The Next Buddha

By J E Murphy

An Dong, a peasant in French Indochina, has dreams of a life he has lived before, but the dreams are of a place and a time that no one could possibly have seen--a place in the future history of a different country. In contrast to his current life of degradation and slavery, his future life is one of freedom and happiness, at least at first. He becomes convinced that his dreams are telling him that he must take action in his current life in order to keep safe that world of the future, but what it is he is supposed to do is not clear.

If such things as reincarnation and karma are real, what is their nature? What are the laws that govern them? Are they punishments for lives poorly lived, or are they choices we make?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J E Murphy
• Release date: Mar 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458045881

J E Murphy

J E Murphy, author, poet, philosopher, credologist, student of natural history, anthropology, sociology, genetics, and politics. Novels include A VIEW FROM A HEIGHT, THE GOD VIRUS, and THE NEXT BUDDHA.A credologist is a person who studies belief systems. I cannot say I have studied all belief systems, because I am sure there are some I have never heard of, but I have studied most of them. What I can say I have learned from this is that the world is a mystery and nobody knows enough about it to even head off in the direction of an answer. Yet still we demand that everyone else stop and look at our own broken compass.I have been around the world and have seen how people live and worship in many different countries. I have been to Tibet, China, Nepal, India, half of the countries in Europe, a few in Africa, the Solomon Islands, the Galapagos Islands and parts of South and Central America. What I have learned from these travels is that, at heart, we are all the same; we are all cousins; we all want the same things out of life. As children, our souls are as free as angels, but we grow into the molds that our cultures have shaped for us.I have always enjoyed most the books that expanded my horizons and showed me new ways to look at the world, a way to discard a broken compass, a way to break the mold of culture and belief. I hope that someday, people will say my books did that for them.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – A life in the future.

Some people believe they have lived before, and have memories of their previous lives; but I have a memory of a life I have not yet lived—a life in the future.

Many years ago, as Ha Linh and I were still getting to know each other, we sat on the dock of the burned-down rubber plantation and dangled our feet in the river. This was after the French had abandoned the property to the Japanese. So, with our old masters gone, and our new masters not yet having found us, we allowed ourselves to rest if we were tired.

I asked Ha Linh, Do you believe in reincarnation?

Why not? she said. My father used to say, ‘to live twice is no more remarkable than to live once’. I have heard people talk of earlier lives.

Have you ever heard any one talk of a life after this one?

You mean like the Christian heaven that your mother believes in?

No, no. I mean an incarnation that has not yet happened.

How could someone speak of something that has not happened?

I have memories of a life like that, I said. I remember a life where I will see things and know things that I cannot know now. In my memories, I see things that I have never seen—cities where I have never been. All of this has yet to happen.

An Dong, do you claim to have the gift of future sight? Tell me if we will get married some day. She covered her mouth and giggled.

No, it is not like making a prediction. It is a memory—just like how I can remember finding you in the river. I can remember things about yesterday or this morning, but I cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. I can even remember being born. I remember waiting outside in a tree while Phuong became pregnant.

Perhaps that is not so unbelievable, even though I have never heard anyone speak of it before. But, future memories—that is very strange. Tell me, if you had never been down this river before, she waved at the muddy swirling river that flowed between the dock and the dense jungle on the other bank, how could you know what is around the bend?

That is it. I came back up the river and chose to live this life upstream from that one. I will go down the river again, but this time I will know the snags and rapids and deep channels.

You chose this life?

Yes.

You could have done better.

I chose it for a reason, and so did you, and so did Phuong.

I think I would have to have a very good reason to choose this life—a life of constant war—where so many people have died—where my parents—my brother . . . Her voice left her and she was not able to finish.

I think we did choose it for a very good reason.

What is that reason? Because I need a reason. Sometimes I think I will throw myself back in the river. So give me the reason why I am here.

I do not know yet. Something big is going to happen in this life.

Yes, a war!

No, something that most people will never know about—something that will change the life that we will live in the future.

So, we came back to live this life so that we can change that other life. But if we can just choose which life we live, then why don’t we just choose a different life in the future? Especially if it is so bad that you want to change it.

Because the thing that is so bad does not happen during our next lifetime. It happens right after, and it is something that must be stopped. Something can happen in this life that can stop it—something that will change everything.

Something that can change.

Yes.

But might not change.

Yes. We are here to make the change happen.

What is it?

I don’t know.

But if it doesn’t happen, the result is worse than war and murder and starvation and slavery?

Yes.

But you don’t know what the change is or what either one of the results may be.

No.

How could I not believe such a tale?

