Learning without the teacher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The brown-haired sheep and the spotted-tailed dog

may enter the house anytime

So, pay attention.

Once you find out where they are,

Get rid of them in the past and the future.

Let the gates be open.

Just cultivate the field.

And the builder of the house will appear.

 

See you in the evening.

– “hot babe”.

 

Ryan rubbed his eyes, looking at the scribbled note that Aran had brought him.

“What time is it?”, he asked, struggling to become fully awake.

“It is 6:00 am sir.”

“Where is the master?”

“She’s gone with the village elders to the town nearby. It is harvest season and the village depends on the sale of crops for their livelihood. They wanted her to join them so she could help them get a fair price for their crop. She is well educated, you know? She studied in foreign lands when she was young. The villagers respect her a lot. She is like their favorite daughter.”

“And this note?”, Ryan asked.

“She asked me to give it to you. She said it contains your tasks for the day.”

“Oh. Ok. Thanks. She knows I am an organized person, so that’s probably why she left us a note with instructions.”

“Don’t forget to join us for breakfast sir. Jaidee has cooked something nice for you and your friend Jack”.

“That’s really nice of you folks. We’ll be there soon. Please give us an hour to get ready.”

 

After dragging a sleepy Jack from the bed, Ryan reached the dining area in the main hut and finished his breakfast quietly, while reflecting on the contents of the note.

“I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense”, Ryan admitted, after reading it for the fourth time.

“Here. Give it to me. Let me take a look at it”, said Jack, grabbing the note from Ryan’s hand.

He scanned his eyes over it quickly.

“Looks straightforward to me”, he dismissed it.

“Really?”

“Yeah. We just have to keep watch and make sure the weird-looking sheep and dog don’t enter the house. We’ll both do it at the same time. Later, we’ll go search for all the locked gates and open them. We’ll start the cultivation thing after lunch and we’ll be done by evening. We’ll then head off to the village and chill out with some local beer.” Jack proposed.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Why do you doubt me?”

 

“Well…for one, your ideas always land us in hot soup. Besides, what has all this got to do with the treasure?”

“Ah…you have a point. But that’s ok. We’ll figure out that part later.”

 

So, they settled down by the door and waited, with a stick in hand, to drive away the brown-haired sheep and the spotted-tailed dog.

After an hour of silence, Jack spoke.

“Hey…do you think they are dangerous animals?”, he asked, remembering his encounter with the buffalo the day before.

“Nope. Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Good. I wouldn’t put it past that crazy woman to dispatch some wild animals after us, just to keep us on our toes, while she is away.”

Ryan burst out laughing.

“No. I don’t think this is a dangerous assignment.”

 

Two more hours passed. There was no sign of either animal.

“Maybe we should call it off” Ryan said.

Just then young Ananda passed by, carrying a sack of rice on his shoulders.

“Hey Ananda. Hold on. Did you see any brown-haired sheep or a spotted-tailed dog on the way?”, Jack asked.

“You are joking sir? as you always do?” The boy giggled.

“Hey, no. I am serious.”

“But Sir, there are no sheep in these parts. And where will you find a brown-haired one?”

“What about a spotted tailed dog?”

“Never seen or heard of that one too sir.”

And he walked away, still giggling, to narrate a fresh tale about the funny man to his mother.

 

“Damn. She’s fooled us again. We’ve wasted all morning sitting here.”, Jack moaned.

“So, what should we do next?”

Ryan checked the instructions.

“Once we find out where they are, we have to get rid of them in the past and the future.”

“That’s easy. Ha. We never saw them in the first place. So why bother? They are not there anywhere.”

“Yeah; true.”

(and then it struck him.)

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“They are in my mind.”

“What?”

“Yeah; and yours too. I had a picture of those animals in my mind while I waited; and so did you. How else could we have recognized them when they arrived?”

“Oh yeah. You have a point.”

“We have to get rid of these animals from our mind now. Remove the images from our mind, so they won’t appear in the future.”

“That should be easy.”

“Ok. Let us close our eyes and erase them from memory.”

They sat down and closed their eyes.

15 minutes passed in silence.

“Any luck?” queried Ryan, with his eyes still closed.

“No…the images are still …Damn.”

“Let’s try harder.”

Jack tried harder. He tried to squeeze the sheep to a dot and kick the dog away. But they wouldn’t go. The more he struggled to erase them from his mind, the bigger and stronger they grew – till he saw them the size of a mountain, in 3D, Blu-Ray quality images.

After a while he screamed and opened his eyes; his head was pounding.

“I didn’t know it was this hard to stop thinking of something. It is like I have no control over my thoughts.”

Ryan opened his eyes after a while and shook his head.

“There’s no point doing this.”

“Why not? Lets try again after a break. Don’t give up.”

“It is not that. We may be able to avoid thinking of them in the future. But, the fact is, as we sat and waited for them to show up we were carrying an image of them in our mind.”

“So?”

“Since we can’t erase the past, how can we erase the images we had in the past?”

“So, you are saying we can neither remove them from our past or the future?”

Ryan nodded. “We have failed her instructions.” He looked forlorn.

