Читать книгу From Bagels to Buddha - Judi Hollis - Страница 10
ОглавлениеPart one
1983
Jewish girls don’t bow, kneel, or genuflect . . . except in bed, of course.
So what’s a nice Jewish girl like me doing in a place like this?
A Buddhist monastery, no less.
Something I ate?
No, I guess it’s what I don’t eat that’s brought me to this.
When I pass through this chicken-wire gate, I, who make my living talking, will join others who are committed to total silence. I have been auditioning to enter this place for months.
Surrounded by pine-scented woods facing a large volcanic mountain, I listen to the stark alpine quiet that will be my home and wonder why I’m here.
At age ten I weighed exactly what I do now as a mature, premenopausal woman. Just before my tenth birthday, after dieting away thirty pounds, I went to a local malt shop to flirt. I wore a tight maroon skirt with wide black belt, bobby socks, and saddle oxfords. I was allowed to sip a milk shake, sucking the glass dry, as long as I didn’t have sex. In those days, sex was forbidden but chocolate indulged. Today it’s the other way around.
From then on, despite TOFU (The Occasional Foul-Up), I white-knuckled it most of the time, and then repeatedly picked myself up from those slips and got back on the horse. Though now seventy pounds lighter than my top weight, with approaching menopause, I am slowly regaining some weight.
That’s how I ended up in a small plane headed toward the Oregon border and Shasta Abbey with Yves, my lover and business partner, flying us in his beloved Bellanca Viking, a single–engine, wooden-winged aircraft named Lucy.
I’m always scared flying in Lucy as she takes us halfway across the country to my various lecture gigs and TV appearances. Sometimes we fly above 12,000 feet, requiring oxygen masks. One time, as we waited on the ground in Texas, Yves turned to me, white-faced, and said, “The wind shears and thunderstorms are too heavy. You go on ahead with a commercial jet while Lucy and I wait out the storm.” Another time while in Denver, we had to do numerous fly-bys to ascertain from the tower, “Yes, your landing gear is locked in the down position. Over.” Quite honestly, I figured that since we have to land again anyway, we should keep the gear down for the duration. Instead, we stayed over to get it fixed. What do I know about planes?
Anticipating more such surprises to delay my flight to Shasta Abbey, I bury myself in magazines and pistachio nuts. After a rather uneventful trip, Yves settles into a motel and we sit down to share a late supper. Consequently, I arrive at the abbey behind schedule.
While awaiting admittance through the chicken-wire gate, I ponder all it took to get me here.
I try to remember why or how I’ve come to this place. I know I fought really hard to get here. But why?
I didn’t even have a clue how I’d received the summer workshop brochure from the abbey.
Even though I am thin and successful, I am increasingly restless and bored. I know I need deeper connections. I’m in that state of perpetual longing, like when I leave that last bite of chocolate cake.
How often does that happen?
Despite decades of professional accolades, thousands applauding my message, asking for my autograph or photo, I never felt deserving of what came my way. I felt like an imposter, a rotten, bad seed. That fueled my hurried, workaholic overscheduling. It had everything to do with my overeating as well.
I never relaxed enough to enjoy the journey. I never surrendered to a spiritual way of life. I didn’t look or act like any of the people who appeared to be spiritual. They seemed calmer. They believed in God or believed in some kind of a universal oneness: “We’re all connected.” I didn’t get any of it. I didn’t buy into the God concept and relished being in charge of my life and the lives of others, even if I was a bad apple. I’m sure that rotten-to-the-core feeling caused my periodic returns to bouts of compulsive eating; my self-destruct button was still intact.
So, anticipating a chance to get away from the daily emergencies at my HOPE House treatment center, I’d called Shasta Abbey. I’d learned I enjoyed brief forays into the spiritual life, but I really didn’t crave total transformation. I wanted to lose weight, change a little maybe, but keep my winning personality.
