Later, Christy wandered into the shrine tent, which reminded her of the one she and Michael had been married in. It was filled with people sitting on a sea of navy-blue cushions on the floor in front of an exotic-looking altar affair dominated by a large ancient Buddha. There were wildflowers in one chalice and cooked rice in another. The warming scent of incense floated over the whole space.
Christy selected a cushion in the back row and waited for the spiritual part to begin. From what she understood, most of these people had been sitting here silently meditating ten hours a day for two weeks. This being her first visit to an ashram, she awkwardly mimicked the little bows she saw going on, then sat down and watched everyone pile in. Wow, that guy is cute, she thought. Hmm, there are at least twice as many women here as men, maybe three times. You’re once, twice, three times a lady, she sang in her head. And I lo-o-ove you-ou-ou. I don’t care what anyone says, Lionel Richie’s a genius. This deep reflection was cut short when the teacher began to speak. He sounded refreshingly normal, and Christy began to think that this might not be so bad.
The teacher, who was Christy’s age, sat in a chair by the altar. He looked like he might have come straight from Park Avenue, and it turned out he had, several decades ago, from a New York family of distinguished lineage. He told the group that he recently overheard his father telling a friend, “Yes, Bill is still at that place in California. I wish he would come home and practice law, but he does seem less pissed off.” Well, Christy thought, I would like to be a little less pissed off myself right now, so maybe I’m in the right place, too.
After Bill (which seemed to be his name despite an array of unpronounceable titles used to refer to him) welcomed everyone, he assumed the half-lotus position, and everyone followed suit. He demonstrated proper meditation technique, which boiled down to follow your breath, in, out, in, out, gaze three feet in front of you. Christy would do okay for three or four breaths. Then she would come to, having no idea how much later, midfantasy, where she would be chopping Galit’s perfect body into tiny little pieces. Or dabbing acid on Michael’s private parts while he slept. The more Christy tried to clear her mind the way Bill explained, the clearer the images of her SOB husband and his skanky slut. She finally forced herself to picture Renata, and that brought her into a more tranquil state. In, out, Renata, in, out, Renata, in, out, Renata—this went on for three hours. Including Renata in her meditation practice was cheating, but it calmed Christy and filled her with a sense of well-being.
After three hours a gong rang, signaling that it was time for dinner. Everyone stood up and walked in a stately way (the only way people walked there) to get their oryoki sets, little bundles of blue linen tied around chopsticks and a set of bowls. Christy got hers and sat back down, watching the person beside her for clues as to the next move. Suddenly they were bowing to each other, and the bundle went in front of them. Then they were untying the knot, laying out the bowls and chopsticks and the little spatula thing with white cloth tied around it. The person across the aisle looked hard at Christy, a meaningful insistent look. After staring stupidly back at him and intensely studying his arrangement, she realized what the problem was. Her spatula was turned the wrong way.
By the time Christy fixed her spatula, the chanting had started, and she quickly consulted the little card that came with the bowls, only to find that it was all in Tibetan. Okay, she moved her lips and fake chanted. As she did, a server was bowing to her and she handed over her bowl as she had seen the rest of the row do. They all seemed to be making little tripods out of their fingers as they held out their dishes, and using the spatula thing to indicate when they had had enough. By the time Christy got the spatula up and running, her rice was overflowing. As Christy tried to chase down the rice that had fallen into her lap, a bowl of condiments was offered to her along with a bow from the left. With one hand on her rice bowl, the other on her chopsticks, Christy was at a loss as to how to proceed. She was receiving lots of looks—helpful, disdainful, urgent—eyes that were trying to send a message in plain but unfortunately unspoken English. Finally, the tension ended when Christy’s rice bowl flew out of her hands as she simultaneously bowed and reached for the condiments. The whole row cracked up, except for one man who glared at Christy, which, in her fragile state, unnerved her even more.
Now Christy understood the candy bars in the gift shop. They ate oryoki three times a day, and each time she took less food in order to avoid a mishap. After lunch the next day, she made a dash to her room and scarfed down all the junk food she had bought.
Following the break, Bill returned to the altar and assumed his half-lotus position, then invited those who had joined the ashram in the last day or two to raise their hands, come up to the mike, and say a few
