Practicing Resurrection (Buddhism)

by Van Der Pas Elly

Whole Earth Review

No.78

Pp.70-72

Spring 1993

COPYRIGHT POINT 1993


            WHEN I WAS NINETEEN or twenty, I had a lucid dream that greatly 
            affected me. I found myself in a place whose inhabitants didn't have 
            physical bodies, although they were obviously present. I'd say they 
            had light bodies, but maybe not even physical light. No gender. They 
            communicated in an intimate, nonvocal way, like a voice from inside, 
            that seemed to be very understanding and compassionate. I felt 
            welcome there, as if this were my real home. It seemed as if I 
            stayed a long time, although when you don't have a physical body, 
            you don't gauge time in the same way -- by interruptions such as 
            eating or sleeping. After a while, I decided that since I was 
            finally having a lucid dream, I should take advantage of the 
            opportunity and fly out over the ocean. I flew over, and then into, 
            the ocean. I kept diving, and then found myself back in my body, 
            with a big smile on my face. 
            I asked around, but nobody I knew could explain where I'd been, or 
            what these beings were. They didn't seem strange to me; they seemed 
            to be what people really should be like. Even though I kept looking, 
            though, I could never find anyone who really was like that -- until 
            almost twenty years later, in 1989, when I went to India and met the 
            Dalai Lama. 
            After that, I only wanted to study more Tibetan Buddhism. So I 
            finished my master's degree and fixed up my house to rent. In 1991, 
            I quit my job and went to Nepal. Asia is cheap, and I figured I 
            could live on my savings. Luckily, I bought health insurance before 
            I left. I was ordained as a Buddhist nun in December, and then went 
            to study in Dharamsala, in northern India: the center of the Tibetan 
            exile government. 
            I sublet a one-room stone house from a woman who was going home to 
            Iceland, and I stayed in retreat there all winter. The house was in 
            a pine-and-rhododendron forest, on top of a hill, near a retreat 
            center for Westerners. So it was great for solitude and also for 
            company. I often went walking in the hills, to places where you 
            could see snowy mountains all year 'round. 
            From March until July, I went to Buddhist philosophy classes at the 
            Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. In July, while I was in 
            retreat again, I got sick: fever, pains all over, headache, and 
            exhaustion. At first I thought it was some kind of flu; people often 
            get sick as the hot season turns to monsoon. I was getting weaker 
            and weaker, however, and one night I decided it would be a good idea 
            to leave the door unbolted, in case I was too weak to get out of bed 
            the next day. 
            The first thing I can remember, after I fell asleep that night, is 
            being in a dark place. It seemed that I was moving, yet holding 
            still. My mind was scattered, and I had no idea what was going on. I 
            wasn't afraid, and there was no real sensation of pain. 
            There was no reference by which to gauge time, but after a while, 
            thoughts appeared. I wondered where I was. It seemed that I was 
            being held against my will. I wondered how I'd gotten there. Between 
            thoughts was chaos: not really confusion, but drifting, like 
            floating in a stream on a warm summer day -- except that everything 
            was dark. 
            I badly needed to pee, and I decided they couldn't keep me for more 
            than a day: they'd have to let me out to go to the toilet. It seemed 
            as if it had already been more than a day. As I floated, I could 
            occasionally hear the voices of my captors, speaking a language I'd 
            never heard before. Maybe I was in a Chinese prison camp. 
            How did I get here? The last thing I could remember was that I was 
            in retreat, and hadn't finished. So if I didn't get out of here 
            pretty soon, I'd break the continuity of the retreat and have to 
            start over. 
            I'd never heard of any kind of torture like this. If I managed to 
            escape, I would tell everyone so that these people would be stopped 
            from imprisoning anyone else. 
            It seemed that it might have something to do with espionage. 
            I still had to pee, and I had no idea how I'd managed to hold it 
            this long. 
            When I wasn't paying attention, they must have put tubes into my 
            body. There wasn't much 
            I could do about it, but I wondered if they were pumping me with 
            some kind of mind-altering drugs. That would explain a lot. 
            I tried to continue my retreat. Maybe if I could remember what I'd 
            been doing before I got here, I would be able to find my way out of 
            here. But I could only concentrate for a few moments at a time, and 
            I couldn't remember anything. It had definitely been more than a day 
            or two; it seemed that they weren't going to let me out to go to the 
            toilet. The thought made me discouraged; that had been my only plan 
            for escape. 
            I had no idea how or when I could possibly get away. They obviously 
            weren't going to let me go. 
            There was a new tactic: every so often I'd find myself in a room 
            with an interrogator dressed in white. She would torture me in 
            various ways -- with needles, or by pouring fluids into one of the 
