4. Resistance without Fighting

“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” –Sun Tzu

Zen Buddhism?

Jen burst out laughing. She waited for Skipper to laugh, too, but his face was still serious. She stopped laughing and looked at him expectantly; any second now he would crack and start laughing himself. But he stared back at her, unflinching, holding his ground. His dark eyes were looking very deep and pretty now, and arrogant, challenging her to defy him. Suddenly she felt a little embarrassed for laughing.

“You don’t seem like a Buddhist,” she said.

“What do Buddhists seem like?” he replied.

Jen didn’t know much at all about Buddhism, but what she did know didn’t seem to match her image of Skipper pacing the tennis court in flamingo shorts, yelling angrily into his cell phone. She could remember exactly three acquaintances who had claimed to be Buddhists, all friends of Becky’s. While they had some small differences from one another, their common traits included vegetarianism, strong and judgmental views about the environment, flowy hemp clothing, and a dislike of conflict except when they themselves started it.

“Hippies,” Jen said.

Skipper scoffed. “You’ve been in Hollywood too long,” he said. “There are eighty million Buddhists in Japan. Do you think they’re all hippies?”

Jen tried to think. Skipper sounded as though she were being unreasonable, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that this ecstasy salesman or whatever he was would suddenly declare his devotion to some obsolete Asian religion. She was quite sure that her own argument made sense, and that his did not. Despite Skipper’s stubbornness, she resolved not to give in, to remain confident in her own beliefs and perceptions.

“Aren’t Buddhists minimalists?” she asked, proud that she could find words for her thoughts. “Wouldn’t they consider it excessive to sell drugs, or organize raves?”

“Parties,” Skipper said. “They’re not really raves.”

“There’s no difference,” said Jen, her brazenness alerting her to how drunk she was becoming. Normally she did not argue like this, especially with men, who always seemed to care a lot more about winning than she did.

“Can you prove to me that there is no difference?” Skipper asked.

“What?” said Jen. She couldn’t understand this question. She wondered whether Skipper was high right now. Probably not, she decided; he was just being contradictory for no good reason, in an effort to seem profound. She tried to stay calm so that Skipper wouldn’t get to enjoy her frustration.

“I say that a rave and a party are not the same thing,” he continued. “Could you prove me wrong?”

Jen felt her annoyance growing, but said in a controlled, even voice, “I don’t understand the question.”

“That’s because it doesn’t make sense,” Skipper said.

Jen was about to argue with him when she heard what he had said.

“What are you talking about?” she snapped, her poker face lost.

“What I said didn’t make sense,” Skipper repeated. “That’s Zen. It transcends logical understanding.”

“How can it be your philosophy if it doesn’t make sense?” Jen asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question when she said it. But in fact she realized she wanted to know the answer.

“Zen Buddhism is all about paradoxes,” Skipper said, “about embracing contradiction.”

“Like being a hippy rave organizer?” Jen said, regretting her petty sarcasm as Skipper shot her a disapproving look. I don’t care what he thinks, she told herself, but she knew she was lying.

“I embrace the natural flow of life, but I interfere with it through giving people the means to alter their sensory environment,” Skipper said. “That’s the central paradox of human life: acceptance versus desire.”

Jen thought about this for a moment. She of course knew what both “acceptance” and “desire” meant, but they seemed so abstract in this context that she could not think of an example. She must have looked puzzled, because Skipper stopped speaking and was silent for a moment, as though thinking deeply.

“You do yoga?” Skipper asked. Jen nodded, wondering how he knew, but perhaps it was an easy guess.

“Yeah,” she said.

“So you believe your yoga teacher when she tells you that you are complete and fulfilled right now, with no need for change.”

Jen wondered if Skipper knew that her yoga teacher was sitting twenty-five feet away, drinking tequila shots with Chase. Jen wasn’t sure that Becky had ever explicitly told her, or even the class, that they were fine exactly the way they were. Becky certainly spent enough time trying to change the way she was, to improve herself. Still, Jen had definitely heard yoga teachers say this sort of thing. These were the teachers whose classes she did not usually return to.

“I guess,” Jen said, for the sake of hearing where this was going.

“But you have desires you feel compelled to act upon. And even needs that you must act upon or you won’t survive. So how can you reasonably sit there and listen to someone tell you that you are complete and must renounce your desires? Why don’t you tell your teacher that she’s full of crap?”

Jen laughed, not because this was funny but because she had so often wanted to tell her yoga teachers that they were full of crap. All except Becky.