I know how it sounds. But the memories are very real. It is just that they are in small pieces, like wooden planks that have yet to be assembled into a house. I can see that some pieces will make a door, and some are for a fireplace, but I cannot yet see how the whole house will look.

Do you know how to write?

Yes—in French. My father’s wife taught me.

Phuong?

No, the French woman whose father owned this plantation.

Oh. Well, then you should write down what you remember so that you can begin to fit the pieces together.

That is a good idea. But there is a problem with my memory.

Besides it being backwards, you mean?

Yes. Most of my memories come back to me first in my dreams, but there is one dream that is like a fire that burns up all the others. I may begin to remember something, but then the really bad memory always comes back, and that is when I wake up.

Tell me your bad dream. Then perhaps it will lose its power and you can begin to remember the other things and write them down.

It comes at the very end of my life. I discover some very bad things—things that make me sick—that turn me into a raging beast. Then I am being murdered. I am being held down on top of a desk by very large men. Another man is about to slice my throat. He says he will tell me a secret if I tell him why I want to know it. I tell him I have a plan. He laughs at my foolishness. He tells me the secret and then he kills me. During all this, I keep telling myself that it is just a dream, but part of me says it is not a dream—it is real. I wake up with my heart trying to come out of my chest, and I am sweating like it is the hottest night.

What is the secret?

I don’t know.

What is the plan?

I don’t know, but I hope we are following it now.

***

Chapter 2 – A new life begins

My father raped my mother. That is how my body was conceived and how I came into this life. I watched my father and his wife before the event even happened. However, my mother was not in the tableau that I was currently surveying from my aerial viewpoint. My father, Remi, was talking to his wife, Collette. My mother was in the mansion where Remi and Collette lived. I was hanging about invisibly among the branches of the star-apple tree that grew over their courtyard.

But, Collette, you know I love you, Remi was saying. Why do you not let me show you how much?

Remi, please do not be so tiresome. She propped her feet up on the garden table in an immodest way. I have no passion for you today. I need a handsome man. If you truly loved me, you would go and bring me one of the servants. Tell Thanh to come to me. He is much better in bed than you.

Collette, you are my wife! You have to do what I say. You will make love to me.

You forget whose papa owns this plantation, she laughed. How will you afford your prostitutes without a job?

He walked around behind her and put his fingers around her neck. Tell me why I should let a bitch like you live? His face was contorted with rage.

She took a drinking glass from the table and tossed the contents over her shoulder into his face. He jerked his hands up to wipe it out of his eyes.

Because you are not a man, she laughed. You cannot do anything that a real man can do. Without me and Papa, you would have to dig holes for rubber trees to make a living. Go and have sex with yourself. You are the only one who cannot tell you no.

He turned around angrily and went into the house. That is when he found my mother and raped her.

I could hear the commotion coming from inside the house, but my future mother did not cry for help; it would have done no good.

Collette, too, could hear the noise—the little cries, the pleading, the slap, the whimpering, and then, the sobbing. She ignored all of this and called for Thanh to bring her another drink and a towel.

When Thanh came, his eyes stayed on the ground as if ashamed that he had done nothing to help. But there was nothing to be done. He knew that he was lucky that Remi had not already murdered him for being his wife’s lover. He knew that however much he hated Collette, she was the only thing that stood between him and death. He knew that when that day came that he had somehow lost Collette’s protection, or Remi, in one of his rages, found him alone, he would be killed. He also knew that if this were to happen, the government would do nothing. He would be buried among the rubber trees like the other workers who had been murdered here.

I also knew this to be true. Being yet unborn I had lots of time with which to do nothing but observe. One day, a supervisor came to the house and asked for Remi, who came to the back porch with a drink in his hand.

What is it this time? my father asked the man in French. I could understand this, even though I had not yet been instructed in the language. The supervisor had more trouble.

It is four of the clock, Master, he replied in broken French.

No. It is time for you ignorant bastards to learn a civilized language.

What, Master?

Collette, Remi shouted. Come translate for this slant-eyed dinky-dau bastard.

Collette came from around the house where she had been directing Thanh in her flower garden. She spoke to the supervisor in his own language.

He says the workers have sat down under the trees and will not work, she explained to Remi.

Tell them to get back to work.

He told them that already, Remi. Do you think he came to the house just to ask you if he should tell them to get back to work?

Well, what does he want then?

He says he threatened them, just like always, but this time there are too many refusing to work. He is afraid they will turn on him. He wants you to come with your gun.

Remi put his hands on the gun that he kept at his hip. Tell him if I pull this gun I will use it on him first.

