the other side of paradise.

Esquire

26/12/2018

The Other Side Of Paradise: How I Left A Buddhist Retreat In Handcuffs

Michael Holden went to a Buddhist retreat to find himself. Now he's off his meditation

By Michael Holden, 

Illustrations by Anna Bu Kliewer

‘All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone’ – Blaise Pascal, 1662

The police stayed calm and the Buddhists were calmer, but by then there wasn’t much anyone could do. In the hours previously, I had come to believe, simultaneously and sequentially, that I was: dead, alive, omniscient, immortal, non-existent, gay, straight, telepathic, a flower, a pulse of pure energy and a nuclear bomb. And that was the good part, relatively speaking. By the time I was handcuffed and led to an ambulance, my troubles, or at least this episode among them, were just underway. 

It is not the conclusion one pictures to a meditation retreat: a shackled, ranting, middle-aged man being taken to hospital under police supervision. Ideas like mindfulness and meditation are sold largely by images of good-looking people and unfurrowed brows. Yet it wasn’t upbeat marketing that led me to a 10-day, silent sanctuary on the Welsh borders, but a man on fire.

Forty years before flunking out of Buddhism in chains, I chanced upon Malcolm Browne’s 1963 photograph of Thich Quang Duc, a monk, sat, burning to death by his own hand in an act of protest at a crossroads in Saigon, South Vietnam. “As he burned he never moved a muscle,” said The New York Times journalist David Halberstam, a witness to it, “never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.” 

I was young when I found the horrific image but I saw in it, also, proof that there was another way to be beyond than the swirling, self-sustaining system of hopes and regrets already established in my restless brain. 

Decades later, a collision of life crises (marital, professional, medical and familial) and a kind of emotional insurgency — a relentless sense that there was something beyond or beneath all this — propelled me first into meditation, and then to the retreat where, if enlightenment were not forthcoming, at least I would have spent some time without my phone. What could go wrong? 

A simple, contemporary definition of meditation is “a family of self-regulation practices that focus on training attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control.” Written references date back to 600BC. Techniques and traditions vary, but the most prominent associations are with Buddhist philosophy, and there are few spiritual schools of thought or religions which do not accommodate some practice which might be described as meditative.

Meditation’s modern offspring, “mindfulness”, has its roots (as a phrase) in the 20th century. Where one begins and the other ends is the subject of much debate. Suffice to say whether you’re sitting silently in a monastery or staring at a smartphone in your sister’s spare room, if you are taking time out to observe your thought patterns and breathe in a conscious manner, one or both terms have you covered.

What began in antiquity abided and bloomed into a billion-dollar industry in the US alone. Be it through ashrams or apps — there are over 1,300 now, and the Headspace app has been downloaded close to 35m times — meditation has been touted as a panacea for everything from childhood trauma to palliative care. There is plenty of evidence, empirical and anecdotal,     that in many of these areas it does have positive results. So, I read some books, looked online, sat, and watched what my mind did. 

From 15 minutes of sitting a day I felt subtly but tangibly changed. “Mental processes” were definitely “under greater voluntarily control”. I was no Buddha, but I was demonstrably less volatile. I had a taste for it and was soon seeking ways to do more. Much more. I booked the retreat. The perceptive among you will note this is precisely the kind of desirous behaviour pattern that meditation is often deployed to break, but Nirvana wasn’t built in a day. 

Deep in the Herefordshire countryside at the tail end of June, the retreat I attended felt and looked like the apex of serenity. The discipline chosen by me and around 150 other attendees — an idealistic mix of ages, races and gender — is known as Vipassanā which, they will tell you, means “seeing things as they really are”. We decamped cheerfully from coaches and cars, gave up our phones, agreed not to speak for a week-and-a-half and wandered off to billets on the sprawling former farm. The atmosphere prior to the commencement of silence (you can talk with the retreat leaders at allotted times, if need be) was one of warm, collective anticipation, somewhere between a school trip and a festival. 

At 4am the next day, we were awoken by a gong. And so began an 11-hour daily programme of meditation, punctuated occasionally by vegetarian food (until midday, after which it was fruit only). In the evenings, we gathered to hear the teachings of the course’s founder, Satya Narayan Goenka, an avuncular but deceased Burmese/Indian businessman and Buddhist scholar whose posthumous addresses were screened nightly. They came to provide a kind of group release; we laughed, and not just as counterpoint to the silence. Like other spiritual teachers, and some stand-ups, Goenka walked a fine line between practical philosophical insight and observational comedy. 

After several days of silence, sermons, slender rations and pre-dawn starts, something significant shifted inside me. The inner dialogue ceased, replaced by an outbreak of peace so fundamental as to transcend what I could or can still share with language. And I could see and sense, even if I couldn’t speak to the others, that this was happening among them too.

The power of such a revelation, that everything you might have hitherto insisted you consisted of was instead an illusory construct which can, through self-examination, vanish and be replaced by something best described as love… that can take some getting used to. The implications for your “self” (by this point a minority shareholder in that which you perceive yourself to be) and society (all conflict, and thus much of history, being by these terms an avoidable mistake) are considerable. But before I could assimilate this, or perhaps because I couldn’t, the limitless love became a gruelling fear, mutating into the conviction that I, personally, could bring about the end of everything, since the macrocosm of our universe seemed so clearly and precariously contained within the microcosm of my being. Say this like you mean it, act stubbornly on your pronouncements, and they will come for you with handcuffs too.

I had come to believe, simultaneously and sequentially, that I was: dead, alive, omniscient, immortal, non-existent, gay, straight, telepathic, a flower, a pulse of pure energy and a nuclear bomb. And that was the good part, relatively speaking 

Psychosis is, I suspect, a little like falling in or out of love: something on the cusp of the personal and the universal that each of us experiences differently. Between the ambulance ride and the oblivion of sedation, I was held in a room with two police officers at the local A&E. They looked on reasonably benignly as I did my best to convey what I was feeling which, among other stark hallucinations and a roiling, primal fear, was that I was dying and being reborn every 90 seconds or so. I can’t really describe what that is “like” since the one comparable event is largely unremembered and the other unknowable, but it felt real and it was gruelling, and, in the end, I was begging them to knock me out. 

All this was much to reflect on as I recovered (to some extent) in a psychiatric hospital over the next 48 hours. How had I fallen so hard and wide of the mark of meditation, of something so seemingly benign? Others on the retreat had become emotional, openly weeping (as I had done) but no one else had begged to stop, only to refuse to leave and then been forcibly removed. 

What I did know, was that I had been “here” before. And not in a past life. In the mid-Nineties, in my mid-twenties when I was working as a journalist in London, I took enough recreational drugs to keep me awake for nine days, at the end of which I was psychotic, sectioned, sedated and held in hospital for four months. That might sound dramatic, but I did it to myself and for all I know the treatment (including drugs since withdrawn from use) and the incarceration saved my life. Certainly, it shaped it. 

The advantage of this, insofar as it had one, was that when my mind disintegrated for the second time, I had some sense of what I was in for, and I knew I could get back. Maybe. Even naked terror takes the occasional break, and the sense in those moments that there is a way out, is in some ways all you need to carry on. 

This time I was in and out of hospital in one weekend. With a month’s worth of anti-psychotic medication, I had some decisions to make. It seemed clear to me that if I could reach such an altered state through intoxication and insomnia once, and then do it again 20 years later through silence and concentration, then that state was “real” and not a figment of my imagination or the symptom of an illness per se. 