            tubes in my nose. If I tried to ask any questions, she'd push me 
            down, or even slap me. 
            Retreat into oblivion. 
            I thought that if I could repeat my mantra, it might insulate me 
            from whatever they were doing to my mind. I got a few words together 
            that sounded likely, but before I could repeat them, my mind had 
            scattered. 
            The torturer in white continued to check on me occasionally, and I 
            still had to pee. 
            Sometimes I'd look around to see if she was still there. Every so 
            often, if I couldn't see her, I'd try to get up to sneak out of the 
            room, but it seemed that she was always nearby -- behind a screen 
            somewhere -- and she'd push me back down. 
            She seemed to be Asian, tidy and brisk, with a no-non-sense 
            attitude, in a clean white uniform. 
            After she pushed me back into my dark chaos, I would drift. 
            Pieces of my mantra would float back to me, and I would clutch at 
            them, trying to use them as a life raft, but I could never quite 
            grasp them. 
            I woke up in a hospital in New Delhi a week after I had gone to 
            sleep in Dharamsala, with no memory of how I got there. I had been 
            in a hepatic coma for three or four days, given only a 10 to 20 
            percent chance of survival. My ex-husband Frank showed up about an 
            hour after I came out of the coma, wearing a bright blue shirt. He 
            came right over to me and asked how I was. I told him several times 
            that I was okay, because he didn't seem to understand. It was a 
            great effort to talk. I didn't recognize him, but I felt that he 
            might be safe. He told me that everyone had been praying for me, and 
            named some friends. I began to suspect a plot. How do these people 
            know who my friends in America are? I asked him where he came from 
            and why he had come here, and he told me that he had come from 
            California to help me. That sounded preposterous, but I was too weak 
            to argue. He said he'd stay as long as I needed him. Maybe my 
            friends really had sent someone to help me. 
            The woman in white, who was now claiming to be a nurse, was still 
            there, and I tried to whisper so she wouldn't hear. "Don't leave me 
            alone with them; they've been torturing me." 
            He stayed and held my hand, talking to me about the bad state of 
            California's economy, the Olympics (particularly the lineup of the 
            Dream Team), why it would be a good idea for me to try to pay down 
            my mortgage. I couldn't make sense of a word he was saying, but I 
            didn't want him to go away. 
            As seen without my glasses, he looked rather fuzzy, with four eyes 
            and curly hair. He seemed like a kind, sincere man. Whenever he left 
            the room, I felt anxious, and when the blue shirt appeared again, I 
            felt safe. 
            Talking was difficult at first. I was slurring words like a drunk, 
            and it took a long time to understand what someone was asking me. 
            After a few days, however, I could talk without too much slurring, 
            and after they brought me my glasses, I could see. I kept noticing 
            tubes going into my arms and nose, and I wondered what they were 
            for, but I could never remember what the answer was. Frank was 
            having a great time telling me all his old stupid jokes. Friends 
            came to visit; I was glad to see them. Karin, who had had hepatitis 
            the year before, patiently talked with me for a long time, and Rudy 
            and Kerstin, two friends from Dharamsala, came too. They were the 
            ones who had carried me unconscious from my house in the mountains, 
            by taxi and ambulance, from hospital to hospital, for what must have 
            been at least eighteen hours. Rudy told me about his battle with me 
            on the trip down, when I was delirious. He said I was a strong 
            fighter. "Like a tiger," he said. 
            Frank held my hand and talked to me for several days, as I looked at 
            him cross-eyed, and with tubes coming out everywhere. After that, he 
            supported me while I learned to walk. The first time I walked 
            outside, I was overwhelmed by the brightness of the colors. It 
            seemed as if everything was moving: the trees, the clouds, the cars, 
            the grass. I had to lean on two people to keep from falling over. 
            As I lay helpless, I felt very open and content, and I didn't worry 
            about anything. Everyone's concern that I had almost died seemed 
            almost like a joke. Relieved of the duty to worry about things, I 
            simply experienced my experiences. I would watch the ceiling fan for 
            hours, or observe my fingers as I tried different ways of moving 
            them. I became more aware of and grateful for my connection to other 
            people; everybody became my friend, even the nurse who came to draw 
            blood. 
            After three weeks, we flew back to California. 
            People assume that I must be upset by my experience. But in fact, I 
            haven't felt sad or angry much: just very deeply happy. There is a 
            sense of peace that comes from having decided to sever ties. It 
            doesn't seem that I'm any less connected to people, but it's not as 
            compulsive or painful. I've recently decided, after worrying about 
            whether or not I should get a job, not to worry about money, and 
            just see what happens. So the level of trust is increasing. I'm 
            looking forward to what I can do with the rest of my life.