Sex Is Forbidden: a Novel by Tim Parks

Author:Tim Parks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Honey on a Razor’s Edge

Outside, I don’t hurry to bed. I walk past the leader’s bungalow to the field. It’s getting dark and the hills have turned cold. The North Star is out. I like this moment, between evening and night. Others are walking the path that runs by the fence. Some you recognize, some you don’t. They walk slowly. There is the small white-haired woman who was moved away from the wall. She walks with her hands behind her back, head bowed. When we crave, we don’t crave the object we imagine we crave. I can’t remember which day Dasgupta says this. We are simply addicted to craving. Attached to attachment. We need to crave. If it wasn’t this object, it would be another. It will be another. So why not GH instead of Jonathan? Why not replace the artist with the diarist? If you can’t cure yourself, repeat. Plunge back into the sickness. I was so alive when I was sick.

I walk down to the bottom of the field and then beyond into the thicket where it’s darker. It smells good here among the bushes, it smells damp and earthy. The path that turns down to where the wall is broken seems well trodden. The twigs and brambles have been pushed back. Someone’s been skiving off to the pub. Actually, it’s pretty easy to hop over the wall here and hike a couple of miles to the Barley Mow. With a bit of luck you could hitch a lift. On Fridays they have live music. I don’t know what day of the week it is. I know it’s day seven. A blessings day. ‘Day seven is over, my friends, you have three more days to work.’ But I can’t remember what day this retreat started. A Friday, a Saturday? If they have live music I could borrow a guitar. I could ask to sing. The meditators do all the real work here, Harper says, after the metta. Serving is a holiday in comparison with sitting, the struggle of sitting. Our service is to make their meditation work possible. I would sing, ‘Better Off On My Own’. ‘That’s the one made me fall for you’, Jonathan said.

Now there’s someone behind me, in the dark. There’s a sound of scuffling leaves. But she’s stopped. She’s hurrying off. Must have seen me. I don’t turn to look. I don’t care who it is. Frankly I don’t understand why people come to a place like the Dasgupta and take the vows they do only to break them and sneak off to the Barley Mow. I did it myself at the beginning. There is no samādhi without sila, no concentration without the Five Precepts. There is no paññā without samādhi, no understanding without concentration. There is no nibbana without paññā, no bliss without understanding, without the wisdom of experience. ‘Why did you come on holiday if you don’t want to be here?’ Carl asked. Good question. He was getting frantic. ‘Why do you keep fooling around with those Frogs, Beth? They only want to get their hands in your pants.

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