Mr. Zahnd's Little Black Notebook

Mr. Zahnd’s Little Black Notebook

By: Jerry Benjamin Stout

I honestly really hate to tell this story. I just hesitate to reveal how terribly deceptive I used to be. It really is much better now, but, Christ, I really was awful. I just feel that after I tell this story you’ll be able to take a good look at my psyche. I do have a decent idea as to how I became this way. Truthfully, I really do think that it may be possible that I was ultimately deceiving myself.

It all began like this. I was always the type to want to separate myself from the crowd and try something new. As much as I hate to admit it, it was nothing more than a typical teenage rebellion phase. This attitude really came to fruition in my religious beliefs. I found Christianity to be extremely old fashioned. I mean, there was a church on every corner in my town. So instead of being a classic Christian, I thought it would be awfully trendy to be a Buddhist. I really did think I was very cool for awhile. Gosh, and to be brutally honest, I became a conceited prick. I just thought I was much more sophisticated than the devil worshippers, and even more trendy than the Christians.

But then there was this absurd chain of events, that I do regret becoming involved in ever since. Firstly, I noticed that my peers and the people I often spent time with, were actually quite anti-Christian. And not only that, after hallucinogens became all the rage, people started saying these god awful words like “consciousness” and “enlightenment” and all that. I really just became nauseous listening to everyone’s stoned rants about things that they, and myself, really didn’t understand.

And that wasn’t the only thing. There was also this girl involved. This will sound extremely awful, but I converted to Christianity to try and get on her good side. And good God, it really didn’t work out the way I thought it would. Apparently what attracted her to me in the first place were my Buddhist ideals. She was terribly manipulative though. I honestly thought at first that I would be able to help her lighten up a bit (she’s very, I don’t know, morose). Her intentions were to turn me into a Bible thumper. I failed miserably while she was very successful.

Well, to make a very long story short, I had a severe religious experience and went from a liberal Dharma bum to a conservative, church-going Christian in a short amount of time. I really did a number on myself, trying to convince myself that I really was this honest to God Christian. Firstly, I knew that deep down, I was just trying to get with this girl. But she knew that, so she distanced herself from me the more I approached her, but the more I went towards Jesus the more she approached me. It really was a chaotic limbo at times. And not only that, I also knew that my roots were in the East, they always had been. I buried myself under layers of vomit-worthy prayers and hours reading the Bible, but I knew I was a Buddhist. I really was an excellent actor though. I mean, Christ, the pastor called my testimony “riveting”. It really is just disturbing how far I went with this.

But all of that really is an entirely different story. I won’t get into it. The story I’m talking about happened in a much different setting. There was this other girl I knew, Caitlin, whom I was quite good friends with. I started working for her family doing this awful job. Anyway, I knew her mother quite well, and we seemed to get along. But, Christ, this woman had a terrible way of insulting you in such an innocent way you really couldn’t say anything about it. One time we visited this warehouse store where everything is sold in bulk and, trying to be a tad funny, I said being there made me feel “very small”. In this very non-chalante voice she says, “that’s because you are small, Jamie”. She would also always say that I was “adorably naïve”. The whole situation was just immature as hell.

Anyway, one day after I had finished cleaning up the house, she invited me to go to the Wednesday church service with the family. To be honest, the respectable thing to do would be to politely decline. But I had this awful charade in place of me being this very God-fearing Christian. I felt compelled to go just to validate how truly sincere I was.

“The service starts at 7:00 sharp. What do you think?” she asked.

“Sure, I’ll go,” I said.

“It really is a wonderful church. And tonight they are having this spectacular guest speaker, some man from Texas.”

“Sounds great,” I said.

Some time passed that was quite uneventful. Caitlin’s mom, Susan, was always listening to this music that sounded as if it came straight from the weather channel. It was “smooth jazz”, and to be terribly honest, it was just far too smooth for my taste. I walked in the other room.

“What are you up to, Cate?” I asked.

She was sitting at the computer, trying to watch some video.

“Oh, not much. I’m trying to watch this music video just to listen to this guys pig squeals,” she said.

“Gosh, not this stuff again,” I said. It was this very dark heavy metal music. Also, I guess I should explain; I really tried to clean up my mouth, especially the blasphemy. It was surely a process, but I appeared very respectable saying “gosh” instead of “God”.

“So are you coming to church tonight?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, I’ll be coming,” I replied.

“It’ll be fun,” she said, paying attention to her video again.

