“A Buddhist Flavor”: Hello, Kelley.
I took my refuge vows a year ago and am going to be taking my bodhisattva vow this summer, which is basically a promise to help all other sentient beings achieve enlightenment before I do (wish me luck). Consequently, wrestling with one’s aloneness is, needless to say, definitely more than a little on my mind.
So, here I am, minding my own business, taking a guilty break from some very heavy Buddhist literature and reading along in this novel I picked up from Borders called Solitaire. Not expecting anything but a good yarn, I suddenly come across what sounds like a very accurate accounting of someone being forced to live, consciously, inside their own head for a seeming 8 years and to just simply “deal.” Now, if this isn’t Buddhism, I don’t know what is! I really can’t tell you how strange it was to be reading this in the midst of attempting to digest some other very intense training materials much less engage in exactly what you have Jackal doing. So I am thinking, what is going on here? Are the gods and devas and asuras and Ko’s conspiring to make sure I take those vows, or what??!!
There is a book written along these lines by a senior teacher of my particular lineage, Pema Chodron, entitled, interestingly enough, The Wisdom of No Escape.
Just to rephrase what you alluded to so well, the fact that Jackal could not escape from her “prison” was in my view perhaps her saving. Partly because she had to, and also because she was who she was, she prevailed in facing her “worms” and digesting them and then seeing what came up, which inspires me yet again to face my own crocodiles. In addition, I find it fascinating how you told this plot through the eyes of an imperfect world, which is exactly where “it” happens – the juiciest material lies under the dirtiest rocks, calling to us in our fear and trembling to come out, come out, wherever you are … and take a look. And just perhaps we can relax in our groundlessness and insecurity after all.
By the way, I found your approach to the description of the love between Jackal and Snow very, very well handled and true. Making a new start after the world shifted for the two of them was realistically portrayed, refreshing and interesting in the ongoing changing kind of moire pattern two very different personalities can create. In this, I liked how it appeared you left the door open on whether or not things worked out between the two of them, like any relationship.
Finally, I also appreciated the description of the place called Solitaire in that I, too, as some other readers expressed, feel as perhaps a solo might feel – a woman without a country due to some pretty precarious upbringing with no strong roots. Aftershocks, panic attacks, alien people surround me … a place like Solitaire sounds like home where people of my ilk could treat me tenderly and with understanding, and I them.
So, thank you so much for your willingness to go through what you did to give us the VC experience. I would love to hear your comments on how you “got there,” or for that matter, anything else you’d care to comment on, like how you are today — and, sure, how is Snow …er…uh… I mean, Nicola today, as well (teehee).
I certainly do wish you luck. The idea of taking such a vow fascinates and frightens me. I imagine it requires (among much else) a full bucket of responsibility and an empty bucket of expectation. That must sometimes seem a very high hill to climb.
I have one of Pema Chodron’s books, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. I just pulled it off the bookshelf. It’s been a while, and your email makes me want to read it again. One thing that struck me anew flipping through the book is this passage (in the chapter, “Finding the Ability to Rejoice”):
It is easy to miss our own good fortune; often happiness comes in ways we don’t even notice. It’s like a cartoon I saw of an astonished-looking man saying, “What was that?” The caption below read, “Bob experiences a moment of well-being.” — from The Places That Scare You
Joy is something I work on. I’m learning the joy of everyday things, the joy that I seek consciously when I open myself to an ordinary moment, and the joy that comes unexpectedly. I think they reinforce each other; the more I seek, the more finds me. This is one of the things I wanted very much to put into Solitaire, especially into Jackal’s VC experience. For me, hope is based on this constant possibility of joy even in the most brutal, barren phases of our lives.
There’s an article that might interest you from the Seattle Times, about a group of high school students who recently met the Dalai Lama and asked him what he apparently thought was a very interesting question.
I’m not sure how I feel about what I understand of Buddhism, particularly the emphasis on selflessness, but I understand the value of true compassion, and the burden that our expectations can place on each other when people practice something that they call compassion but that really smacks more of control. I like that the Dalai Lama thinks compassion is important, and that his head spins too. I have, as I believe I’ve said before in the virtual pub, an innate distrust of most authority, including (perhaps especially) spiritual or “moral” authority: but I liked the Dalai Lama in this article. He can be on my party list (which I hope doesn’t offend you: it’s a genuine expression of goodwill, since I take parties and hosting very seriously).
How am I today?
- I am listening to U2, The Radiators ( New Orleans, not Ireland), and Ursula Rucker.
- I have finished the proposal for my Kansas book and am working on the outline of my mountain book so that I can submit both to my editor, in the hope that she will be so impressed with my long-term potential that she will throw vast sums of money at me. (Edited to add in 2008: Hah. Find out what happened here.) I’m really pleased with both books right now: the Kansas story has come together nicely, and the mountain book shows signs of doing the same. I had expected to do a very skimpy outline for the mountain book (maybe 500 words to set up the situation and then promise that a bunch of interesting stuff will happen). Instead, I have a real story poking me in the arm for attention, much more coherent at this early stage than I have any right to expect.
- I wrote what is in my humble opinion a kickass article for @U2 on the African Well Fund, an organization raising money to build wells in Africa.
- I had a conversation with my ASL teacher about the origins of humor and the difference between comedy and drama, notable because it was an actual conversation and not just me looking blank and trying to keep up.
- We have a leak in our basement and our washing machine makes scary noises.
- I discovered the hard way this weekend that red onion is strong and you shouldn’t put too much of it avocado salad.
- It’s going to rain all week.
- I love my sweetie (who isn’t Snow, honestly, although that’s a whole other conversation that I’m willing to have if someone will remind me in a couple of weeks – I will also be happy to talk more about “how I got there” but can’t do it today, so it would be fine to remind me of that as well if you are so inclined. Not that it’s anyone’s job to be my secretary – it’s just that I am a bit distracted by book-world right now, and so if you really want those answers you might have to ask me again).
If people could always treat each other tenderly and with understanding, well….there’s a goal. I expect it is part of the vow you will take. My very, very best wishes to you.
