Neon Lotus (10 page)

“How do you
know my name?”

“My
guardians have spoken of you. I have received their news when I gave counsel
over the years. It was upon hearing of your work, and that of your late
colleague, that I decided you were the ones whose goals most closely matched my
own. I seek your assistance with a matter that will ultimately benefit
yourselves.”

“How long
have you been here?” Marianne asked, finally finding her voice.

Several of
the faces honored her with beatific smiles, but that of the wrathful blue
Vajrapani grew increasingly enraged.

“I have lost
that knowledge,” said the lowest white face,

“Lost it?
How?”

Two of
Chenrezi’s hands were clasped together before his breast, in prayer. Now he
parted them slightly and held them out to show that they were empty.

“Once these
hands held a black heart-shaped crystal, the Wish-Fulfilling Gem. My own
creators took it from me, and with it I lost the knowledge of who they were and
of how I came here.”

As he spoke,
his other hands continued to intertwine, fingers curling together, his
ceaseless unconscious processes shown outwardly in the movement of his limbs.

“Over time,
I have lost other objects as well, without which I operate at a level far below
my ultimate capacity. I recall the objects themselves, but lacking them I also
lack their powers.” He held out four of his hands, one at a time, showing each
of them to be empty. “In this hand I held a golden wheel. In this, a lotus with
crystal petals. Here, a pitcher full of nectar. And here, a golden vajra.”

Marianne had
seen a thousand traditional paintings of the thousand-armed Chenrezi, and in
all of them he carried various sacred objects. She wondered if she were looking
at the original model that lay behind those images.

“I need
these things,” Chenrezi said. “My land and my people are wracked by suffering.
I am all but useless to them in my present condition. I know that to you I may
appear to be no more than a cleverly constructed machine, but believe me when I
tell you that I was designed according to the principles of compassion. I am
quite capable of feeling.”

“How can
that be?” Marianne asked. “Without a body of flesh—”

“Love is not
merely a by-product of chemical existence. What you know as compassion is a
reflection of abstract principles in the universe. Whoever my makers were, they
understood these laws; just as they understood the human psyche and imbued me
with this understanding.”

“I can’t say
whether you’re right or wrong,” said Marianne. “These are things I don’t
understand myself.”

“But you
know that what I say is possible.”

She nodded.
“From what Dr. Norbu has taught me—”

“Which is no
more than what you proved and taught to me, Marianne, when you were Tashi and I
was your student,”

“When I was
Tashi. Yes, of course. But I am not Tashi any longer. So what good am I to you,
Chenrezi?”

“Ask the
gods,” he replied. “It was they who chose you, did they not, through the exiled
State Oracle of Tibet?”

Marianne
felt a recurrent frustration; it was the same she felt when she looked into a
Vajrayana temple or watched the patterns on the screen of the Bardo device.

“Where are
the gods?” she asked. “Within me? Or are they abstractions to be captured in
equations and fixed inside our computers?”

Chenrezi
smiled. “Is there some reason that the gods cannot dwell within you, as you?
And if in you, why not in everything?”

“Including a
machine?” she said.

“I am glad
that you question me,” said Chenrezi. “Others have simply fallen down before me
and pretended that it was only to do me honor.”

“I see no
reason to dishonor you,” she said. “You are an incredible creation. But even if
you are a divinely inspired machine, I must satisfy my curiosity as well as my
skepticism.”

“This is an
excellent thing.”

“Now these
objects,” she continued, “must have some value other than iconographic. They
are something more than symbols, is this correct? They have a physical existence.”

“Or
had
one. I have no way of
knowing whether they remain on the Earth. Long ago they were dispersed, one at
a time, and I was enfolded in ignorance. I assume they were hidden with some deliberation.
I also believe that they were meant to be returned to me at a suitable time,
but unforeseen events may have prevented this. I possess few clues to their
present whereabouts.”

“But what
exactly are your goals?” Marianne asked. “Beyond the gathering of these
objects, I mean?”

The disk at
the feet of the statue began to pulsate with white fire.

“To free my
people,” said Chenrezi. “To restore Tibet’s independence. The land has been
sick; now it is dying. I feel that its passing will strike a mortal wound to
humanity itself. Humankind will lose its mind. Evolution is a two-edged sword.
Life can advance or it can slip backward. With the holy Potala transformed into
a prison by Governor Rato, I foresee great darkness ahead—more evil than any
yet witnessed. I envision hell on Earth.”

“Unfortunately,
I share your views,” said Marianne.

“Will you
promise me,” Chenrezi asked, “that when your mind is satisfied, you will tell
me so in certain terms?”

She smiled
for the first time since the statue had begun to speak.

“I have
never made a promise to a machine,” she said. “But I will make this one to
you.”

“We share
your dream of liberation,” said Dr. Norbu. “It was for this cause that Tashi
worked all his life. It is something he and Marianne have in common.”

“One of the few
things,” Marianne murmured.

“How is
that, Marianne Strauss?” asked Chenrezi. “You are not Tibetan. You were born in
America; your ancestors are European.”

“My soul
grew from a seed that was planted in Tibet; my roots are in this land, despite
my outward appearance. Are you challenging my intentions?”

