—I glanced back and forth between them and the road—were a sandy brown and speckled with flecks of gold. It was a wide face, open as a child’s, and yet hardened as if he’d worked outdoors for many years.
“What is cliptic ?” he asked.
“Cryptic. It means secret. Or not secret, exactly, but a kind of shorthand, a code. You know—cryptography is thestudy of codes. I ask you what you do, what Rinpoches do, and you say, ‘I sit.’ That’s cryptic. That’s not what we call in this country an open conversational style.”
“Ah.” He turned his face forward and made several small nods, as if digesting this lesson in American social behavior. “What do you work?”
“I’m an editor. I help publish books, on food. Big coffee-table books with pictures of beautifully prepared meals in them, or books with recipes . . . or, sometimes, smaller books about a particular kind of food, or a particular way of preparing food, or the history of food, or a biography of a famous chef. For example, one of our recent projects was a book about the history of the preparation and consumption of game meat. Elk, buffalo, venison, and so on. But that wouldn’t interest you. You’re a vegetarian, no doubt.”
He shook his head.
“Not a vegetarian?”
“Not any - arian. ”
“But you’re some kind of Zen master, a Buddhist at least.”
“Not any - ist. ”
“Not Buddhist? Not a follower of his teachings?”
“He doesn’t want the followers for his teaching.”
“All right. But surely you’re not a Christian.”
“Of course. Christian.”
“What kind of Christian then? Protestant? You’re not Catholic, are you?”
“Protestant,” he said, with his small smile. And then, a second later, “Catholic. All the - ists . All the - arians. Hindu, too. All the Hindus. Muslim. Sufi. I’m Sufi.”
“You’re playing again. Look at the straight answer I gave you, and you give me riddles. Nonsense.”
“Cliptic,” he said with a big smile.
“Worse than cliptic.”
The gas gauge had fallen close to the red zone. In place of billboards
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