Free The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett

have been different. But there was not, and we were not.” He paused. “You could say that in the year 2076 of our calendar there began a process long prophesied by which the bulk of humanity—I’m talking ninety percent—will get trapped in the continuum of materialism and will therefore be destroyed. The way leading to final destruction is superficiallypleasurable, until we’re snared, then it gets old real quick. Even on the best view, we’re looking at three thousand years of unenhanced mediocrity, before the Maitreya Buddha comes. Does that ring a bell? I guess it must, or you all wouldn’t be here, would you?”
    He looked over the audience without appearing to see me. All the seats were full, and it struck me that the one I was sitting in had been reserved, because there were people standing and leaning against the walls. The room was packed, lending a feeling of intensity, even passion, to the atmosphere. As I took it all in, I realized that perhaps half the people present were Buddhist monks and nuns in their robes; most of those, however, were Westerners who I supposed had been ordained here, maybe kids on their gap year between high school and college who got snared—by Tietsin? The others in the audience, lay listeners like myself, seemed to come from a variety of different countries and ethnic groups, but these laypeople seemed older and more serious than those at the afternoon seminar. I had a feeling they had been handpicked, like me. Without exception we were all mesmerized by the crippled giant in the open parka who strolled up and down unevenly in front of us, now with his hands in his pockets, now using them to emphasize a point; and this fixity of focus gave his words a terrible penetrating power.
    A couple of people coughed in the silence, and I realized that questions were now permitted. A black man who was leaning against the wall at the back not far from me put up his hand. Tietsin nodded at him. When the black man spoke he had an educated New York accent and seemed to be intensely interested in what the Tibetan had been saying.
    “I would like to ask an impermissible question,” he said with a smile.
    “There is no such thing,” Tietsin said, reflecting the man’s smile in every particular.
    “Right. Well, a politically incorrect question, anyway. This stuff you were talking about earlier is not exclusively Buddhist. A lot of people are talking this way. Back in the States you hear it a lot, but it tends to be from non-Caucasians. I mean, black, brown, red, yellow, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, whatever—the ones who get it at the deep-heart level don’t tend to have Caucasian genes. Is there something fundamentally wrong with white people?” Titters from the audience, especially the white monks and nuns.
    “No,” Tietsin said with surprising force, “there’s something wrongwith the rest of us for not stopping them. The Caucasian people, especially the Anglo-Saxons, have a specific task. Without their technology life on earth would now be impossible for human beings. But they pay a high price for their genius. The very price you just mentioned. The heart chakra shrivels and starts to die. Not only is all taste for the transcendental lost, the mere mention of it induces rage and hostility—the Managers of the World fear the spirit the way a rabies victim fears water. The rest of us were supposed to help them with that. Instead, we got ensnared in their materialism. Now we’re all rabid. Don’t blame them, blame your black, brown, yellow, and red brothers and sisters for not standing up for the heart chakra. After all, we outnumber them by at least eight to one.”
    I watched the black man nod thoughtfully, then look up at Tietsin and smile.
    There were a couple of other questions, one from an American nun who seemed to want to show her Buddhist erudition by asking a question about the Digha Nikaya, which Tietsin dealt with in an equally erudite way. Then the seminar was over. The