Lycanthropia

Some years ago, when my family lived in Asia, I had the opportunity to observe over the course of several months — granted, for the most part at a distance — the activities of a young Buddhist monk. In particular, as his monastery was across the street from where I caught the bus to school, I watched the morning prayer ritual that preceded his leaving the cloister to gather food left for the order at small household altars by sympathetic lay people in town. The monks devoted their lives to prayer and were therefore forbidden to spend labor either in the farming or preparation of food. Instead, they begged for their meals. Begging, the order believed, kept the monks humble and gave them the opportunity to bless those they encountered in their quest for nourishment.

Every morning the orange-robed young monk crossed one leg, then another, bowed his sheared head over the sole of either foot and mumbled what I assumed were Sanskrit words over them, as the order was clearly part of the Mahayana tradition. I learned from my friend Isamu Yamada that the monk prayed his feet would not inadvertently kill an unsuspecting insect or, if they accidentally did, would cause it to be reborn into a higher consciousness. The ritual, repeated day after day in sunshine or inclement weather, was born out of an inner discipline the monk learned from his earliest training. Its result was a cheerful, humble individual who went about his daily tasks — even the most menial — with enthusiasm. He was acutely aware — perhaps as I would never be — of his community and his responsibility to it.

It was 1969. The Vietnam War was in full swing and beginning to bleed into Laos and Cambodia. For me, it was a war of vivid images: the Eddie Adams photograph of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street, faces of young men standing in lines at the military airport awaiting transport to Saigon, the seemingly endless stream of B-52 aircraft coming and going from the airstrip near where my family lived, and the June 1963 news photo of Quang Duc, the first Vietnamese monk to immolate himself. The monk troubled me. I had a copy of the news photo, illuminated by a hippie artist and torn from the pages of an underground newspaper, tacked to a bulletin board in my room. More than anything I wanted to understand what would make a human set himself on fire. It seemed unthinkable to me.

It was part of the reason I paid such close attention to the young monk who prayed over his feet opposite my bus stop. I often wondered if he was — whether he recognized it or not — following a path that would eventually lead to death by immolation. Why did he live in community, set apart from his peers, those chattering, uniformed high school students I saw spill off commercial buses in groups of threes and fours during restless afternoons spent prowling movie theatres and purported “black market” alleyways? He hardly seemed much older than me, yet he had given up everything I valued — freedom, individuality and sexuality — for the pipe dream of religion or to satisfy the whims of his believing family. Had Quang Duc followed the same instruction against his will, instruction that led, not to his being raised to a loftier consciousness, but to his being doused with gasoline and devoured by flames?

The young monk never passed my bus stop without smiling and nodding his head at me. Isamu Yamada bowed slightly at his passing. A smile from a monk, Isamu Yamada said, was like a blessing. It meant you would have good fortune throughout the day. Superstitious nonsense, I responded. But I had to grudgingly admit I looked forward to the gentle greeting, and I was disappointed on days when the bus arrived earlier than the toothy blessing.

I have narrated this much of the story often enough, occasionally to the interest and curiosity of hearers; I have seldom — perhaps never — related the rest of the story, mainly because I was too ashamed of my behavior to tell it.

One day, after the orange robe passed, I suggested to Isamu Yamada that we ditch school and follow the monk on his rounds. After bribing my companion and translator with a free lunch and an hour at a Pachinko parlor, he agreed. We stowed our books down the street at his house (both his parents worked outside the home) and traipsed off after our quarry. In his bright orange robe, he was easy prey. We could have easily followed at a distance without much effort, but the longer we pursued, the more distance frustrated me. Before long, we found ourselves within earshot of the monk. I am certain he knew we were tailing him, but he did not acknowledge our presence. Instead, he pressed on toward the town’s residential section.

:::

There, at the home of a sympathizer, he obtained a large bowl that he carried in the crook of his arm, holding it against his body. Into it he began emptying smaller bowls of what looked like vegetables and rice from the little pagoda-like altars at house after house of those believers who contributed to the well-being of the monastery. The area was not very affluent; in fact, my mother’s maid, Kieko, who earned a mere $3.50 for a hard day’s labor, might have lived there. It seemed bad enough to me that Westerners were exploiting the island’s poor — that this religious charlatan, with his prayer beads and his bobbing, smiling head, was taking food from their tables seemed worse. I found myself wanting to erase the smile from his face. The more his bowl filled, the angrier I got.

Finally, I muttered under my breath to Isamu Yamada, “I’m going to knock him on his ass.”

I increased the pace of my step to a very brisk walk, barely hearing Isamu Yamada’s astonished, “What?!” behind me. As I neared the monk, I became aware of his stride and the location of his hips and shoulder. I was seeking his center of gravity, looking — as I did during street football games — for the place and time when he was most vulnerable. All I needed do was wait until his right foot bore his full weight, then place my left foot in front of his and bring my 160 pounds to bear on his back and shoulder. I was so near to him that I could smell the odor of his skin. I focused all my attention on his hips and shoulder. My adrenaline surged. When the time came, I struck with all my might, leaning into the task as hard as I could.

It was a classic takedown. The great bowl sprang from his grip and flew forward in the air, spilling its contents over the sidewalk and street. The young monk sprawled forward, catching the weight of his fall on his elbow and knees: He fell hard. I could almost hear the rasp of his skin on the concrete. He lay still for a moment, then turned and pulled himself to a seated position on the ground. Isamu Yamada had run forward and rattled off something in Japanese to the monk. He glared at me:

“How could you do such a thing!”

He assisted the monk to his feet, all the while talking to him in Japanese.

A long gash in the skin of the monk’s forearm and elbow dripped blood on the ground; one of his knees was badly scraped; his food was strewn over the sidewalk and street and the bowl he had carried was broken into several pieces.

He smiled at me, brought his hands together in front of his chest, bowed, and said something to me in Japanese.

“What did he say?” I asked Isamu Yamada.

My friend was shaking with anger: “He says he is sorry he got in your way,” he spat at me. “He wants you to forgive him.”

I don’t believe I ever felt more humiliated. A part of me understood how completely sinister my behavior had been and wanted to atone for the evil deed; another part wanted to slap the monk into Western reality. I felt utterly condemned. I muttered something in English and tried to press a few dollars on the monk. He refused my offer and apologized again; then he shrugged off Isamu Yamada’s assistance and bent to gather the ceramic shards from the street and sidewalk. When Isamu Yamada and I tried to help, he shook his hand and waved us away. In Japanese, he said, “The responsibility is mine.” Isamu Yamada gripped my forearm and led me down the street away from the catastrophe. Once we were back in town he told me he was going home: He didn’t want to be seen with me. More than a week passed before he would speak with me again.

I gathered my books at Isamu Yamada’s house, then wandered down to the seawall, where I sat in the sand with my back against the cinder blocks and listened to the roar of the waves and watched a group of hippies having a picnic. I considered my arrogance and what it cost me in emotional currency.

For more than a week I could not bring myself to catch the bus at my usual stop, but walked a good 8 or 12 blocks to another. One morning, running late, I could not avoid a return to my usual place. There I turned my back on the monastery and talked non-stop with Isamu Yamada (we were speaking, but had not returned to mutual trust). As usual, the young monk passed, his elbow still bandaged after our collision; he bowed and smiled. I found I could not look him in the eye.

In fact, over the remaining several months I rode that bus, I was never again able to meet his gentle gaze.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.