Bricks
an Art of Dying fragment
There is a strong (and undeniable) spiritual parallel between the Buddhist Sangha and Our Prince’s Sea Organization. They are both congregations of harmonized belief. Harmonized, mutually supported and reinforced belief.
Fortified belief:
As I believe, you believe. As you believe, I believe. As I trust, you trust. As you trust, I trust. And if my belief, or trust, for whatever reason flags, I only need look your way to see (and drink in) your firm and in-no-way flagging belief and trust and so re-charge, un-flag mine.
I only have to look at my friends down there on the aft well deck, loading stores from our Portuguese chandler (whose large orange and white van is parked near the gangway for easy access), stocking up for our next voyage; I only have to see them smile and hear them banter and laugh to know their beliefs are strong and shared and beyond question. Seeing and knowing this I feel my own belief pulse in unison and, like the Phoenix, rise again and flex fresh, strong wings. Soaring again.
Ananda, the Buddha’s PA of many years, once suggested to the Buddha that the spiritual friendship of the Sangha was better than half of the holy life. Gotama Buddha corrected him and said that the spiritual friendship of the Sanga was more than that — it was all of the holy life.
Our Prince would beg to differ. According to him, the holy life was Him, Our Prince, nothing and no one else. He was Source, the Heart, the life and wisdom of our Sangha, all of it; the discoverer and codifier of our spiritual technology. And don’t we ever forget it.
We learned that over and over; and over.
The rest of us only had the occasional walk-on part.
However, on a personal experience level, I knew, looking down at the aft well deck that I was surrounded by support and a harmony of belief that would see me through any doubt and hardship — each friend a firm and irreplaceable brick in the wall of our shared castle. The castle was our ship Apollo. Our wonderful Prince its captain and supreme potentate. And the thought that someone would voluntarily up and leave all this behind, well, it was an unthinkable one.
Unthinkable because such a desertion would threaten, harm, fissure, perhaps even shatter our shared, communal belief — rupture the wall.
That is why, when someone we knew, loved, and trusted for whatever personal reason decided to blow (our term for: voluntarily leave, openly or, more commonly, surreptitiously) and did, it was incomprehensible to us, it was an act of temporary madness; and more importantly, it was a brick pried out of our foundation of belief and trust. And that is why, for us as a group and for the integrity of our Sangha, at whatever cost, retrieving and returning to the fold our blown comrade(s) was paramount.
Our Prince was so right in his views and opinions and his technological bridge so irreplaceably sacred that no one in his or her right mind would leave it behind — it was a clear symptom of mental (or spiritual) illness, and we owed it to him or her to track them down, to bring them back, to restore their spiritual sanity.
But also, they had to be brought back because the consequence of a such a blow could also (in the stillness of night, not yet asleep) be these vexing questions: What did he or she know that I don’t? What had he unearthed about Our Prince’s Tech that I or all of us have missed? Am I still right in believing, in trusting in his views and path? All boiling down to, of course: why did he or she leave? They must have had some sort of reason, a reason that might well pose an immediate threat to my (to our) shared belief and trust.
That is why recovery efforts (euphemism for tracking down and returning to ship and sanity the escapee) spared no expense; a sizeable posse might spread out in several planetary directions and not stop or sleep until the runaway had been found and brought back.
Escapes from the Apollo were uncommon, we had a strong shared castle, besides, all passports (you’d need yours to flee) were under captain’s lock and key. Those few who did leave the ship were as a rule soon retrieved and brought back and restored to their senses which in turn, once our retrieved comrade had publicly repented, restored the communal belief and confidence (trust) to its former glory.
One year, a very good friend of mine failed to return on time from her annual leave. After two more weeks she was declared blown. I did not, could not believe this. She simply would not do such a thing. She loved Our Prince as much as I did, as much as anyone did. Yet. Yet. Where was she?
An older member of our Sangha sat me down to console me, to explain for me how this could have happened. How there was something about my friend that neither I nor anyone else had known about, some evil, some insanity, some obvious and fatal shortcoming somewhere which caused her blindness and blow.
I still did not believe. But what could I do? I did my best to forget her and the inexplicable conundrum of a back turned to Our Prince and His promise of total freedom.
Then, a year or so later, she did return. She had, during her leave, been in a car accident. Was laid up for a while in hospital, recovered at home with her mother, then had to work with local Sea Org authorities to explain why she had not blown and was now ready to return to the ship. It took months for people to believe her (even if well-documented) story. Finally, they did, and here she came, sauntering up the gangway to the aft quarter deck, “Welcome Back!”
Brick restored, castle of belief firm again. Extra firm.
On another occasion, however, four of the most highly trained auditors on the planet — three had reached the very summit: Class XII, one was a Class IX — and a fifth escapee, a good friend of mine who was married to the Class IX, successfully blew. All recovery efforts failed. They remained blown. No real reason was ever given, no real explanation attempted.
No explanation, that is, apart from the boilerplate one: all blows are caused by the evil deeds of those blown. This simplified matters, since no details really had to be supplied. If a person blew, and refused retrieval and return, it was due to that person’s crimes and sordid deeds against the group in general, and against Our Prince in particular. That is all we needed to know; and if we trusted Our Prince (which we did), that should (and as a rule did) resolve the conundrum for us — at least superficially.
The Princely logic behind this went as follows (a sweet logic, I must admit, and must further admit still makes quite beautiful sense to me):
At heart, all beings are good. Beings, on occasion turn bad. Some very bad. When a being turned bad commits crimes and other evil deeds against a person or group, that being will eventually, in order to prevent him- or herself from committing further evil deeds against the person or the group, and out of the basic goodness of his or her heart, remove him- or herself, i.e., blow.
Yes, “the five” (which they eventually became known as) were evil, officially. They had committed crimes, especially against Our Prince. End of story.
Still: the troublesome, almost painful questions, though buried, remained, still beat a pulse, even if weak: What did he or she know that I don’t? What had they unearthed about Our Prince’s Tech that I or all of us have missed (a very pertinent question in this particular case)? Am I still right to trust to believe Our Prince?
The five were more than just bricks, they were a good part of the very foundation our belief and trust were based on, which is why I, along with so many others, turned a very blind eye and “knew” (with a superior inward smile) that they (not I) were the crazy ones.
Obviously.
I still, to this day, wonder how they reasoned, how they decided, why they decided, to leave.
My guess sitting here, is that they must have (from the vantage point of high technical altitude) seen and stepped through a looking glass, only to find the landscape beyond either false or untenable.
Perhaps, I sometimes think, they had reached the Land of Ron and caught a glimpse behind the curtain.
© Wolfstuff
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