Ep. 3: Zoey Seeks Enlightenment.
Sid's precocious grandchild struggles to understand Buddhism.
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The Man Who Woke up the Buddha is the story of a guy named Sid who wakes up from a stroke and realizes he's the Buddha, even though he knows almost nothing about Buddhism.
Previously: Having left his best friend Sid in a state of blissful contentment, Marcus escaped to Sid & Diane’s house to spend the night.
“Use our shower,” Di said without turning around. She knew instinctively when someone needed a shower, nap, cup of coffee, or shot of vodka.
The screen door slammed behind Marcus as he walked into the house.
“How was he when you left?” Di asked.
“Don't know how he was but I finally know who he is."
"Who Uncle Marcus?" Zoey called out. (All the grandchildren called him "uncle.”) She was in the far corner of the kitchen, eating a cookie and stroking Bieça, who was lying on her dog bed thinking maybe she'd gone to dog heaven.
"The Buddha," Marcus said as he picked up his bag and walked out of the room, not ready yet for a Socratic dialogue with Zoey.
Zoey immediately put down her book, jumped up to get her tablet off the table, and grabbed a biscuit from the counter for Bieça. She was determined to get to the bottom of this Buddha thing before Marcus got back.
Although barely 12, Zoey was already smarter than everyone else on the planet and it got worse with each passing day. If she had even an ounce of guile, she would have been insufferable.
With the exception of her big brother Junior (who took it as a personal insult that his parents didn't stop after two), everyone got a tremendous kick out of her, as if she were a newly discovered species of pre-pubescent girl who couldn't help but brighten your day no matter how hard you tried to resist.
If you ran into Zoey on the street, her face would come alive like it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. Her mouth would explode into a smile so full of blazing white teeth it was hard to think of anything else for the next few hours.
Friends of Sid's would call him and say, "I saw Zoey," in a tone of wonder like they'd seen a triple rainbow.
There was nothing more exciting to Zoey than being asked a question. Any question. Like the name of the first queen of England or the coefficient of friction. She usually knew the answer and, if not, she was thrilled to have something new to learn.
As soon as she heard about Sid’s stroke, Zoey had decided to spend as much time as possible at her grandparents’ house because she was afraid that her grandmother would be lonely.
Di wouldn’t be lonely. But there was something comforting about having Zoey around. Her relentless recitation of random facts was like listening to public radio. “Grandma, did you know that the best temperature for brewing coffee is 197.6 – 204.8 F. because the acids in the beans dissolve first? Less than that and your coffee will be sour, higher than that it’ll be bitter. That makes sense.” It didn’t make sense to Di, but she would think of it every time she made coffee for the rest of her life.
“Wow, did you know you shouldn’t salt your scrambled eggs too soon while you’re cooking because it’ll break them down and make them watery?” No, Di didn’t know that. But it would change the way she made scrambled eggs for the rest of her life.
“It’s funny that English muffins were probably invented in America, don’t you think?” Diane was beginning to wonder if Joy of Cooking was on Zoey’s summer reading list.
Now, Zoey was training her insatiable thirst for knowledge on the Buddha. Marcus knew she’d be locked and loaded when he got back downstairs.
Sure enough, when he came down from the shower, Zoey had two open volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the floor along with her grandparents' Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (the 2nd Edition of course), which seemed to follow her around the house.
"OK," Marcus said sitting down at the counter and pouring himself a glass of wine. “I’m ready, Zoey.”
She cleared her throat and began speaking in a tone worthy of a college epistemology class on fast forward. “Well, the Buddha was an ascetic—that's a spiritual person. He lived around the Sixth Century BC. People also called him Siddhartha. Like grandpa’s name kind of,” she laughed, like she’d discovered some secret. “He was the founder of Buddhism...well you probably know that.”
Marcus did know a reasonable amount about Buddhism. His buddy Kesey was the head of some Zen commune in New York. Everyone thought he was enlightened. Everybody, that is, except Marcus and Kesey.
"And what did the Buddha believe?" Marcus said. It was like throwing bread in the water. Zoey rose for the bait immediately.
