The Nature of True Reality

My fingernails lengthen into talons capable of tearing flesh asunder. Hot rage fills my chest and when I open my mouth it explodes like lit methane. An indignant scream at that which I can’t control. I’m angry, cross-legged, half lotus, my left foot tingling atop my right thigh. It has fallen asleep below the ankle. I shift my weight a little, and the rustle of the cushion is heard throughout the meditation hall.

At once, I'm gently reprimanded: “Notice the body’s impulse, and return to the breath. When the mind settles, the body follows.”

Cool air in my nostrils flushes out my embarrassment and I notice everyone else in the temple sitting quietly. Does anyone else feel angry? I notice the thought. I notice the noticing. I count my breaths. I get distracted again by an idea for a story, but my legs stay still.

A bell marks the end of the sitting period. “I respectfully remind you,” the Abbot tells us, “that life and death are of supreme importance. Time passes swiftly and opportunities are lost. Do not squander your life.” They say this every session.

My grandma died this week. A few weeks earlier, I went to a writing workshop. The theme was Monsters.

“What’s a monster from your childhood?” The facilitator asked us, and I thought of my grandma. When she got angry, her face changed. Mouth tight, eyes fixed forward like a predator, she once stalked me around the dining room table. She wanted to hit me. I was small enough to hide under the table if I needed to. I called for my mom in the other room. I must’ve accidentally broken something important. I needed to be more careful, lest I get hurt.

When it was my turn to share my monster, I said, “Dinosaurs.”

When I was seven or eight, I had a revelation while playing pretend in my bedroom. I went downstairs to ask a grown-up about it. “Mom?” I asked, “When we die, we just come back as something else, right?” I didn’t know any dead people then, so I’m not sure why I was thinking about it.

My mom put down the laundry basket she was carrying and sat on the stairs with me. “That’s one theory, but some people think there’s an afterlife and some people think there’s nothing at all.” A physicist and former Christian, she explained the null hypothesis of nothingness but made sure that I understood that there’s no way of knowing.

My dating app profile says I'm looking for someone who “believes in magic just a little.” Dimly illuminated by a single candle, and through music a little too loud, a former stranger asked, “What does magic mean to you?”

I said, “You know that quote—‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'? I think it works in reverse too. What we call spirituality—déjà vu, synchronicity, past lives, premonitions—these might be real phenomena we just can't explain yet. Maybe, once we can, we'll stop calling it magic.”

“That's interesting,” she said. We didn’t go on another date.

I'm sitting on the living room floor in my friend’s apartment. We met at the Buddhist temple and I’m telling her about my theory of magic because I can't shut up about it. She says it's interesting, too, but this time I believe her, because she’s earnestly telling me that her friend’s friend is a reincarnated Tibetan monk.

“I'm developing a theory of reincarnation,” I say. “You know how some people remember past lives?”

“Of course,” she says, “that’s what I'm talking about!”

“I suspect that souls are recycled across all species. When we die we immediately arrive into the next life form. But because most living things aren't human, we usually become like, ants or fish, maybe even plants. When we're reborn, our soul remembers our past life, but our new animal bodies have no use or context for human memories, and so they get discarded. But for the few humans coincidentally reborn as humans...”

“...They would remember!”

I laugh and I shrug. “I'm not sure I really believe in all that, but it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? But even if it's true... so what? What's anyone supposed to do with this information?”

I moved to New York 2 years ago. I was freshly out of a 7 year relationship, lacking friends and structure, and I badly needed a therapist. When I first set foot in his office, a wave of recognition struck me. Dark red walls, the paintings, the brown couch—“I’ve been here before,” I said.

“What?” he replied. It was the first few minutes of our meeting.

“Sorry,” I tried to explain, “I've dreamt about this room before. It’s déjà vu, you know?”

“Ok,” he said. “So what?”

“Maybe I’m supposed to be here?”

“Well, you’re here. Now what?”

We stared at each other in silence. I didn’t have an answer. I knew he would never understand me, though I begrudgingly met with him weekly for a year. Every session, he asked me “What do you want?” and reminded me to “Love myself,” until I could do it without his help.

After a scheduled surgery last week, my grandma died from internal bleeding. I get the call while grocery shopping. On the drive home, I reach into the empty space above the passenger seat and squeeze her immaterial hand. Maybe she isn’t an ant yet, and she can hear me talking to her. Maybe that’s magic too. It doesn’t feel that fun anymore, but I tell her I hope she gets to come back as something cool.