Part One

It was, quite possibly, January 1991, a couple of months into my New Zealand sojourn. The phone rang one morning; it was my girlfriend, calling from London (I'd left her behind there).

It was a strange time to get a call from her, since it would have been around midnight in England. And her voice was very strange as well. Normally clear and fluent, she now spoke in strained, squeaky tones. 

She got round to her main point. He had been 'seeing' someone else. It was a guy from the Buddhist Centre; I knew him fairly well. Two days later she rang again, in the same dried up, strangulated voice. They had done it, she said. And that was that....

I was shocked, confused, well-and-truly floored. Devastated. This was not part of the plan, in fact wasn't even in the realm of many possibilities. We had both agreed that the visit to New Zealand was a good thing for me to do, and she had given no clue as to what may happen in the meantime. And now, just two short months later, it was all over. Actually, it took a while for that to sink in.

We had been together for, what, around seven years. We did the Buddhist community thing too seriously to ever live together - in fact, that would have driven both of us crazy - but we had nevertheless spent oceans of time together, travelled together, the whole works. We were quite an institution.

It's bizarre how I just imagined the whole thing would go on forever; this was the unconscious narrative playing through my middle-aged but infinitely naive mind. It was especially bizarre since I was apparently a serious student of Buddhism, where the focal teaching is that of impermanence. Nothing lasts forever, according to Buddha, and he is generally correct. Don't put your eggs in any temporal basket, you'll only end up a mess. Yes; but I had been found out, with one almighty blind spot.

 

Part Two

It was too much for me, the final straw. I was already close to bursting - at least something was close to bursting, I didn't know what. Sat on top of that hill listening to Mozart, I knew that something had to give, something big. But I couldn't quite access it. Now, in her infinite kindness, my (now ex- ) girlfriend had thrown the opportunity straight in my direction. I duly collapsed.

I quickly plunged into a new world of feelings. Everything was upside-down. All that I considered myself to be no longer applied, while everything that was 'not-me' now took hold of my very being.

I felt enclosed by an aura of muddy darkness as I slouched about daily life. I felt like a piece of primordial slime dredged up from the smelly floor of a noxious and obnoxious ocean of dirt. Above all else, I felt a sense of abject worthlessness; I was a loser in the game of life, a useless piece of shit. 

A few years down the line I came across the work of Carl Jung, and his expositions on the themes of the Shadow and 'confrontation with the unconscious'. A heavy load fell from my shoulders when I read Jung's descriptions: at last there was someone who knew about this; who had been there, and who could put it into context. I was not alone, and I thanked Jung from the depth of my heart for his work and writings.

As it was, however, in the suburban peripheries of the New Zealand capital, there was nobody who could recognise what I was going through - or drowning in, more like. As a result, I went a little crazy.

I tried to make off with several women, all of whom fortunately had enough sense not to get more intimate than a chat over coffee with a Buddhist ambassador who had recently gone off the rails. My unsuccessful exploits provided plenty of entertainment for my housemates. We had no television, so this was a good substitute soap opera.

I developed a dry, vicious-sounding cough, which refused to go away. I could see members of the meditation groups wince as I let release yet another loud, hoarse rasp, in the middle of what was intended to be a quiet hour. I went to the doctor who, in a move of outstanding originality, prescribed me antibiotics. They failed to do the trick, so he prescribed some more. The cough calmed down eventually, and such things normally do, but left me even more exhausted than, as a result of stress and general emotional turmoil, I was before.

 

Part Three

In a situation riddled with irony, one ironic element stood out above all others. For over a decade I had been practicing Buddhism seriously. Like, really seriously. Meditation, retreats, studying the Buddhist texts, practicing mindfulness. It was the full consciousness works. And that, in my view of things, is what Buddhism was primarily about: consciousness. But now, as I tumbled into a pit of consciousness crisis, what did I find Buddhism had to say? Nothing!

I searched around, but found absolutely zilch. In my time of greatest need, Buddhism let me down. Big-time. There were generalities, for sure, and theories aplenty. But in terms of actually speaking to my individual plight, the texts spoke with a thunderous silence. It was a pivotal moment and realisation concerning the future course of my engagement with organised Buddhism.

The same was true for the Buddhists who I lived with, and others who I came to know. They were friendly and sympathetic - they did their best, and I was grateful - but in the end they did not know what I was going through. None of them had been there.

I say that there were no other voices in the wilderness who could relate to my plight. That is not true. There was one: Lou Reed.

Once of the Velvet Underground, but for two decades now a solo artist, Lou knew the territory. His songs, and his alone, spoke of the realm that I now found myself inhabiting.

I'm not talking about the best-known, poppy kind of songs of Lou Reed: Walk on the Wild Side, Perfect Day, Satellite of Love, that sort of thing. No. I mean the deeply dark Lou Reed, exploring the cracked edge of human existence. Bringing poetry into the cave of the darkest night of the soul.

The Berlin album, bleak but brilliant. Street Hassle, The Bells. These are works of art concerning the lowest of the low, the losers, the souls that are shot through with failure, with self-hatred, trawling the very slough of despond. And that was me.

