Buddhas Buddhas Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

Jesus was the first person I noticed when I walked into the mess tent. He was very hard to miss. He sat, gently giving off light, surrounded by eager students, at the table closest to a short end of the tent through which I had just entered. He had a large bowl containing some kind of legume, and was partaking heartily as he interacted jovially with the people around him. The light he gave off was lovely. Somehow bright, but not on such a mundane spectrum as our own light bulbs, and so the brightness was registered only as awesome, calming, and loving, and did nothing to hurt the eyes. I could feel myself getting uneasy.

I didn’t recognize the humans with whom he was chatting easily, but only a table or so over I saw a dark skinned man that I knew was Krishna. He was also lovely, and happily engaged in lively discussions with the people around him. No one was freaking out. Everyone was eating or had something to eat. People were just talking pleasantly with these two amazing beings. Everyone seemed quite happy. I could feel my stress levels increasing. I froze; I knew, I knew down to my core, that if I kept looking around this mess tent, all I would see, table after table, was one enlightened being after another having nice chats with pleasant, clean, and unidentifiable humans. At that time what terrified me most was that, if I spent any time even just glancing around the room, I might find Lord Buddha.

Had I made the effort, from where I stood at a short end of the long rectangular tent, I could have seen the entirety of the inside of the tent. Tables were to my right and left, and ahead of me was an alley-way of sorts, comfortably wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side. I locked my vision down this middle lane. I was upset and irritated by the prospect of seeing more beings of renown, most of whom were likely to be enlightened people I desperately wanted to talk to. Fortunately something powerful happened. In that empty space in the center of the tent I could see someone I knew well, whom I loved, and who might have some idea of what was going on. At the very least they would listen to me. It was my dead friend Nicholas Rattliff.

I ran to him, still making efforts to not notice anyone else in the tent. I hugged him on the verge of tears. He looked amazing. His skin glowed, his excess weight was nowhere to be seen. He looked a little bit like he had in college, but instead of dreadlocks he had let his hair grow into a moderate afro. He knew immediately that I was in a state of distress. “Isn’t this what you want? Don’t you want to be in a place like this?” His voice was so calm, so compassionate, but also, just mocking enough to let me know he could, as always, see through me.

“No!” I could not hear my own voice, but the things I was trying to say communicated clearly in this place, regardless of how loud one spoke, or whether one even opened one’s mouth. “No! I don’t want to fight with others for the attention of these beings! I’m so tired of that. I don’t want these beings in this way. What I seek is realizations!”

He looked at me with such compassion, and love, completely free of pity. Hearing my own mind I immediately started to pity myself, and Nicholas, perhaps if we had had a few more moments, would certainly have chided me for that. I just remember how much he loved me, and how much he wanted me to be happy. I was lying to myself and, in a sense, to Nicholas. Of course he knew, but he’s so much clearer than me. No doubt from the moment he had seen me enter the tent he had known my troubled, broken mind. More time. If only I had had more time.

It all faded away. In my comfortable bed, I felt hurt. Not by Nicholas, but by my own self. My own fears. I had been happy to see him. I had gotten a good hug and had been able to take in a good vision of who I knew he was. But I missed Jesus, Krishna, and almost certainly Lord Buddha. I chose to miss them. I chose to miss spending time with the beings who I bow to. Who I wish, over and over again, would come and help me. Because I was afraid that these beings of pure love would find me as contemptible as I find myself. I was terrified that I might find out that the living embodiments of compassion would actually spurn me the way I believe all beings should. What should have been an uplifting, extraordinary dream experience I managed to turn into a perfect example of how I am broken. An Ouroboros of mental affliction.

While it is true that I have grown tired of holy people and their miasma of sycophants, I could also tell that in the tent there was no competition. The beings there had all the time in the universe, and the normal people were all patient, happy folk. They weren’t the problem. My own mind was the problem. I had lied to Nicholas about it in the dream. I had lied to myself about it upon waking. I lied to my wife about it when I recounted the experience to her. But that moment, when my false words traveled out of my mouth towards my wife, was when my heart rang like a great bell in my body and mind and told me the truth. You are afraid to meet yourself. You are afraid to be loved. You need to be special and one of the main ways you get that is by declaring yourself a special level of pathetic. Gods forbid anyone in authority should disabuse you of this idea. How fitting that it was Nicholas who got your attention in the end. His only real mission with you has been to do just that.