I then got the urge to smoke a good cigarette. As much as it is un-Christian to smoke cigarettes, I really never could kick the habit. And I really didn’t want Susan to know I smoked, she thought it was just the nastiest habit. I went outside and walked some distance down the block and lit up a cigarette. Truthfully, I was feeling somewhat anxious about this entire situation. It wasn’t really the fear of being thought of as a fraud; I knew enough Bible verses and had a good spiritual vocabulary, so I really did sound like I knew what I was talking about. But honestly, I often feared that I’d stumble across something that might actually change my mind, and I would have to admit to myself that I had been wrong all along. I took a drag of my cigarette, staring off into space.

I eventually finished it off and flicked it into the street. I headed back to the house, as much as I dreaded it. Christ, Susan was outside, gardening or something.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Oh I just wanted to go for a short walk, really,” I said.

God, that probably sounded fishy. The truth was far too embarrassing though.

“Well, that’s nice. We’re going to be leaving soon, so why don’t you go in the house and let everyone know.”

“Sure,” I said.

I went inside and Caitlin and her sister were sitting around. Caitlin was watching television and her sister, Stephanie, was reading those absurd vampire novels. That probably sounds very judgmental; I really haven’t ever read them at all. But one time I skimmed through one and the vampires were discussing what type of blood they would have for breakfast, either O positive or AB or something. I really was at a loss for words, and decided never to read those books.

“Hey, your mom said we’re leaving in a minute,” I said.

No one said anything. I stood in the doorway for a moment, spacing off. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this entire escapade. I went outside to see Susan already in the car, so I hopped in the passenger seat

“This really is going to be fun,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” I said. “So why did you choose a church out of town? There really wasn’t a church in Burlington you felt you could attend?”

“Well, I’m sure there would be, if we didn’t have any other choice,” she said. “But this church is very modern and really seems to work just fine.”

“I see,” I said and looked out the window. Pretty soon I saw Caitlin and her sister walk out of the house. They were dressed quite nicely, while I sure wasn’t. They hopped into the car as well.

“Everyone ready to go?” Susan asked everyone.

“Sure,” said Caitlin.

I really wasn’t in the mood to be chatting with anyone, really. Like I already said, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the entire thing. There was this one time when I went with their family to some Bible study. We went to this family’s house who were very wealthy and they kept trying to talk to me about the rule of 7 or 21 or something like that. They said I had to put so much money in the bank for so many years so I could be a millionaire.

As we were making our way out of town, I looked at the sign for Arby’s and, strangely enough, a word appeared on the sign that looked like it said “fuck”. I thought it was pretty funny, so I pointed it out to Susan.

“Check that sign out,” I said and laughed a little.

“I really didn’t think you would notice that,” she said and laughed a little bit too.

“Why?” I said.

“Oh, no reason,” she said. “You’re just a little naïve for your age.”

See, I told you she would say that all the time. I really couldn’t think of something to say back to her, so I decided to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the drive. I didn’t say a word up until Caitlin started in on me. I really wish she wouldn’t have brought up this whole charade.

“Hey mom, did you know Jamie has a girlfriend now?” Caitlin said.

“Really? That’s surprising; who is it?” she said turning to me.

God, I really wish Cate wouldn’t have brought up all of this.

“Well she’s not exactly my girlfriend,” I said. “She’s a very sincere Christian and really doesn’t find dating behavior acceptable. The youth leader allows her to hold hands and things like that, but nothing else.”

“Wow, you two will be virgins until you’re in your nineties!” she said.

“Well, she’s not my girlfriend at all, really. She said she wants to hang out with me more often to see if we would be a good match and all that stuff.”

“…..really?” Susan said.

I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to say. I really did want to defend myself, and try to explain that this girl wasn’t my girlfriend at all. I didn’t know how to explain it, though. The thing that really was very frustrating about all of this was that she was laughing during the entire conversation, as if something was terribly funny about all of it.

I can’t remember for the life of me if we talked about anything else on the way up there. I vaguely remember Susan asking me all about the time when I was a Buddhist, and about the devil, and all sorts of things like that. I do remember her asking several times about what “possessed me” to become a Buddhist. I didn’t give her any answer at all, I just tried to explain that I was very mistaken. I also remember Stephanie asking me about reincarnation, and why people turn into kangaroos and centipedes after they die. I wasn’t in the mood to try and explain any of this; I didn’t want to talk about Tibet, or meditating, or all those silly words like “nirvana” and “emptiness”. I was just very frustrated.