I didn’t want to stay medicated (my previous stint had lasted a decade), and I understood that the rules of the retreat meant that as I had left before the end, I could not go back. Vipassanā makes it clear in its literature regarding “serious mental disorders” that: “Our capacity as a non-professional volunteer organisation makes it impossible to properly care for people with these backgrounds.” 

I had been screened out at the initial application because of my history and then, after going into detail, accepted, as my prior issues were so long ago. I was thrilled to be admitted and delusional when I left, but barring some emails and a follow-up phone call, early exits from Vipassanā are final. Tossed from what had seemed briefly to be heaven, I went back to my elderly folks, weaned myself off the meds, and got thoroughly depressed. 

In the weeks that followed, I began to google “meditation”, “mental illness”, “mania” (as my ex-wife pointed out, I ought really to have done this beforehand). But it was then I found that far from being alone in this, I was one of many who had learned the hard way that at a certain level, for some practitioners, something like psychosis is part of the meditative programme. And that not everyone who goes through that survive

With the help of technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalograms, Professor Willoughby Britton has observed many meditating brains. She is the co-director of the clinical and affective neuroscience laboratory at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and also one of the authors of The Varieties of Contemplative Experience (VCE), a major qualitative study of challenges faced in meditation. 

“I was working at an inpatient psychiatric hospital, and during that year there were two meditators that came off retreats psychotic and needed to be hospitalised. Two in a year seemed a lot to me, so I asked the meditation teachers I knew, how often does this happen? They looked kind of sheepish and were like, ‘It’s not that uncommon’,” Britton recalls. “So, I got the sense there was a lot that was not being talked about. That was the beginnings of the VCE study.” 

Britton spent a decade on the study, published last year. “More than 60 per cent of the people reporting their own difficulties were actually teachers themselves,” she explains. “So, this isn’t just people who don’t know what they are doing, or people who are showing up who have mental illnesses. These were the teachers.” 

Since Britton’s project went public, she has been beset with people seeking guidance. “I’ve had over 500 people contact me, I get emails, Facebook… referrals from meditation centres and meditation teachers who feel like they’re not sure what to do. I work with people who have difficulties and run a support group every week; it covers eight different time zones and we all Skype in from different countries. That’s also been a big part of what’s informing not just the research study but also my ongoing work with people who are actively in crisis… they don’t know where else to go.” 

How had I fallen so hard and wide of the mark of meditation, of something so seemingly benign? Others on the retreat had become emotional, openly weeping, but no one else had begged to stop, only to refuse to leave and then been forcibly removed

Britton confirms what Daniel Ingram has observed: you don’t need to spend days on a retreat for this to happen. “I am,” she says, “seeing people who get into trouble using apps.” (Headspace says its customer services team, “is prepared to recommend appropriate resources to our members should the need arise.”) 

How does Britton think her work might make things more manageable for people who find themselves in crisis in the years to come? 

“A general awareness that these things happen and what they are; everyone should know that, not just providers, but people who are considering meditation. Right now, they just have such an overblown idea of what it can do for them, and that it’s good for everything with no side effects; and that just needs to be more mature and more realistic,” she says. “I will know that things are better when people stop calling me. That hasn’t happened yet but I’m hoping that as we train not just meditation teachers but also clinicians, there will be a whole new species of clinician that can help people navigate this territory.” 

The million-dollar question here, perhaps literally, is where what we think of as mental illness ends and what Daniel called “deep-end spiritual development” begins. Britton has spoken previously about the dangers of “pathologising the spiritual and romanticising the pathological”. The issues are as old as the practices, and, like the neural processes behind them, nothing we can answer definitively now. 

It is clear that meditative practice, as it relates to mental illness, cuts both ways. It can help you out as much as it can pull you in. At Goodmayes psychiatric hospital in Essex, consultant psychiatrist Russell Razzaque works both sides of the street, offering medication and meditation to those in his care. 

It is a blisteringly hot day when we meet at the secure unit where he works. A patient is playing Lionel Richie’s “Hello” loudly and repeatedly over their phone in a courtyard below us. Razzaque offers to close the window but speaks with a clear, quiet intensity that renders any acoustic countermeasures unnecessary. 

“I did a mindfulness group on the secure ward, where young men come because they’ve been violent. The story tends to be that they’ve been acutely psychotic which has led to that [violence], and that gets them to me. We ran the group for the patients and staff together, and those who were finding things difficult, they didn’t come because it was too much for them. 

“I think it’s always very important for it to be voluntary. You could never say, ‘This is one-size-fits-all, everybody should have this at some stage’. I’ve never prescribed it to anybody. But we had the group every day for half an hour, and anyone who wanted to could drop in. Sometimes people would come once and then not come back, other times people would come regularly and say, ‘This is really making a difference’.” 

So, it works then? “But there needs to be a lot of flexibility.” 

It seems surprising that a secure NHS mental health unit has a more flexible approach than some retreats. When I outline the regime at Vipassanā, Dr Razzaque responds, “That is the hardest-core of all the ones I’ve seen. I have never been on one and I don’t think I would, it sounds pretty scary. Very long sittings, lack of eating. If I was living in a monastery for five years, then maybe at the end of that, that might be good for me. So, yes, there certainly are some that are very hard, and for some people to go through that, fine. But personally, as I said, it isn’t for me.” 

Alongside Dr Ingram’s work and Professor Britton’s studies, Dr Razzaque’s book Breaking Down is Waking Up was instrumental to my recovery. It is a remarkable work, referencing everything from poetry to quantum theory in its assessment of the relationship between mind, matter and what might be defined as madness. It also contains the most relatable assessments of the “process” of psychosis I have ever heard. 

“The truth,” Razzaque says, “is that life is a lot more mysterious than we give it credit for. Ninety-five per cent of the known universe is utterly unknown and unknowable to us. This isn’t propagated in public discourse enough, because of which people are led to this materialist, reductionist idea of reality which leaves them feeling bereft. It leaves them feeling dead inside and as a result you get more people having breakdowns thinking, ‘What is the point of it all?’ I do think that’s one of the fundamental reasons why mental health breakdown rates are going up… If you’ve been through those severe experiences you’ve been further out than the rest of us and that’s something beneficial for us. In some ancient communities that was a qualification for being a shaman or a wise person.” 

In a crazed world, perhaps the mentally ill and those driven to practices whose outcomes resemble madness are just our first responders. 

“Society needs this [conversation],” Razzaque believes. “I think we can be saved as a species… if we open those doors up, have those [outlying psychological] experiences be heard more. It’s not just like saying, ‘Open the hospital doors and let everybody out’. That’s never going to be the case. It’s a thin line, sometimes it will be [hospitalisation], other times it’s just a case of getting families together to try and understand what the individual’s experience is and working it through.” 

It has taken me two decades to investigate what had happened to me, and I am still putting it together. Assembling these sentences is itself a part of that. What happened on the retreat and before has become a bridge to understand, having come apart, how I, and maybe all of us, are put together. I feel obliged to discuss it in case there is some wisdom there which others might recognise or access and explore, ideally in a less drastic and dangerous fashion. I feel fine now, mostly. I can get back to that place beyond words, sometimes. I’m not sure I would want to go through it all again to get there, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“What has always been true,” says Dr Razzaque, “is that when we’re talking about mental health problems and emotional problems, we’re effectively talking about the very nature of consciousness. And nobody really knows what consciousness is. Until we can define the base of what we’re talking about, how can we define an abnormality of consciousness? I don’t think you’ll find a definition of consciousness that’s indisputable, that works. I firmly believe our brains aren’t big enough to understand the firmament we’re in. 

