Bombhisattva

by Richard Lau

“What is the sound of one bomb dropping?” —a paraphrase of a well-known koan, possibly spoken by a bodhisattva after a nuclear attack.

There was an incredible tension between the nations of the world as they teetered on the brink of nuclear conflict.

And it seemed that the weighty knot of the international situation had consolidated itself and squatted firmly and squarely like some giant ape between Arthur’s shoulder blades.

The forty-year-old mail clerk slowly mounted the stairway to the roof of his apartment building. Like any pilgrim seeking wisdom, he had climbed this mountain many times before.

Once on the roof, he settled on an old woven doormat he had placed near one of the ventilation shafts. “Welcome,” the mat said to his behind.

This was his sanctuary, far above the labyrinthine trails of metal ants but still under the watchful glass eyes of the surrounding skyscrapers.

Arthur sat cross-legged and straight-backed, hands resting palms up on his knees. He closed his eyes, making sure not to furrow his brow. He recalled the words and image of the group meditation leader at the community center, a small Japanese man who always wore a white-striped green sweat suit and referred to himself only as “Master Stan.”

Master Stan had an open, expressive face, usually bearing a beaming smile, quite unlike the stereotypical scowls Asians always seemed to wear in those martial arts movies. Though thin, stoop-shouldered, and white-haired, his enthusiasm and joyfulness spoke of a man of much fewer years and fewer wrinkles. He moved with the fluid grace of a ballet dancer. His physical being mirrored the paradoxical juxtapositions he used when explaining his “koan-do attitude.”

“Feel your connection to the ground and the air around you,” Master Stan once had instructed. “Don’t think. Just be.”

“But didn’t the French philosopher René Descartes say, cogito, ergo sum—I think; therefore, I am?” asked Arthur in one of his more argumentative moods. “How can I be if I don’t think?”

Master Stan’s answer was a philosophical one-two punch. “If you are not being, how would you know? And would it even matter?”

That first day of meditation class was several months ago. Since then, through practice, guidance, and familiarity, Arthur had been able to slide into a meditative state much quicker and smoother.

“Take a deep breath and center yourself,” instructed the memory of Master Stan. “Continue to breathe and become more and more aware of your body.”

And Arthur did so. He felt his muscles as thick ropes woven with hundreds of stressful strands. He acknowledged the snow flurry of worry and fear swirling inside the blender of his mind. Words and pictures zoomed past this internal eye like speeding subway trains, and he encouraged them along.

He also became more aware of his surroundings. The sunlight warming his moppy auburn hair. The spicy scent-garden of a multitude of different dinners all being cooked at the same time.

Above the echoing distant din of horns and shouts, he could hear a loud radio broadcast escaping from one of the open windows on the floor below. Arthur couldn’t make out the words of the announcer, but there was the usual urgent, outraged tone in the voice.

Now was not the time, and he dove deeper into a meditative state, the calm at the bottom of the ocean, far away from the choppy and disruptive surface.

Thoughts and ideas fluttered through his head, and he greeted each one as an old friend, thanked it for the visit, and graciously dismissed it. He was bailing water out of a flooded bathtub, but not frantically and in panic, but in slow, gentle, determined motions, focused on the task and not the time it took.

Suddenly, through his closed eyelids, he saw a brilliant flash, as if he had stared straight into the heart of the sun. A blast of unbelievably intense heat melted his face, his loose clothing caught aflame, and in a moment, Arthur was gone.

Then from nothingness, he returned, becoming one with everything as his scattered atoms mixed with the dust of debris and the ash of the incinerated.

And through some miracle of metaphysics triumphing over physics, Arthur was reincarnated or at least re-assembled as a charred husk in human form. Slowly and stiffly on cooked muscles and joints no longer animated by life but half-life, Arthur rose from the rubble of the apartment house, ruptured ears deaf to the screams and moans around him.

He tried to call out, but his seared lungs and leaky throat could only release a raspy “Om.” He felt the vibration of the sound rumble through his mostly empty chest cavity. It felt somehow universal and pleasing.

He was suddenly aware of a horrendous desire to consume brains. Before the explosion, Arthur had tried to be mindful. Now he simply wanted to be mind-full.

“Ommmmmmmmm. Ommmmmmmmm. Ommmmmmmm.” He repeated the drone like a mantra, as he staggered forward, his worries vanquished, his thoughts non-existent and no longer a burden or distraction. He simply…was just being.

He instinctively moved, going forth in search of a meal and for others of his kind.

After all, he couldn’t be this new world’s only… Zenbie.

