The Bodhisattva of LSD: Part I

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The Bodhisattva of LSD: Part I

Abstract: In this article, the topic of LSD, Buddhist enlightenment, and the American fruit-picking industry are discussed vis-à-vis attention to social dynamics of graduate teaching assistants and supervising professors. Special attention is paid to acid-flash backs as well as the contingent nature of “truth” claims.

I’m sitting so close to him that I can actually hear his thumb burst through the skin of the orange. Maybe it’s not that I’m so close, maybe it’s that it’s so quiet. So meditative?

“Feel your finger piercing the skin of this delicious orange.” Professor Samsara speaks softly, only a decibel or two above a whisper. His eyes closed, his lips in a half smile, he could be the Buddha. But he’s not. He’s the bodhisattva of LSD.

Story goes, he was a big Soviet Studies scholar back in the 60’s but then he went west like the pioneers. His frontier? The San Francisco drug craze of the late 60’s. When he returned…

“He was never the same,” Professor Whitehorse shook his head.

“I mean what happened?” I asked taking another sip of my tea.

“Well you can’t repeat this.” He looked at the floor. When it comes to secrets academics open their lips more than a street whore parts her legs… and for free no less. “He left his wife and married a stripper.”

“Jesus” I act more surprised than I am. I’ve gotta get a look at this wife of his. What does an aged stripper turned Professor’s wife look like I wonder.

“Yeah, it was a scandal.” Prof Whitehorse looks out the window. “She still works here. His ex. She’s a Dean in the School of Education”

I make a mental note to take a walk through the education building later that day. Boy will Felix sh%t when he hears about this.

“That’s when he got into the Buddha” Professor Whitehorse lunges forward into the doorway in a panic. He looks left and then right down the hall and slumps back into his chair. “Thought I heard someone coming. You can’t repeat this stuff.”

I take a deep breath and pierce the skin of my orange. The juice coats my fingers. “God damn it. What a mess,” I think.

“Think about the tree… that beautiful tree basking in the sun. Now take a deep breath.” His inhale fills the room like some dangerous beast growling. You see the thing is despite his easy-going “style”, Professor Samsara is scary as hell.

“Think about the worker who plucked this orange from the tree.” Prof Samsara can snap at any minute and sometimes, sometimes when you’re reciting the content of your research project or the conclusions of a paper he asked you to write as an additional assignment… just sometimes at those moments he has an expression on his face like he’s about to f$#^ing murder you. “Think about her delicate fingers reaching up to pull this round supple orange down from the tree.”

I wrote a paper for him the previous semester about traveling, dancing mystics in what is now Turkey. And at the point when I was explaining that each of these mystics that declared themselves the messiah had experienced (according to accounts) bouts of dark depression and seclusion… right at that point… he snapped. “So what makes you so interested in these kind of people. You think you’re the messiah?”

I fidget in my seat. “Um, I don’t think I understand what you’re asking?” I’m so nervous my voice quivers. At this point in my life I still believe in the process, the system, the whole bunch of crap… It still intimidates and mystifies me. I think he’s asking me a question because this is a great learning moment. He laughs, “do you like hip-hop? My wife is trying to get me into it.”

“Imagine that beautiful worker, her long dark curls framing her noble face. Imagine her rubbing the juice from the orange on her apron.” He inhales again. “Imagine her adjusting her breasts in the hot sun.”

“What the f$%^?” I think. Opening my eyes, I notice Felix sitting on the other side of the room trying not to laugh too loudly. Instead he swallows the sound and rolls it into a series of tortured coughs.

“So do you think he was getting horny on the orange?” Felix remarks in the hallway.

“Who knows.”

“Boys… boys…” Prof Samsara comes running out of the classroom waving his arm wildly in the air. “I’ve just learned some news.”

“What’s that?” Felix smiles.

“You are to be my T.A.’s next semester. We need to go to lunch. The three of us. How does tomorrow sound?”

“That’s good for me, what time?” I ask. Felix nods.

“Wait for me at the corner of Armor Street next to the Women’s Center. I’ll be driving a blue van. It’s an old van, but it travels well and has a good spirit.” He pats Felix on the shoulder and winks at us as he takes off down the hallway. “6 am,” he screams back at us as he disappears out the door.

(To be continued…) In the next installment of this post look for a disappearance, hitchhiking and a fight over student papers that almost led to a dismissal.)

NOTE: As noted in this blog, these stories are real stories of my experiences in Higher Education. I have changed names and am writing under a pen name to protect my job and career. I invite each and all to send your stories of higher ed and academia here. I encourage you all for your own good to use fake names. Write to me at wolfesebastian@gmail.com

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Filed under Faculty Culture, Grad Students, Graduate School, Higher Education, My Grad School Years, Professor Samsara, Professors