“It’s because you believe two contradictory things at once,” Skipper said. “You believe that you are satisfied and fulfilled. But you can’t rid yourself of desire.”

Jen knew the answer to this contradiction, and she recited it dutifully. “You can embrace the needs and desires without feeling you have to act on them,” she said. As she heard her own words she felt horribly disingenuous, realizing that these were not her own words, but an empty parroting of something she had been taught but had not learned. In fact, it seemed Skipper was correct again. She herself certainly couldn’t embrace her desires without wanting them fulfilled. Her desires usually hurt her until she could not ignore them any more; then she would go in desperate, irrational search for an outfit or a man or a candy bar.

“I don’t think you can,” said Skipper, and Jen was unsure whether he meant “you” in the general or specific sense. “You have needs. And you have desires. But you are also fine and complete as you are. And so your desires are a fine and natural part of yourself, and you should accept them. But you cannot; you must renounce them or act on them, and either way that is change, not acceptance.”

Jen still wasn’t sure she understood. This was all so knotty and convoluted, and Jen was feeling more than a little drunk now. She turned her head to make sure that Becky and Chase were still sitting at the bar. She could just see the tops of their heads over the growing crowd. The bar had filled up since the four of them had arrived; it must have been over an hour ago. A baseball game was playing on the large screen behind the bar. From the sickly sweet smell, Jen knew that someone was smoking a cigar; she wondered if it was Chase.

Suddenly Jen felt something on her hand. She turned back, and saw that Skipper had laid his hand on top of hers on the table, as though to pull her back to the conversation, as though he would not let her get away from these complicated ideas so easily. Jen turned back to him, smiling apologetically for her rudeness, yet hoping he would get the clue. She was tired; she was drunk. If this was his way of hitting on her, couldn’t he just make his move and get it over with? But Skipper just kept talking.

“You’re waiting for your divorce papers to go through,” said Skipper. It wasn’t a question but a statement. Jen found this rather presumptuous for someone she had only met this afternoon, and whom she had not discussed her marriage with. Still, there was no sense in denying it, so she nodded.

“This is the worst time in your life,” Skipper said. “You are totally miserable.” Jen nodded again.

Skipper stood up from his chair. Jen wondered if he were about to leave in the middle of their conversation. Such odd behavior certainly wouldn’t be out of line with the way he’d been talking. Still, she found herself hoping she was wrong, that he would stay.

Instead of leaving, however, Skipper circled the table once, slowly. Returning to his chair, he sat down and turned back to face Jen. She felt happy he had stayed. She even returned his gaze with a smile, despite his totally bizarre and inappropriate behavior.

“How are you doing right now?” Skipper asked her.

“I’m good,” Jen said.

“How good?” Skipper asked.

“Very good,” Jen responded, wondering why he was suddenly so concerned with her well-being. “Excellent.”

“Are you sure?” Skipper asked her. What was he getting at?

“I’m positive,” Jen said, and reflecting for a moment, she recognized that she was definitely telling the truth.

“How can you be excellent and miserable at the same time?” Skipper asked her. “Did you stop being miserable while I was walking around the table?”

Jen couldn’t stop herself from laughing, despite her many years of training at keeping a straight face.

“That’s what I believe in,” said Skipper. “Contradictions.”

“Hmm,” said Jen, noticing that she suddenly felt very relaxed and comfortable sitting here with Skipper, more comfortable than she had felt with a man in years, even her husband.

“You won’t be at peace until you embrace the contradictions in your life,” Skipper said, quietly.

Thinking about it now, Jen’s life seemed to be brimming with contradictions. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that every aspect of her life was rife with paradoxes: acting, eating, yoga, Bradley, Becky...

“It’s all contradictions,” she said, her voice taking on some of Skipper’s intensity. “None of it makes any sense.”

“That’s because everything in your life is extreme,” said Skipper. “Extremes invite opposites.”

“What do you know about my life?” Jen asked, but more out of habit than actual annoyance. She felt compliant now, as though the rhythmic beat of the dance music in the bar had hypnotized her.

“Everyone knows everything about your life,” Skipper said.

“No one knows anything about it,” Jen responded.

“You’re an artist,” Skipper said.

“I’m a hack,” Jen said.

“You’re surrounded by people,” Skipper said.

“I’m very lonely,” Jen said.

“Let me come home with you,” said Skipper, and Jen nodded.

They snuck out together like thieves through the back door of the bar, without even saying goodbye to Becky and Chase.

Chapter 5:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-certain-enemy.html