Arthur had only taken a few shaky steps when the ghost-like image of Master Stan appeared beside him, green sweat suit and all. To Arthur’s surprise, the old man didn’t look affected at all by whatever had brought the city to its knees. No, much further than that. To its ankles. To the dirty, ashy soles of its feet. Perhaps Master Stan had been lucky enough to have been sheltered somewhere?

“Come, let’s walk.”

“Where? Why?” Arthur wanted to ask, but all that came out of his mouth was the ever-present, “Ooommmmm.”

Still the master seemed to understand. “Regardless of what has happened, you are still on your journey.”

As they rounded a stacked salad of wire, brick, glass, and other wreckage, Arthur saw her. He knew it was a female more by instinct than appearance, for she resembled a wooden puppet that had been tossed into a fire—clothesless, mostly skinless, and genderless. Any hair she may have had was burned away. Arthur knew he was in a similar condition and felt as if he was looking into a mirror. He felt a pang of sympathy, both for her and himself.

She passed Master Stan as if the old man wasn’t there and focused her hard-boiled egg-eyes on Arthur. “Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnsss.” Apparently, she still possessed a full and fully working tongue. And she was hungry.

For some reason, Arthur wanted to preserve his brains or whatever he had left in his scorched skull. Instead, he offered her an expendable finger.

The woman quickly grabbed his arm and sank her teeth into the barbecued meat near his wrist. With a sharp jerk of her head, she tore away his entire hand. To Arthur’s surprise, he didn’t feel any pain as the brittle, disintegrating body part easily broke off. Instead of the snap of breaking bone, he thought he heard a high-pitched ring of a bell somewhere. It reminded him of a wooden pestle striking a Tibetan singing bowl.

The two men watched as the woman squatted on a nearby slab of concrete and chewed ravenously on her prize.

“Very Dana,” observed Master Stan, nodding.

“You know her?” Arthur asked, surprised that he had regained the ability to form coherent words again. “Dana? Is that her name?”

“Leeesssssslieeeee,” corrected the woman between mouthfuls, spitting out a fingernail.

“Leslie Dana?” repeated Arthur, still not understanding. “And by very Dana, do you mean she always used to bite people?”

“No, Arthur.” Master Stan smiled, beaming like a rising sun. “Dana, one of the six Bodhisattva ideals mentioned in the Diamond Sutra.” The old man’s eyes grew bright and piercing. “It means generosity, giving of oneself. Which you just did.”

“She was famished,” Arthur replied simply. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

He heard the chime of the bell again, as Master Stan nodded.

“That is Sila, the second ideal. The ideal of virtue, morality, and proper conduct.” The master paused, allowing his words to both sink in like sunshine and take flight like wild birds.

But Arthur barely heard what the old man had said. Leslie’s form was changing. Patches of smooth brown skin had grown back over much of her body, along with a good growth of thick curly hair on her head. She was definitely female, and Arthur almost grew embarrassed watching and taking in her restored, mature nudity.

“How?” was all Arthur could ask, trying to ignore his recently gained intermittent tinnitus.

“Virya,” replied Master Stan. “The ideal of energy, vigor, effort!”

Since Arthur still looked puzzled, the master continued. “When she consumed your hand, she also ingested some of your energy. You have promoted the change from her previous condition to her now improved self. She, too, is now a Zenbie.”

Arthur looked down at himself. He then picked up a truck’s detached rearview mirror and stared at his face.

He recalled another zen koan: “What did your face look like before your mother and father were born?” He adjusted it to his present situation. “What does your face look like after being blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast?” His reflection gave him the answer. But why did he still look like a crisply toasted corpse? Why wasn’t he healing, like Leslie?

Master Stan anticipated the question. “You will not change, for you have achieved your perfection. You are the source. A raging river may change its banks, but never itself.”

For a moment, Arthur was tempted to wallow in self-pity. This was perfection? He looked where his deteriorating forearm abruptly ended and pictured his missing hand. He almost grew resentful and jealous toward Leslie and her rebirth that he had initiated. But in the end, Arthur knew he was beyond such pettiness. Especially when he heard the unseen bell again.

“Ksanti,” said Master Stan. “Acceptance, which leads to endurance.”

“I will strive to endure,” Arthur promised. Then added, with determination, “I will endure.”

“Shall we continue on your path?”

Arthur and his teacher began to walk again, with Leslie following cautiously a few steps behind them. Arthur’s eyes took in the encompassing devastation. The neighborhood or what was left of it looked so different, as if he was in a junkyard or some horribly dilapidated city of the future. But the broken bits and twisted pieces were disturbingly familiar. Half of the fallen Morton Shoe Store sign sloped across a crushed, gray station wagon, just like the one that Oscar Gerrelli owned. And was that Mrs. Esposito’s walker next to it, the metal legs more twisted than her scoliosised back had been?

