Do you know about - The Wrong Way to Enter a Zen Monastery! (Part 5 of 5)
Erie Insurance! Again, for I know. Ready to share new things that are useful. You and your friends.Conversation was not encouraged at the Abbey. Actually, it was more or less forbidden. We spent the whole day in silent contemplation, or meditation, talking only when needful during work periods or during group discussions. There were times when I would go for days, weeks, without speaking a word. I loved it, but then of course, I was all the time the quiet, anti-social, introverted, loner type. Even as a kid, my mom would say that I was a man of few words.
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Janet, on the other hand, had a qoute with silence. She concept that talking ranked right up there with breathing, a natural and coarse thing to do in life. It took her some time and experience to comprehend the benefits of a quiet (open) mind, and how much energy she had wasted in the past by talking incessantly!
My mind was becoming exceptionally calm (released). legitimately how calm I didn't appreciate until I accidentally ran a large sliver of wood into my arm while repairing the goat pens. This complicated a trip into Mt. Shasta for a tetanus shot, my first trip out of the mountains for months, and the experience was eye opening.
The traffic, the people, all things seemed as if a tape was being fast-forwarded, and in difference to how still my mind had become, it all seemed like chaos! Driving into town, I also noticed the sadness in the faces of the cars we passed as well, yet each might insist that he or she was happy. It is such a big step to admit such a basic and easy thing; that one suffers, because we gloss over it.
Except for Roshi Kennett and a few of her assistant monks, the rest of the community, about forty of us, slept in the zendo on the same wooden, raised platform on which we meditated. The platform was about thirty inches off the floor and attached to the wall, extending six feet into the zendo, and each individual "bed" was no more than a three-foot wide area delineated by a piece of tape. Built into the wall itself were small cabinets, one for each three-foot section that served as the occupant's one and only storehouse area for all of their personal belongings, such as clothes, shoes and sleeping bags.
Men and women were determined equal in all ways at Shasta, but at night, of course, we slept in cut off areas divided by transportable screens. The little, laughable electric heaters scattered about the sizable hall didn't help at all during the winter months, with temperatures dipping to forty degrees regularly. Thank God for sleeping bags, and woe to the learner who had to pee in the middle of the night. Not only was it freezing, but as the learner attempted to inconspicuously make it to the bathroom, which was exterior the hall, the creaky floors would wake each sleeper in turn, who would then endeavor to recognize who the pee-er was. Microscopic tea was consumed after six p.m.!
Meals were eaten at long tables in perfect silence. Plates of food were passed down, and each of us would take our share and pass it on. The plates went by only once, so we had to estimate how many population were at the table and accordingly take only an estimate that would insure that everyone would receive equal shares. There were no seconds.
At my first meal, I didn't know how things worked, and I was legitimately hungry. To me, it was like a football training table, so I took about half the food on each plate that came by, leaving Microscopic for those supplementary down the line. How embarrassing when about half way straight through the meal I noticed only a few spoonfuls of food on the monks plates down line from me. Flashing straight through my mind was my fourth grade Catholic school experience where I made a mistake as well, unwittingly putting my lunch box on the wrong shelf.
But this time it was different. Instead of being punished or reprimanded for my error, nobody seemed to notice, and without the distraction of criticism, I could see my greed clearer than I had ever seen it before, and I felt terrible. I wanted to apologize, but since the meals were taken in silence, I could only agonize about my gluttony, while watching everyone at the far end of the table quietly eating what Microscopic they had. This time I had no Sister to blame; I could only blame myself, and it troubled my heart greatly.
The food itself was unbelievable. Who would have concept that vegetarian cooking could be tastier than "regular" food? I never would have concept it, and not only was it delicious, but salutary as well -- only now, thirty years later, are doctors beginning to recognize the benefits.
Perhaps all things seemed best at Shasta in that fresh mountain air, or maybe it was the meditation. Or maybe the equilibrium I was developing in the middle of my body and mind -- such as the regular schedule, Microscopic worldly stress, associating with kind, non-judgmental population -- all quite a convert from where I was arrival from.
Janet was successful too. Unbeknown to her at the time, sugar and sweets aggravated her moodiness and lack of energy, and since these were not to be found in plentifulness at the Abbey, she was feeling great. Breakfast would comprise granola, oatmeal, eggs, French toast, nuts, pancakes, fruit, and Microscopic surprises of all kinds. Lunch would be even better, with vegetarian dishes that were no less than works of art and love; vegetarian lasagna, goat cheeses and milk, homemade bread, tofu, rice of every description, other soy products, vegetables, and tasty sauces. Dinner was a light "medicine meal," commonly only soup and maybe some bread with a tofu spread.
