The Red Brick: A Kind of Successful Story

There is the moon.
There is my finger.
There is my finger pointing at the moon.
There is no difference between the moon and my finger.  The moon shimmers under the tears of my bliss.

I stand.  I place my awareness on the breath without even thinking to do so anymore.  It just goes, in this endless fugue of the eternal now.  I experience the world the way that bugs, birds, animals, Bodhisattvas and babies experience it.  I step right.  I step left.  The gravel under my feet.  A sharp stone pricking my heel.  And so it goes.  I am walking - now.  Now - I am breathing.  My mind is silent.  The breeze skims my naked skin.  My phallus rises to meet it.  And so I have my answer as what to do with the demon that is standing at my bedroom door inside the monastic quarters where I live.

At the edge of the garden I see a few shadows watching reverently, who have made a pilgrimage to this place in Nova Scotia to be in my presence.  By the time I reach the glass door that connects the garden to my little  room I am fully erect and I hear the gentle knocking there again, reminding me that the demon is waiting to pay homage to me also and that my last remaining vanities will this night be deliberately cast on the fire.  I disgrace myself without remorse.  I will be hated and discussed among the disillusioned with contempt. No doubt some of them will think it’s a test of some kind of their faith, an act of “crazy wisdom” as if there could be such a thing.  But I will be free of myself.  And I must be free and I must pass this freedom on to my followers.  There are so many ways to be crucified.  Though fearful, it’s very liberating to know clearly one’s fate.

I step through the open glass doors and pass the well turned down bed which one of my disciples tidied,likely  visualizing her body there with me while I was leading meditation in the sanctuary.  They do this from devotion without knowing what a damaging thing to the spirit it is to not let a man clean his own messes.

I pass the bed, still erect below, my cock bobs its head birdlike as I walk to the door of my bedroom.  I can feel the demon on the other side.

The gentle knock again.  The demon is patient.

“Wait,” I say.

“Yes, master,” says the demon


I began this journey as an epileptic, not an ascetic.  I have an affliction known as pre-frontal lobe epilepsy, probably the same epilepsy Dostoevsky and Saint Teresa had.  Of all the neural diseases you can have, it is the most desirable.  I find myself missing it sometimes.  When the fit used to come to me, I would lose myself and, so I’m told, either go into a catatonic, ecstatic trance, or fall on the ground writhing.  On my own side of my skull, I felt myself swept into a state of being so primal, so transcendent, I can’t describe it anymore than I can describe the color blue, except as a state of perfect, agonizingly sweet happiness.  Unbearable, crushing joy, the orgasm of being soul fucked by a god.  It is a transcendent connection to all beings, to the cosmos, of such intensity the mind and nerves simply cannot withstand the lightning bolt of it, roasting your senses alive.  You want to exist that way forever and you are terrified that you will.  And then the ringing in the head begins as though angels are singing to you.  And then thankful oblivion until you wake up covered in your own piss with a stick, or a comb or a wallet in your mouth put there by some vigilant stranger to presumably keep you from choking on your tongue.

I began taking up meditation and yoga at an early age, not to cure myself, but in hopes of taming and provoking these fits at my convenience.  Although I had many spiritual experiences, the fits became more frequent and even more intense.  I feared I would go mad.  I certainly never feared I would become anybody’s idea of a saint.  Though I should have.

As the fits became more crippling I felt myself losing parts of my memory and identity.  The neurologist told me that eventually my situation would become fatal.  Mortality is only a concept until you find yourself looking down the gun barrel of the thing that will probably kill you.
I had lead a fairly comfortable life until that afternoon in the doctors office, discussing my “options”.  From that moment, like Siddhartha Gautama leaving the palace and discovering his first corpse, I began to perceive the world of hurt all around me.  There was a fly in the doctors office, dragging its right wing at a bad angle.  That fly will die, I thought. Does the fly know this?  What can he do except carry on being a fly?  And then I began to see, as though for the first time, the people in the hospital, each with their damaged wings, chained to the earth until something ended their suffering.  This world of hurt existed parallel to mine, and now I stepped over the line into it.  It was my world too now.  Me and the fly.