A fish in water doesn’t really know it’s in water.” 

Until, perhaps, it jumps.

hoisting up a prayer.

i’m happy if i get through a basketball game without having to recuse myself. i’m happy if i get through without a cramp, a concussion or a stroke. yeah i play with a bunch of young guys, and yeah i know that may sound super weird to some, but yeah i’m just happy if i get through without having to beg god for mercy. 

nobody speaks to god these days. i do. i‘ve no actual idea what it means but i heard the line somewhere and i liked it. but one doesn’t need to understand to interpret and appreciate the concept. to me it just seems as though people don’t speak to themselves, ourselves, each other, to god these days. i only speak to her if i cramp up. i had a real long chat after getting an elbow in my rib-cage recently. at least i think it was an elbow. it was either deeply bruised ribs or liver cancer, and since then my prayers have been answered and i’m in remission (or it was a bruise,) and i’ve since returned to the courts. i don’t hold terribly strong opinions but it sure seems like prayers work, sometimes.

mostly, i stay away from people who hold strong opinions. i’m very definite about that opinion. i can’t understand anyone unable to understand a differing point of view. and i hate people who hate blacks, jews, muslims, chinese, native americans, native canadians, latinos... the list goes on and on. mostly i just feel nobody speaks to god these days.  

in basketball there’s something called ‘hoisting up a prayer.’ it’s when the game’s down to the last seconds, you’re in a terrible position to take a shot but you throw it up and hope for the best. i did that the other day and suffice it to say my prayer was not answered, not that time. but i got through without having to beg god for mercy, so i thank god and i thank you, for reading, for being. best wishes; me.  

the vegan question.

on a facebook website for vegans a lady asked the group: “i’ve been vegan for about a year but lately i’m feeling extremely cranky. do you think it has anything to do with my diet?”
well, that created a firestorm of responses with most strongly even emphatically insisting it had nothing whatsoever to do with the vegan diet. some people actually seemed downright, well, cranky about it.
eventually i decided to respond for the first time ever on that site. i wrote: “i’ve been vegetarian for over forty-five years, vegan for the last five years, and i can assure you i’ve been cranky the whole time.” 

it’s a wonderful world.

it’s heart-warming to know our prime minister is committed to protecting the environment. the liberal party is apparently forcing the carbon tax on the provincial governments that aren’t into it. trudeau’s being applauded for his bold intention to keep our planet healthy for generations yet to come. the wonderfully and wildly weird part of that good-news story is that folks seem to have forgotten he or they are also boldly pushing through a major oil pipeline. so what’s wrong with this picture?

the liberal government is saying taxpayers will all receive a rebate to offset the rising costs involved in exacting the carbon tax. however, they also recently paid $4.5 billion of taxpayers money to actually buy the trans mountain pipeline. i’m perceiving mixed messages here. it’s kinda like: do you like like me or am i in the friend-zone? i just need to know.  

perhaps they’re trying to strike a balance. perhaps they don’t wanna fugg up the economy. or perhaps they simply don’t wanna fugg up their economy. and yet we’re talking about our friggin whole friggin planet! and according to the ’u.n. intergovernmental panel on climate change’, which included the world’s leading climate scientists, we’ve got twelve friggin years!

i’m fine. in twelve years i’ll be pushing eighty and i have no children. but here’s my problem: i have your children. and have you ever experienced extreme heat? well i have and i can assure you it aint pretty. first you just feel a little thirsty, but soon your tongue begins to hang out, eyes bulge, legs wobble and you have trouble sustaining an erection. and don’t get me started on other forms of extreme weather. i experienced extreme weather just the other day but that was due to some vegetarian burritos i’d eaten, but i digress.

now i know most people feel somewhat discouraged, dispondent, even depressed in regard to this huge problem. it’s a global issue after all, and the current leadership of the biggest polluter of all the countries doesn’t even believe it’s a real thing. they believe they know better than all the scientists. 

a friend of mine once said that old age is when you realize you’re not just having a bad day. old man trump and others will eventually realize that all the rather catastrophic events happening around the world these years are in fact part of a very unfortunate trend. 

in the meantime he, who has already pulled out of the wto, nafta, the nuclear arms deal and stormy daniels, has pulled out of the paris agreement on climate change mitigation. he stated that the accord would permanently hurt american workers. of course there won’t be any american workers to hurt in a decade or two if all the scientists happen to know more than trump. 

which brings me back to my point: i personally believe our government at least should keep things in perspective. i personally believe we should say yes to carbon taxes, no to oil pipelines, fugg up the economy if that’s what it’ll take. i personally believe our children should see that, irregardless of any other complacent countries, horrible hardships or fear of failure, we’re courageous enough to do the right thing.

the donut shop.

"Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all." Bob Marley

just on the off-chance you haven’t heard, marijuana became legal recently in canada. it’s true, really happened. and i find it fascinating if somewhat unsettling that what was once considered an offence worthy of jail-time is now perfectly acceptable. in my day lives were changed or even ruined for possessing what is now actually considered medicine, for you and for your dog too. 

personally i haven’t had a toke in over forty-five years. before that, however, well, suffice it to say i knew how to roll a joint. hell, i didn’t even need rolling-papers. i learned to roll huge spliffs with newspaper in jamaica. i used coconut leaves in mexico. i could actually just use whatever was handy. meanwhile, i suppose now we’ll all have to listen to everyones’ tedious, boring old doper stories. unfortunately there’s no reason for aging hippies to bogart those stories. it’s all good now, no worries. so allow me to be one of the first. 

it all began one night in my buddy‘s family apartment. jim went on to become one of canada’s leading criminal lawyers. always a high-achiever, in those days he was one of toronto’s leading criminal pot dealers. anyway after lighting up and puffing away that night it just seemed like nothing was happening. i kept insisting that the whacky stuff wasn’t having any effect. i recall that being a big issue for me although jimmy seemed singularly unconcerned. eventually we made our way to a nearby ‘mr. donut’ shop where i found myself standing on a stool and, using my best w.c. fields voice, hollering somewhat inappropriately at the african-canadian waitress: “come over here my lovely chocolate eclair, my chocolate cupcake.” that’s when it dawned upon me that i may have been in fact a little bit stoned. 

tattoos were once considered only for criminals. women wearing pants musta been whores. gays were thought to be criminals. kids who danced were possessed. only drug addicts smoked marijuana. meditation was for flakes. perceptions change over time. the message is clear: i should not be totally completely and stubbornly sure of my ideas. and yet i’m not ready to jump on the pot-smoking celebratory bandwagon.

