Jondup

1.

• And what is it that interests you so much about mother tantra? The old Teacher asked, narrowing his eyes cunningly.

The wild-haired Canadian thought for a moment, staring at the Tibetan Lama’s bald head, which seemed to glow with a soft golden light, or maybe it was just the glare from the rays of the rising sun.

“Well, I realized that this is the beginning of everything…” mumbled Tarzan uncertainly, “Prajnaparamita is the mother of all Buddhas…” and stopped.

About the fact that he wanted to surpass himself, and about the fact that he had heard that maternal tantra gives incredible sexual power, he decided to keep silent. I wanted to have a higher motivation in front of the Teacher.

The lama pursed his lips, rubbed his right shoulder, which was overworked by playing the big damara, and asked:

• Are you absolutely sure that you need this, or did you imagine it?

“Exactly, exactly,” said Tarzan, beating his chest.

“Well, all right. I will give you the opportunity to go through one boom of intensive practice in my house.

Tarzan beamed with joy.

“But,” the Lama continued, “you will have to meet certain conditions.

“Which ones?” – the Canadian splashed out, – I’m ready for anything!

• They are not very harsh, but it is very important to keep them clean.

First of all, you won’t be allowed to get a haircut. Well, basically,” he smiled, looking at the wavy brown hair of a young man who looked like a Hollywood star, “you haven’t had a haircut in a long time. Then don’t shave.

Secondly, you should never have sex.

“Yes, of course, Teacher,” and Tarzan thought with a sigh of distant Greta, who baked hamburgers in a Canadian coffee shop and whom he had not seen for three months, wandering through dirty India and making do with his own services.

• Thirdly, you will not be allowed to leave the room, which has a bathroom and toilet attached, under any circumstances.

Food will be brought to you by people specially appointed by me. Torma, an offering on the altar for Idam, will be ordered from a Lama from the Gyudo Tantric college.

Well, for the rest, we’ll figure it out as events unfold.

Tarzan thanked the old Lama with a small monetary offering and prostrated himself.

A new life was beginning for him. It was a very joyful morning in Dharamsala. And everyone was happy: Tibetan schoolchildren running towards them in blue identical trousers, and girls in gray loose jeans who seemed like they would fall off their butts a little more, and laughing grandmothers who rocked from side to side like geese, doing bark, whispering secret mantras.…

“You can do anything. I don’t care about that,” Tarzan shouted over the phone to Greta, who smelled of hamburgers in Canada.- I start practicing and become a real yogi. Now my life is going to change, so you don’t have to put too much hope in me. Forget if I ever promised you anything.

Tarzan was born in Canada in a very historic place, in a small port town that was located right on the banks of the Hudson River.

And maybe this place influenced the formation of his character, or maybe the spirits of the conquerors who once fought with militant Indians, one way or another, the little golden-haired boy with wide cheekbones has been fascinated by heroes since childhood. Even his entire room, which was located in the attic, was completely covered with their photographs. And he couldn’t wait to add his own to them.

He was an amazing child: he was his own tutor and pupil. This quality is very difficult to detect in young children. Mom couldn’t stop being touched by her son’s exploits. For example, he got himself up at six o’clock in the morning, forced himself to do exercises, poured cold water on himself, learned to ride a bike and even built a small gym on the veranda.

All his time was focused on the perfection of himself and his own body. His toned torso and golden hair created a famous Hollywood image out of him. And people quite naturally gave him a middle name – Tarzan, which was imprinted on him and even became his essence. So by the age of seventeen, he was the terror of local bullies and the charming dream of growing up girls. And there were plenty of girls. He didn’t even think about the fact that there might be few of them. They tried their best to get to know him, made phone calls, pretended to be a victim, and even went to his gym. Tarzan did not have time to coordinate meetings and often got into awkward situations. Only the forgiving and blind-minded Greta stayed with him longer than the others. But even this will be many years later, when he is already a little tired of the variety of meaningless sensations.

And even all this incredible popularity among women did not distract him from the main task that he had set himself.

That’s how he lived, making himself a Hero day after day, until one day the girl he protected from the harassment of drunken teenagers spat in his face.

