Free The Flask by Nicky Singer Page A

that’s easy,” says Lalitavajri. “A world where kindness and generosity have the highest value.”
    And straightaway I feel bad, because here I am sitting cross-legged in this beautiful Shrine Room and a large part of me is still bearing a grudge against Zoe. And Paddy for that matter. And Si who calls himself my father, but is actually only the babies’ father. And the babies themselves for being so dangerously muddled up together. And, actually, against myself. I’m bearing a grudge against myself for being so stupid and never letting go, and…
    “And what for you is the most important belief in Buddhism?” asks Zoe.
    “That we can change,” says Lalitavajri. “That each one of us can be the most compassionate person we can be.”
    This hits me like a thrown stone. Or maybe it’s not Lalitavajri’s words, maybe it’s Zoe’s glance that hits me. I’m not looking at Zoe, but she’s looking at me. She’s giving me one of those totally non-scientific stares, which bangs right into the heart of things.
    The heart of me.
    “Now,” says Lalitavajri, “do you want to know about the statues?”
    According to Paddy’s list, we do. Also on his list are pujas, gongs and drums.
    “And what’s that?” asks Paddy.
    “Incense,” says Lalitavajri. “We use incense because it smells beautiful and, most importantly, it blows in all directions, like a smile. If you smile at someone they feel happy and then they smile at someone else. Incense passes on like this.”
    Paddy smirks, but Lalitavajri smiles and Zoe smiles back. Quite a shy smile for someone so big and so bold and actually – now I look at her – so beautiful. I don’t know if I’m smiling, but I really hope I am.
    “How do you think your shrine reflects the Buddhist faith?” reads Paddy.
    “Can I ask you first how the Shrine Room strikes you?” Lalitavajri asks.
    “Well, it’s kind of big,” says Paddy. “And empty, you know, compared with a church.”
    “And peaceful,” I say. I’m still looking at Zoe. “Somewhere you can think.”
    And now Zoe feels my look and she lifts her eyes to me, all hesitant and hopeful at the same time.
    “I like that,” says Lalitavajri. “Western life is so busy we need a space to be peaceful. Buddhists choose for their shrines whatever’s beautiful and makes them happy.”
    My gaze moves, it finds the eucalyptus branches and therefore, Aunt Edie.
    “Is that what the flowers are for?” I ask. “Beauty?”
    “Yes,” says Lalitavajri. “And they also symbolise impermanence. Nothing lives for ever. All things die.”
    Aunt Edie again.
    And also Zoe. My friendship with her. Am I going to let that die?
    No.
    Never.
    “What do Buddhists believe happens after you die?” I ask.
    Paddy looks confused. This question is not on our sheet.
    “We believe in rebirth,” says Lalitavajri. “After you die you go into a state of life between life, which we call bardo , like night is the bardo between two days, or a dream is a bardo between two wakings.”
    “A join?” I say. “Do you mean a join?”
    “I’m not sure about that,” says Lalitavajri. “But your body falls away and your consciousness remains.”
    “And what happens to that consciousness?”
    “It remains until it is attracted to a man and a woman having sex,” says Lalitavajri, “then it goes into the soul and enters the baby.”
    At the word sex Paddy sniggers.
    But Lalitavajri just goes on: “This is why babies arrive with personalities already formed.”
    And I’m still thinking about the bardo which (whatever Lalitavajri says) does sound like a Buddhist version of a join, and about the knotted threads of friendship and about how a consciousness might remain when Paddy says, “Do you mean souls hang about, you know, like ghosts, they haunt you?”
    “Not haunt, no. Although Buddhism does stretch the Western idea of the rational. Like some Buddhists have claimed to be able to walk through walls.”
    “Walk through walls!”
    “I