“one love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right.” bob marley.

the autumn festival.

there were so many folks at lac phillipe on sunday you could barely find a place to park. it was a zoo. as i walked around the corner on a path along with many others i half expected there’d be a tim hortons. it was warm-ish and sunny, the trees were brilliant, of course there’d be many folks at lac phillipe. what was i thinking?

nevertheless i‘d driven into the park to walk around alone, commune with nature, feel close to the creative intelligence, perhaps talk to god, whatever that means. i’m not sure what i wanted to talk to her about but i have to admit i felt let down. i really could not believe the throngs, the sheer number of humanoid creatures up on their hind legs making all manner of noise. i felt dismayed. of course i coulda just driven somewhere else, further up towards lac de loupe perhaps or down chemin eardley into the park. well, i didn’t.
 
the secret to enjoying the park the way i wanted to that day, i figured, was to just walk and keep on walking. as time went on i saw fewer and fewer people. and eventually of course i was all alone. still i walked and walked, then sauntered and sauntered, and then lumbered. i lumbered on through parts perhaps never before mapped. i made my way over hill and dale to parts perhaps never before explored. the only weeee problem was that i really seriously was all alone, a bit lost and my feet hurt.

i wasn’t the least concerned when i realized i’d lost track of where i was, even though my phone was nearly dead and i actually was more than a bit lost. but it was early. i wasn’t concerned about running into deer and bear. i like running into deer and bear. well, not exactly running into them, but seeing them was cool. the only thing that bothered me was that i was already rather tired, pooped, fatigued, flummoxed, frazzled.

i’d like to write about how a white wolf showed me the way back, or maybe it could’ve been a hawk. i’d like to write about how i re-oriented myself using the direction of the sun. in actual fact i simply wandered around stupidly for what seemed like hours and with what felt like a degenerative nerve issue in my aging legs until somewhere in the distance i heard someone speaking mandarin. i followed the beautiful welcome sound of humans talking and laughing, as it got louder and louder until eventually i was back.

once i made my way to lac phillipe i sat at one of the many picnic tables there and enjoyed the joyous joyful scene on a late sunday afternoon. there were so many folks there, it was like one big party, an autumn festival: kids running around playing while parents watched or chased, picnics going on and as the sun only just began to soften.

the old man on a bench.

there are seriously a lot of aged folks at the athletic club i attend. because there’s a full-care old-age home right across the street. these are people way older than i am and i aint getting any younger. that being said, i must add i love the place, wouldn’t wanna go anywhere else.
   
so the other day i was sitting in the hallway checking my messages when an ancient fellow crept slowly up to the door leading into the exercise/fitness room. he honestly was barely able to walk. he was one step or misstep away from a scooter or at least a walker. at first he just stood in front of the door to catch his breath. it must’ve been tortorous for him just to cross over to the club. and i watched as he laboriously lifted his cane to push the large silver button to automatically open the door. and i smugly if not condescendingly thought: if you can’t even open the door what the heck are you expecting to do in there(?)

anyway, i went off to the gym to play some basketball with my guys. i’m at least fifteen years older than the next oldest guy but they’re a great bunch and i still have my moments. unfortunately, there weren’t any of those moments on that particular day. i only took a few shots and one didn’t even hit the rim. i guess i looked a bit pathetic, kinda pretended my knee had buckled as if that was the reason for such an inept performance. be that as it may i love those games at that place and happily limped off to the showers after. i dressed myself, kept in mind to put my pants on before the shoes.

then as i walked past the exercise/fitness room i caught a glimpse of an ancient fellow sitting on a weight-lifting bench. the old guy was still in there an hour-and-a-half later. he was sitting on a bench with a weight in each hand. they looked like not more than 5 kgs each. but he was still in there an-hour-and-a-half later sitting on a bench with a weight in each hand.

I’m Not A Teacher.

I’m Not a Teacher, You’re Not a Student.

(I'm Not a Student, You're Not a Teacher).

This article is written for those special people who have become interested in or perhaps even fascinated by the idea of meditation. If you’re searching for instructions into a Reiki Level 1 course, Tarot cards, healing with crystals or how to contact your dead grandmother, this will not work for you. As wonderful as all those things may be, this article is exclusively concerned with explaining the pure, ancient and highly respected science of meditation, how and why to include it in your life. There is really no certification at the end of studying and practicing. There is, however, tremendous relaxation, a profound sense of well-being and a greater understanding of something rather vague I call ‘self-knowledge.’

At the start of one of my sessions, a severe-looking lady asked what my qualifications were for teaching. A lesser man might've broken down, admitted to being a total fraud. What I said, what I always say, is that I have no certificate or accreditation from any institute. I invited her to feel free to read the back of one of my books to learn a bit of my personal history, specifically as it pertains to the study, experience and teaching of meditation. But most importantly, I added, one has to rely on one’s own intellect and power of discrimination in order to choose who is worth listening to on any subject, especially this one. Moreover, ultimately, one has to take what is useful from any teacher or technique that guarantees results. Even the historical Buddha allegedly said that any technique worth employing must help a person in his or her life, here and now, right away.

The main teacher of the two main teachers in my life, Swami Shyamji, once gave me a piece of advice that I continue to keep close to my heart. As I was leaving his Himalayan hermitage to join a six-month, silent Vipassana Buddhist meditation retreat in Maharashtra, India, I asked if he had any last minute words of advice. “Yes, I do,” he said smiling impishly. “My advice is: Don’t be a Buddhist, be the Buddha.” And with those words ringing in my ears I slithered away. Along with countless other words from Swamiji over the years, I’ve never forgotten that advice. I’ve often repeated it to my so-called students and even expanded upon it. Don’t be a Buddhist, be the Buddha. Don’t be a Christian, be the Christ. Don’t be a Hindu, be Krishna. Don’t be a Sikh, be Guru Nanak. Don’t be a Jew, be Moses. Don’t be an asshole, be Trump.

So, no matter who we choose to listen to, sit with or learn from, it’s up to each of us to dig our own freedom, to find our own way, to become the enlightened one with no certificate to show for our trouble. Just freedom. It is in the light of this realization that I humbly offer these suggestions. In reality, I am not a teacher and you are not a student. If what I write is true and if it strikes a responsive chord within you, then we are united in that understanding. We are united not as teacher and student, but as Truth itself.

Having said all that, I should add something about why it may be helpful to seek some form of guidance or a ‘teacher’ when beginning to examine the science of meditation. One needn’t stay for long. One needn’t cook or clean for him or her, do anything strange in bed or hand over one’s money. What one must do is take advantage of the experience of a fellow traveler who has gone before, who has been up the path and who just might know the tricky twists and turns to watch out for along the way. And there’s one more reason to sit with someone whose meditation practice has matured. The rare people who have dedicated themselves to the process over many years actually emanate a spiritual essence, a vibration that is transmitted to those around them. That may sound terribly mystical, but it’s a fact and a quality not to be underestimated.

On one visit from India many years ago, my dad asked why meditation seemed to have helped me so much, but not my sister, who had also been meditating for some years. She was a devotee of a highly respected teacher, master and guru from India, Swami Yogananda, who had been a pioneer in bringing the information about meditation to the western world. Unfortunately, really, he passed away long before my sister ever heard of him. I replied to my dad that I didn’t have a definitive answer to that question, assuming that he was even correct. But I offered a possible explanation. I said that if one wanted to learn to play the piano, it wouldn’t really be of any use to sit in front of a photo of one’s teacher placed on the music stand above the keys. Why would meditation be any different? Why, for that matter, would religion be any different? It’s interesting that all truly enlightened people have said that we are one life, one energy, one love, irrespective of caste, race, creed, color or any other apparent difference. Why does the essential and original message of the enlightened beings through the ages become so perverted as to cause wars? Don’t be a Buddhist. Be the Buddha.