Half a year earlier, on my first inquiry over the phone, I listen while on hold, trying to organize a monastery stay, when my reverie is broken with “How did you hear about us?”
Reverend Kincaid questions me softly as I plot my course from spiritual neophyte to awakened Zen master. This monk has a noticeable New York accent. I sense his hesitancy.
“What brings you to call us? What is your experience with Buddhism or meditation?”
“Well, Reverend Kincaid, sir, I became a therapist to figure out why I ate. Some of the things I learned were so depressing that I ate over them. Though I believe I am a gifted therapist, I find my relationship with food is best when I stop trying to figure it out and instead consult my stillness within. I eventually found that spiritual principles helped me more than intellect.
“So I found your brochure and I am drawn to this ‘Life of the Buddha’ retreat. It says here in your brochure, ‘The Buddha lived a daily life facing unjust criticism, envy, mistakes in judgment, and exhaustion.’ Well, both the Buddha and I have similar struggles,” I pompously state.
“But why Buddhism?” “Well, I’ve been following Baba Ram Dass since the 1960s.”
I wonder if Reverend Kincaid knows that Ram Dass is a spiritual leader who dropped acid with Timothy Leary, gave up his name of Richard Alpert along with the status of Harvard professor, and dedicated himself to traveling to and from India while transforming America’s youth.
“Ram Dass taught us to let go and consult our own souls for direction, but he also advised us to live spiritual principles in everyday life. Just because we commune with the Gods and Goddesses is no reason not to know our postal zip code.”
Pleading into the receiver, I beg Reverend Kincaid to let me sign up. “I know it’s a three-week workshop, but I can only get away for the last week. I’m sure I can catch up.”
As usual, I wanted special permission, offering, “My case is different. I deserve special consideration.”
Reverend Kincaid responds kindly, “I appreciate your interest, but I suggest you first attend an introductory workshop. Or perhaps you would benefit more from the beginner’s week-long retreat that focuses on basic teachings and practice.”
Doesn’t he understand? I can’t get away so easily. I’m booked!
“It will be too much for you to plop into the third week of training with no background. Others already there will be way ahead of you and it will be difficult for you to catch up.”
He concludes with “Let me send you our informational packet for you to consider what’s in store.”
When the “Guest Information” packet arrives, I read it over hurriedly along with the “Introduction to Soto Zen” and immediately call again. In my zeal, I dismiss the brochure’s caution that in the beginning attendees “experience some difficulty with specific aspects of training.”
Not applicable to me.
As he answers my call, Reverend Kincaid returns once again to his initial query about how I’d received the brochure. “We just don’t have an extensive mailing list,” he sniffs.
I know he senses the absence of incense in my voice.
“Have you ever meditated before?” he grills.
Knowing my answer may now disqualify me, I quickly lie, “I have meditated intermittently, and have a deep spiritual consciousness.” I hope he won’t ask me what that means. I can’t honestly say.
My quick lie sounds good to me. My “meditations” are often brief interludes when I space out watching cars pass by my window or while I’m looking out at waves breaking on the shore.
More often, however, I spend meditation time in “monkey mind,” busy with planning, manipulating, decorating, investigating, arguing, justifying, or daydreaming. No matter how brief or unfocused these episodes, I am sure they qualify me to be on some imagined meditation checklist. Determined as I am to get accepted, my further entreaties to Reverend Kincaid mimic the best college fullback’s melodrama:
“Let me at ’em, coach.”
“Just this once for the Buddha!”
Challenged by my desire to get what I want when I want it, I set out to convince this monk I can make the grade.
That’s the only week I have free.
Doesn’t he realize what an important and busy person I am? My schedule is booked well over a year in advance. I appear regularly on all the national shows. As a recognized expert in counseling addicted families, I’m giving lectures and seminars throughout the country training medical professionals to treat bulimia, anorexia, and compulsive eating. Surely I needn’t beg to attend a workshop. And I have to work there, too? “Jewish psychologist begs Buddhist monk for chance to sell self into monastic slavery.” What is definitely wrong with this picture?
