Free JOHNNY GONE DOWN by Karan Bajaj Page B

characterizes all life.’
    I found myself getting just a little interested. A lifetime ago, when my troubles weren’t as concrete as a missing arm, I had occasionally felt that senseof vague, inexplicable dissatisfaction. It surprised me to hear it being articulated as such.
    ‘The origin of dukha is attachment - craving and clinging to emotions and experiences whose fundamental nature is to change, to be in flux. This is the second noble truth. We crave a simpler past, or a brighter future, without realizing that the loss of that past is inevitable, that the self which is seeking the future is itself changing.’
    I had a sudden, surreal sensation that there was no one else in the room. He seemed to be speaking directly to me. He was right, I was clinging to my past. I was craving the happiness of a better time. What was that better time, though? When I was at MIT, I would think about the time Mom and Dad were alive; here, I was craving my time at MIT. If I ended up losing both arms, I would probably be pining for the time I had one arm. I know life changes, I thought. I understand it’s always in flux. But how do I rid myself of the burden of the past?
    ‘I don’t teach anything here,’ he continued. ‘I am not a godman, I don’t fly on carpets, I don’t walk on water. I can only be a guide on your journey to free yourself from the craving that binds us to this ultimately unfulfilling cycle of life and death. But this journey is yours and you have to walk the path alone.’
    He was addressing weighty topics - birth, death, rebirth, bondage, enlightenment - but his tonewasn’t patronizing. Every bone in his body screamed sincerity, his face radiated truth. He wasn’t a quack -as I had half hoped he would be.
    ‘Make no mistake, it’s a tough journey. Through intense meditation, you will annihilate the self, destroy the ego, and lose the “I” that craves. I haven’t reached this goal myself. I am not the Buddha, the enlightened one. I am just rowing the ferry that separates this world from the other, but the peace in my heart tells me I am paddling in the right direction. You can choose to follow my imperfect path and perhaps waste a lifetime or maybe more getting there - or you can choose to return to the life you know. Whatever you choose, I wish you peace.’
    For the rest of the discourse, I stared at him in a daze, watching his calm face mouth words which sometimes made sense but mostly sounded esoteric and obscure. But all of it sounded sincere. Was there really a chance that the body was just a shell? That losing an arm wasn’t a tragedy, but not taking steps to achieve nirvana - the union of the individual soul with the universal soul - was? I looked around the room full of impassive faces deep in concentration. There were monks as young as ten or twelve, and they were ready to devote their lives to this important but ultimately elusive quest, unsure of the outcome but trusting in the path paved by someone thousands of years ago, who had left no written record of hisexistence. If they could have faith, couldn’t I believe once more?
    There was a sudden buzz of activity in the small room as the discourse drew to a close.
    ‘I hope that wasn’t too boring.’
    I was taken aback for a moment. I had forgotten that David was sitting next to me.
    ‘Let me introduce you to the monk who will take you to Bangkok tomorrow,’ he said as he helped me up.
    I would soon take a flight from Bangkok to New York, I thought, and hopefully still be able to join NASA in some capacity. If I was lucky, I would help build equipment to transport people to a distant, perhaps kinder world. And one day I would be married to someone who wouldn’t care that I was a cripple. Maybe we would have two children and live in a quiet suburban home, and I would never understand the madness of these last two years, I would never be able to explain to my children why there was evil in the world and whether it would ever cease.
    ‘We