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At Jon's nod of affirmation, Mark pulled his leather motorcycle jacket from the coat rack. "Now what was the word you used after suffering?"
"'Bodhisattva.' You ready for a lecture before the lecture?"
"Sure, but let's keep moving. It's almost eight now."
"Early Buddhism was all about getting out of the cycle of suffering by renouncing the world and sitting in meditation being detached and monkish," Jon explained as Mark pulled his little Kawasaki scooter out of the narrow passageway alongside the house.
The night was cold, but brisk and clear: a nice night for a ride on the little motorbike.
"Later on, another tradition developed, called Mahayana, which was much less other-worldly. It wasn't restricted to the monks and it wasn't world-renouncing. In fact, it was pretty incarnational, sort of like Christianity."
"Hop on," Mark said. "But keep talking. I can drive and still listen."
"Okay. Well, the central figure of Mahayana is this character called a 'Bodhisattva.' His name was Avalokitesvara."
"That's a mouthful," Mark shouted over his shoulder as he revved the motor and started down the hill toward Castro Street. "Tell me where we're going."
"Oh, near Gough and California. Turn left here and then stay on Divisadero. I'll show you when to turn."
"Go on about Avalo-be-walla-walla."
"Avalokitesvara," Jon laughingly corrected. "The bodhisattva is sort of a parallel to Jesus Christ. The two myths come from about the same period in history. The Buddhist guy, Alavo-be-walla-walla..."
"See, I gotcha," Mark shouted as he turned left onto Castro and the bike labored to get up the hill.
"... Avalokitesvara felt such compassion for the sufferings of the world that he vowed to renounce his own entry into nirvana you know, the total escape from suffering - until all other beings could follow. It was like giving up his own salvation for the sake of others.
"But by this vow Avalokitesvara virtually became a god. So it seems like compassion transforms the experience of suffering so that suffering isn't the same anymore. Through it you can enter into a totally different consciousness. The Mahayana Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna said: 'Between samsara - that is, the everyday world of change and suffering-and nirvana there is not the least ascertainable bit of difference.' I think that sort of means you escape from suffering by accepting it, 'going with the flow' in the old sixties idiom.
"A variation on the myth is that the bodhisattva replaced all the other reincarnating beings, so that Avalokitesvara is the only being left. I mean, then, all of us are manifestations of that One Enlightened Consciousness, pretending we don't know who we are in order to fulfill that vow of compassion. That's like the Christian notion that we're all the Mystical Body of Christ and we should recognize Jesus in everybody else and treat everyone accordingly.
"Now you're gonna turn right on California Street."
After paying the donation at the entrance, Jon led Mark into the Jung Institute's big meeting room. The talk had already begun. Jon noticed his friend Barbara in the front corner, apparently counting up the attendance in the well-packed room. As Jon pointed her out to Mark, she recognized him and waved.
There were a couple of folding chairs leaning against the back wall which Mark opened up. As they sat, the speaker was saying,
"...story in the Panchatantra which Campbell associates with the story of the suffering savior in Buddhism, Christianity, and the Grail legends.
"Joe Campbell was a great story teller," he said as a kind of aside, "and so in his honor, I'm embellishing the story a little beyond the text which, by the way, appears in Volume Four of The Masks of God.
"Four friends, stricken with poverty and seeking to get rich, meet a magician named Bhairavananda, i.e., Terror-Joy," who gives them each a magic quill and instructs them to proceed north until the quill drops. There they will find treasure, he promises.
"They set out together, each with quill in hand. After a short journey, one quill suddenly drops out of its bearer's hand - working sort of like a dowsing rod - and sticks in the earth. The four men dig and find a rich vein of copper just under the topsoil. "Why go further?" says the man whose quill dropped. "Surely there is enough ore here for all of us and our wives and families to be comfortable the rest of our lives." But the other three leave him with the copper and go in search of more treasures.
"After a longer interval, another quill drops. Again they dig and find silver several feet beneath the surface. "Ah," says the new owner of a silver mine, "stay with me and the three of us shall be rich men indeed." But the other two depart.
"A yet longer interval passes and after a more strenuous journey, the third quill drops. The two men dig and, as expected, after much effort come upon a deposit of rich, purest gold. "We can be kings, the two of us; stay with me," says the one. But the other looks at the quill still in his hand and thinks to himself that the next mine must hold diamonds or emeralds or rubies large as hens' eggs:I must go on.
"And so the last seeker, the one whom incarnations hence would become the Buddha, sets out on the final leg of his journey. For many weeks he walks, through forests, over mountains, and finally into a vast desert. He begins to despair, thinking his avarice will be the destruction of him, thinking that he should have remained behind, satisfied with the copper or silver or gold. But the vision of precious gems sparkles before him and he walks on doggedly.
"After many days in the desert, his food and water all gone, his belongings strewn behind him as he lightened his load with each step, he was praying that the quill would drop, drop to show him a well of clear, cold water. For, by now, no treasure could be greater.
"Suddenly he looks up from the endless sand and rock over which he'd been plodding and beholds a strange sight. Before him in the desert on a whirling platform like the world-disk stands a man, arms outstretched as though embracing the whole world; and about his head spins a crown of bright shining razors that slice deep into his forehead. All down his body flow streams of blood."
The lecturer paused, looked out at his audience, and then in a dramatic stage whisper, said, "The quill drops.
"'What does this mean? Why is this wheel on your head?' asks the treasure-seeker. And immediately he finds himself beneath the blades of the spinning wheel.
"'Thank you,' says the other man who now stands freed. 'I have been waiting for countless eons for someone to come and ask what is the meaning of all this suffering, as you shall now wait, free of hunger and thirst, until someone else comes along to ask such a question.' And he departed."
The lecturer paused again and then commented familiarly, "Well, that's quite a story, isn't it?
"Now the purely worldly explanation is that the wheel of suffering was a device to guard the great treasure. But Campbell explains that originally this tale really was not about getting rich but about pursuing the path to Buddhahood. The implication then is certainly that 'the greatest treasure of all' is the full weight of the world's suffering. Perhaps this is because suffering forces us to change our attitudes and because it can teach us compassion. Aswe feel empathy with other beings we begin to see that ego-separation is an illusion and we're really all one. Campbell cites Viktor Frankl's experience of the Nazi concentration camp as a modern version of that same path to Enlightenment through suffering.
"Let us look at the origins of the bodhisattva myth to see..."
Mark tugged at Jon's sleeve. He mouthed the word "AIDS," and smiled knowingly.
Jon felt a shiver of awe, both at the young man's perspicacity and at the implication of meaning Mark recognized.
Return to The mystical gay novels of Toby Johnson
Read another excerpt from PLAGUE: Mark's death and experience of "Going into the Light"