He should realize how lucky they are to have me. Why, if I like the place, I’ll recommend it to others. I could greatly improve their business.
I continue auditioning for this Queens-sounding monk whose title is “Guestmaster of the Abbey.” Respectfully, I work to enhance my cause, explaining my importance—a pioneering legend in my own mind.
“Reverend, sir, I created the nation’s first eating disorders unit. I’m author of the bestseller Fat Is a Family Affair. I direct thriving clinics in three states, and countless imitations are springing up all over the US. I teach people how their obsessions for excess food are really part of a larger hunger for a spiritual connection.”
I’m spiritual, by God!
I try impressing him with psychobabble. “You see, I know a lot about these matters. As a matter of fact, Carl Jung explained to Bill W, one of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, that understanding psychological causalities would not relieve spiritual hunger the way going inward and living spiritually could. He said addicts suffer ‘a hole in the soul.’ And that’s why I want to develop more spiritual practice.” I know he’ll agree to accept me; surely I have enough background to come in during the third week and catch up.
Instead of offering me the coveted “yes” right away, Reverend Kincaid responds softly, “I’ll send you further explanation of our practice and see if you feel you could benefit from it.”
Duly challenged, I set out to make it to the abbey. I operate from some inexplicable longing to fully immerse myself in meditation and contemplation (but only for one week). Why I choose this particular format is still a mystery. Why would an army brat who’d traveled the world long to be on a mountaintop in Northern California? Why here? Why now?
Reverend Kincaid grills me further. “You’ll notice that we have job assignments, known as samu, working meditation.”
“Oh, I know about such things. I’ve been training addiction counselors for decades, and I am a consultant to numerous treatment centers. At HOPE House, my own residential treatment center, new arrivals are given job responsibilities and are expected to produce and live up to their commitments. We’ve found that low self-esteem is quickly healed with successful completion of assigned tasks. I understand hard work. I won’t ‘wimp out’ on you. For now, I just want a chance to get away. I want to step down from my guru role and get out of the obligations of management. I don’t want to be the one with the answers. I want to be a newcomer—little know-nothing shmegegge.”
Assuring the Guestmaster of my willingness to meditate, my understanding of the concept of work as a meditative, therapeutic necessity, I still have to convince him I am spiritual.
“I’ve spent many years working with self-help groups; studied Gestalt and family therapy, psychodrama, psychosynthesis, transpersonal psychology, and est. I’ve made three sojourns throughout Southeast Asia and India, and I’ve even led retreats at Omega and Esalen institutes.”
Finally, Reverend Kincaid agrees to admit me to the third week of training without further objection. Little can he know how I will contrast with the other trainees at the abbey.
Okay, so I have hot pink nails and bright maroon hair. Cellophane hair colors are in. And, despite my appetite for spirituality, I still adore high fashion, glitzy bling-bling earrings, tight jeans, and a smattering of street talk. Why should I worry? Don’t monks believe in acceptance?
Winning the audition and finally getting my way, I forge ahead obsessively. After rearranging my schedule to get my hair permed before leaving, I begin worrying about my nails, so I pack rubber gloves. After all, my nail job costs almost as much as the entire week at this monastery.
In addition to my computer, CDs, and “nonscented” toiletries (as instructed), I separate out reading materials for the plane trips hither and yon. Abbey rules suggest reading only Buddhist literature while in residence. I have a healthy cache of magazines like Parade, Family Circle, and Drama-Logue for some escapist diversion going in and out of serenity city.
Thinking I’m getting away with something, I subvert abbey rules for moderate dress and no perfume or makeup by defiantly packing sexy lace underwear. I am still insisting on having it my way, making my decisions about what rules I will or will not follow.
I can’t go to the abbey without some trappings from home, so I pack CDs of old-time blues ladies wailing sexy songs. Despite whatever meditative brainwashing these monks might shower on me by day, I intend to retreat to my room at night under the canopy of raunchy blues to strut and grind the night away.
