Alice

"How do you reconcile your christianity with your buddhism?" Alice asks me this morning. We are sitting in the living room of her 2nd house, the house she keeps in town. Her real house is an old riverboat captain's mansion on the river, but the drive is long and when the weather gets bad or her kids just have too much going on, they stay here. She also uses the downstairs as her office--she's a physician. She's originally from Tennessee, part of a famous fundamentalist, right-wing tribe--converting to Anglicanism was just huge for her--caused a real rift in her family. She's ten years older than I am and is the only person I ever talk to about God and religion. We talk for hours. We used to talk about medicine, too, but no longer.Sometimes I get a little bit frustrated with her as a doctor--I don't think she's rigorous enough, which is the same reason, come to think of it, that I get frustrated with her as a parent. She was raised so strictly that she never disciplined hers, and as a consequence, they're just unbearable. Our kids are the same age, and I look at the mostly mannerly creatures mine have evolved into and compare them with her goth antisocial future serial killers and just want to get down upon my knees....all that said, I love her. It's funny how you can like someone so much and really not agree with a thing they do.
I ran into her at school when I was dropping Lilly off. She was getting out of her ancient Mercedes, balancing coffee and books--"Do you want to meditate with me?" she asked.
So here we were, in her decorator living room, sitting on lemon silk brocade couch pillows on the floor waiting to begin.
"I don't." I replied succinctly.
"Do you worry that it's idol worship?"
This is interesting. This has come up twice this week. A nurse at work asked me if I had buddhas in the house, and, when I said that I did, informed me that I was idol worshipping.
"Do you believe you're saved by grace?" I ask her.
"Yes."
"Is that going to ever change?"
She laughs. "No."
"if you sit and breathe for 1/2 hour, when you stop, will you not still be saved?"
"I'm saved."
"then I think we're okay."
"I know......" she drawls, swinging her grey hair out of her face, "I just started doing this a few weeks ago....and I remembered you said something about doing it...so I wanted to try it with you. I just wonder if I should spend the time praying instead."
"You pray all the time."
"Every minute."
"So, even if you just sit here, I'll bet you'll pray anyways."
Alice has felt desperately guilty her whole life and has no idea why this is so. She is forever trying to make it up, by praying all the time and doing good works. About a year ago, she missed a diagnosis on an infant, and the child is now a vegetable. The details are unique, so I won't go into them, and she was not found guilty of malpractice, but still it shook her to the core. She sort of skated sideways--has become deeply involved in alternative therapies, etc., but I think this is an abdication of the real work of medicine and one she will probably come to regret, but I do understand her desperate wish to not have the responsibility for bringing harm, however inadvertent. She has been losing herself in dreams, I think, wandering in the woods, doing shaman work with some guy in Colorado.
What she needs, and this is coarse, but true, is a good extramarital affair.
But I don't say this.
"Do you do something before you begin?" she asks.
"I say the bodhissattva vow."
"How does that go?"
"Ummmm....." my mind is suddenly blank. We start giggling.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"22 years. Okay, no, I have it. Shu Jo Mu Hen Sei Gan Do/Bon No Mu Jin Sei Gan Dan/HoMon Mu Ryo Sei Gan Gakku/Butsu Do Mu Jo Sei Gan Jo"
"And that means?"
"infinite are all beings, I vow to save them
infinite are all Dharmas, I vow to master them
infinite is the buddha way, I vow to attain it.
Wait. I'm forgetting something."
She shakes her head, "I'm so impressed. I had no idea you were this into this. How often do you do this"
"Every day."
"Since I've known you?"
"Way before that."
"How do I not know this about you?"
Good question. I just shrug. Everyone's a mystery, really, aren't they?
"I can't believe I can't remember the whole thing...."this is really bothering me. How can I say the same thing every single day and not remember it? I don't even remember which thing I'm forgetting. Do I have any of it right at all?
"nevermind, let's just do it."
"the guy who leads the vipassanna group says 'shall we'" Alice offers
I know the guy who leads the Vipassanna (sp?) group. Almost biblically. Another thing Alice doesn't know about me.
"Bong!" I say, doing my best impression of a gong, which makes Alice laugh again, and hit the button on the timer.
We sit for 1/2 hour, breathing. Alice moves around a lot, rolling her head back and forth, tapping her foot, looking around the room. I stay straight and keep breathing. The timer goes off. And right then, the missing piece of the vow floats into my mind, as if had been hiding from me, waiting to play a trick
"I kept having Fahre's (sp?) requiem run through my mind" she says dreamily.
"Infinite are all attachments, I vow to be free of them."
"My goodness, why would you ever want that?" she asks, bemused.

Well, that's my 1/2 hour.