Buddhist communities
I always have a stack of books by my bed, and I am often reading several at once, though sometimes a book sits in the stack so long that it gets moved aside, ends up on a shelf, and languishes there for a year or two. So it was with Mary Rose O’Reilley’s The Barn at the End of the World. Somehow I gravitated to it once again last night and remembered why I’d been drawn to it in the first place. The author has a sharp sense of humor, the courage to create a life for herself unlike anyone else’s, and she threw herself over a cliff that has always fascinated me: she moved to Thay Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village, in France, and wrote (uproariously) about how that went for her.
Here, for example, is a typical passage: “For the last twenty-four hours I have been smiling and breathing irritation with my roommate. Everything she does annoys me. I feel like that monk in Browning’s ‘Soliloquoy of the Spanish Cloister,’ greeting her every innocent and kindly gesture with some variation of ‘Grr, you swine!’ What are her faults? She smiles constantly, she sings to herself. She skips and plays. Everything to her is ‘wonderful,’ ‘beautiful.’ She treasures every moment, while I glare in baleful resistance. She shares everything she has with me. What’s not to hate?” (129).
Or this: “Humility is sometimes merely the knowledge that something is going on that you are too spiritually opaque to get.”
As my only vision for my future consists of going to one Zen center or another, reading her good-humored but often cynical stories of life at Plum Village is just the thing for me right now. In fact just this evening I got word from Green Gulch, one of the two centers I’m auditioning with this summer. I’d been scheduled to spend two weeks there, but due to a scheduling mishap on their side, I can now only spend one. I’ve already purchased my non-refundable air ticket, so that leaves me stuck in California for another week. What gift might that be? Maybe I’ll find yet another place to consider as a possible future home. One of my favorite bumper-sticker phrases is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut: “Unexpected travels are the dancing lessons of God.”
This came in an email from AE: “When we’re strongly pulled toward something, we really need to honor that shimmering attraction if we can (and you’re really doing that with your preparations), even if it only occasionally is the thing itself that endlessly satisfies, but is so often the Next Step that must be taken so that we can take the next Next Step where the most vibrant life-force awaits us.”
Ain’t it the truth! Well-said. I just answered her, “I guess I have been regarding the Next Phase as the Last Phase simply because I can’t see beyond it, and I don’t have another idea at the present time. This makes me laugh yet again, because as you may know I have been in love many times, and every time, I thought, was the Last One. I always think that about whatever I’m doing. I was going to emigrate to South Africa permanently. When I left South Africa, I thought I would find a way of life in New Orleans. Funny thing—I never did imagine I would stay long in Texas, and I’ve been here nearly eight years, which is longer than I have ever lived anywhere else. All this shows me is that whatever I think, I am always wrong. That does not deter me, obviously, from making the same assumption yet again.” My capacity for foolish thinking and foolish decision-making is boundless.
All day today I had a worried feeling. Because I took most of yesterday to visit Odus (and it was a fine visit, gave us both great joy), I was Running Behind all day today. I had a to-do list as long as my leg. It was a glorious spring day, but I didn’t enjoy it because I kept feeling driven, pushed, to get the next thing done. I felt as Mary Rose O’Reilley felt, when told to cultivate the attitude of willingness, “bodhisattva, I am here!” She writes, “But to tell the truth, I rarely am.”
Me too, Mary Rose. Me too. So here I am blogging again, but soon to bed with me, and another chapter from Mary Rose’s book.
Tags: Books and Movies, Buddhism, Mary Rose O'Reilley, Where to plant myself
Kendall
I should say the residents of anything called Plum Village probably warrant strangulation and if the ghastly roommate was in such a state of permanent bliss it was probably because she was so simple-mindedly pleased to be making everyone else’s existence an utter hell; Green Gulch doesn’t sound too promising either, but that’s a dreadful old cynic speaking ….There must be more possibilities than these, Kendall.
There, there, Stephen, you lovable old cynic. Not to worry. Green Gulch sounds VERY promising to me, and I spent one blissful morning several years ago at Deer Park Monastery in California, which is Plum Village in the USA. It’s a beautiful place up in the hills near Encinitas, full of soft-spoken people who walk peacefully and take time to arrive where they are. We take ourselves wherever we go, and that’s the main thing. I’m also auditioning at Upaya, near Santa Fe, and now that Green Gulch has cut my time down to a week, I have another week to look at a third place yet to be discovered. I’m spectacularly lucky, because if worst comes to worst, I can go on teaching, find a cheaper apartment, and keep looking for a home. No panic. At least not yet. But thank you for your concern. I’m equally concerned for you to find your way–because we’re both still reinventing our ways of life, every day.
Kendall,
My friend Karmen once seduced me into going on a cross country, all-expense-paid train trip as a “Granny Nanny” by using that Vonnegut quote. I told her, “Let me think about it.” Which I did for all of two seconds. I called her back the next day and said, yes. That wiley ol’ cermudgeon got more people on the road with that one-liner than any travel guide on earth. We’ll miss him. As for the trip? It ended up being one of the biggest adventures of my life, brought me closer together with Karmen, made me think about what it is really like to be an elderly black woman with Alzheimer’s, and taught me about humility, respect and humor in the face of great adversity. I came out of that often fun and sometimes trying experience a better person. My first published essay about teaching Granny Rose to fold an origami peace crane came from that journey. Better yet, Karmen and I can say three little words and be completly in sync with the universe: Worst Case Scenario. Thanks for the great entry, Kendall. I once found myself surrounded by a silent hoard of people in Memphis one hot June day. They were quiet and happy. It freaked me out. Nothing in Memphis is quiet. Turns out I stumbled on a peace march and they were all waiting for Thay Nhat Hanh to arrive. I’m all for bliss, but I just couldn’t hack it.
All my best,
Jessie
Priceless, Jessie. So those quiet, happy people freaked you out! Hilarious. As I understand Buddhism, bliss is an occasional by-product, but not the aim. I don’t think I need to worry about what to do with too much bliss. Mostly, it’s the other stuff that arises. Where is that published essay of yours? I’d love to read it.