He said they just want some decent food and also to get paid. He thinks they will go back to work then.

No. We can’t let them think they have power over us. Tell him to get the other supervisors to use their machetes; fertilize the trees. It is no effort to get more workers.

But, Master never pays, The man said in French, bowing his head as he spoke. Maybe pay one time—no problem.

Even with his head bowed, he saw Remi drunkenly unbuckling his holster. He jerked his head up, eyes wide, and turned and ran off.

I followed him like a balloon on a string.

The supervisor ran at the peasants, who were sitting peacefully on the ground. He began waving his machete over his head, which gave the peasants plenty of indication of what was about to occur. They tried to scramble out of his way, but they were emaciated and unable to move quickly. He hacked into five people, men and women indiscriminately, before the rest scattered in terror. Two died on the spot; two others were mortally wounded, but one could have been saved.

The other supervisors, who had been standing around nervously watching the peasants while they waited for orders, had also been taken off guard by the supervisor’s attack. Now that the peasants were on the run, they rushed up to get their licks in against them. A couple of them ran to catch up to the fleeing peasants and managed to chop down a few more without much effort. Two other supervisors began to hack into the peasants who had already fallen to the first onslaught. One of the peasants who had suffered from the first attack had not actually been hit by a machete, but seemed to have a dislocated knee from a kick or from being trampled. He was crawling away from the slaughter as fast as his toothpick arms would pull him. One of the supervisors walked up and stood in front of him, blocking his way. The man looked up at the supervisor and grasped his blood-spattered legs in his hands.

Master, he said in Vietnamese, I will work very hard. I promise.

Your leg is broken, the supervisor said with a grin.

It will get better. I have a wife. She will work for both of us.

Is she pretty?

No. She will work very hard.

What is her name? Where is her village? I will send for her.

The peasant told the supervisor what he wanted to know.

You are a worthless bag of stinking shit to tell a man like me how to find his wife. You started this rebellion against the big master, didn’t you?

No, no! I just wanted some food. No rebellion! No rebellion! I am a good worker. I work very hard. I tend the trees. I am best one at tending trees. No worker is good as me. Please!

Do you love the Master’s trees then?

Yes. Very much—so tall and slender—very beautiful, like young ladies.

Which one do you love the best?

The peasant seemed startled by the question. I love them all. I tend them all.

Do not be difficult, the supervisor said, squatting down beside the peasant’s head. Show me your favorite young lady.

The peasant looked around and finally pointed at one of the trees in a row of identical trees in this vast orchard of identical trees. That one gives very good sap. It always responds very well.

Good. Show me how strong you are. Go to the tree. I want to see how good a worker you are.

The peasant looked at him sadly, but changed directions and began to crawl toward the tree he had selected. He collapsed several times from exhaustion, and even his face began to droop toward the ground as if he had not even enough energy left to work those small muscles. His knee had begun to swell, and I am sure it caused him much pain as he dragged his leg bouncing along the uneven ground, but he made no complaint about it. Inside his brain was that one small spark of hope that a miracle could still happen and he would be allowed to live.

After an eternity of crawling, during which the supervisor had several times kicked him back into consciousness, he made it to the base of the tree.

Now stand up by your young lady, the supervisor said.

The peasant managed to pull himself up the side of the tree.

Now give your young lady a hug.

The peasant’s expression was one of knowing and resignation as he reached his arms around the tree. He had seen this before, but now he was the star of the performance.

The supervisor quickly tied the peasant’s wrists together. Then he turned and shouted at the other peasants who cowered in their useless huts.

This man has confessed to being the leader of the rebellion against the Masters. You will see what happens to people who lead rebellions.

And see they did, but they could do nothing; if the masters and supervisors wanted them dead then that is what would happen.

Before the peasant died, which was not immediately, the supervisor leaned in to speak into the hole where the peasant’s ear had once been. You are the lucky one; you got to pick your favorite tree to fertilize.

But the peasant was not lonely in his agony. Other spirits had materialized out of the orchard to help the dead make their passage, and now one hovered next to this dying mortal and whispered to him. By the rolling of his head and eyes, I could tell he saw and heard the spirit as well as I did. Though to others his movements must have appeared as merely random. The spirit leaned in to him and said, To be free, you must let go.

At this, the peasant’s body slumped, a silvery shadow left it to join the waiting spirit, and they vanished like mist into the shadows.

Later, the supervisors rounded up the remaining peasants and made them drag the bodies away to various parts of the orchard and bury them under the cathedral-like rubber tree canopy.