So after awhile we arrived in Mount Pleasant where the church is located. After driving through the town for maybe several miles or so we pulled into this big parking lot with a building that looked like an abandoned supermarket or something. Every time I go to church I always get this sinking feeling in my stomach. It really is very hard to describe; I just get the sensation that I’m terribly wrong about everything, and I feel very unsure about what I believe in. It’s very strange, but I always feel much more spiritual when I’m all by myself walking through the park at night or something like that. Although I have heard it is very bad karma to wander around aimlessly at night. Go figure.

So we pile out of the car and walk into the church. The church was very modern, like Susan said. In the front room there was a recreation room for the kids. It had air hockey, a basketball hoop, a concession stand, and all sorts of other things. I remember that a lot of the kids there looked extremely friendly, and that somehow bothered me. I really have no explanation at all for that, it all just seemed so unnatural.

While we were in the front room, Stephanie got some rotten cheese pizza to eat or something. We didn’t spend much time in that room though. As soon as she finished her pizza we all headed down the hallway and entered what I think was the “worship hall”. There were all sorts of chairs and a stage in the front of the room where everyone was dressed up and singing songs. Apparently we were late because they had already started. We quickly found some seats in the back of the room and parked ourselves.

There really isn’t much to talk about regarding this part of the story. I just remember everybody singing along to the words on the projector and clapping hands and all of that stuff. I wasn’t in the greatest mood, but I wasn’t terribly upset either. I felt very balanced, to be honest, but still not exactly happy. I remember that after awhile Susan and Caitlin both stood up and started clapping along. They had a strange look on their face when they were clapping too, like it was a requirement or something. Stephanie really wasn’t paying any attention at all, she just sat there, either on her phone, or writing something down, or twirling her hair, or who knows what.

Then I remember this guy playing guitar. He wasn’t a bad musician, not at all actually. But his lyrics were very strange. He claimed that all his songs were based on true stories. One song he played was about a man he saw on the subway. The man was wearing a white robe and holding prayer beads. The chorus to his song was mostly, “What’s your story, what’s your story? Have you heard of our messiah?” I remember the singer talking about how the man on the subway thought he was the messiah, and he was very wrong about everything.

Then after the singer was done, the guest speaker Susan was telling me about got on the stage and started talking. His name was Brain Zahnd. He seemed to be a very educated speaker and had a good grasp as to what he was talking about. I remember him talking most distinctly about the reasons why things happen. He said there were four reasons; God, the devil, our decisions, and chance. He said it is a very good idea to be able to determine why certain things are happening, and not to blame silly things like lottery tickets and some explosions on God. I also remember him telling everyone that he liked the band Led Zeppelin, and that he used to have a poster on the wall of the band. Then he told us that once he became a Christian he took down that poster and put up a poster that said “Jesus cures boredom”.

But none of this is what I wanted to tell you about. The whole reason I wanted to tell this story is to explain what happened after the service was over. After the service ended is when I became a deceptive jerk like I was trying to explain when I started the story. Once the service was over I walked with Susan into the other room to get a drink and I see the guest speaker just kind of standing around. I don’t know what “possessed me” to go and talk to him, but I really felt that I should. I felt that maybe he could teach me something, or maybe I could even teach him something. This is where everything becomes very, very terrible. I walked up to him casually.

“Excuse me, sir?” I said.

“Oh, hi there!” he said.

“I just wanted to say you did an excellent job today. I learned a lot actually.”

“Well, hey, that’s great to hear. Do you have any questions about anything?”

“Yeah, actually, I kind of do,” I said. It really wasn’t that I had questions, to be honest. But I just needed some kind of way to bring up what I wanted to talk about.

“Alright, sure. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have,” Mr. Zahnd said.

“Well, I remember that when you were talking, you mentioned something about our ability to imagine what God is truly like being limited by our mind’s ability to comprehend it. And I was going to say I thought of a good analogy for that.”

“Oh, definitely, yeah, let’s hear it.”

“Well, I like to think of it like a picture of the sun on T.V. The sun can only be as bright as the television screen, but if you were to look at the sun outside it would be too bright to even look right at it, like how God is too amazing to comprehend.”

“Well, hey, that is pretty good,” he said and paused. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask about?”

“There was also that time you were talking about how you thought you may be the only conscious being in the entire universe; that whole solipsism ideal?”

