The Hindu Stranger at Border's

The other day I was browsing around in the Border's at Wheelock Place with Chue Wei.

Naturally, I was in the Buddhist books section for some time, getting excited over the occasional book and mumbling to her about some stuff as I came across it.

An Indian man was also moving in between those shelves. I didn't notice him much, except that he was middle-aged, very thin, had straggly, long hair and was dressed in shabby loose shirts and jeans. (Chue Wei noticed an unwashed smell, and stayed away from him; I didn't.)
Chue Wei showed me a paragraph from a book on Mindfulness for Busy People, where it said something like, "...relate from the centre, not from 'you' or 'me'..." and I was telling her how Ajahn Brahm's Simply This Moment! also said similar things: to relate to people from the centrist position of mindfulness.

Then he suddenly asked me a question, startling me, "Excuse me, do you really think that such a mechanical set of instructions as in meditation can bring about spiritual liberation?"

The question was very thought-provoking indeed. He went on to elaborate further: how can such a mechanical series of step-by-step procedures being about something as abstract and amazing as enlightenment? How can something so technical promise such a spiritual result?

I supposed that, from a Buddhist point point of view, watching the rising and falling of phenomena is supposed to lend direct insight into the nature of existence, and hence lead to enlightenment and therefore liberation.

He was pretty impressed (?) to know that I was a Buddhist. He mentioned that he had tried a meditation retreat before in Nepal but he couldn't take sitting in meditation for 12 hours a day.

I told him that I supposed there were many different teachers with many different temperaments and many different methods, so the many different students with many different affinities had to find the right teacher and right method to suit them. For example, I asked him, whether he had heard of S. Goenka? He did.

He asked, what is needed before one can sit in meditation?

I told him that usually we are thought that morality and virtue can to be practised before meditation. This answer seemed to strike him as very unique, and I saw his facial expressions change.

I told him that only with a clear conscience and being lightened of guilt can a mind find joy and calm itself down. And only a calm and stable mind can then proceed to watching.

Yes, indeed, he said. He'd read so many of the poems by Masters claiming to be enlightened, and they sound so "inspired" to him but abstract. I agreed: such writings are the manifestations of the mind that saw, which would sound wondrous to us but yet at the same time we can't really quite grasp at it, but feel it.

Last question, he said. By now Chue Wei was amused but standing off to one side.

The meditation instructions in books are often so dry, so cold, so unfeeling. Is meditation really like that? Doesn't Buddhism teach any love at all?

I told him about the Meditation on Loving Kindness, and explained it to him. He seemed to get it, understanding that love in this case was broad, and not so narrowly defined.

He thanked me, and I wish I had thanked him too. Our short exchange lasted no more than ten minutes, but I could see in his wild eyes, that might look half-mad to some people, a kind of longing for truth, longing to see what the enlightened see. His red mark between his eyes told me that he was a devout Hindu, the kind that would have spent hours in temples and holy sites, hoping that the gods would show him some way to a holy life.

As I walked away, I had some regret. Regret that I could not tell him more, regret that he might not find his answer. So many other things I could have told him.

And while I have the good fortune to come across the Noble Path, I am not pursuing it all the way through.