Note; the events
described here happened on a Tuesday, not a Monday.-D.
For the second time in as many weeks, crisis has erupted on
campus, though at least this time nobody is dead (last week, in case you missed
it, Eddie’s dog became vicious and had to be shot).
I was walking upstairs to shower after my early-morning walk
when Greg poked his head out of the Meditation Hall, saw me, and said “get
Allen.” His voice was calm, quiet, and full of such urgency that I ran to to
office to ask Sharon if Allen had
arrived yet. She said he had not, so I ran outside and up the fire escape so I
could get a good view of campus—there are two driveways, and I didn’t know
which one he would use, and if I picked the wrong one and he went by me, he’d
be much harder to find.
Never mind that Sharon
would know when he arrived—Sharon
knows things by means the rest of us do not have at our disposal.
There he was, a movement in yellow coming in the front gate,
just visible through the trees. I ran down again and met him.
“Greg needs you!” I said.
Allen stopped his bike.
“Oh? Why?”
“I haven’t a clue. But it’s urgent and it’s in the
Meditation Hall.”
“OK,” he said, and sped away.
I walked slowly back to the Mansion, back in through the
office, and I was going to continue on up the stairs but I stopped at the
now-closed door to the Meditation Hall, desperately curious. Obviously,
whatever had happened was none of my business. I continued upstairs.
At breakfast, Allen seemed to be missing. Afterwards, Greg
had an announcement. Greg’s announcements are seldom good news, perhaps because
he delivers bad news well, calmly and with grave authority. This one was bad
news.
“Ryan has a health problem which has necessitated his
leaving campus this morning. Most likely, he will withdraw from our program. He
will be welcome to visit, however, and when he is stabilized enough to receive
well-wishers he will let us know.” A low hum of shock and curiosity swelled,
and Greg held up his hand. “I am not at liberty to give details about his condition,”
he said. “It will be easier on all of us, including Ryan, if you all refrain
from speculation and gossip. Sometimes we just don’t know, and wish we did.”
I know Ryan slightly, though we haven’t talked, much. He’s a
yearling in his mid-thirties, interested in a mix of Buddhism and New Age
spirituality, and he has this odd serenity to him—I had forgotten that he also
went through phases of seeming irritable or fidgetty every few days. I had not
forgotten, though, the events of the early morning, and I had a fair idea of
what sort of health crisis Raven had—what kind could require running to fetch a
psychologist? What I didn’t know was why.
I lingered, on my way out, near Greg, who was also
lingering, talking to Ollie near the door of the Dining Hall. I wouldn’t look
at him, because I had not made up my mind whether I wanted to talk to him.
Arguably, I should not, and yet I lingered.
“Ask or do not ask,” Greg said at last from behind me.
“Attempting to do both at once is seldom effective.” He spoke with some humor,
but when I turned to face him I saw that he looked tired, even old. Ollie had
gone.
“I don’t want to invade his privacy,” I said.
“But you have special knowledge,” he replied. “You know more
than you’re supposed to, and now there’s no one I can talk about it with.”
“That’s true.”
“And, curiously, I’m in the same situation. I am allowed to
share information with the other masters, but I am unaccustomed to talking with
any except Charlie and Allen, and both are indesposed.”
“I noticed that Allen has left.”
“Actually, Allen is still on campus, as is Ryan, at least in
a technical, as opposed to a social sense. We’re still trying to find a bed.”
“In a mental hospital,” I said, in a low voice.
“Yes.”
I waited. Greg had never confided in me before, and I wasn’t
sure he was really about to do it now, though he clearly wanted to, but the
longer I’ve been here the more even the masters have seemed to appreciate my
witness. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s that I have become a naturalist of my
own species, and there is something about a gaze that is both interested and
dispassionate that comforts. I don’t know. But one by one they are gradually
coming to treat me as more of a peer.
I waited.
Greg walked out of the Dining Hall, and a turn of his head
indicated I should follow. The morning had dawned gray and thick—it snowed last
night—but a rising wind had swept away the clouds and the day had gone bright
and sunny, though very cold. Greg paused in his walking, closed his eyes, and
appeared to inhale the sunshine before walking on again.
“Ryan’s ill health is not exactly my fault, though it’s hard
not to see it that way,” he said at last.
“Oh?”
“Ryan is suffering from a form of psychosis triggered by
meditation.”
“Ah.”
“Yes.”
“If meditation makes people crazy,” I ventured, “then why
aren’t all of us psychotic here?”
“Because it’s not common. I’ve seen it before, but only in
advanced students. Minor psychological disturbance, such as emotional deadening
and a dulling of the senses, is a normal part of intensive meditative practice,
and it’s usually temporary. The student can either pull back or, with guidance,
push on and come out the other side. Alchemy candidates sometimes develop what
looks like full-blown psychosis, but that, too, is part of the process. I know
how to guide students through it. But Ryan lacks the background to make use of
this state—and I lack the background to get him out of it.”
“How is he different?” I asked. “What went wrong?”
“Some people are vulnerable,” Greg acknowledged. “Meditation
alters brain function—that is its point. Not all brains can be safely altered.
Ryan elevated his risk by spending far longer in meditation than I suggested. I
knew he sometimes attended the afternoon make-up session, but I didn’t know he
also meditated on his own. This past week, he began spending as much as three
hours a day in meditation. Today he broke. This morning I noticed something
‘off’ about him, so I asked him to stay after. I very quickly realized he has
become completely irrational. He has begun the process of ego-death without
prior preparation. It’s making him delusional.”
Ego-death sounded bad, though I didn’t know what it meant. I
wanted to ask why Greg hadn’t warned us, why I’d never heard of any risk
associated with meditation at all, but I wasn’t sure of my role, whether it was
OK to ask that sort of question of a master reluctantly seeking catharthis.
“What will happen to him now?” I asked, instead.
“He will likely receive anti-psychotic drugs in a hospital
setting until he stabilizes,” Greg said. “After that? I’m not sure. There’s
very little clinical research on meditation psychosis, and it’s not something
meditation teachers usually talk about with each other. Perhaps we should. He
will likely not be the same again.”
We had reached the other side of the Central Field, near the
turn-off to Chapel Hall, as if we were headed to class, except that building is
closed until after Ostar, and classes are still being held in the Mansion.
I thought about how Charlie pushed Rick to survive outside
in the snow, how Allen allowed Ebony to experiment with cannabis so she could
see….This with meditation is a somewhat different issue, since Greg wasn’t
doing anything outside of the normal guidelines of his profession, but I’d
thought before of how some of the masters confront the possibility of a student
getting hurt in their care. The idea had seemed very abstract to me then, but
now Greg’s gone and done it—he’s lost a student.
I had no idea what to say, so I just hugged him.
Eddie is doing well, by the way, at least in a physical
sense, and expected to recover completely from his various injuries. He is
still rather bandanged up, and since he can’t walk on a broken foot and can’t
use crutches with a sprained wrist and a chewed-up arm, he’s in a wheel-chair
for a few weeks. The Mansion isn’t remotely wheel-chair accessible, so he’s
living with Charlie’s sister for a while. The thought is that if anyone can
keep him from folding in on himself out of guilt for his dog, she can.
He calls a few of us every day, and I am one of the ones he
calls.
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