Living With A Ghost

It's really not as bad as you would imagine. So far the ghost has not bothered me too much and hasn't played any sort of pranks on me, so we have been living together since Thursday in harmony. I can tell you this personally because I have been living with a ghost since September 6th at around 9:30 AM.
The story goes as follows: The monastery is divided into four main buildings. The first building contains the dining hall, kitchen and classrooms where no one sleeps. The second building is the dorm style building for the little monks. The third building is a dorm for the older monks. The fourth building has two floors: the bottoms floor is there the pujas take place and where the monks do all their praying and chanting and is fabulously decorated and has a huge gold statue of Buddha at the front. On the second floor there are 4 bedrooms, one of which I live in. The second bedroom is vacant at the moment because the monk who usually lives there is off in Hong Kong (he is apparently quite popular because he meditated in caves for 6 years straight, so is invited to all sorts of places.) The third bedroom houses the "Captain"as he is referred to by the rest of the younger monks. He is generally in charge of things as far as I can tell. The fourth bedroom, a rather large bedroom, houses (actually housed) two old Tibetan women and an old man. One of the old Tibetan women is the Rinpoche's aunt. The old man and the other old Tibetan woman are (were, actually) married. The old man was the founder of the monastery. The old man's wife frequently brings me bits of fruit such as apples and bananas.

The old man, he is a lama (teacher), had been very sick for about 5 months. I had never spoken to him and hardly ever saw him either since he was bed ridden, although he was my nextdoor neighbor. Frequently thoughout the day and night I heard him coughing and hacking like he was about to throw up his innards... Needless to say, it did not sound good. Over the last month doctors have been coming up the the monastery every now and then to examine the old man. About 6 months ago he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the doctors told him there was nothing to be done for him. So the Tibetan women and the monks just took care of him to the bset of their abilities, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. He was around 90 years old.

It was after class on Thursday morning. I was sitting on my bed reading The Brother's Karamazov, strangely enough, I had just passed the part where the Elder Zosima has died. Well, I felt that something was strange. There was more commotion out in the hallway than usual. I heard the voice of the Tibetan teacher, who I tutor, and noted that it was strange since he never comes up to the second floor of that building. Well, I continued to read, keeping an ear open to the commotion outside. I had a strange premonition that the old man may have expired. Suddenly the old Tibetan woman (the man's wife) barged in my room and busied herself tieing prayer wheels onto my windows. I was a bit confused, but this occarance also fueled my belief that the man may have died. I thought, maybe Tibetans tie prayer wheels to the windows just incase the spirits want to go out the window, maybe so that they can have one more spin of the prayer wheel. I continued reading, and soon it was time for tutoring, so I went down to the dining hall where the sessions take place.

My two private tutors for my 11:00 session were a bit late, which was strange, since they are never late. I of course, did not mind. We sat down, and they apologized profusely for not having done their homework assignments I had given them for "something has happened." I asked what, and they said that the old man had died a few hours earlier, around 9:30 am. I questioned them about what had happened. The man told them they day before that he would be dying the next day. They told me he usually eats, but that that day he did not want to touch any food. Sopa, one of the monks I tutor, was in the room when he died. He said that he started to breathe very fast, then he just stopped breathing. Well, so the old man had truely died. I felt very sad for a while, but then thought about his life. Although I had never met him because of his sickness, he, I think, had a very good life. He was 90 years old on the day of his death, and he has done many good things in his life, one being the founding of the monastery that we all live in.

Later that day I was roaming around the monastery grounds and found a bunch of my students kneading together a paste of flour, butter, sugar, honey, curd, and milk. I asked what that was for, and they said it was food for the dead man. They told me that his ghost will be living at the monastery for 7 more days. This is because for 7 days after his death, he does not realize he is dead. He still will try to talk to everyone, eat regular food, and go about his usual routine. Well, after 7 days he will realize he is dead because no one is talking to him and no one can see him, then he will depart into the afterlife, whereever that may be. So, they told me, the ghost will be around for a week, and he will leave next Thursday. The food they were making for him was some sort of food that ghosts can eat: only white things and certain ingredients that I suppose ghosts are partial to. The monks making the ghost food asked me if I believed in ghosts, and I said no not particularly. They wanted to know if I had seen one before, I told them no, not that I can remember. I asked them if they believed in ghosts, and they all vehemently said yes! Of course!

So, I went up to my room to ponder for a while. Since the monsoons rains only seem to be getting heavier, they have cut my afternoon hikes short due to mud and slipperiness. This, gave me a good two hours to bounce some ideas around in my head. Well, I was wondering: if you believe in something, does it therefore exist? If you believe in something, at least it exists in your own world, I reasoned. So if you believe in something, then it must exist in your own world. Well, I am currently living in the world of the monks, so I reasoned that since they all believed in ghosts then the ghosts must exist in their world. And, also, since about 60 monks living at the monastery strongly believe in the idea that ghosts exists, then I reasoned it must cancel out my skepticism about the existence of ghosts. Therefore, the ghost does exist. So now I have surrendered to the idea that the man's ghost is roaming around the monastery for seven days.

Well, as I have said so far the ghost has not bothered me. The first night the ghost was out and about, I definitely heard some strange noises while I was laying in bed. I am pretty sure he is a very nice ghost anyways, so if he visits I suppose he will be good company. So that is the story of how I have come to live with a ghost. If anything noteworthy happens during the time from now until next Thurday, I will be sure to write it down under: ghost patrol.