“Hey! Cheer up. We should not have thought of them while we waited. It was a simple mistake. I am sure she will understand. Let us move on to the next one.”

 

They walked around the paddy field, looking for gates to open. After an hour walking in the hot sun, they couldn’t find even a single one.

“I don’t understand. There have to be gates bordering the paddy field somewhere”, frowned Jack.

They hailed a villager who was passing by.

“Where are the gates to the field?”

“No gates sir. Just field.”

“What?”

The field is many miles wide. How can a few gates guard the whole field?

(Strike three.)

Their shoulders drooped.

 

After taking a break for lunch and a small nap in the shade of a tree, they gathered some enthusiasm and got ready to cultivate. They picked up some tools from the workmen’s shed and walked out to the field.

“Should we start digging and planting here? This looks like a nice spot.” said Jack, pointing to a wet area.

They got started.

(Within a few minutes, they heard someone yelling to get their attention. They looked up and saw a woman who worked in the farm running towards them.)

“Sir. No. You can’t plant now.”

“Why not?”

“It is harvest season.”

“What?”

“Yes sir. The time for cultivation is already over. You missed the opportunity. Now all we can do is wait and reap what we have sown.”    

 

(On hearing those words, Jack froze. Something snapped within him and he stood there, mouth gaping, as if he had turned to stone.)

Ryan was still talking with the woman, and didn’t notice the change in Jack’s expression. When he didn’t get an answer to a question, he turned around and saw.

“Hey, man! You all right?”

“Death.” He spoke in a hoarse voice. “The time for cultivation is over. All we can do then is reap what we have sown.”

“What are you blabbering about?”

“It can come anytime. It will take us by surprise. But then, there is no use in regret. We would have missed the opportunity to find the treasure.”

Ryan decided to pay attention to Jack. He realized Jack was on to something.

But Jack had thrown the tools on the ground and was running back to their hut.

 

When he got there, he barged into the room and searched for his knapsack. It was getting dark and there was no power supply in the hut.

He took the bag outside the hut and emptied its contents on the ground, hoping to use the light of the full moon to help him search.

He then rummaged through the pile of pages he had brought with him to read during his holiday.

He found the post he was looking for.

And he stared at it.

He then took a blank sheet of paper and started to sketch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And he spoke.

With a conviction in his voice that had Ryan spellbound.

 

“This is the house.

The open gates are the senses

You don’t need to close them.

The field is the mind-body.

It has to be cultivated.

The weird sheep and dog are just fanciful ideas about the world;

they enter when the gates are open and the mind is not cultivated.”

 

“What!!! Wow. You are on a roll. Keep going buddy.” Ryan encouraged him.

 

“And how can we remove the weird sheep and dog from the past and future?

This is the part that is awesome.

To remove them, we have to find them first.

But we can’t find them in the past.

And we can’t find them in the future.

We can only find things now.

But even the ‘now’ is too short a time to remove anything.

So…so….” his voice trailed off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hmm…you are back to your usual blabbering self. Do you mean to say that different things happen now?”, Ryan prodded.

“No.”

“Different things appear and disappear now?”

“No.”

“What are you saying then?” Ryan was exasperated.

“Everything just Is…always….neither same nor different…”

“Huh?”

“The world doesn’t make sense”.

“Yeah. That we all know” , Ryan laughed.

“No. No. I am saying… that the world as we experience it, is not logically possible“.

“What??”

“Damn. I am unable to put it in words. I had a moment of great insight and I lost it.”

 

“When did you lose it? Now?” asked a voice from the direction of the huts.

They turned to see the lady walking towards them lazily, munching a stick of fresh corn.

“Hi boys. Looks like you haven’t followed
any of my instructions” she said mischievously.

“I…we…” sputtered Ryan.

“But you still learnt an amazing lot in one day. I am really impressed.”

“Wow. Thanks”, said Ryan.

“Good.” She turned and started walking towards the hut.

 

Jack, whose mind was buzzing till then, got up and ran to join her.

“I am really overawed by today’s events. For the first time in my life, I learnt so many new things without anyone teaching me.”

And Ryan joined him too, nodding in agreement.

“But I have a doubt. Can you clarify it for me?”, Jack asked, waving the papers in his hand.

“What doubt?”

“The last line in your note; I didn’t get that one. You mentioned the builder of the house“, Jack said.

“Yeah.”

“It is ‘I’ who is the builder of the house, isn’t it? It is ‘I’ who owns the gates and the field of the house. So, naturally, it is the builder”.

“That is the treasure, isn’t it?” Jack asked like an excited school kid.

 

“Even if it is the treasure, how do you plan to find it?” she asked, looking amused.

“I don’t understand”, said Jack.

 

“Nowhere in the world,

can a name be found.

Nowhere in a cause,

can its effect be found.

Nowhere in its organs,

can a body be found.

Nowhere in its thoughts,

Can a mind be found.

Where and When then, can ‘I’ be found?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack and Ryan stood there gaping.

“Come. It is time for dinner. We will continue the class tomorrow morning at 5:00”

 

(She resumed walking towards the huts, munching the corn, with a wide grin on her face).

Not bad, she thought to herself.

He has started to remember all that he once knew.