Zen and the Art of Escape

"When everyone recognizes beauty as beautiful,

there is already ugliness;

When everyone recognizes good as good,

there is already evil." 

-Tao Te Ching 

I gather the dishes and start to clear the table but the men stop me.

"But you cooked, I can clean up," I protest.

"No, no, you are our guest," Lahk insists. I look over at the gardener who grins broadly back at me and nods.

"Okay, if you're sure," I shrug. "Thank you."

I dig up the book I've brought with me, "The Way of Zen", take a second cup of tea, and settle my aching bones and throbbing infected foot into the lounge chair in the shade of a giant palm tree to read:

The illusion of significant improvement arises in moments of contrast, as when one turns from left to the right on a hard bed. The position is 'better' so long as the contrast remains, but before long the second position begins to feel like the first. So one acquires a more comfortable bed, and for a while, sleeps in peace. But this solution leaves a strange vacuum...a vacuum soon filled by the sensation of another intolerable contrast because the sensation of comfort can only be maintained in relation to the sensation of discomfort. ... Zen is a liberation from this pattern...to understand the absurdity of choosing, of the whole feeling that life may be significantly improved by a constant selection of the 'good.' ... To succeed is always to fail - in the sense that the more one succeeds at anything, the greater is the need to go on succeeding. To eat is to survive to be hungry. ...

 To sit on a beach in Thailand, breathe in the clean, sea salt air is only to make the return to the polluted stench and oppression of Indonesia all the more painful. I sigh and let my gaze fall on the island rising out across the sea, my plan B. I wonder what happened in the alternate universe where I chose to paddle there instead.

Again, as if reading my mind, Lahk's voice answers from behind me, "Lucky you did not go there. There is guarded by men with machine guns."

"Really? Why?" I ask as he takes a seat on the edge of my chair.

He shrugs. "Corporation. They don't like trespassing."

"What kind of corporation? What are they guarding?"

Instead of answering my question he says, "You are amazing woman. A woman and a friend and a child all. You and your questions. Like a girl. Crazy. I have met many white women here, but they are not like you. I have never met any woman like you."

"So what are these white women like, then?" I laugh.

"Augh," he shakes his head in disgust. "Crazy. Not good crazy like you. They want everything just so and they are always angry. They are not adventurers like us," and he puffs his chest out proudly.

If the compliment revived the uneasy feeling I had of being a hostage held in paradise, this last pronouncement, like a curious reverse manifestation of Stockholm syndrome, makes me bristle. Sensing this Lahk becomes more subdued and says, "Please, if your boyfriend forgets you, come to me. I will take care of you." He places his hand on my cheek and I remove it patting it affectionately as I do.

"Oh!" He wails in a sudden spasm of despair, then, straightening, he hardens his face into a cynical sneer, "Who am I kidding. I could never have a woman like you."

I hesitate before asking, "Why not?"

"Because," he answers staring out to sea.

"Because what?"

He turns his pained face towards me, "Look at you. If I had wife like you I would never get any work done. We'd starve to death!"

I can't help but laugh. "That's not only one of the best compliments I've been given but a very wise prediction," I answer, recalling that precise scenario with lovers past.

I spend the next hour trying to subtly, and not so subtly, convince him to take me to town. I decide to make one last attempt and if he puts me off again I will just have to start walking. I'm fairly certain he'll follow and, if not, I can hitchhike. Fortunately his phone rings. It's  his boss. The couple from the night before complained about being moved and his boss isn't happy. The maid is also coming by to clean because new guests will be arriving that afternoon. There better not be anymore trouble.

This spurs him into action and within minutes we're on his bike, driving through the rubber tree plantation farmed by Burmese refugees, then past the tidy, thatch roofed shacks and tidier village children turning onto a paved road and towards Zack's Shack.