There’s really nothing hard to understand about meditation. And yet, it’s widely misunderstood here in the western world, and even in its home country, India. From the Sanskrit word, dhyaan, meditation has become synonymous with all things flaky and maladjusted. It’s been blamed for wasted talents and even wasted lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will admit that I put the Saran Wrap in the refrigerator and the milk in the cupboard once in a while. But I, along with so many other people who have spent years meditating, have found something so fine, so beautiful and freeing that nothing can compare with it. Rather than blame the proud process of meditation for our foibles, we praise it as the cause of our deep sense of well-being.

My teacher, early on, once said, “Nathan, the same mind that has gotten you into trouble can get you out of it.” In those days I rather hoped drugs might be the answer. But he assured me that was wrong, that drugs would only ruin my nervous system. I still prefer a mild pain-killer for headaches. However, somehow I came to understand that meditation is a powerful tool. Once trained, I realized, the mind could be used against the enemies of true happiness, such as a myriad of physical ailments, mental complexes and even the innate fear of death. Apparently, the Buddha was known to say that desires are the root cause of all problems. My mother said that lack of money is the root cause of all problems. My friend Danny seemed to think that not having many relationships is the root cause of all problems. Since I tried my mom’s solution and Danny’s solution for a while, I decided to try the Buddha’s, even though I never actually met the fellow. I thought I saw him once at a party, but I couldn’t be sure. Be that as it may, I was pretty concerned about losing my desire for money and relationships if I began to meditate. My girlfriend at the time was even more concerned. Now I see that’s not how it works. You don’t have to give up anything. You only have to add one thing to your life: a few minutes of meditation daily. Then sit back and watch it enhance whatever else you’re into. Watch it help you let go of what you want or need to let go of. Watch it make you see the cup as half full. Watch it make you happy.

One of the most prevalent misconceptions about meditation is that you have to stop your thoughts, kill your mind. What one has to stop, cut or kill is only the concept. Leave your mind alone. To allow a wild horse to settle down, it probably isn’t a great idea to put it in a very small corral. It’s far more preferable to give the creature a large, wide-open field to roam around in. It'll settle down on its own. In the same way, it’s far better to let the thoughts come and go freely. Merely sitting or lying down for some time each day and applying the technique assures one of a positive result. Only your misconceptions concerning what you’re doing can get in the way. The very act of stopping for a while will have a positive influence on your day, your life. That’s because, actually, you do not meditate. You just need to get out of the way for meditation to happen naturally. I'll explain. It’s easy, yet very few people will do it.

Dhyaan actually means ‘attention’ or ‘contemplation.’ Whether a mantra (usually a Sanskrit phrase) or the breath becomes your chosen point of attention, the results of meditation, as I’ve said, are assured. Done with the right understanding, your mind will settle down, you will enjoy a heightened sense of well-being. Done with continuity, you will be well on your way to becoming a more contented person, walking happily through life while, of course, sometimes spoiling the milk by putting it in the cupboard. 

There are three states of consciousness that everyone is very familiar with: the waking state, the dreaming state and the deep sleep state. From the moment of conception, the ancient sages have said, a person begins to forget that he or she has a fourth state, which is called Turiya in Sanskrit. This state permeates all the other states, just as water is the essence of the iceberg. So the very act of stopping all your activities and tuning in to the essence of your existence, which is what you’re effectively doing in meditation, will take care of a lot. And the benefits are many.

In eastern philosophies and scriptures, you’ll often read that whatever is transitory cannot be said to be real. You’ll read that whatever is eternal is real and true. So this body, mind, ego mechanism is in that case not real or even existing. The ancient sages said that there is, in fact, no death because there was no birth. The space from whence ‘we’ come from, to where ‘we’ go, is considered real. The technique becomes, in the light of the previous paragraph, like an anchor. Utilizing it helps bring one’s attention back to one’s own self, to the reality of the essential life animating your body and mind. The technique helps us stop. As well, the technique trains the mind to focus like a laser beam, which will have far-reaching effects on your day, your life and, ultimately, your true knowledge.

The Vedantic scriptures liken the mind to a monkey flitting from branch to branch, tree to tree. Our mind flits from object to object and from thought to thought. We become so extraverted over the course of the years, or even as each day progresses, that it behooves us to find a way to regroup, so to speak. So, when we’ve decided to let the thoughts come and go freely while we sit and watch, we merely add one new thought. The phrase, or mantra, becomes a very significant and enjoyable thought as time marches on. All true mantras mean virtually the same thing: ‘I am the pure life, the essential energy animating all the forms.’ There is a popular Buddhist mantra that goes ‘Om mani padme hum’: ‘Behold the jewel within the lotus flower.’ There is a popular Hindu mantr that goes ‘Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum’: ‘I am immortal, I am blissful and indivisible.’ All real mantras basically refer to the one life, the one light at the center of all beings, the energy that animates all the forms.

It is often noted that Sanskrit is used for mantras because the vibration of the phrases resonate within the human mind to open certain spiritual channels. For an in-depth dissertation on the vibrational qualities of Sanskrit, I recommend Chaytna’s book, ‘Let’s Learn Hindi,’ which can be found through her website; www.letslearnhindi.com. I’ve always used the Sanskrit word; ‘Shyam’, as my mantra. It’s the name of my teacher and of the power that sustains life. It really doesn’t matter what mantra you choose, although Sanskrit mantras are the most recommended. However, choosing a mantra and sticking to it is important. Meditation is a technique of being one-pointed, after all. Chogyam Trungpa once wrote that western people tend to try many different techniques, which is like a thirsty person digging many shallow wells but never hitting water. He wrote that we should dig one well deep enough to achieve the desired result.

Having chosen a mantra, or been given one by a spiritual guide, master or guru, you’re ready to begin. My teacher used to say that you should be able to meditate anywhere unless somebody is physically shaking you. I once climbed all the way down to the bottom of a dormant volcano in Hawaii, called Haliakalu, in a quest to find the perfect spot for meditation. A hut had been constructed there for trekkers or foolish folks looking for a perfect spot to meditate. I felt so sure I’d finally found my place. Unfortunately, since there were no panes of glass nor screens in the windows, a couple of flies flew fairly frequently in there making a racket like they were at the El Macombo on a Saturday night. I left in a huff the next morning. 

Later, on my way to India for the first time, I was compelled to sleep on the rooftop of a hotel in Peshawar after a long and tiring day of travel. The noise level from the crowds up there and the hollering, smoke and smells from the streets below were off the charts. I was convinced meditation would be a wasted endeavor in such a place. But, I had little choice. It was my rule to sit every evening one hour. And after an hour, in spite of my misgivings, I felt rejuvenated, refreshed. As well, contrary to popular belief, it’s not necessary to sit ramrod straight with legs crossed. It’s not even necessary to sit at all. You can lie down, settle into a comfortable chair or sit on a cushion with legs out or crossed. Since meditation is first a process of relaxation, let the sense of ease be your guide. You should feel relaxed and comfortable.

