Miss Buddha

Miss Buddha

A Novel by Ulf Wolf

Smashwords Edition

June 2016

Copyright

Miss Buddha

Copyright © 2016 by Wolfstuff

http://wolfstuff.com

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::

Part One — Birth

::
1 :: (Tusita Heaven)

The Bodhisatta
Setaketu
saw that the
time had now come.

After a nearly uncountable span in the
Tusita Heaven awaiting his destiny, awaiting his return to the
little blue planet so far below, how could he know that now was the
time?

Because, far below, man had begun once again
to ask meaningful questions. Because nearly incessant war and
slaughter had finally begun again to subside, and the northern part
of the large Indian subcontinent now lay spent but peaceful after
centuries of upheaval. For how long this peace would last he could
not tell, but he did see that it would last long enough for his
purpose.

The barbarism that had flourished for the
last many centuries had finally run out of breath or passion or
both, and in the settling down he now saw a small, still lake of
opportunity in that far-below spiritual darkness. And so, seeing by
the light that he was, he knew that the time had come to show and
share this light once more.

Although he had made a
point not to share his plans, word nonetheless spread throughout
the Tusita realm that
Setaketu
was leaving for Earth, and as he prepared to
descend many a well-wisher gathered to see him off, each proffering
their advice as a parting gift—some sensible, most not. It is so
very easy to be wise from such a safe distance.

Embracing his friends one
by one, thanking each for his or her well-meant guidance,
Setaketu
finally stepped
back, bowed in slow and graceful namaskar to honor them all, then
turned and strode toward gates that now swung open to admit soon to
be Siddhattha Gotama into the cold and starry beneath and
beyond.

And that is how, with a final step, he left
Tusita and with it the brilliant body he had worn so long. Then, as
if falling through a long and dizzying shaft, he plummeted to
Earth, through seas of lightless space, through the dust of a
billion, billion stars, through harder and harder gravity, through
miasmal planetary grasping, and finally into startled flesh that
legend holds fell out of his mother’s side feet first to then take
seven steps in each of the four directions: North, South, East,
West.

::
2 :: (Pasadena)

“We’ve already decided on a name,” said
Melissa as she returned from the kitchen with a fresh pot of
tea.

“What did you pick?” said Becky.

“Ruth,” she said while refilling her
friend’s cup.

“Ruth?”

“Yes.” She straightened and rubbed the base
of her now softly swelling belly in the way of mothers-soon-to-be,
contented and proud. “She will be Ruth.”

“Ruth is a fine name,” said Becky, even
though she didn’t much care for it—a grumpy aunt of hers was also
named Ruth, and she could not stand the woman.

“We think so,” said Melissa.

“When is she due?” said Becky.

“Late January.” Melissa poured some more tea
for herself as well, then eased herself back into her chair.

:

Melissa was twenty-six years old and this
was her first child. She and Charles had been trying for a
while—long enough, in fact, for Melissa to begin to worry, at times
even wondering aloud to her husband if he thought there might be
something wrong, since things were not “taking” as she put it—the
word her obstetrician, Dr. Ross, favored in this situation and one
day had explained to Melissa in some depth.

“It’ll happen,” Charles would say. “It
happens when it happens. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m not
really
worried,” she’d
say. “Just wondering.”

“Don’t you worry,” Charles would say again,
his attention already back on whatever it was that Melissa had
interrupted—a football game, his breakfast read of the Los Angeles
Times, outlining a brief or a response, chewing.

And Charles had indeed been
right, for it
had
happened—and he had recently had taken to reminding her of
this a little too often, she thought, that things had indeed
“taken.” So there was nothing wrong with him, now, was
there?

:

Melissa’s husband Charles likes to be called
precisely that. Charles. Not Charlie, or Chuck, or Chas, or Chip.
Charles. That is his name, and that’s what he wants to be called.
Every time. Even by his wife.

Every time.

:

“Can you keep a secret?”
said Melissa. “Well, it’s not
really
a secret, but still, don’t
tell anyone, not yet anyway.”

“Sure,” said Becky. Now done with her tea,
and making small I’ll-soon- have-to-go movements on the sofa.

“We’re to be part of a study. Ruth and
I.”

“What do you mean? What kind of a study?”
said Becky, sensing, as she easily did, trouble. Becky could find
shadows in the whitest snow—if not right away, then eventually: she
would look and look until she did.

“About first-time mothers and their babies.
A writer came by last week and asked me if I minded, and I said no,
of course not.”

“A writer?”

“Yes. Ananda Wolf was his name.”

“Amanda Wolf?”

“No, not Amanda, Ananda.
With an
n
.”

