A Smile in the Mind's Eye Read Free Page B

There was no need to go on talking for it was clear from this one smiling glance that Kasyapa had twigged the whole matter. Buddha handed him the flower he was holding in his hand and told him to get the hell out of the class. So Kasyapa, who found the Indians such fearful bores and so lacking in humour, set out for China with only the Taoist smile for baggage. And out of this exchange of looks grew the Far Eastern variety of the Buddhist reality – and later the remarkable short cut of the Zen jump which completely bypassed the jungle of Indian metaphysics while encapsulating the real essence of the teaching. Somewhere in the heart of the matter was a principle of right apprehension which was there for the discovering; after that one could breathe in the whole universe with every breath. Treat the earth as a perfume? Well, a scent does not try to get itself appreciated by an act of will, even though it ‘knows’ in its essence that it was born just for that. Congruence, appropriateness, it was our job to capture the whole thing when it was bliss side up, so to speak. I read all this into Chang’s text. To become at long last accredited to the whole of nature!
    But these and other matters got themselves quite entangled in the question of cookery – for Chang had now begun to feel his feet in the pleasant kitchen with its red-tiled floor. To me he delegated the task of cutter-up for the carefully washed vegetables; in defence too of my gallant Indians, among whom I spent the first ten years of my existence, I introduced a few touches of India to the sauce – curry and ginger – which met with approval. We had found nuts and raisins in the market as well, while my guest was eager to explore a few of the cheeses of France. It was a pleasant and fruitful work, assembling all these deliciously steamed still crunchy vegetables. It was also a symbolic meeting place of the two great cuisines of the world – French and Chinese.

2
    Among so many subjects we were apt to lose our way from time to time – Chang replying to my eager questions no less eagerly; he seemed glad to have someone at hand with whom he could discuss these matters, albeit in English. My knowledge though highly provisional and sketchy was quite a help towards my understanding of his text, which was an outline of a sort of love-therapy – not rigidly schematic and fossilized like the Kama Sutra, though much upon the same lines. I asked him about yoga and told him I dabbled in the Indian method. ‘I do Chinese yoga,’ he said. ‘it’s a bit different – more fluent, less static.’ Waving a wooden spoon he did a couple of swooping figures, not unlike ballroom dancing, gliding out into the old glassed-in verandah like an ice-skater. I tried to copy him to see how it felt. At that moment the morose existentialist gardener who sometimes works for me came down the drive, and peering in saw me apparently waltzing with a Chinaman. We did not see him ourselves. But his nerve was badly shaken by the sight and he retreated to the village tavern. Oblivious to all this we danced on, Chang and I, until a simmering noise called us back to the cooking pots.

3
    The question of immortality also raised its head early on in the conversations and I found that my guest was absolutely convinced that it was not a figure of speech, that it was on the menu, so to speak, though factually it could only be achieved by the greatest sages. There existed records, however, which pointed the way. As far as he was concerned all he wished to illuminate in the text under consideration was the fact that if a man adapted himself to the Taoist view seriously – he could easily top the hundred, and might expect without being specially gifted to live to 150. In such a life there was no reason why he should not expect to make love happily well into his nineties, as well as keep all or most of his teeth. Everything was connected to his diet,