white. Among the five hundred or so people at Omega this weekend, I will count about three African Americans and five Asians, mainly staff, including the three lovely young Tibetan women who are Seagal’s disciples. There are some archetypal New Age Stevie Nicks types decked out in southwestern pot-smoker chic—turquoise jewelry, dangly earrings, flowing skirts, and scarves—who all seem to know one another (“Didn’t we meet on the Inner Voyage cruise to Cozumel?” I hear one woman ask another). The healthy contingent of aikido/Seagal devotees from a martial arts studio on Long Island—to a man displaying the thick-necked, wide-assed bulk of the fraternity brother—are here to see a world-recognized martial arts master. Alas, they will be disappointed this weekend because Seagal’s inevitable aikido display, while admittedly thrilling (for all his size, he moves like a snake-hipped matador), lasts only about twenty minutes. The rest of the group, myself included, seem to be the unwitting members of the American Gap-oisie. We are eastern seaboard types. Although I am here undercover on assignment, as a Japanese studies major, I fit in rather comfortably with the rest of the vaguely disgruntled seekers who, if not of actual Buddhist leanings, are at least conversant with the Eight-Fold Path. Twenty years ago we would have been readers of Robert Persig. Now we own well-thumbed copies of
The Jew in the Lotus.
We’ve done yoga. We’ve been lactose intolerant.
Of course, there are a few people among us who have come solely to see a movie star, like the twenty-one-year-old who is still talking about his Sean Connery–themed bar mitzvah (“He’s my role model ’cause he’s so cool”) and the older man who knows nothing about Buddhism and whose questions are generally along the lines of “Anyone ever tell you you looked like a cross between Robert Taylor and Ray Milland?” and “How many meals do you eat a day?”
(Later on I will see this man talking with two women outside the seminar hall, telling them a joke: “Two psychiatrists pass each other on the street. One says, ‘Hello,’ and the other says, ‘I wonder what you mean by that?’ ” He goes on to explain the joke—because aren’t jokes always better when they’re explained?—“See, therapists can’t take anything at face value,” he says, making little lobster claws with his hands. “They’ve always got to—”
One of the women cuts him off. “You’re on shaky ground here, ’cause my husband was a psychiatrist. I don’t need to listen to this.” She gets up and walks away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry ’cause you’re not.”
Unable to resist, he says to her retreating form, “I wonder what you mean by that!”)
As for the serious followers of Tibetan Buddhism, they see Seagal as their Man in Havana, someone whose visibility in Hollywood is beneficial for publicizing the dharma. Seagal is one of their own, and they are admiring, but not cowed. Fans, clearly, but more than that: fellow travelers.
At the time of the retreat, Seagal had already been on a two-year hiatus from Hollywood due to a growing conflict he feels between his roles as star and Holy Man. “The studios know what they want. Fighting. As I became a lama, I had to establish a line I could not cross,” he tells us. (He’s apparently made peace with that line since then, crossing it to make a film with the very Buddha-like title
Exit Wounds.
)
The Tibet thing is fairly new in Seagal’s repertoire of identities. All I had known or read about him prior to this weekend had located him in a different, albeit now less fashionable, part of Asia, namely Japan. Aikido is a Japanese martial art, and in countless articles about him, Seagal has spoken exhaustively, if not a tad mysteriously, about the many decades he spent over there. Even in the crypto-autobiographical introductory sequence to his first film,
Above the Law,
his character is seen teaching an
The Jew in the Lotus.
We’ve done yoga. We’ve been lactose intolerant.
Of course, there are a few people among us who have come solely to see a movie star, like the twenty-one-year-old who is still talking about his Sean Connery–themed bar mitzvah (“He’s my role model ’cause he’s so cool”) and the older man who knows nothing about Buddhism and whose questions are generally along the lines of “Anyone ever tell you you looked like a cross between Robert Taylor and Ray Milland?” and “How many meals do you eat a day?”
(Later on I will see this man talking with two women outside the seminar hall, telling them a joke: “Two psychiatrists pass each other on the street. One says, ‘Hello,’ and the other says, ‘I wonder what you mean by that?’ ” He goes on to explain the joke—because aren’t jokes always better when they’re explained?—“See, therapists can’t take anything at face value,” he says, making little lobster claws with his hands. “They’ve always got to—”
One of the women cuts him off. “You’re on shaky ground here, ’cause my husband was a psychiatrist. I don’t need to listen to this.” She gets up and walks away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry ’cause you’re not.”
Unable to resist, he says to her retreating form, “I wonder what you mean by that!”)
As for the serious followers of Tibetan Buddhism, they see Seagal as their Man in Havana, someone whose visibility in Hollywood is beneficial for publicizing the dharma. Seagal is one of their own, and they are admiring, but not cowed. Fans, clearly, but more than that: fellow travelers.
At the time of the retreat, Seagal had already been on a two-year hiatus from Hollywood due to a growing conflict he feels between his roles as star and Holy Man. “The studios know what they want. Fighting. As I became a lama, I had to establish a line I could not cross,” he tells us. (He’s apparently made peace with that line since then, crossing it to make a film with the very Buddha-like title
Exit Wounds.
)
The Tibet thing is fairly new in Seagal’s repertoire of identities. All I had known or read about him prior to this weekend had located him in a different, albeit now less fashionable, part of Asia, namely Japan. Aikido is a Japanese martial art, and in countless articles about him, Seagal has spoken exhaustively, if not a tad mysteriously, about the many decades he spent over there. Even in the crypto-autobiographical introductory sequence to his first film,
Above the Law,
his character is seen teaching an
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