Buddhas and Bikinis - Vetbook

Buddhas and Bikinis 36
Some fifty or so of the immediate family had arrived for the party. The women,
particularly Aunt Despina, Mum and Maria, spent all night preparing the food, polishing
the cutlery, cleaning the house. The two maids were frenetically making the house as
spotless as Mother dictated to them on a hourly basis.
The house was a hive of activity and I spent most of my time in Dad’s library,
reading old classics, avoiding interactions as much as possible.
He arrived from Canberra the evening before his birthday. I didn’t see him until he
came into the study about midnight. I was buried in a The Tibetan Book of Living and
Dying, a book I had bought en route to Townsville. I had met Sogyal Rinpoche just a week
before when he gave a presentation at the University of Queensland. Hiroshi had dragged
me along. I was bored before I got there, but the monk had an intensity I had seen only in
my martial arts teacher. There was something about him which exuded intense
concentration and confidence - a man I would not like to meet in a dark alley.
Despite my reluctance, I found the book interesting, if only as an intellectual
pursuit. There was some coincidental symmetry between the twelve stages of karma which
Sogyal Rinpoche alluded to in his book and and the twelve steps of the AA’s creed. Karma
was all about the addiction of desire, and how the buddha meditated upon the stages to
liberate himself from samsara. AA’s twelve steps were about a movement toward a higher
purpose in living with addiction to alcohol. But unlike AA’s motives of individual
salvation, there is nothing personal about karma - it’s just the business of causality.
I concluded that numbers appeared to be pivotal in any philosophical pursuit.
‛Ari, are you deaf!’
I looked up, realising my father had been talking to me for some time.
‛Sorry, what were you saying?’
‛I was saying when you’ve finished uni, are you going to look for a job?’
‛Maybe.’
Taking the book from my hand, he looked at the cover, ‛Why are you reading about
cults?’ He threw the book at me, then walked to his desk and placed his heavy briefcase on
it.
‛Dad, there’s something we need to talk about.’
‛Tomorrow, Son. God I hate flying.’
‛It won’t take long.’
He sat down and removed his glasses, ‛Well...?’