He did not know what had really happened, but he strongly doubted the wisdom of the structure of this world. It was completely unclear where people who do evil come from, and why are you being hurt by people you save, endangering your own body?

He was lying in a hospital bed with a bruised and bandaged head. And whether his head hurt or he couldn’t figure it out himself, he saw that a lot of things in life were unfairly and stupidly arranged: the completely innocent were subjected to suffering, and the villains flourished. And no matter how much he tried to eradicate evil, evil did not decrease, on the contrary, local bandit groups were already being created against him and the situation in the area was becoming more and more threatening.

And there in this hospital, a cute black-eyed nurse who looked like a little raven, giving him an anesthetic injection, put a book on the bedside table, which was in her pocket. I posted it and forgot. Tarzan reached for it and opened it. The book was about Buddhist Teachings. At first, he wanted to shut it in disappointment and put it back in its place, but suddenly a phrase caught his eye: “Our true enemies are our inner obscurations, all external enemies are just a projection of our negative mind, therefore, if you want to change your life, you must change the work of your consciousness. And that’s the hardest part.” – said the book.

Tarzan roared: “Tell me, heroes, what is the most difficult thing, so that I can take it on my shoulders and rejoice in my strength,” he quoted what Zarathustra Nietzsche said to the open window, behind which the vast sky was generously opening, and felt that he was almost beginning to understand something. He was beginning to realize that he had suddenly found something true and undeniable. Perhaps it was then, in this hospital bed, that his second life began.

Before leaving the hospital, he hugged and gently pinched the nurse, who told him the address of the Buddhist Center and the search for the “most difficult” began.

Lectures, books, retreats-and yet he still “did not rejoice in his strength.” He looked at his new friend Jump, at his eternally contented and happy face, and serious suspicions crept into his mind. Jampa was a monk in India for eighteen years, and lived in a real Tibetan monastery. What did this former monk gain, what did this eternal bliss give him?

“There is such a Maha-Anutara yoga tantra, and there is such a path to Great bliss,” he said mysteriously and fell silent.

“I want to, too,” said Tarzan, and fixed his limpid, heavenly eyes on him egregiously.

“You can’t,” Jampa said thoughtfully and sank deeper into an overstuffed chair.

“Why is that?” Tarzan flared up.

• Because you are spontaneous. Real tantra is a dangerous thing, you can fall. One comes to tantra with good knowledge of the Sutra and a controlled mind, otherwise practice can be harmful rather than beneficial.

He shouldn’t have said that. So to doubt the unshakable will and strike straight at the proud chest of the Hollywood image! Tarzan almost growled, “Is he not ready for some kind of practice, bending the spokes of a car with his bare hands? Who told him that? He was a skinny, wizened Canadian from a small town like himself.…

India! Only India! And nothing will stop him!”

After collecting his salary from the auto repair shop where he worked as a chief mechanic, he took off his cowboy hat and cheerfully waved goodbye to his grimy friends and big-nosed grumpy Boss.

A week later, he was driving a jeep on the dusty roads of India. Beautiful white marble temples, monkeys sitting on roadsides, elephants swaggering around the city, bright beautiful women in colorful saris, flocks of dirty beggars – his head was spinning from all sorts of unusual sensations.

The Tibetan settlements, of course, were very different from India itself, but even here everything was strange and unusual. He visited many places where Tibetan colonies and adjacent monasteries were based. He talked to many Lamas and attended various Teachings, but his heart was silent.

One day, he waited a long time for a regular bus to Bir, where, according to his information, there was a whole complex of monasteries. Next to him sat an old Tibetan woman in a gray Tibetan dress and a multicolored apron. She was fingering a rosary that had darkened with age, and she was constantly whispering something. When the bus arrived, the Tibetan woman slowly got up. He got up too and was about to go up the steps when the woman looked back at him, looked at him with colorless dark eyes and said:

“You don’t have to go there.

“How’s that?” Tarzan was surprised.

Then, freeing her hand from under the worn-out rag bag, she pointed to a red lonely house that was located above the gorge.

• You need to go there, a great master lives there, he will help you.

Tarzan only wanted to ask her how she knew what he wanted and what kind of master he was, but he didn’t have time. The bus started moving, and he was left alone in a small mountain area called the local bus station.

