It begins with a monk, with a car accident, with a broken leg that even a month of rest wouldn't heal.
But it doesn't begin there at all.
It unfolds with a conversation, with a deep conviction for healing, with a chance missed, with another one gained.
But it doesn't unfold at all.
But it doesn't begin there at all.
It unfolds with a conversation, with a deep conviction for healing, with a chance missed, with another one gained.
But it doesn't unfold at all.
It ends with this:
In a small cell only three: a teacher, a student, a monk. A teacher with visions of a man who gets up, picks up his mat, and walks out of the monastery forever. A student with his own story to tell. A monk in absolute misery and fury at the hand he's been dealt. I only saw three. Only three. But really there were more... maybe thousands. Legions battling it out for possession of a soul.
For forty-five minutes the abuse and scorn which issued forth from the monk's mouth, now blasphemous, now bitter, now ridiculous, now resentful, left no room for more than a handful of other words from anyone else. It was like something obnoxious and bent on destruction had taken over his mouth and made a game out of interrupting. He began interrupting himself. He told me there was no god and our gods were the same. He wanted me to point to Hawaii on a map. He agreed with me and called me stupid. He told me that his leg was healing perfectly even as he looked at the x-rays showing a complete gap between the pieces of bone. He assured me of the most blatant lies. When he began to make accusations of homosexuality, I knew there was no healing going to take place that day and I rose to leave.
For forty-five minutes the abuse and scorn which issued forth from the monk's mouth, now blasphemous, now bitter, now ridiculous, now resentful, left no room for more than a handful of other words from anyone else. It was like something obnoxious and bent on destruction had taken over his mouth and made a game out of interrupting. He began interrupting himself. He told me there was no god and our gods were the same. He wanted me to point to Hawaii on a map. He agreed with me and called me stupid. He told me that his leg was healing perfectly even as he looked at the x-rays showing a complete gap between the pieces of bone. He assured me of the most blatant lies. When he began to make accusations of homosexuality, I knew there was no healing going to take place that day and I rose to leave.
But it didn't end there at all.
As I walked out of the door, my heart shattered and my stomach sick, he nearly threw himself from the bed to say to me: Your face lady... it's so strange today. And my student, the shocked witness to the whole horrible visit, paused in the doorway to tell him in Tibetan: Really you need to go to the hospital, you are wrong to say those things to Ms. Kelly, she really worries about you and wants to help. And, though by now well outside the room, I heard that man say: I know.
After all the things I'd heard him say, that was perhaps the only thing I'm convinced that he, himself, actually said.
My face was pale when I walked out of the monastery that afternoon, but I was seeing only another face... one that had filled with anguish, sore abuse and scorn, a visage that had languished... And I remembered that all that He had suffered was all for sinners gain...
So before that face, underneath that suffering... I place this story and all of the characters. He can end it better than I. He is, after all, the Author.