Thanh also would be fertilizer one day, and the masters never let him forget it. All of the workers on all the French rubber plantations of Cochinchina were fertilizer. Supposedly, they were hired workers and servants, but in reality, once they came onto the plantations, they were slaves. They were cheated out of their pay, were not allowed to leave, were beaten mercilessly, made to work from sunrise to sundown with no breaks, and given very poor rations. The women were raped incessantly by the masters, and any of them could be killed for little or no reason without repercussion. The police were French, and always supported the plantation owners’ side of things. The peasants had no recourse.

The people who called themselves ‘master’ on these plantations were primarily the French owners; although the foremen, the supervisors, who were occasionally Vietnamese like the workers themselves, insisted the peasants call them ‘master’ as well.

The servants who worked in the big master’s house, the mansion where the owner or plantation manager lived, had life much better than the field hands, although they suffered plenty in their own way. They were isolated from each other, were on call twenty-four hours a day to do every conceivable task at the least whim of the masters, and of course were always in danger of being murdered for the most minor infraction.

This was the life that my future mother had chosen, as had I. Perhaps it seems a bad choice, but we both had chosen it for good reasons. Phuong, my mother-to-be, had been repeatedly brutalized in her previous life as she was now being brutalized in this one. However, towards the end of her life, she had learned to be fearless. In this life, she was going to take the brutality that was given to her, and fearlessly turn it into something good—something that she could love. That something was to be me. In addition, she had chosen to be part of my larger plan. She did not consciously know these things in her present life as Phuong, but she knew it on a higher level from her life as Jie-ling.

The memories of a previous life are not easy to carry into the next. The unborn brain is not too difficult to program with memories, but once the child is born, the brain is flooded with new and much more relevant information. The brain’s first loyalty is to the body, and the body wants to live. The brain becomes busy learning how to survive in the new life, and old irrelevant memories are soon lost.

So, while inhabiting the developing child, I spent my time waiting to be born by repeating over and over the knowledge that the new brain would need to accomplish the plan, knowing that forgetfulness was the norm, and that once born I might only be able to vaguely recognize the souls around which my plan centered.

Remembrance would be especially difficult in this new life that my mother and I had chosen, because for a Vietnamese laborer on a French rubber plantation in Southeast Asia, survival was a continuous effort and, if one thought too much about it, barely worth it.

***

Chapter 3 -- I Am Born Again

On the day before I was born, Phuong accidently blocked Remi’s path and he pushed her down the stairs. In this late stage of Phuong’s pregnancy, I had been spending all of my time inside my new body, but the blow when she hit the floor below her knocked me out of my body, and I found myself hovering inside the mansion.

Thanh had felt the house shudder and ran to see Phuong lying at the foot of the stairs. He hurried to help her, and was rewarded with Remi’s curses and threats. He was taking his gun from its holster when Collette came in and stopped him.

Not in the house, Remi! she shouted at him. These curtains are just off the boat. Besides, it is not as easy to get good house servants as it is to get field hands. What are you thinking?

Remi put his gun back in its holster and stomped off.

Collette walked over to where Thanh was trying to lift Phuong off the floor. She stood looking down at her as if pondering at what level of injury was it better to try to save a house servant or put it out of its misery.

Phuong looked first at Collette and then at Thanh. I think I am alright, she said. Nothing feels broken. Perhaps we should get back to work.

Thanh began to help Phuong to her feet.

Collette screamed. She is bleeding. Get her off of my rug.

Phuong’s eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp, but Thanh caught her before she hit the floor again. He picked her up and began to climb the stairs with her, because Phuong’s bedroom was in the attic.

No, no! Collette said. I will have to burn the mattress if she bleeds on it. Take her to the porch.

Thanh changed directions and started towards the front door."

Not the front door, you idiot. What if we have visitors? Besides, Remi will probably just shoot her if he sees her on the front porch. Take her to the back porch; it is already filthy.

Phuong woke up as Thanh carried her through the house. She watched Collette scurrying ahead of them, rolling rugs out of the way, her face screwed up in distaste. Thanh took her to the back porch, cleared some muddy boots away with his feet and laid her on the bare wooden planks. As he did, Phuong grabbed his arm in fear.

The baby has quit moving, she said.

What should we do?

Thanh, I think the baby must be dead.

No. He is maybe just unconscious.

Remi has killed my baby, Thanh. But it is alright. I will not grieve, because soon I will be with him again.

With that bastard, Remi?

No, Thanh. With my baby. I am bleeding from inside, and soon I will be dead as well. My baby and I will be together again.

Oh, no, Phuong. It is too sad. I will get help. We will save you and the baby.