That’s how he ended up with a Master of Mother tantra, and oddly enough, that’s how it was called “A Shortcut to Great Bliss.” Tarzan took this as a good sign, and victory was already imminent. After all, through tantra, it was possible to achieve high realizations already in this life, if we consider that we really have a lot of these lives.

2.

A week of his seclusion has passed. He was sitting almost half-naked in a stuffy little room with windows overlooking the same sky as in Canada, but bordered by the peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. The only furniture was an Altar on which he placed specially made and presented tormas to Vajrayogini and a small table where ritual objects and sadhana were located.

He was just finishing the session when he heard movement behind him, and a hoarse voice said:

• hello.

Narrow and at the same time gray eyes looked straight and penetrating. A girl of about sixteen was sitting on the sill of an open window. She didn’t look like a Tibetan, but she wasn’t European either. The too obvious Asian cut of her eyes betrayed her Oriental blood.

Undeterred, she slid off the windowsill and walked to the altar with her bare, dusty feet. Kneeling down and clasping her hands together at her chest, she whispered something for a long time, then turned to Tarzan and said:

• Well, what are you looking at? I came to help you.

“They didn’t tell me anything about your help,” Tarzan said suspiciously, staring at her dirty nails.

• Why didn’t you talk, you and the Teacher talked about me all the time.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Tarzan said in surprise, for the intrusion of this filth had somehow not been part of his plans at all. But then he stopped and thought that this was probably the Lama’s daughter, he had heard from the household that the Teacher had many children, which is why she behaves so confidently, and one might even say impudently.

She looked at him and picked her teeth. Greasy multicolored strings trembled slightly in the carelessly braided pigtails. The dress, which looked like a closed short Tibetan chop, for some reason was complemented by Indian shawls, and the belt looked like a hunting belt, and a cute curved knife was stuck in it. Perhaps she could even be called beautiful, but there was something clearly elusive about her face that suggested a certain ugliness.

“Well, you look good,” gasped Tarzan, smiling.

The girl frowned.

“If there’s something you don’t like about me, it means you have the same thing.” I don’t exist independently of your mind. If you didn’t have information about me, then I wouldn’t have appeared in your life.

“Oh, oh, what clever thoughts we know,” Tarzan teased her, “can you tell us about Madhyamika Prasangika right away?”

“You’d think you’d understand her.”…

• Well, to some extent, conceptually, you can say.
• We’ll see, – the guest smiled cunningly, – I’ll tell you some other time.

“What’s your name?” Tarzan asked.

“Jondup,” the girl replied, squinting affectionately.

“That’s a strange name,” he muttered and scratched his head.

From that day on, she started coming all the time. As usual, she sat with him at the altar, and whispered something, and he somehow got used to and accepted her presence. And the drinks she brought were surprisingly delicious and fragrant.

3.

Another week has passed. The practice progressed well, at least the mantra was recited easily and quickly. The mood was also cheerful and upbeat. And it already seemed to Tarzan that these were clear signs of his high spiritual level and that it was he who would very quickly achieve at least Samadhi already in this life.

But then suddenly Yondup disappeared. She was gone for three days, and Tarzan began to find himself thinking that this very fact, oddly enough, disturbed him and distracted him from practice. Unbeknownst to himself, he easily got used to her sudden daily visits. But she hadn’t been here for three days. “And what could have happened? Did she start running to other retreats? Well, actually, what’s the big deal? She was, in fact, just distracting him. It’s even good that she’s gone, you can safely recite a mantra and not talk nonsense.” – he thought during the breaks.

But she came. As always through the window.

It was hot, and Tarzan was sitting naked to the waist.

“Could you wash my towel?” – he turned to her, – because it’s so hot in here that you often have to wipe your sweat.

“Okay,” Yondup sang and took the proffered package. But her slanted gray eyes were strangely fixed on his body.

Yes, his body was perfect, and he was very proud of it. Long hours of exhausting training have shaped a decent torso. It was not for nothing that his name was Tarzan. Not everyone can get a name like that. To be honest, he did everything possible in his time to become like him. He put all his creative abilities that he was capable of into this.