It’s easy to find a spot where there is very little noise. It’s easy to find a spot where there are virtually no pungent odors, unless of course you don’t bathe. It’s easy to find a spot where you’re not touching anything other than the pillows. But how does one get away from one’s own mental projections? As I’ve said before, the first thing to not do is mind your own thoughts. Don’t mind your mind. Remember, the same mind that got us into trouble can get us out. The mind is a trickster, a monkey. It will first distract you from your mantra and then make you feel bad for being distracted. Allow your thoughts to come and go freely. Decide beforehand that you won’t feel bad about them. Because I promise that you will be distracted again and again. So each time you realize you’ve been thinking or listening to a noise or feeling pain, pleasure or a strong emotion of some sort, just go back to your mantra without any sense of self-recrimination. There’s no need to beat yourself up over this. You can even get right into thinking, about your day, your life. You can get into thinking about life itself, pure, free and forever. Just keep returning to your mantra, again and again.

It is important to understand that whatever one perceives and experiences in meditation, just as in ones day-to-day life, is transitory and changing. Whatever one thinks, hears, whatever pain, pleasure or strong emotion one experiences will have a beginning and an end. So, when you meditate it is useful to just watch it all. Don't try to get away from anything or hang onto anything. Just practice being the watcher of it all. The same uninvolved observer who was watching as a young boy or girl is the same one who is watching now. As your body has grown and as you’ve gained more and more skills, qualifications and life experiences, that watcher has never changed. That one has been watching all the changes and is watching still, unchanged, uninvolved. That uninvolved observer has always and will always be fine throughout the life and even after. Think about that.

In spite of what I wrote earlier, I am going to suggest two more techniques. Because I feel sure that the people reading this dissertation, like the people I keep meeting, and especially now with the right understanding, are brilliant enough to decide which is best suited to them and how to use the information offered here. 

The first of these two techniques is called Anapana, with a soft ‘a.’ It is a technique of concentrating on the breath. Anapana is referred to as the maha mantra, the ultimate mantra. The reason is that it’s the least tangible, the subtlest point one can attend. There’s virtually no form to watch, no form to hold on to with your mind. However, the ancient sages have said that it’s a bridge between the part of us that’s transitory and the part that’s eternal, the source of our energy. I have often suggested it can also be combined with mantr.

The million-dollar question is this: Can you allow the inhalation and exhalation to happen on its own without asserting yourself? Can you stop doing anything and just observe your own breath? While sitting, slouching or lying down, or while waiting to be wheeled in for your gall-bladder operation, put your attention on the nose-nostrils-upper-lip area and watch the breath. Don’t follow your breath in or out. This is not a breathing exercise. Watch the inhalation, the exhalation and the spaces between. And, again, as often as your attention is deflected into your thoughts, the noises around you or the pain in your tummy, that many times you have to go back to your chosen point of attention. And don’t bother being bothered by being bothered by being distracted.

You may not think you’re having a very peaceful meditation. As I’ve already pointed out, you may think you’re wasting your time. Just keep in mind that rooftop in Peshawar and give peace a chance. There is no such thing as a bad meditation. You may doubt that you can do it. You may doubt that you should do it. I suggest that you be patient and give yourself time. In one of my recent sessions, a lady said that she really didn’t understand what she was doing while meditating. That was a valid point. It was a valid point because she was not doing anything. We’re not used to stopping. We’re not used to letting go. It’s much simpler to run around the block for a half hour than to stop all our activities for the same time period. It’s the most worthy and yet the most difficult of all activities. It's easy and hard. In fact, it’s too simple. And don’t get stuck on the technique. You can just watch the space, so to speak. You can decide. You are the teacher. You are the path.

Which brings me to my third suggestion, my last technique. This simple technique is close to my heart. In fact, it's close to everyones heart. Here's how this one goes: 

Just think about a person you have loved with all your heart. Dwell upon that person, or even that pet, you have been most enamored of, most attached to, the being whose presence you have most treasured. Even if he, she or it is physically no longer in your life, even if the memory causes you pain, don't turn your thoughts away. The pain is because there was that much love, that much oneness and I assure you the pain and pleasure are not two different realities. 

After a few moments, let go of that person or being and put your attention on the feelings, dwell on those feelings, follow those feelings to their source deep within you. Because those feelings existed long before the object of your love came in front of your eyes and other senses. Those feelings and that heart-space have always been there. Eventually, you can envision a pond that, when a pebble is tossed into it, causes ripples to spread out from the center. Let those waves, the vibrations, ripple throughout your body and flood your system with all that goodness. Envision that life-sustaining healing power spread throughout your body and even beyond. But, mostly, dwell on that place, space, center, the force, the source of your love. 

One of the first things you’re likely to notice is that the quality of your thoughts will change. You probably won’t feel like hollering at your wife or husband so much anymore, tying a tin can to the tail of your neighbor’s cat, back-ending the guy who just cut you off. You may feel uncharacteristically charitable. When that happens, and it will, you may think something is wrong. Of course, if the new thought processes seem strangely soothing, continue. It won’t be long before you’ll get the feeling you’re looking for. When one is sitting, continuously placing ones attention on or identifying with the watcher, one is essentially developing equanimity. Each time one says ‘pain’ rather than ‘my pain,’ or ‘pleasure’ instead of ‘my pleasure,’ one is essentially stepping back from the ever-changing phenomenon just a tiny bit. In that way a person will observe again and again how all of ones sensory perceptions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, change. But a person will also observe again and again how the observer, the watcher, remains ever the same. In that way, one is travelling in the right direction and eventually, aside from any deeper effect, an ability to pause before reacting to whatever is going on around you is necessarily developed. And that ability to take a moment, even a split moment, to act creatively rather than react blindly, is incredibly valuable.

When a person throws an insult in your direction, for example, and you catch it as though it’s a bouquet of roses, the insult loses all its power. It would be tempting to underestimate the technique I’ve suggested. But before discarding the practice out of hand to return to your Scrabble game, you may find it interesting to dwell on the fact that there are thousands of people around the world who have dedicated their lives to doing nothing else. Of course, then you’ll have to figure out if they’re all misguided idiots or folks who have actually discovered a way to answer first-hand those insidious questions that linger in our minds from early childhood. While everyone is striving for name, fame and fabulous wealth during this lifetime, people tend to lose sight of one very important fact. In a hundred years or so, nobody you know now will be alive. And nobody who is alive will really care who you were.

There are certain things that don’t go well with meditation. Smoking cigarettes, smoking dope and drinking copious amounts of alcohol tend to be counterproductive. Heroin, crack and meth are not recommended. It’s a matter of going from the grosser to the subtler. And in that regard I would also take the chance to suggest eating less meat, especially red meat, and consuming more fruits and vegetables. People who are completely into eating animals on a regular basis might not appreciate my writing that. But, I think it’s really very important that I do. I only hope you don’t come after me with a meat cleaver muttering something about it being all fine if you use the right spices. In fact, as i've said, nobody need necessarily 'cut' out any pleasures whatsoever. Just add one more thing to your life. Meditation will help everyone.

And while I’m offending people’s sensibilities I may as well mention my belief in the importance of continence. I’m not referring to the obvious advantages of curing oneself of adult bed-wetting. After all, there are effective plastic sheets on the market these days, or so I’ve been told. Certainly, I’d have to be insane to suggest cutting down on sexual activity, it being the way we tend to judge how wonderful we are. So I won’t go there at all. This sensitive area of the ancient science of the sages is esoteric and I therefore will not explain it. It’s secret. My lips are sealed. I’m only lightly, gingerly alluding to the possibility of a certain conservation of energy. I will write all about it openly in my upcoming book, ‘Unprotected Sects.’

