The Vietnamese Book of the Dead

The Vietnamese Book of the Dead

Ever since I saw the movie made by that Indian guy with a weird, poetic name, I have fancied that I can see and communicate with dead people, not only while I am asleep, but also during my walking moments. When I was young and impressionable and stupid, I read shitty books like The Tibetan Book of the Dead and The Egyptian Book of the Dead. I didn't understand a thing of what I read. They sounded like a compilation of mumbo-jumbo imagined and believed by people who gave too much importance to death and afterlife, and not enough to the present. Now I am much older and more conceited and ignorant, I fancy that I know more about death and life than anybody alive. It all started with a dream involving my deceased mother a few months back. In the dream she was still much alive and I was very much a young boy. We were visiting my maternal mother in the Mekong Delta. Perhaps I should add a footnote here that I was inordinately attached to my mother as a young boy. To me, she was the embodiment of security blanket and unconditional love and intelligence and responsibility all rolled into one walking wonder. To this day, I firmly believe that she was the only woman who really loved me for who I was and in spite of who I was. Other women professed to love me, but what they meant was that they loved themselves more and used me in the business of furthering their love of themselves. In the dream, I was walking alongside her on a raised footpath between two rows of rice paddies towards my Grandma's house after we got off the inter-city bus. The time was of mid-afternoon in a windswept day. The golden rice plants were weighed down by ripe seeds and bent by the wind. There was a light fragrance of rice in the air. I was bouncing with my feet while holding onto my mother's right hand. I was happy and didn't have a care in the world. Care and angst and suicidal obsessions came much later when I reached puberty. Anyway, as I said, I was happy, gloriously happy and secure when all of the sudden, I lost my footing and fell face down to the rice paddy. I screamed for my mother, but she was no where to be found. Meanwhile I was being scratched and suffocated by the golden rice plants. When I realized that no sound was coming out of my mouth despite my frantic efforts of screaming, panic set in and I wanted to pee badly. That was when I woke up and I realized that I was only having a dream. I glanced at the digital clock radio. It was only 3 am. I was drenched in perspiration and felt feverish and thirsty. I jumped out of bed, got to the kitchen, and had a glass of water. By the time I got back in bed, a strange sensation took over me. My senses became more acute. I felt young and energetic. The fever got higher, but I was not alarmed because I sensed that my life was not in danger. Then my mother appeared and laid her hand on my forehead. Instantly the fever came down. And I felt incredibly drowsy and slept through until the alarm went off at 7 am. I woke up a new man. My mother was still in the bedroom, standing next to the bed, smiling beatifically at me. And somehow I didn't feel scared of her presence. She just quietly followed me around the condo, like a guardian angel.

She is not the only dead person I now see. I also see certain dead people who meant a lot to me while they were alive: grandmothers, two aunts, one uncle, and one lady friend. They prop in and out of my vision whenever they feel like it.

Of course, I also see living people, but with respect to those I don't really care for, I see them in a special way. I see them decay right in front of my eyes. I see them in their decrepit, demented, delusional self. I see their disintegration and decomposition and I don't let them bother me anyway because to me, they are pitiful, rotting creatures, ready to be consumed by bugs and bacteria. I gain a new found serenity as a result.

Since I had no desire to be gist of psychiatric mill, I called on the only real friend in this world, Omar, and asked him about newly acquired "vision"

- Omar, am I sick or going psychotic here?
- No, it is a gift. You are blessed. Christ finally listened to me. He is now protecting you with his presence.
- What? I didn't see any Christ. There was no Middle Eastern man in my seeing.
- Roberto, you don't understand. Christ does not have to appear in person to help you. He works through alter egos. Christ is everywhere and everybody. All you need to do is to believe in him. Once you do that, you will have incredible peace and serenity, and hence strength. Your mother whom you see most of the times is really Christ. You told me that ever since her arrival, you have felt strong and peaceful, that is what Christ is working in your soul. Roberto, this world is only temporary. Everybody is going to die. Their bodies are going to swell up, explode, and decompose. That is a fact we humans have to accept and face with. You either view the process as a natural phenomenon and are blasé about it or you start with death as a premise, as a beginning and work backwards and really learn to live in peace, using your "vision", or "delusion", or "hallucination", no matter which term you use, as a tool, a guide, to live peacefully and so when you die, you die peacefully and without rancor or murderous intent in your heart. The two assholes who are bothering your mind so much now, just regard them as stinking, maggot-infested corpes. Time will work its wonders. Don't hasten time. Meanwhile go peacefully in the world, surrounded by your mother and all other people who are dear and loving to you.

I didn't quite understand Omar's "explanation" but I didn't want to have a theological and ontological debate with him because I had done that in the past, and all I got was a beatific smile from him and occasional nodding of the head and a goodbye embrace at the end with the same, unchanging words of parting, "Peace be with thee. And may the Lord shine brightly upon thee." So I came to a very old, ancient, friend of mine and asked her to elucidate Omar's comment. She went into a long spiel about her finding the phrase "maggot-infested corpses" objectionable and "judgmental". I defended Omar, pointing out to her that there was nothing objectionable and "judgmental" about the phrase. It was scientific, albeit graphic. I also pointed to her that I came to her not to seek enlightenment about semantics, me being a linguist and a student of words and languages, but to see if she could some light on the somewhat "mystical" speech of Omar. I walked off in a huff, feeling I was wasting my time and gas money in paying her a visit.

I came back to my condo in a foul mood, realizing that I was going through life with a boulder on my shoulders. Most fools I interacted didn't recognize that I embraced facts and logic in my discourse primarily so I could learn. They didn't really care for the intellectual journey as much as I did. In having a "conversation" with me, they only wanted to score points and look good. But they didn't fool anybody, not even themselves. Our conscience is the gatekeeper of our soul and of our conception of ourselves. They were too stupid to see that in my non-literary posts I had only one aim: a desire to see if anybody could pick apart/demolish the cogency of my thoughts.

The title of this piece is 'The Vietnamese "Book" of the Dead', but you probably already saw the irony in the title. This is no book, nor an essay; this is an insult, a spit into platitudinous, wishful thinking about life; this is a heartfelt, albeit unconventional guide to life and a disdain for death and afterlife.

Wissai
January 27, 2013