"Well, basically," she said, struggling not to sound like a know-it-all, "the Buddha said that all suffering is caused by attachment. If you don’t have attachments, you are enlightened. So you’re like happy all the time.”
"What do you mean, ‘attachment’?” Marcus asked.
"You know, wanting things to be a certain way.”
"Well," Marcus continued, "Are you attached to getting all A's?"
Di had moved over to the window seat and was checking her texts. But the question got her attention. "A month ago," she called out, "Sid offered to pay her $20 to not do her homework."
"So I didn't do it," Zoey said proudly. "When I told Mrs. Anthony why I hadn't, she laughed and said to tell my grandfather I got an “A” anyway. I did the homework the next night, of course.”
"Of course," Marcus and Di said in unison before Marcus returned to his interrogation. “Tell me more about what it means to be enlightened.”
Zoey paused, looking down at one of the open books.
"Well, it’s when nothing bothers you, like I was saying, you’re happy all the time… Even dying doesn’t bother you. Partly ‘cause Buddhists believe that you keep coming back after you die, unless you’re enlightened.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to come back?”
“Well, you know, there’s all this suffering…”
Marcus shook his head just enough to put her on guard. “You mean people who don’t get enlightened have to reincarnate?"
“Uh huh,” she said neutrally.
"Do you believe in reincarnation?" he asked.
"It's fun to think about," Zoey said, acting momentarily like a 12-year-old before returning to form, "but it would certainly challenge our understanding of the space-time continuum, wouldn't it?" she said, trying to share a laugh with Marcus who just raised his eyebrows.
"But you're saying the Buddha was enlightened, right?” he asked.
“Right!”
“So how could your grandfather be the Buddha? If you’re enlightened, you don’t come back.”
"Good point, Uncle Marcus," Zoey responded thoughtfully, pausing a beat as if she had to think of what to say next. “Well, maybe he's more of a Bodhisattva.”
”What’s a Bodhisattva?" Marcus asked innocently.
Zoey took a deep breath. She was back on solid ground since the word was right before “Buddha” in the encyclopedia. "Bodhisattvas are enlightened like the Buddha. They reincarnate so they can help other people get enlightened."
Marcus saw a glimmer of light flash through a crack in her logic. “So there is only one Buddha?”
“Of cour…” Zoey sensed a trick question and grabbed her tablet. Marcus took a sip of wine as she answered slowly: “Well, the word ‘Buddha’ means enlightened.”
“So all Bodhisattvas are Buddhas?” Marcus asked, taking another sip of wine while watching her chew on that one.
“No, there’s only one Buddha. Sorry Bieça,” she said, moving the dog who had come over and settled on her research library. “I’m busy talking to Uncle Marcus.” She looked at Marcus curiously, “Well…it’s not…that…simple.”
“Well Zoey, either way, if there’s only one Buddha, Sid isn’t the Buddha, right?
“Well, Siddhartha was the Buddha. He started the whole thing.” Zoey said tentatively, knowing she hadn’t really answered the question.
Di looked over at Marcus with a conspiratorial smile. Was he actually going to stump Zoey?
“So your grandpa isn’t the Buddha, he’s Sid Buddha.”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of? Do you think we should tell Sid he’s not really the Buddha?”
“It’s complicated, Uncle Marcus. Let me do a little more research?” she asked hopefully, trying to ignore an unfamiliar sense of inner unknowingness that made her feel a little queasy.
"Zoey," Marcus said, a flash of inchoate insight blending into a moment of deep sorrow that flowed down his throat into his chest, “Your grandfather might not admit it…but this isn’t a game for him."
To his surprise, she didn't reply. Even Di stopped, aware through her own inscrutable antenna and grandmother's protective instincts that, like the fact that they were out of butter or seltzer, this was something that needed her attention. Zoey just sat there, her head down, stroking Bieça who, having given up on this little bundle of energy getting him another biscuit, was still curious how he'd managed to completely lose her attention even though she continued to stroke him.
"Do you think grandpa Sid's going to die, Uncle Marcus?" she asked.
Next Episode: Marcus returns to the hospital the following day to find Sid studying up on his Buddha nature and engaging in spiritual one-upmanship with his nurse Ivan.