When I returned to Canada in 1998, I was quite amazed to find out how many people had attained miraculous powers rather, well, miraculously. It still seems to me that every second person has the ability to heal merely with a touch. Many don’t even need to touch you. They can do it over the phone or by skype. There are a plethora of channelers, people able to communicate with angels, crystal bowl healers, psychics, clairvoyants, palm readers, garden variety fortune tellers, intuitives, aura readers, tea leaf readers... It seems that in the new-age everybody’s sister, mother and brother are powerful healers and teachers. And that’s just great. I would only mention that one might be well advised to keep ones attention on the goal.

Many years ago Alan Abel, who was with the Globe and Mail in Toronto at the time, came to visit the Hermitage in Kullu, India, where I lived for twenty-five years. During his interview with My teachet, Alan asked if Swamiji had any extra-normal powers. “Yes, I do,” Swamiji said. “I have the power to love everyone unconditionally.” I’m quite convinced that greatest of all powers can be only attained by the direct experience of the oneness of all life, the one life permeating all the forms, pure, free and forever.

There’s nothing to compel one to meditate or even make enquiries about it. However, if you’ve gotten this far, if you are impelled, you may as well read the rest of what I want to say. When one looks up at the night sky and sees all those stars, one has to wonder where it ends. And, for that matter, one has to wonder where it all begins. Intelligent people through the ages have continuously wondered where they came from and where they end up after the body dissolves. 

I haven’t an answer to those questions, not from firsthand experience or knowledge. But, I do know that asking oneself those questions is certainly the beginning of a great journey. And my direct personal experience has left me quite convinced that there is more to life than what meets the eye. There’s more to me than this body and mind. This is a fact that I know through personal, direct experience. It has also become extremely obvious to me that, in spite of the many differences, we all breathe the same air, that our hearts all pulsate with the same love of life, and that we all desire freedom.

Namaste.

a higher worth.

solid mountainside
solid sedimentaries
solid high and wide
for centuries.

still older than these crystal forms
in existence when
by savage storm might show
what was then.

not to hold with timorous trembling hand
nor feel against your silken skin
not to see what was before there was land
to stand in.

away all forms on earth
and objects of this universe
before the first birth
to walk this earth.

not solid like the mountainside
nor possible to feel
not solid high or wide
yet more real.

and older than those crystal forms
in existence when
by savage storms might show
what was then.

there was before the earth
and after that had lead
towards a land of higher worth
to tread.

solid mountainside
solid sentimentaries
solid high and wide
for centuries.

the question.

somewhere and nowhere where silence hangs thick as dust, where blueness and blackness mingle in deep apparent endlessness, in opaque beginning-less-ness. 
sometime and in no time at all when in the blink of a love-filled i remains in the heart forever.
we know you as me in the mirrored labyrinth of us, as someone and not just anyone understanding the pangs of multiple creations and the ecstasies of being.
just remember and kindly recognize me as i join the rest again in hidden answers revealed, in boundless relief once concealed from the one and all.
somewhere and nowhere where silence hangs thick as dust, where blueness and blackness mingle in deep apparent endlessness, in opaque beginning-less-ness. 

there may well be a formless original blue-black space, emerging out of which comes a procession of multitudinous forms and phenomena. 
lying within that consciousness, fused eternally by the direct cognition or recognition of the space we travel, the labyrinth of life constantly reflecting a brilliance in the heart and mind. 
there’s an openness borne of experience through silence yet so far full of frequent doubts while we travel as one, an endless enquiry.
toward deeper understanding we move, buffeted by winds of new possibilities or old awarenesses recollected. 
and it is endless, this not really knowing the formless and the formed, the beginning and the end that may be found in this eternal moment.   




  

Jake’s Journey.

Old Jake walked to the post-box by the highway. He usually waited ‘til late, enjoyed the privacy of darkness, under the stars, taking his time along the long dirt road. He really didn’t care if there was a letter or not, probably preferred not. But there was one that time, rather official-looking, unusual, suspicious.

Jake never took one of the bags of brochures and coupons left hanging on the hook. He pocketed the letter and carried on walking, along the highway to the next road. He did that when there wasn’t much traffic, made his way back along the other long dirt road that passed by at the back of his property. He threw the keys in the basket and sat down at the yellow 1940s kitchen table. He took the letter out of his back pocket, unfolded it, tore it open, took a fast look before throwing it into the waste-basket. It was just another scam.

Sometime in between watching the baseball and taking out his teeth for the night old Jake reached down into the bin to retrieve the letter. He smoothed it out on the table best he could. At the top there was a logo of some weigh-scales with an official-looking letter-head from Thompson & Thompson Barristers, an address in London, England, a fax number and a date. 

The first paragraph read: ‘Dear Mr. Jacob Robertson; My name is David T. Thomas, expert in corporate legal claims. I am contacting you in regards to a client who unfortunately died in an auto accident on a highway in Spain in March of 2010. He was a prominent client of mine who shared your last name. Following a thorough investigation it has been determined that you are in fact his only living relation. Before his death he deposited twenty-two-million dollars in the vault of a certain institution’ blah blah blah. Of course the letter went on to explain in some detail how the transfer of said funds could and should be concluded. There was a signature at the bottom of the page with an email address and even a phone number. 

Old Jake took a photo of the letter with his iphone, then emailed it to his brother having first typed on top: ‘Hey Pete; Take a look at this letter I just received. It’s great news isn’t it? We’ll split the money 50/50.’ He chuckled to himself, then of course he tossed the letter back into the waste-basket before going off to bed. 

Hardly a day or two earlier Jake received an automated phone call supposedly from the ‘Internal Revenue Agency’ stating that he was in a helluva lot of trouble. He was in danger of jail time, perhaps solitary confinement, perhaps even some water-boarding. He was supposed to phone a certain number immediately for further instructions on how to rectify his obvious attempt at tax fraud. It may have been that same day he received two emails apparently from the ‘itunes store’ informing Jake that somebody had recently tried to use his account. He was directed to click on a link provided in order to verify his contact information. 

It felt to old Jake as though he had scams, questionable sales practices and business offers coming at him like bugs to a speeding truck. He had people trying to grab his modest savings directly, indirectly, in so many creative and wonderful ways. He knew to watch out for identity theft, personal cheque forgeries, lottery scams, fake shopping websites and many more. But it was daunting at times. And unfortunately the phenomena took an exponential leap once he posted his ancient truck for sale and his cottage for rent on ‘Kijiji.’ It seemed like a good idea at the time. He really didn’t need a big truck anymore and he hardly went to his cottage. He just thought that renting the place out for a few days now and then through the summer would help pay the taxes. 

He immediately received many emails about his truck, private messages and phone calls, but not one from anyone actually interested in purchasing the thing. ‘Kijiji’ itself bombarded him with innumerable emails suggesting he upgrade his ad for better results, at a cost of course. People called up seemingly keen to buy the truck only to eventually reveal they were calling on behalf of a marketing firm or a dealership. There were odd-balls, ridiculous low-ballers, even a frequent automated call from a lady speaking Mandarin.