Of course, as ever, my major problem is “What to wear?” Abbey literature is quite specific. Meditation sessions of up to three hours require a long, full skirt of subdued color, so as not to disturb the meditative practice of others.
Their brochure suggests bringing various weights of blouses and sweaters, considering the highly unpredictable weather on the mountain. “Baggy jeans for work detail” are no problem, as are sleeping bag, toiletries, proper shoes, and heavy jacket. But no matter what I draw out of my closet, each item shines in bright neon compared to the quiet subtlety of Kincaid’s voice. My bright pinks, golds, oranges, and whites have been carefully selected to complement a perennial Southern California tan. “Subtle” is a word foreign to the “casual, nonprofessional” section of my closet.
I make one especially frantic call quizzing Kincaid. “Are flowers okay?”
That same lilting, slightly East Coast voice responds, “Why of course, as long as it’s not something terribly loud and garish, such as Hawaiian prints.”
Okay, back on the hanger goes my favorite purple, yellow, green, and gold Anne Pinkerton jungle print.
Doesn’t he understand that I live a bicoastal life, mostly in Manhattan Beach, California? We dress to play, not to pray.
I finally give in and buy a khaki-green full skirt, which matches a khaki sweater, and then I throw in my beige Western cowgirl skirt. I know that without the boots I’ll pass for spiritual rather than honky-tonk—cheap and superficial.
Prepared for all options, I’m quite proud when I manage to cram all into two “small” valises and a sleeping bag pouch. Only on the plane trip up do I reread the brochure to find “only one suitcase” is allowed. Dead in the water, I resolve to make it through a less-than-perfect week.
And that’s how I finally arrive—late and inappropriate.
•••
Ambling toward the chain-link fence is Reverend Kincaid, all towering six feet of him. I’m surprised. Aren’t monks supposed to be shorter and more gnomelike? His long brown robes and cape rustle toward me. His head looks funny. Shaved, but hair is partially grown out. I’ll later learn he’s preparing for a “home visit.” His large, round, brown eyes look away as he offers no gratuitous welcoming smile or greeting.
Doesn’t he know who I am?
He swings aside the rickety gate, dragging its rollers just enough for me and my bags to get through. This light, wobbly gate, easily moved to allow quick entry, doesn’t at all foretell the heaviness I’ll push against later. This man, whose gentle voice so scared me on the phone and who quietly, carefully, and repeatedly warned me, finally appears in the flesh. I’m so excited.
He’s not.
He just seems focused on getting the job done. Boy, at my centers we’re a lot friendlier. As trained treatment professionals, understanding how frightened incoming patients might be, we make sure they know they are entering a place where we know them, see them, and will take good care of them. Reverend Kincaid signals none of that. Instead of offering any reassuring politeness, he moves as if our mission is already written—that I am supposed to be there and that we are performing functions already prescribed and expected. There is no need to comment. He never really makes eye contact with me, but rather eyes my luggage. Helping me drag the two heavy valises down to the arrivals cottage, he never reminds me that the brochure recommends “bring only one bag.”
After sitting down for my formal introduction in the arrivals cottage, he asks, “Do you have any questions?”
I beam from the edge of my seat in all exuberance, shrugging. “No, not really. I’m so happy and excited to be here.”
Inhaling deeply, he reminds me that abbey rules prohibit makeup or perfumes.
I apologize. “Oh, this is all leftovers from the trip up here. I’ll be clean as a whistle as soon as I get to my room. I’ll change clothes, kick off the cowboy boots, and wash off all the perfume.”
His voice seems to boom gently, but ominously, “Yooooouuuuuu hhhhhaaaaaaaaaaavvve noooooooooo rrroooooooooommmmm.”
I let it pass.
He turns me over to Reverend Muldoon, whose head sprouts strawberry-blonde stubble. As she gives me a tour of the grounds, she explains gassho, which is a formal bowing with hands folded firmly and flatly, thumbs together toward chest, fingers heavenward. “You will practice gassho respectfully, acknowledging those people, places, or things appreciated.”