“Oh sure,” he said. “I had a lot of very interesting questions when I was younger. Although I feel I have the answers to a lot of them, I’m sure I don’t have all the answers.” He said that last bit with a laugh.

“I see,” I said. This is where I just had to bring up what was on my mind. “Well, I was wondering what you think about Buddhism?” I told you it was pretty bad.

“Well, Buddhism is a pretty diverse religion, and some things fit well with Christianity, while others certainly don’t.”

I did want to keep talking about Buddhism, but I felt I needed to cover my tracks a little bit. So I thought of an ingenius way to keep my intentions hidden.

“Well, you see, Mr. Zahnd. Buddhism where I live is becoming pretty popular. All the kids I know are very into hallucinogenic drugs, and they love to talk about all this far out stuff. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do about everything. I’ve tried to give them my testimony and bring them to church, but I’m having a lot of problems.”

“Ah, I see. I’ve noticed this somewhat myself also. Like I said, there are some things that Buddhism and Christianity share in common, so maybe you could use some of those concepts as a starting point of some kind.”

“That does sound like a pretty good idea,” I said. “But I have given them my testimony and everything, and have tried to convince them. But they feel that Christianity is too old fashioned and Buddhism is very trendy.”

“Well sure, that’s pretty typical these days. Some forms of Buddhism are somewhat harmless, but when you get into the more Tibetan practices it can get pretty demonic. But remember that if you’ve told them what you can, you’ve planted a seed and that is all you can do. It is ultimately God’s job to save who He can, so I would merely let it drop unless they ask you about it. And also do what you can to set a good example of what a Christian should be. That way they may learn that there really is something in it for them.”

“Yeah that does sound like a good idea. But I am really curious, what do you yourself believe about Buddhism personally?”

“Hmmm, I do find many of their concepts interesting for speculation. But I honestly feel that the religion as a whole is relatively archaic in most parts of the world and isn’t as pragmatic as many people believe it to be. What we know of as Buddhism in the West isn’t exactly what Buddhism is in the East.”

“Sure,” I said and laughed. “I’m sure Richard Gere isn’t exactly practicing pure Buddhism.”

He laughed too. “Oh yeah, I doubt that as well.”

“Well what’s your opinion on Western Buddhism? Do you find it to be more practical than Eastern Buddhism?”

“I think of it like this. If you understand that Buddhism is purely a human creation, in that Siddhartha Gotama was a mere human and was not infallible, and you know that his teachings are open to interpretation, and also that some may be true and useful and others quite wrong, then I don’t imagine that it is extremely dangerous.”

“What about meditation?” I said.

“That depends quite largely on what forms of meditation you are practicing, how often, what you meditate on, and all sorts of things like that.”

“I see.”

I remember the conversation lasted for quite some time. I remember seeing Susan out of the corner of my eye glancing over at me while sipping on some coffee or something. I had a feeling that she probably wanted to leave, so I started motioning like I was going to take off.

“Well, it was interesting to hear your opinion on everything,” I said. “But I really would like to know whether or not you would recommend practicing Buddhism or not.”

He hesitated for a second, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black notebook.

“I recently attended the Deer Park where the Buddha gave his last sermon,” he said.

“You mean his first seromon?”

“Yeah that may be the one. But while I was there I jotted down some thoughts into this notebook.”

He looked through the notebook with a very curious expression on his face. He looked slightly anxious, maybe even frustrated as he flipped through the pages. I was hoping he was going to say something or read me what was in the notebook, but he didn’t. He acted very suspicious about what was in this notebook, as if he didn’t want me to know what was written in it. It was all rather odd. He read something out of the notebook to himself, and opened his eyes widely for a moment and said “hm!” and quickly put away the notebook.

“Well, it was nice talking to you, but I think I need to go,” I said.

“Sure. It’s always good to see a young kid with some enthusiasm for God,” he said.

“Alright, well, take care.”

“You too,” he said and walked off.

After a few moments Susan walked over towards me.

“Wow, you and the Pastor really hit it off, didn’t you?” she said. “Nobody else even got a chance to talk to him since you were hogging him like that.”

“Oh yeah, I just had a few questions,” I said.

“What did you ask him?” she asked.

“Oh nothing really. I just had a few questions about Jesus and all that.”

I remember driving home that night. No one really talked about anything at all the entire drive. But I do remember seeing the Arby’s sign again. Apparently they had fixed the lights, it said “food” not “fuck”.