He also got constant emails from ‘Kijiji’ suggesting he upgrade his cottage ad for better results, at a cost of course. Many requests just wouldn’t be appropriate for his place, several odd-balls, even a frequent automated call from a lady speaking Mandarin, and then there was Jayme.

Jayme, Jaymelea actually, sounded quite nice, natural, normal. And Jake had no reason to think her call was anything other than a lovely young lady wanting to spend a couple of romantic days in the country with her boyfriend. The kids were with their dad for the weekend, she’d been tremendously attracted by photos of the cottage and it’d take hardly more than an hour to get there. She e-transferred two-hundred-and-forty bucks, received directions and told where to find the key. It was quite a nice, natural, normal transaction, until five o’clock next morning.

When the phone rang Jake had been dreaming about an old dog he once had. The dog wandered off and he thought someone was calling with information as to her whereabouts. It was Jayme. She sounded agitated, upset. “We had a bad accident on the way and have been in the hospital all night. I’m ok but my boyfriend’s pretty messed up.” Old Jake immediately expressed his concern, assured her that he’d return her money but in his mind that was the first red flag fluttering in the wind. 

In Jake’s somewhat cynical mind, actually, there were several red flags fluttering in the wind. As he sat on the edge of his bed he thought: ‘What are the chances of them having an accident on the way? It just felt like an excuse, a lie. And if they’d had a bad accident, so bad that they’d been in the hospital all night, would getting her two-hundred-and-forty bucks back be uppermost in her mind? And if all that was true, would it seem so important to wake him up at five a.m? Why not wait until eight or even seven like a normal human?’

As old Jake sipped his strong black coffee he wondered what the scam might be this time. Once he sent money might they cancel their original transfer? Is that even possible and, if so, why couldn’t he then simply cancel his? Were they somehow after his banking information? Were they wanting to know how to get to his cottage for later on, to rip him off? Was there even a ‘they’? By mid-way through his second cup of strong black coffee he was pretty convinced it was a scam. He just couldn’t figure out what it was. And almost prophetically he received a response from the email he’d sent his brother. Peter wrote only three words: ‘It’s a scam.’ 

Jayme sent a message at eight asking if Jake had transferred the money. He decided to be up-front. He wrote that he’d absolutely send back her money but only after talking to his bank manager on Monday. He also said he’s asked his neighbour to take away the key and keep a watch on the place, which he hadn’t. But his message precipitated another call from Jayme, not angry, just more upset, more agitated. “Look Jake, I understand your concern. I’d move the key too. But I‘m totally legit,” she began dubiously. “I own a home in Barrhaven and two businesses. I have kids and can’t just throw away the money. I even bought two-hundred dollars of food!” 

Jake let the lady rant on a bit while all the while watching more red flags fluttering in the wind. He kept thinking: ‘You own a home and not one but two businesses yet you’re freaking out about this money. And how’s your boyfriend doing? As well, why would you buy two-hundred dollars of food for two people for two days? And anyway would all that food be wasted?’ “Jayme,” he finally responded. “I promise you I have no intention of keeping your money. Since you didn’t use my cottage the money’s not mine. I wouldn’t even need to know why you didn’t go to my cottage. I will be returning it. But I wanna go to my cottage first and I wanna go speak with the bank on Monday.”

There were a couple more text messages through the day, mostly trying to impress upon Jake that she was an honest, hard-working single mom. He looked on ‘Facebook’ and, yes, there was a Jaymelea Firestone, no photos of her but a few of two really cute kids. Eventually Jake decided what the hell and tried to e-transfer the money back, only the transfer didn’t go through. Her email address apparently didn’t exist and another red flag began fluttering in the wind. 

Sunday was a hot sunny day in the Gatineau Hills as old Jake drove over to the cottage. The trees were crying out with delight, the lake was brimming with confidence. There were unmistakable signs of a beaver working through one of the trees, frogs were jumping and a snake was under the canoe. But there were no signs of anyone having been in the cottage. Jayme called to explain why the email she uses didn’t accept the e-transfer. It had something to do with it being a company address. Jake really didn’t understand but it didn’t matter. Against his better judgment he was kinda warming up to her.

Monday morning was equally sunny as Jake made his way to the bank. He didn’t feel so sunny, actually wasn’t feeling at all well and was left cooling his heels in a tube-chair for a while. But he had a good chat with the manager eventually. She assured him that there really was no problem but to be totally safe he could purchase a ‘new product’ that essentially was a phone-number one could call for advice day or night on specific security concerns. She also tried to steer him into a high-interest account which in fact was not so high. She also tried to sign him up for their on-line self-directed investment service. And right before ending the meeting, as they both stood up to leave, she also generously offered to expand the borrowing limit on his credit card. The irony was not lost on the old guy.

By noon Jake was really feeling fairly flushed, probably just over-heated. He was also quite ready, willing, even eager to transfer Jayme’s money. He wasn’t tremendously reassured, still somewhat suspicious. But at that point he was also fed up, frankly a little curious and, God help him, even rather fond of the lady. She’d shown more interest in Jake over the past few days, for whatever reason, than any lady in thirty years.

The email address Jayme suggested worked fine that time but then she couldn’t download the funds. Jake tried to walk her through it, to no avail. Then she seemed to implode. “I can’t do this! I can’t do this!,” she hollered into the phone. “My life’s shit! You wanna know the truth? My boyfriend left me that night! He got home at five in the morning after spending the night with another woman. That’s the truth. There was no accident. Fuck the money. Just keep it! Now I gotta move by tomorrow with the kids!” 

Jake, for his part, was listening to the tirade with equal measures of surprise, concern, amusement and scepticism. Of course it didn’t matter at all what the truth of the situation might be. She was clearly a liar but also clearly distraught. “Jayme relax. Take a breath. I’ll cancel the transfer and bring you a cheque this afternoon, right now, wherever you are.” That seemed to do the trick. She settled down. They agreed to meet at a ‘Farm Boy’ grocery store on Woodroffe avenue. 

She of course couldn’t know how horrible Jake was feeling by then. As he drove to the city he felt positively faint. By the time he got downtown he had to pull over. He closed his eyes, unaware for how long until his phone rang and he heard her voice, excited, shrill, hollering, asking where he was, exactly, what cross-streets. Where was he? What colour was the truck? What street? What street Jake!? After that, like sort of the very next moment, he was in an ambulance, and then he was in a hospital bed.

And then Jayme was sitting in a chair next to the hospital bed. Old Jake looked at her for the first time. He thought she was really quite lovely, not the loveliness of youth. That wasn’t it. He‘d frankly expected her to look a little more desperate only she was relaxed, soft, with light-coloured hair, deep dark moist eyes, a mother’s body. He reached over and took her hand. “You know, I was pretty darn sure you were scamming me.” “Not everybody’s trying to cheat you Jake,” she responded. “But I’m sorry I made it all so hard and now you’re here.” He smiled. He was well medicated and his eyes were closing, until he remembered. “Just a minute,” he muttered. “Take the cheque out of my jacket.” She leaned over and actually kissed him on the cheek as he drifted off. 

Standing outside in the parking area Jayme held onto the cheque as her phone rang. She answered and a man’s voice spoke: “Did you get it?” After receiving no answer he repeated: “Jayme did you get it?” “No,” she said finally. “Ok, fuck it. Never mind,” the man barked. “We’ll cut the old bugger loose.” Jayme ripped up the cheque, threw it in a garbage can before getting in her car.