She doesn’t really know who I am. I’ve been around spirituality camps for years. I know gassho. I’ve been observing Dürer’s famous “praying hands” plastered just above the Serenity Prayer on greeting cards or dangling as lockets and charms around the necks of countless twelve-step members.
She demonstrates a few of the required and suggested opportunities for bowing. “You will bow entering and leaving certain buildings. Eating halls and bathrooms are cause for special bowing in gratitude. Without question, you will bow entering and leaving the temple, and definitely when facing the large Buddha statue, along with a number of other shrines around the property. Just follow the practice of other trainees. They will model for you correct behaviors. Buddhism is about being respectful to every living thing and trying to do no harm.
“In our processions, the lead monk carries a walking stick topped by a small bell that tinkles slightly. This is to warn bugs on the path to move aside, so as not to be trampled by the oncoming slippers.
“Everyone works and has purpose here at the abbey. Even little children are assigned the job of sweeping bugs gently off the path. If any bug meets an inadvertent early demise, funeral services are performed immediately.”
Geez, I wonder if she knows I massacred a lowly cockroach last week.
“As part of being respectful to all living things, our living code, called “precepts,” recommends that we remain mindful and pay attention and have consciousness about what we do and what effects our actions create. At the same time, we strive to proceed in an unselfconscious manner, losing ourselves in action. Life must be lived as a meditation. In meditation, we are to neither hold on nor push away, taking a gentle, neutral stance. We also try to behave in a way that will not embarrass or offend ourselves or others.
“For example,” she continues, now facing me with direct eye contact, “Your blouse, although quite acceptable in your world, might be a bit low-cut for our standards here at the abbey. We do not call attention to anything that would disturb the meditative practice of others.”
Boy, her smock seems awfully lightweight, and when she stands in the sun it looks like she wears no underwear.
Instead of casting these pearls, I quickly assure her, “As soon as I get to my room, I’ll change into something more appropriate.”
“Yooooouuuuuu hhhhhaaaaaaaaaaavvve noooooooooo rrroooooooooommmmm,” she says, echoing Kincaid, as she leads me back to the guest cottage where bags are neatly stowed.
This “no room” line has a menacing echo to it.
Still, I let it pass.
As we arrive at the guest cottage, Reverend Muldoon further explains, “Your bags will be stored in the luggage room for the duration of your stay. You will have personal space in the bathhouse to store any articles of immediate need.”
She shows me my personal space: three shelves, each measuring four inches by six inches.
My name is emblazoned smartly above each cigar-box- sized cubicle. It is immediately and abundantly clear that I’ll be making numerous treks from luggage room to bathhouse. But where will I sleep?
No time for that.
Being such a novice, I’m taken to Reverend Penelope for meditation instruction.
“You mean you are brand-new and you’ve come in the middle of a three-week retreat?” she asks, intimating it might be difficult for me.
“Well, this was the only time I could get away,” I answer importantly, “and I wanted to fully immerse myself in the experience. I work in the field.”
By now I seem to be embarrassing myself with every word. My “field” might just be a pasture where I’m already knee-deep in cow pies.
Glad she doesn’t ask for an explanation, I continue jabbering. “I feel like a sponge soaking everything up for the first time.”
“Ah, we call that ‘beginner’s mind,’ which makes you quite receptive, and you will learn a great deal.”
I’m now bug-eyed as Penelope proceeds with her lessons. In some twelve-step programs, “beginner’s mind” is referred to as “newcomer eyes.” They resemble a deer caught in headlights. Lending me a meditation skirt, as there is no time to unpack my own, she shows me the suggested meditative practice. “The round pillow, zafu, is often used to facilitate sitting in the lotus position: legs folded upon each other so that one’s spine is fully supported and free for consciousness to enter or leave the body. Some find the meditation stool easier and others sit straight on an elevated backless bench.”