Feeling Yondup’s gaze, he even flexed his muscles slightly to appear before her in all his splendor. Although she was not the kind of woman he would prefer to give his heart to, but since there were no others nearby, and, as they say, “There are fish without fish,” it gave him pleasure to show off even in front of her.

Jondup, without hesitation, unbuttoned her short-necked chop and freed her right arm, exposing her shoulder. She flexed her muscles, trying to imitate him, but she barely succeeded. Then she strained once more, and from this movement, chop slipped down, half-revealing soft, convex bumps that looked like two warm mounds. Tarzan squeezed his eyes shut, and everything else instantly appeared before his eyes, sweet and aching, which he often saw on the breasts of many girls whom he hotly crumpled in his native Canada.

Tarzan’s face went wild with surprise. His eyes stared fixedly at the place where, according to his calculations, there were the most fascinating details of the female body, at the sight of which, for many men, a mighty wave from below lifted to the surface everything that was usually modestly hidden and used exclusively for primitive cleansing purposes. A little more and it seemed the situation would get out of control. He almost choked on his stopped breathing, swallowed his saliva and screamed:

“Are you crazy?”

Jondup jerked her head up in fright, and her slanted eyes darkened.:

“What did I do to you, why are you screaming like that?”

• Why are you naked? You know how it affects men. Are you trying to disrupt my retreat? He continued to shout angrily.

“What’s it got to do with me?” This is my body. And I’m not touching you. And the fact that something is affecting you there is your problem. You need to be able to control your emotions.

“Yes, fuck you and your lectures,” Tarzan became even more enraged, “I’m going to devour you now.” And I’m not allowed to have sex.

“What makes you think I was going to have sex with you?” Jondup retorted, “Look at him, he’s sitting here half naked, and he can’t even show me his shoulder.”

Such audacity took Tarzan’s breath away.

“Fuck you…” he roared even louder than before.

• Yes, I’m leaving… – said Yondup sharply and, jumping up on the windowsill, – Mad!- after calling him one last name, she suddenly disappeared.

Five minutes later Tarzan regretted what had happened, but there was nothing to do. He was fiercely reciting a mantra and thinking about her never-seen-before tits.

Half an hour later, he was already thinking about her warm belly, gently touching his molded muscles, then about her swollen ass, fiercely squeezed in his strong hands, then about her back, over which he slowly slid his tongue. His body was trembling and sweating. And a minute later he was ready.… But he was reciting a mantra, and some hitherto unknown bliss rose up his back and hit his inflamed head. It seemed as if the body had dissolved and soared into the air. My head wasn’t working at all. But he continued to recite the mantra, trying to prolong this wonderful state longer. He watched with bated breath the processes that were taking place in his body until lunch arrived, and a modest Tibetan meal calmed his raging energy.

4.

She was gone for several days. Tarzan was already restless. And often, reading sadhana, his thoughts were about this strange girl.

And she came and brought him a washed towel. Something jumped joyfully and stupidly in his chest, but he decided not to show it and, fingering the rosary in his left hand, continued to whisper the mantra.

But he couldn’t stand it for long. Tarzan squinted at the towel and asked:

• Did you wash a towel like an Indian woman on the toilet floor?
• There is no Dettol antiseptic in the bucket.
• Well, with Dettol, that’s unnecessary.
• Yes, what about the extra? You’re so gentle,” Jondup quipped, “don’t get up, keep practicing, I’ll hang it in the bathroom myself.”

A minute later, a squeal and the sound of gushing water came from the bathroom.

Tarzan sprang from his seat and threw open the bathroom. Jondup was standing all wet, holding the shower head that had come off in her hands and trying to block the stream of cold water.

“What are you doing?” Tarzan shouted, grabbing the tip. But the water kept coming out of his hands, drenching them both from head to toe. Somehow they managed to turn on the shower. But their hands were raised to the pipe and they were standing so close that he could even see the thin red veins in the corners of her eyes. Then Tarzan’s hands, somehow unexpectedly for himself, touched the thin girl’s skin and slid down it, as if checking the real presence of this annoying object.

He found her lips among the wet strands of hair and pressed against her warm body with a painful feeling.

