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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Bored with Disneyland
>> Kaneohe
Both Rosalita Resurreccion and her employer/friend Lily Ah Sun were extremely protective of Rosalita's 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth. In the world today, you had to especially watchful. Or maybe it was just the instant global reach of cable TV, but every day it seemed as if a child somewhere was being abducted by some creep. That was not going to happen to Elizabeth.
Coming to a stranger's home to prepare lunch for the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa, both women had their protectress antennae up. Their host, Kamasami Khan, was a big spooky guy, but by virtue of centuries of breeding and training used his strength to defend and protect those who were smaller and weaker. And the lama's older brother Joe Kharma, while he was shallow as a saucer, he and the lama weren't that far apart, really. Neither had a mean bone in his body.
So after lunch, when Joe invited Elizabeth to try his Disneyland virtual reality scenario while Lily and Rosalita cleaned up in the kitchen, off they went downstairs, and her mother and Aunty Lily felt fine about it.
The young lama, Lily's husband Quinn and Khan were beginning to discuss how they would make the switch with the lama's stand-in before the meeting with Hawaii's religious leaders this afternoon when Joe called, "Hey, can you guys come down here. Um, I think I Buddha'd the kid.
Rosalita and Lily flew down the stairs, Quinn, Khan, the lama and his eternal consort Bodhicita Guzman right behind, and hurried into Joe's computer lab, monitors, wires and servers everywhere.
Rosalita gasped when she saw her daughter, covered her mouth with her hands.
"What happened?" Lily asked. "What did you do to her?"
"She got bored with Disneyland," Joe said, shrugged, nodded to a monitor that showed an image of Lama Jey meditating in a celestial setting, layer after eternal layer of brilliant light, clear and of many colors.
Elizabeth, wearing goggles and earphones, sat cross-legged and erect, lips moving, whispering "om mani padme hum," her left hand cupped gently just below the navel with thumb slightly raised, the right bent gracefully down at the wrist, the palm slightly cupped, facing out.
"It worked, Joe," the lama whispered. Then to the others, "We've been working on an accelerated path to enlightenment virtual-reality scenario.
"This is quite remarkable. She's making the gesture of supreme accomplishment and meditation. The right hand symbolizes bestowal of supreme accomplishment. The left symbolizes meditation. Together they stand for the Buddha's power to bestow supreme and general accomplishment on people, while meditating on nothingness. Elizabeth has attained enlightenment.
It was believed to be the fist time anyone had ever achieved their Buddhahood while wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and matching shorts.
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com