The old Arthur, the previous one, would have felt angry and upset at the horror he saw. Now, he was like a computer, taking in the data of what he observed and processing it without emotion. Ksanti, again.

“Braaaaaaaiiiinnnnnsss!”

Two figures staggered towards them. And though their burnt shells were foreign to his eyes, he knew them to be the shoe store owner Howie Morton and Mrs. Esposito, finally walking without assistance.

“Braaaaaaiiiinnnnnssss!” they chorused together, still approaching.

Leslie pushed her way past Arthur and passed through Master Stan. Arthur moved forward protectively, but Master Stan stepped in front of him.

“Do not concern yourself,” intoned Master Stan. “She has learned your lesson, and you have taught her well.”

Arthur watched as Leslie unhesitatingly extended a smooth, undamaged arm to the two newcomers, who immediately chomped down on it with gusto. But after each tore off a bite, they stopped. Arthur could only stare in amazement as Morton and Mrs. Esposito seemed to recover their humanity, in both appearance and attitude, in only a matter of moments. Then they turned, unconcerned about their own nakedness, and looked at Arthur.

“The energy grows stronger as it is passed along,” mused Master Stan. “Contact with each Zenbie magnifies its power.”

Suddenly, Arthur was filled with purpose, an urgent, undeniable message pumping through his now-beating heart.

“Come with me!” he called to the small group before him. “There are other survivors awaiting the compassion we have to share with them. This, my friends, is how we start anew!”

As other survivors were found, the Zenbies offered fleshy pieces of themselves, and as their bite wounds healed, those who had bitten them were transformed.

By nightfall, Arthur’s coenobium of Zenbies continued to swell and flood the city, much like the raging river mentioned by Master Stan. And every time Arthur moved to offer himself, one of his followers would quickly interject with a sacrifice of his or her own. He understood. This river had only one source, and, as evident by his still missing hand, he wouldn’t, couldn’t heal.

Soon, the mass of new humanity split into smaller packs. Some paused to rest. Others continued to search.

Dawn came, and the sun seemed farther away than ever before. The contrast between the red sky and the dark, uneven rubble only sharpened to Arthur’s tired eyes.

Then he saw something he recognized on the ground. It was his old meditation mat.

“You should give yourself some time,” suggested Leslie, touching his leprous arm without repulsion. She, too, had gained a lot of wisdom during the night, continuing to grow and evolve. And the bite wounds inflicted on her by Mr. Morton and Mrs. Esposito had fully healed without a trace of a scar.

The first three letters on the mat had been burned and smudged into obscurity, so now the mat only said, “…come.”

And so, Arthur accepted the mat’s invitation, sitting, forcing his rigor-mortised legs to cross. Though he had no eyelids, he shut out the world and visually saw nothing. That blankness seeped into his mind, like a slow tide. And Arthur was at peace.

He heard another metallic chime, now familiar, now a treasured and welcomed companion. “Dhyana,” thought Arthur. “Meditation and tranquility.”

Time passed. How long he sat there and meditated, he did not know. But when the world returned and he returned to the world, Arthur could see it was night time again.

“Arthur? Arthur?” Leslie was nearby, calling to him, calling for him, with a hint of desperation in her voice.

“Over here!” Arthur replied and waved his abbreviated arm.

But she could not hear him any more than she could see him.

Ding!

And Arthur understood, achieving Prajna, the final Bodhisattva ideal of insight and wisdom. Through the explosive flash of a nuclear bomb, he had literally become… enlightened.

His work was done. His purpose complete. He was at the end of his journey.

Master Stan stood over him, no longer wearing his green sweat suit. Instead, the old man was dressed in a white, long-sleeved shirt and loose-fitting trousers, as a civilian in Japan might have worn decades ago. He was making an odd swinging gesture with his arms.

Arthur suddenly remembered something that he had noticed when he first met Master Stan at the community center. When he had tried to greet the instructor with a customary handshake, he had received instead a courteous Oriental bow. Arthur had become so familiar with his teacher that the significance of the switch had escaped his current attention with all that had happened since the bomb’s detonation.

The elderly Japanese man had only a stump at the end of his right forearm. Had Master Stan been at Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Was a strange and secret history repeating itself?

Master Stan gave him no answer. But, instead, he was giving Arthur an ovation.

And Arthur reveled in the sound of one hand clapping.