Without a doubt, it was the best food Janet and I had ever tasted. The monk in fee of the kitchen had been the chief cook at the Abbey for years and was superb at it, very focused. He would agonize over adding one extra egg to a large recipe, all the time weighing the wellbeing of his monks against his meager budget, and would scour the local markets for bargains on fruits and vegetables. He is still at the abbey, 30 years later, still trying to make ends meet on a meager budget!
Of the many things I learned at Shasta, the most penetrating was this whole idea about life, and how life involves going beyond limitations -- the restrictions that I only place on myself. I was also discovering the uniqueness of meditation; how it was far removed from any singular religion or belief, but at the same time legitimately accommodating to them all. Meditation helped me reach beyond my petty "self" toward that greater source, anything that eternal "something" is which I could only describe as my roots, something that had no beginning itself. There are many names for this eternal something, but I tried not to use words that brought up old images. I wanted to see with new eyes, and wanted to drop old conclusions that lurked in dark corners of my mind.
I could disagree about names or descriptions of what Reality is, but words can't come close to describing something so profound, and that I was only beginning to feel in my heart. The Abbey was the great turning point in my life, and as I look back now, something weighty happened there, something that changed my destiny forever. I am sure of that.
Things were going well, very well. I had all the time felt that I was special, and that nothing could ever happen to me. Other population who were not special had accidents and misfortune, but I was somehow protected, because I was special... Hah!
Then, out of left field the illness came, maybe just to remind me who's boss!
Initially when we first arrived, I experienced some chronic diarrhea for a few weeks, but one session of acupressure with a Roshi cured it. This new illness, however, was more serious; this felt more like perfect exhaustion.
A Roshi diagnosed my qoute as "Zen" sickness, a strange malady that occurs when internal or spiritual passages, akin to acupuncture meridians, become blocked and confused for varied reasons; one reckon being that a meditator with a coarse mind (maybe somebody running from his creditors?) suddenly begins meditating for long, intense periods without first cultivating gentleness, compassion and loving-kindness!
The illness worsened notwithstanding acupressure treatments by the Roshis and visits by a local M.D. (apparently, this illness is seldom diagnosed accurately by primary Western treatment and therefore is difficult to treat) so I was finally confined to the dark, dreary "sick" cabin -- no windows and only a singular candle!
Lying there, I found myself, for some odd reason, remembering all the population who selflessly helped me throughout life, population who took me under their wings as if I was the most prominent thing in the world. In this decisive moment, in the dark and sick as a dog, and clearly looking my own unrelenting self-centeredness, all I could envision were the huge rocks that impeded my expand when I helped dig graves at the Abbey's cemetery, and I was sure that the cemetery was where I was headed! I had a stone-cold feeling deep in my bones that I wasn't going to make it this time.
Fear and death was windup in, I was sure of it; I could tangibly feel them. The mounting panic had not yielded to the heavenly peace that arrives just before the end; a serenity I experienced once before when I was nineteen, and approximately drowned in Lake Erie. Actually, neither fear nor death would have implicated me had I nothing left to lose, but I had plans -- my life still lacked. . . Something, and because of that something, I was not ready to die. Not quite yet, apparently, because I was desperately clinging to life with all my strength, hoping beyond hope that something would rescue me. When the illness worsened, however, I handled it as I had handled all things in the past -- I ran!
We bussed down to the Bay area and squeezed into a small apartment in some non-descript building in Lafayette, California, not far from the Abbey's branch priory in Oakland. Janet went to work at a stationery store, while I tackled a job at Radio Shack, knowing that I couldn't stay long before man tracked me down. We both either walked or bussed to work, since driving a car was out of the examine even if we had one. The lingering sensitivity that we advanced at the Abbey, which was exacerbated by my illness, precluded any aggressive action (and in the Bay Area, driving was an aggressive activity!)
In order to function in the world again, I had no choice but to desensitize my mind in some fashion, a desensitizing that would have the unfortunate succeed of impeding any supplementary insights from arising for the time being. I needed somewhere to cool out.
The Zen sickness wasn't improving, and I was getting bone-tired of looking over my shoulder for bill collectors; I knew that I had to convert things up. So one afternoon I found myself writing Janet yet other note, and again boarding my trusty Greyhound with only a few bucks in my pocket, this time headed for Tennessee. I only hoped they would take me in at "The Farm," the sublime commune headed up by the primary San Francisco hippie-refugee, Stephen Gaskin.
And as I wearily climbed the worn steps of the old bus, I noticed the smell again --it hadn't changed much...
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