Ending My Troubles

I’d heard that certain universities offered their employees free tuition. Since I had no money to attend college I thought how I might take a job as a custodian or some other such low-level task that someone without knowledge and devoid of prospects could be expected to do.

Upon making inquiries I learned that a long waiting list existed for such jobs, however. The odds were that the people they hired to fill those jobs would be experienced in such matters, relatives or some such. Too, rather than encouraging them to attend free classes, they would instead be discouraged by being forced to pay for those classes upfront and only later reimbursed.

I traveled from town to town stopping at each university that I happened upon to inquire about a job. One by one they turned me away. At one particular college in the south, the man to whom I spoke seemed eager to help me. But it turned out he was just an underling. When his boss came into the room he summarily dismissed me as a fraud, an imposter, the poseur that I was.

I grew troubled as my search for employment yielded no results in my chosen field. As the days grew into weeks and then into months I came to realize I would not be offered the chance at an education that I so desired.

Finally being a young man without skills and little money I took a job delivering pizzas in a town called Bloomington in central Indiana, known for its institution of higher learning. I was often called upon to bring pizza pies to people who lived in the dormitories at the university. The college campuses were treeful and well-groomed. The students were elegant and full of purpose.

I was nothing to them. They looked past me as I put the pizza boxes in their hands and they shoveled bills into mine. I desired to be a part of it all. I was denied entry. They shut the door in my face. I felt I was one of the unfortunate ones, doomed to wander forever on the outskirts of knowing. I felt my troubles grow until they encompassed my whole world.

One spring day feeling alone and being far from home I walked down by a large lake. I saw a little man on the sandy beach. He was dressed in an orange robe. He was sitting on a straw mat. He just sat there. His eyes were closed. His knees were crossed. His back was very straight. His stance impressed me so much I sat down too, to try and emulate his posture.

I watched how this man breathed in and out, in and out. I thought I might like to try following him. I sat mimicking as best I could how he sat. In just a couple minutes my knees began to hurt. My back ached. My left leg felt as if it was wooden. My eyes closed of their own accord. The words in my head dulled. The pain I felt no longer mattered. My troubles dropped away.

When I opened my eyes the man in the orange robe was gone. I wondered if I had embarrassed him by poorly mocking his posture. I felt ashamed for displaying myself so openly. As I got up to stretch the cramps from my legs I saw him watching me from a pier that jutted out into the lake. He seemed to be smiling though I couldn’t be sure from such a distance.

As I began walking away he hurried to catch up with me. I looked back, stopping to wait for him, his robe fluttered like a mass of ribbons in the breeze. He spoke English with a heavy accent I took to be Japanese though I later learned was Vietnamese. He invited me to come back to the lake the next day. He said he might be able to show me how to better position myself, how to hold my hands properly, and how to count my breaths until I no longer had to count my breaths.

I spent many days together with this man. We never talked of things. We just practiced sitting silently. When I made a mistake he gently corrected me with a gesture or a look that said more than many words could say.

Months passed.

One day I waited for him a long time but he didn’t show up. Though I went back down to the lake for many days after I never saw the little man in the orange robe again. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know where he lived. I wished that I had asked him his name but then I thought how he would have told me if he desired me to know it. I supposed he had grown tired of trying to teach a useless pupil like me something of importance that I would never learn.

I went on with my life of delivering pizzas by night and sitting by the lake by day practicing what the little man in the orange robe had tried to teach me. With the approach of winter, I thought how I might like to leave the cold behind and visit the sandy beaches of Mexico once again. But when I gave my boss my notice he asked if I could stay on a while longer until he could find a replacement. So I did.

About a week later I noticed a small article toward the back of the local newspaper. A picture above the article drew my attention. It was a photograph of the little man in the orange robe. The article told how he had been struck down by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a busy street. He had lingered in a coma for months. Now he was dead.

The article went on to say how the man had come here from Vietnam when the South had collapsed. It told how he had been a Zen master who taught at the local Buddhist meditation center. I had no idea. I thought he was just a man like any other man. Of course, I felt very sad for him. I thought about visiting the Zen center but I never did.

I kept on practicing my sitting, however, and I kept on practicing holding my hands the way he taught me to hold them. I kept on counting my breaths until one day I discovered I no longer had need to count them.

My dreams of going to college passed me by little by little like my breath stretching away into infinity. My troubles died with them. I didn’t mourn the loss of either. I moved away from that town. In time I came to see I was a lucky one. I had escaped the snare set for the intelligent. By being hoodwinked into being a delivery boy to the privileged I became a man of not-knowing.

Rather than learning all there is to know about doing I unlearned all I could about not-doing.

Others seek to learn all they may learn. I seek to forget all I can forget. The space between yes and no is no more than a troubled thought hovering over the waters of eternity. To understand the difference between good and evil I must become both good and evil.

Is this why I should fear what others fear?

Everyone I know is busy and their days are full of purpose. They know where they are going. They feel contented. They have more than they need. Their thoughts are clear and bright. They enjoy their time together by feasting and making merry.

I am stupid and alone. I have nowhere to go. I drift like a broken thing taken by the waves on a silent surging sea. I am restless like the wind speaking of infinity. The mystery comes to me but it has no direction. I have nothing. My thoughts are dim. I am a confused fool in the midst of plenty. I spend my days wandering, aimless and depressed.

I know all I need is provided and so I do nothing.