The Palm Reading

Buddha Closed for Restoration.

As I turn my attention to the past, I find not a continuity or a flowing pattern, but a series of vivid experiences and people. Some memories are short, but significant and prominent, like the time I had a palm reading in Thailand.

In 1979 I was waiting to begin my Zen practice in Japan. In a detour, I accompanied a friend to Thailand and Nepal on the way to Japan. While in Bankok, we went to the floating market in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to visit the famous reclining Buddha, Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan. The statue, 46 meters long, portrays the final breath of Buddha Shakyamuni. I was pretty excited to visit this temple, which is renowned for its Buddha statues. I passed through the ornate gate, and found a large sign: “BUDDHA CLOSED FOR RESTORATION.”

At first I couldn’t believe it. How could Buddha be closed for restoration? To my left was the Buddha, enclosed by a building that had been constructed to protect the statue during restoration. Inside were many craftsmen. It looked like they were carefully removing all of the paint and refinishing the surface of the statue. 

I looked to the right and saw a monk sitting behind a table with a sign that read “Palm Reading” in both Thai and English. A Thai woman came up to him, gave him 50 bhat and sat down with her hands holding the sky. After she finished, I went up to him and asked if he could read my palms.

He said, “First we must discuss the price.”

I said, “I know the price. It is 50 bhat.” 

He said, “No, for you it is 100 bhat. 50 bhat for the reading, and 50 bhat for the English.”

I let him examine my hands.

The first thing he said is: “You do not belong in any county, so you are equally comfortable in any country. Japan would be best for your health and digestion.” 

The last thing he said: “In your life you must heal people with your hands. It can be any school of healing, but your life will not go as it should unless you heal people with your hands.”

His first comments hit home in a big way. In the Peace Corps I spoke Marathi like a native and with my black hair, dark eyes, and emaciated torso, I was often taken to be a native. In college I studied many languages. My theory was that real freedom was having choice about how experience is described, objects named, and stories remembered. I thought that if I had a choice of describing anything I experience in different languages, this would free me of deep mental patterns. So what this soothsayer said resonated deeply and I was then ready to find any reason to believe anything else he said.

Learning to heal with hands.

In late 1981, when I returned from Japan, I went down to the Rolf Institute to find out what I needed to do to learn Rolfing. This was the bodywork school with the best reputation for healing in Boulder. Many of my friends were theater people and thought highly of it. They were especially attached to Emmett Hutchins and Peter Melchior, Ida Rolf’s first certified teachers. I began my study with them when they established their own institution, the Guild for Structural Integration.

In those days, it took three years of study to be certified. In the beginning, one had to fulfill a prerequisite of 500 hours experience as a professional massage therapist, and at the end one had to write a thesis researching some unexplored aspect of the work.

Because of the fortune teller in Thailand, I embarked on a life change. Structural integration is not something one learns and then goes out and practices, but a life-long learning. I’ve learned more in the last few years than I did in the first 30 years. This is largely due to what I’ve learned from my daughter, Daphne Jean. She is the best touch therapist/healer anywhere on earth.

Music and Gardens Part I

After two years of college, I wanted to act in the world rather than sit in a classroom and study it. So I withdrew from college and applied to the Peace Corps. While awaiting acceptance and assignment, I lived in New York and worked at the N.Y. Times. After many months word came that I was to be a member of India 16, a high-risk, high-gain group. We spent a few months training in language and, but as we were about to board the plane for India, the villages in Gujarat where we were being sent were bombed by the Pakistanis. While our destinations were being sorted out, we were invited by Israel to live and work on kibbutzim. After several months we were sent to new destinations in India.

I was sent to Tasgaon, Maharashtra, together with Charles Gibson. Chuck had grown up in California, the child of a homeless mother. They scoured garbage cans for food and slept on cardboard. He had a bright mind and was an avid reader. Chuck and I ended up in Maharashtra where our house was in ‘Bangle Alley”, where all the bangle-makers lived and sold their wares. At the end of the road was the jewelry-makers’ road. 

Part of our assignment was to get to know everyone in our village and find a project that would bring peace and harmony to the place. One problem with this directive was that we were trained in Hindi, but the language in our newly assigned area was Marathi.

After settling in, I went for a walk the first evening to explore the town. The houses were made of mud, with very few if any windows. The doors were narrow and low. The roofs were metal. Inside every house was a lantern. The glow of lantern-light flickered everywhere. And everywhere was the sound of music, from the houses, from the temples, from the shrines. One family invited me into their home. Everyone was sitting on the cow-dung floor. They brought me a tall glass of what I thought was water, but quickly realized was some kind of booze.

Three of the men were playing music—a hand-drum set, a tamboora, and a sitar. I went back to my house and returned with my clarinet and guitar. I couldn’t speak Marathi, but I could speak music. After that night, I wandered throughout the town and sat in with local musicians with my guitar, strumming a whole-tuning progression, or singing the blues, which they loved.

Mr. Mulae was the Hindi teacher at the high school. He came over every day and taught me Marathi via Hindi. He thought I came from Mumbai, since that was the most remote place he could conceive of. The lessons and study took up most of the afternoon.

Meanwhile, my housemate, Chuck Gibson, began to believe that he was a holy man. He spent night and day in meditation. His beard grew very long. He was blond and fair, so the locals thought he was a divine incarnation, and he agreed with them. There was only one telephone in the town, located at the bank. I was able to inform Peace Corps’ Mumbai headquarters about my roommate’s situation, they had a team on the way to Tasgaon to relocate him back in the U.S. We had become good friends, so I was sad to see him go. I didn’t miss our conversations, however, since, on the second day, he took a vow of silence, and hadn’t spoken to anyone since then. He wrote on a tablet to communicate.

The town was laid out by caste and subdivisions within the castes. The biggest separation was between the Hindus and Muslims, who did not mix.

I quickly became enchanted with India. People were genuine and music and dancing were omnipresent. Since I was relatively skillful on the guitar, I assumed another string instrument would not be hard to learn. I asked around and Shankar, a sitar teacher, showed up one day with a sitar for me to practice with. He agreed to teach me once a week. He would always leave me with a lesson. I’d be able to master the lesson in a couple of days, and by the time Shankar returned, I could play the music better than he could. After a few weeks of this, I was pretty sure he wasn’t really a teacher. I asked him about it. He told me he couldn’t answer immediately, but would get back to me.The next day Shankar stopped by and told me that at 11:00 pm, I should shutter every window in the house, and on the hour exactly open the door briefly. Someone would visit me.