“What kind of a study?” Becky asked
again.

“It’s about how first-time mothers prepare
for the baby. They want to follow the pregnancy from the fifth
month or so till delivery. Preparations, worries, those kinds of
things.”

“They? Where is he from? Some
university?”

“He didn’t say. He looked a little like a
professor, though. Actually, he looked more like a Buddhist monk
with a bow tie. He was a writer, he said. Reminded me a little of
professor Anderson at USC, remember him? Jeans and corduroy all the
time, did he actually own any white shirts?”

Becky shook her head that she didn’t
remember, or didn’t care.

“He was a very nice man,” added Melissa.
“Quite the gentleman.”

“Did he say where he was from?”

“He said he was from Northern
California.”

“The Bay area?”

“He didn’t say. Northern California.”

“Did you sign anything? Did he leave
anything?” She looked around, as if such an agreement should lie in
plain sight for her review.

No, she had not, and no, he had not. Melissa
informed her friend. Then added, “He has called a few times since.
We’re going to speak once a week, or so.”

“Oh, Melissa.” Becky shook her head in her
what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you way. Then she straightened and
adopted her things-to-do, people-to-see face.

“No, no. Becky. Really. It’s nothing fishy,
I promise you.”

Becky rose. “When was he here?”

“Saturday before last.”

“Does Charles know?”

“Of course.”

That was apparently the right answer, for
Becky relaxed a little, as much as Becky would ever relax. Too
concerned about everything was what Becky was.

Melissa rose too and kissed her friend on
the cheek. Becky kissed her back. A quick peck before she headed
out into her so-many-things-to-do, so-much-to-worry-about
world.

::
3 :: (Ancient India)

The Buddha knew that the end was near.

Buddha Gotama, nearing eighty now, had
recently arrived with the Sangha, his order of monks, at Rajagaha,
the capital of Magadha. It was as if the city itself knew, for the
approaching end had gathered as dark clouds beyond the nearby
mountains, slowly rising, darkening not only the sky.

As the word spread, many came to see him.
Princes and kings arrived with gifts; farmers and hunters, also
with gifts. Ascetics, too; they brought reverence and bowed deeply
before him.

And many others came, bringing only eyes and
awe.

Few brought questions this time—as was
usually the purpose for visiting the Buddha. No, this time they
came from near and far only to see him, to catch one last glimpse
of the Enlightened One. They came to bid him farewell.

And as some left, others arrived, and the
Buddha—ever patient, ever compassionate—saw them all, spoke with
them all, admonished them all to follow the eightfold path, and to
practice the Dhamma diligently.

Though the end was near, it had yet to
arrive. Outwardly, the Buddha seemed in good health and mostly in
good spirits as well.

But he worried, not about his approaching
Parinibbana—his final leaving, for that was as it should be—but
about his Dhamma, his teaching. He wondered whether he had, during
his long ministry, truly managed to convey the truth practicably.
Looking at his Sangha, and knowing that many of the monks were now
arahants who had awoken and attained Nibbana, he felt sure,
comforted. He had managed to plant the seed, they had sprouted and
taken root, and the roots were many and surely strong enough to
grow and protect the Dhamma.

But when again his thoughts turned to the
world and its immeasurable number of plants and creatures and
humans and beings, and again saw how they dwarfed the Sangha into a
speck of hardly anything at all, then he feared that his young
Dhamma trees would soon wither and be swept away before the brute
force of the world.

For all around him, every day, every hour,
every minute, there were so many signs of human folly proving these
blundering souls near incapable of learning. And there were so many
of them, so very, very many of them.

And so, as he often did these final days—as
if to make doubly, trebly sure—he would call his monks together and
again present them an overview of his essential teachings. And
again he would ask if they had any questions, and again he would
answer those few that were voiced.

On one such night at Rajagaha he rose and
said, “Virtue is strength. Concentration is strength. Wisdom is
strength. Concentration fortified with virtue brings even greater
benefits and greater fruits.

“Wisdom fortified with concentration brings
even greater benefits and greater fruits. The mind fortified with
wisdom is liberated from all cankers, particularly from the canker
of sensual desire, the canker of desire for becoming, and the
canker of ignorance.”

The Sangha, to a man surprised that the
Buddha had risen before them, listened attentively. The surrounding
country was still alive with end-of-the-day chores and early
evening tune-ups: birds calling one another, hundreds of frogs and
thousands of crickets weaving a carpet of sound, undulating now
over water and grass, surrounding the congregation of monks and
their teacher.

Into this colored silence the Buddha then
announced, “Tomorrow morning, I will set out on my last
journey.”