Jondup’s body responded with a slight tremor, and a soft, barely audible moan escaped from inside.

It was getting dark in Tarzan’s eyes, and reality was losing its shape, and her clothes were already falling to the floor, exposing her young, sturdy body, but he gathered all his willpower, clenched his teeth tightly and froze, trying to calm the elements.

“You can’t,” he said sternly to himself, “Go Yondup,” he told her, unclenching his hands, wiped the water from his face and left the bathroom.

She followed him out. Brushing her hair back and straightening her dress, she looked questioningly at his back.

“You’re a bad girl, Jondup. You know it makes me feel bad, and you’re bullying me.

He was silent for a while, then turned resolutely and, looking straight into her eyes, calmly said:

“You’re a bitch.”

Gray slanted eyes looked at him soulfully, then turned to the window and carried out on his face outside the room.

5.

The mantra went badly, the syllables were not pronounced, and it seemed that the lips were stiff and did not want to obey. Tarzan was angry. He came here many miles away, wandered around India for three months with hashish, ate dirty Indian tortillas. And so, when he finally found a Teacher, and almost reached his goal, this girl appeared out of nowhere, and inflamed his brain along with other parts of his body. He even started hitting the wall out of anger. Because instead of Vajrayogini, his eyes were filled with gray slanted eyes and naked feminine differences.

Tarzan was restless.

Jondup did not appear. A few days have passed.

One day, during a break, when he was taking a shower, some strange noises came from the room.

Tarzan wrapped the towel around his hips and cautiously peered out the door. Yondup was sitting on the floor, and, dropping crumbs on the floor, she was eating torma from tsampa, which he specially ordered for offering to Vajrayogini.

Tarzan froze in place, he did not even know how to put it into the logical chain of his perception. The logical chain did not settle down, and a minute later, with unprecedented fury, he grabbed the orange cloth in which he was wrapping sadhana from the table and slapped it across Yondup’s face with all his might.

“Get out of here!” “And don’t come here any more, so that your spirit won’t be here!”

6.

She left and never came back. And the practice also seemed to have gone away. The mantra had stopped being uttered altogether, his whole body ached from sitting motionless for a long time, and Tarzan, completely exhausted, did not know how to finish at least one boom of recitation.

One evening, the Teacher came in.

He sat down on a chair, and Tarzan looked again at his bald head shining, or the rays of the setting sun reflected in it.

The Lama smiled and asked:

• Well, how is your practice?

Tarzan was confused, blinked, and then squeezed out:

• Everything was fine at first, but your daughter Yondup came and began to interfere with me, and then she even ate tormas from the Altar intended for Vajrayogini.

“My daughter?” – the Lama was surprised, – I don’t have a daughter named Yondup.

• Well, of course not, she brought me herbal drinks. Maybe it’s not your daughter, but the assistant you sent me.
• No, Kyalsan cooked the food for you and he was supposed to bring it, but I didn’t send others to you.

“So who was it?” Tarzan was surprised.

The lama narrowed his eyes cunningly

“Probably the one you called?”

“But Teacher, I followed your instructions exactly and didn’t call anyone.

• Yes, I’m not talking about girls for fun.
• Well, I didn’t just call anyone.
• Did you call Vajrayogin? Tarzan looked at the Lama in surprise and thought:”Has the Teacher gone crazy?” But the Teacher looked at him quite sensibly and smiled slyly.

“But the Vajrayogini cannot be like that,” stammered Tarzan, “at least she is red.”

It was outright stupid, but nothing else came to mind.

The lama rubbed his right shoulder, got up from his chair, and, opening the door to the corridor, said:

• The emanations of Vajrayogini can arise in the form of ordinary women, so just in case you should not offend any of them.

You failed.

The teacher went out and closed the door behind him. And it seemed that something was also firmly locked in the fate of Tarzan.

7.

The overcast sky foreshadowed the beginning of cold weather, there were fewer foreigners, and Tibetan girls cut the air with their booming voices, singing operas.

But Yondup was nowhere to be found, neither in the greasy sakanas nor in Namgyal, and even on the streets of Dharamsala there were no gray slanted eyes and pigtails with greasy multicolored laces.

Elena Kshanti

The year 2005