What is reality?  Better yet, what is the only reality that matters?  Every mystic knows, it’s the reality inside your head.  The only reality that matters.  The series of brain surgeries began retuning that reality for me as parts of my brain were unplugged and carved away.  Parts of me were taken away with it, so far nothing I miss.

But the last surgery.

Oh, the last surgery.  If everyone could have that last surgery, it might save the world.

The left frontal lobe had small changes made to it.  The kind of changes a monk or a nun might meditate all the days of their lives to achieve and never reach.  But me -

I was wheeled in a sinner.  I was wheeled out a saint.  They said I could perform miracles. I don’t remember that.  But a hospital is a good place for miracles.

There is the moon.  There is my finger pointing at the moon.  The moon and I are one.  The breeze and I are one.  All existence and I are one.  The eternal now and I are one in solid residence.  The love I feel for all people and living things in this great wide world of hurt makes me burst into fits of weeping.  I walk above this world of hurt as Jesus walked on the waves.


I had a dream last night.  I don’t remember much of it, but I remember the most important part.  I was in a lush garden, filled with living things, including dangerous animals.  But the animals were Walt Disney animals that talked. Yes, there were snakes too and they spoke to me.  "Aren’t you ashamed?" "Aren’t you a fraud?" Always count on a snake to ask the hard questions. 

And there was a wall. 

It was a stone wall made without mortar, only flat stones arranged in intersecting rows.  The wall rose to the sky so that there was no clue of the other side.  Among the plain stones, in the center of the wall was a single stone of reddish tan, beautiful and smooth, like a river stone.  It protruded from the wall as though offering itself to my hand.  I felt a touch and looked down and there was a large snake with wet human eyes watching me.  “Here may you find the tyrant,” said the snake.


In the morning I stepped into the hall in my white robes and a follower placed a garland of flowers around my neck.  I didn’t recognize him so he must have been visiting from one of the several meditation centers erected in my name around the states and in Europe where my every word and speech is studied like scripture.  As I walked down the hall, a small whispering entourage formed behind me, walking softly as though afraid of touching the ground, the gentle touch and tug of fingers on my robe, reaching out to me as though hoping for some healing miracle.

In the meditation sanctuary the sleepy crowd jumped to their feet, stepped aside and parted for me.  Flowers landed in my path as I approached the dais, and every face dived and became a back as each person bowed in reverence to me.  The dais was covered in plush cushions and garlands and Iseated myself grimly upon it as the room whispered and settled.  But I had nothing to say.  I had said all I was sure was true. 

I dared not look upon them, and then I did.  Their hope.  Their sin.  The self loathing in the eyes of the men and the lean women, longing for a blessing to vindicate them.  Always in the front row, the women.  The young women. The innocent hopeful eyes on me, all with the same message.  Command me.  Pluck me.  Touch me.  I will do anything.

And there among them, for the first time, looking at me with burning intensity, I see her.  My smooth red stone.  If you pull it, the whole edifice comes crashing down.  I began my homily, speaking only to her and felt my cock swell and rise under my robes which I had to adjust. 

Yes, I thought.  Maybe its the right thing.


And so I open the door of my midnight room and there she is, my beautiful demon holding a lacquer tray with a cup of herb tea.  She is wearing a blue loosely woven shift with nothing underneath.  The peaks of her nipples and the inviting shadow of her nether hair show.  Her breasts shift bulkily beneath the blue cloth like forbidden fruit.  We understand each other.

“Come in,” I say, glancing left and right behind her.  She brings the tea and stands with dignity by the bed, undisturbed by my tumescent nudity. 

I glance through the glass doors and see the moon.  There are two people in the garden who can see us clearly and everything that we do. I will leave the curtains open.  Let their hopes break.  Let them tell all the world what goes on.  I lace my hands on her and draw close, smelling her scented hair.

I am Samson and I will pull this temple down.