“Merely
satisfying my own curiosity.” The tier of eleven heads bowed respectfully
forward, like a plant stalk bending in the wind.

“I wish I
could come with you,” said Chenrezi. “I am fastened here. I have no power
beyond this point. But if you are willing, I would like to send someone with
you.”

Marianne
looked around the chamber, half expecting some other statue to step into sight.

“Would you
accept a companion?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The bodhisattva
Tara.”

“Tara,”
whispered Marianne. In the legends, Tara had sprung from one of Chenrezi s
tears. “Where is she?”

The light in
the cavern began to pulsate. It streamed in trails over the ceiling and through
the cracks in the mosaic tiles, converging on the disk where Chenrezi stood.
The statue began to glow, whiter and whiter. Marianne took a step backward,
dazzled by the fire; but then it lessened, gathering in a single point in
Chenrezi’s penultimate head. The third eye of blue Vajrapani burned with an intense
flame. She stared into the eye as if into a diamond, absorbed by the
scintillation of rainbow colors—refracted white light, a swirling rainbow.

A thin beam
shone from the fiery eye, focused on the center of her forehead. She felt a
warmth within her skull, as if her brains were turning to honey and dripping
down through channels in her body. Although she had not closed her eyes, she no
longer saw the cavern or Dr. Norbu or anything familiar to her.

She floated
at the center of a pearly white sphere. She tried to look down at her body but
she seemed not to have one.

I
a
m the
sphere,
she realized.

Her mind was
a perfect circle, expanding infinitely through space and time. She had become
both center and circumference.

Suddenly,
out of the soft white glory, there appeared a flicker. A rainbow bubble
condensed from the milky, iridescent whiteness.

The colors
shifted and took on the shape of a young girl. The face captivated Marianne:
she had never seen such clear, wise eyes. They sparkled with life, gazing back
at her with curiosity the equal of her own. The smiling mouth opened and
laughter rebounded from the edges of the sphere that was Marianne’s mind. The
rainbow girl seemed like the grain of divine sand around which this boundless
pearl had accreted. Here was a part of herself that she had hardly known
existed.

“What are
you?”

“I am part
of you, and also part of Chenrezi,” the rainbow Tara said. “May I come with
you?”

“Of course,”
Marianne thought, flooding the diamond-hued girl with affirmation. “But how?”

“I will stay
here, within you. Wherever you go, I go also.”

“Welcome,
then, Tara.”

The girl’s
dazzling laughter caused her eyes to fly open. She found herself sitting on the
cavern’s tiled floor, gazing up at Chenrezi. Dr. Norbu crouched next to her,
fingers on her wrist.

“Are you all
right?” he said. “You dropped so quickly, I thought you had passed out.”

“Not out,”
she said. “In.”

She could
hear Tara’s laughter echoing through her mind.

“Chenrezi,”
she said, “whoever made you had incredible skill—and, as you say, great
knowledge of human beings. I did not know such things were possible.”

“I merely
draw on your own power,” Chenrezi replied. “Do you like your new companion? She
can go with you where I cannot.”

“I love
her,” Marianne said. “She feels like . . . like myself, and
yet someone else. A sister,”

“Sister,”
Tara echoed. “That I am.”

“What
happened?” Dr. Norbu asked.

“I have
given her a yidam, Doctor. A personal deity, a companion and a guide who is a
part of herself and yet shares some of my knowledge.”

Dr. Norbu
smiled, taking her hands. “You have received a Tara?” he asked, looking into
Marianne’s eyes.

“She’s here
inside me, Reting. It’s the strangest sensation.”

He nodded.
“I know it well, Marianne. I was introduced to a yidam of my own many years
ago, shortly after Tashi’s death. It was not a Tara but a wrathful god,
Mahakala, to offset my own tendencies toward passivity. A lama gave me the
empowerment and guided me through the visualizations, but I have so little time
for meditation these days that Mahakala’s image grows always fainter, and I
forget details.”

“Tara will
not fade,” said Chenrezi. “Not unless you will her away, Marianne.”

I
would never do that
, Marianne
thought.

“Thank you,”
she said. “Now I think we should ask what you know about these objects, your
ornaments. Where might they be found? You’re aware that little in Tibet remains
as it was. Almost everything has changed.”

“One thing
has not,” said Chenrezi, “and that is the spirit of my people. Look to them for
assistance. The nomads long ago began the search for my possessions, flinging
their net wide over Tibet, into China and India, Russia and Mongolia. They will
lead you from here, for I cannot leave this spot. News of current affairs is
more to be trusted from their mouths than from mine.”

“Say
goodbye,” Tara whispered.

“Goodbye,
then,” said Marianne.

The eleven
faces of Chenrezi, including the wrathful blue one, gave her their fondest
smiles.
“Tashi deleg”
they said. “Good fortune.”

Then the
statue stiffened slightly and the eyes lost some of their luster. The hands
curled on through intricate manipulations. Hundreds of mudras blended into one
another, vanishing almost in the instant they arose, each moment presenting a
different tapestry of fingers.

She wondered
at the memories lost among those hands, irretrievable without the jewel, the
vajra, the vase, the lotus, and the wheel. She hoped that one day she would be
able to restore the ornaments and ask Chenrezi who had made him, and why.