Thanh, you must ask Madame to send for a priest.

A priest?

A priest? Collette echoed, having been listening through the door. There are no priests here. God has forsaken this place. That is why it is always so damn hot—because it is sliding into Hell. What would you do with a priest if you had one? They are worthless bastards.

But, Madame, I will need the last rites. I am a Catholic.

You are? Merde. Well, there are no priests. The closest priest is Saigon. Remi won’t go for a priest. If I go for a priest, Remi will finish you off before I get back. The roads are so rough that if I try to take you in the car, you will die before we get there, so the trip will be a waste. The boat is already in Saigon, so I guess you will have to perform your own last rites.

It is OK, Madame. I just remembered that the baby will go to Purgatory. This way I will go with him so he will not be frightened. It is better that I do not have the last rites.

Collette turned away from Thanh and Phuong. She stood with her head bowed and appeared to be removing something from her eye. Goddammit! she said. Now I will have to train a new servant. It is so difficult. Maybe we should try to get a doctor. But it is the same problem as with the priest. A waste of time.

Madame, Phuong said. Did you ever want a child of your own?

What? No. Well, maybe, but not with that bastard Remi. I don’t know why I married him. It is just as well that your baby is dead. Otherwise, he would be a bastard of a bastard.

Madame, I am dying; can you forgive me for having Remi’s baby?

Goddammit! Collette collapsed to her knees, cradling her head in her arms on the top of a wooden trunk. This is not how I thought things would be. I wanted a baby! A little Frenchman to whom I could teach the nursery rhymes—who would love . . . Her voice trailed off into a sob, me.

My baby would have been half French, Phuong said.

Collette pulled herself to her feet and ran back into the house with her hands over her face. We could hear the sound of her feet on the stairs as she ran up to her bedroom.

Thanh looked down at Phuong, What should I do?

You should go back to work so that Remi does not kill you too.

Collette will not let Remi kill me.

If she is there to stop him.

I want to stay here with you. Maybe I do not want to live anymore anyway if you are not here.

Do not say that. It is not your time.

Perhaps it is not yours either. I should go to the workers. Some of them know about things like this. They come from villages where people have been having babies since God was a turtle.

What does that mean?

I don’t know. It is just a saying I heard when I worked at the docks. I should go to the huts now.

They are not there. It is still light so they will be working. Wait until it is dark so no one will see you.

Phuong weakened little by little as her blood slowly flowed out onto the planks where it was sucked at by hordes of flies. Collette stayed in her room, and Remi stayed in his study drinking brandy. When the distant cooking fires were no longer visible, Thanh left the house and went to the huts of the workers. As he darted from tree to tree, he remained watchful for supervisors, who often visited the huts after dark to select their nightly entertainment.

By way of whispers through the windows of the dark huts, Thanh was gradually directed to the hut of a man who had once helped with the delivery of babies in his home village. He went with Thanh into the jungle and picked the leaves of certain plants under the starlight. He could tell them by their odor and by their shape against the night sky.

Take me to the woman now. This will stop her bleeding.

Give me the leaves, Thanh said. If you are found at the house, you will be shot, if you are lucky.

I have to judge her condition to know how much to give her. Let us go. We must hurry.

They worked quietly with Phuong so as not to rouse Remi from his drinking. The assistant midwife said that he thought he could save her under normal conditions, but here, under the noses of the French, it would be difficult.

It looks as if she has come to the end, the midwife said.

Oh, no, Thanh cried. Can’t you do something?

I mean she has reached the time of delivery, that’s all. This means I can give her more of the herb. Sometimes it causes the baby to come out, but if it is time anyway, I can give her more without worry.

Oh, Thanh said. So she will be alright?

She must have food to get back her strength and make more blood, but for us peasants, there is no food.

I can get food, Thanh said, and disappeared into the darkness.

In a few minutes, he was back with a bowl of cold soup and began feeding it to Phuong.

That smells delicious, the midwife said. I had fish entrails for my supper, and they were rotten as well, and not enough of them.

I can get you food, Thanh told him. I will give you food to take back.

Won’t the masters see that food is missing?

They have so much they do not even know how much they have. They throw food away when it gets just a little mold on it.

Oh, my goodness, my goodness! the man said in astonishment. They throw food away?

They do not even let us house-servants have it unless we sneak it out. And you know what would happen if they caught us. We can only have what they leave behind from their meals. It is to eliminate waste, they say."

But they throw food away!?

You can come up here every night and I will give you food. Just save Phuong and her baby.

"I think the woman will survive, but I am afraid the spirit has already left the