 

Part Four

Streaks of lightning etched across the wreckage and debris of a human existence. Maybe in such a broken realm as planet Earth, it will often take darkness and pain to ignite the spark of brilliance which gives rise to the best in 'art'.

'The Bells' begins with a dissonant cacophony of electronic noise and wailing saxophone. It continues for several long minutes. Just as the listener is wondering if it will ever end, the chaos of sound gives way to a song so simple, so fragile, so plaintive, as to bring tears to the eyes. I still find it extraordinary. 'When he fell down on his knees/ After soaring through the air/ With nothing to hold him there/ It was really not so cute/ To jump without a parachute.' Only Lou Reed can write words like that and get away with it.... 

It was all perversely therapeutic. As the antipodean summer gave way to autumn, April-time I suppose, the rains came, and the wind, which was omnipresent anyway, notched up a gear. I would walk the streets of central Wellington alone, aimless and purposeless, with the little headphones clamped tight into my ears, listening to Lou Reed singing about the tragic pits of humanity. Horrible, vicious scenes, all set to sometimes heart-wrenching melodies. 

In Wellington, Lou Reed saved my life.

The rain and the wind. Some people will think of New Zealand and dream of a perfect climate. Not in Wellington, anyway. The city is located on the narrow straits separating the North and South Islands. The wind gets channelled between the two islands, compressed as in a wind tunnel. Day after day the wind would blow, and you would need to lean into it in order to make progress walking at all. Some of the residents seemed to find it exhilarating. I was not of their number.

I was sometimes underemployed. While my community buddies were out working, I would be stuck in my room. It overlooked the valley where the centre of town could be found. I would gaze out over the buildings, watching sheets of rain come in horizontally time and again, hurrying along to make way for the next wave of precipitation.      

As for being an inspiration for this Buddhist outpost, I have no idea how I fared. As an Angel of the North, bringing enlightened tidings, surely I was of little use. If I was an angel it was of the fallen variety. I was no figure of light; more of a swamp monster, flailing around in smelly waters the consistency of tar.

Most of the white population of New Zealand has its roots in Protestant/Anglican stock, and it  showed in many of the Buddhists I met. I sometimes felt the object of others' projections of what 'being religious' and 'being spiritual' should means All of which bore little relation to the fresh-born monster from the northern hemisphere who they were regarding as some rather righteous guide in an alternative to the Christianity which pervades the society, along with their own unconscious conditioning.

Some people seemed to appreciate me, despite my personal 'issues', as a source of common sense in a Buddhist community that often seemed to lack simple common sense. Bizarrely, a few of my Buddhist acquaintances conveyed upon me the role of relationship counsellor. They were far more interested in sorting out the infinite tangles of their personal love lives than hearing about the direct path to Enlightenment. Why they considered a man on the rebound, and suffering from all manner of new-found emotional mess-ups, as suitable for the purpose I couldn't really understand...

Finding myself sometimes cast as the Anglican Buddhist, I wrote a poem on the topic: see the appendix below.  

Lou Reed in, Wolfgang Amadeus out; poems: it seems that the arts (in the broadest sense) could speak the language of what I was enduring. And there was photography.....

I would walk down to the shopping mall, and take photos of supermarket trolleys. They were always empty, and would be standing isolated in the middle of the empty car park that served the small number of customers visiting the supermarket. My photos captured the unrequested solitude and desolation of the spirit which was my constant companion. I sent some to a friend in London who I thought might get it; he was suitably amused. 

Winter melted imperceptibly into early springtime. The end of August was approaching, and it was time for me to leave. There were no great farewell parties, and I kind-of snuck out the back door. I remember nothing of the return trip to England, but my parents and a very good friend were awaiting me at Gatwick. I was pleased to see them.  

 

Appendix

The fall from grace into a pit full of slime could be framed within the Classical mythology of Apollo and Dionysus. Into a sometimes Apollo-defined Anglo-Buddhist world, Dionysus broke down the door and demanded his pound of flesh. And not without time!

Apollo - the voice of reason, of harmony and proportion. The day, the conscious mind, the bringer of light. The god of order. While Dionysus sways about in drunken chaos, or under the influence of psychedelic brews. Holy craziness, a darkly beautiful denizen of the underworld, the sanctity of feeling.

I wrote many poems and words to songs (which I failed to sing) during the latter part of my time in New Zealand. Here is one which sums it all up:

 

'I'd rather be a priest of Dionysus, than be a minister of God,

I'd rather hand a mangled vine around my neck, than wear a collar 'til I'm old.

I'd rather sing a rhythmic incantation, than whisper supplicatory prayers,

I'd rather dance throughout the night in the company of animals, than sit beside a god who isn't there.

 

I'd like to minister the rites of spring, and gulp the draught of life until I'm drunk.

I'd like to laugh and hiss and snarl and spit, not offer pleasantries throughout the day.

I'd like to be remembered as some weird demented soul, not some goodly-hearted man of god who always smiled.

I'd like to have a joke or two with demons, never talk to the brides of Christ.

 

I'd like to speak to long-departed souls, and listen to the tales they have to tell,

Not minister to dead coffins, as they sink into the cold and heavy ground.

I'd rather take a mountain cave as my retreat, with animals all painted on the walls,

Not eke out my existence in some bare and hollow church, where freedom's the price that's paid for silence.