She demonstrates all options.
“Which is best?” I inquire.
“None is best. It’s just important to find what works for you.”
I figure, Anyone worth her salt should pull a lotus.
Determined to become expert with my first attempt at meditation, I go for the zafu. Penelope asks me to get in position so she can help me find the proper breathing and muscle tone. I quickly hop onto the zafu, but find that my folded knees don’t touch the floor.
Penelope, ever so kindly, suggests that I try using the stool. “It allows leaning back in a kneeling position.” More Christian than Buddhist, I think. I decide to shut up and listen as I surmise I’ve already flunked Meditation 101.
I absentmindedly accept the stool and don’t even wait to notice how it feels. I just know I won’t resort to any elevated cop-out. I want total immersion. No matter what coach, I won’t be benched.
“You’ll have time after dinner to unpack a few things,” Reverend Penelope instructs as she directs me to the temple where meditation is due to begin.
Now my head races, recalling explanations in the Guest Information brochure.
Wow, a lot of each day is spent staring blankly at a bare white wall. I might have bitten off more than even a well-heeled compulsive overeater can swallow.
Panic arises as I realize I might find difficulty sitting for a full week of zazen meditation. My mind races quickly, remembering the schedule Kincaid sent. There will be six meditation sessions each day separated by three different work assignments, one or two classes, and two quiet reading periods. There will also be two brief chances to rest—to be used for showering, gift shop, or phone calls.
Each different activity will require costume changes from work to eating, to class, or to meditation clothes. I’ll be doing heavy trekking to the storage room to accommodate all the required costume changes. This does not even account for weather changes. Abbey climate in June necessitates more wardrobe changes than an elaborate Broadway musical.
What have I gotten myself into?
No time to consider such trifles now. I must hurry up to relax into meditation.
As I hightail it up to the temple, the cloisters are filled with monks scurrying to new locations. I have no idea how difficult navigation will be as I walk up the incline for each activity and costume change.
No dawdling on the path is allowed. Silence is preferred, with necessary conversation kept at whisper pitch. Leisurely strolls filled with polite chitchat about weather, meals, and such do not exist. Abbey time is to be spent going within and staying centered.
If you pass another on the path, you can offer gassho to acknowledge contact. That’s it. No talking, smiling, indicating, or performing. Just hello and goodbye.
A vague sense of loneliness and fear begins to creep up within me. No time to think of that now. I bravely embrace Scarlett O’Hara’s philosophy of thinking about “it” tomorrow.
However, my tomorrow arrives quite ahead of schedule.
I hurry to the temple, bowing at two shrines on the way. Depositing my cowboy boots alongside a neatly placed lineup of healthy hiking sandals, I swing open the heavy iron-handled door to enter the temple.
Inside it is cold, dark, and damp compared to the bright, airy sunlight I’ve just run through. I can barely make out the other trainees seated along the periphery. All are lined up and seated, facing white walls. Reverend Kincaid had advised, “When in doubt, just follow the practice of others and you’ll catch on.” A tall, lanky, bearded man in a white skirt directly ahead of me bows to the room, bows to the fifty-foot Buddha statue, and then quietly walks to the other side of the temple.
I do the same.
He then bows to his wall space, turns and bows again to the Buddha, and seats himself on his cushion facing the wall. As my movie-theater blindness clears, I see more people and Penelope’s meditation instructions call out from the back of my head. Imagining a square dance caller’s bark, I’m pushed to similarly bow low, “honor my corner, honor my partner,” and settle in on my stool. A gong is sounded and a monk announces, “Meditation.”
We now sit for thirty minutes. I go at this with a Western Protestant work ethic, resolving to muddle through no matter what. Within ten minutes a tingling numbness races past my knees up to my thighs. I’d heard that zazen meditation could become uncomfortable, but one should focus away from the pain and on one’s breathing and not allow physical pettiness to keep you from Nirvana.
The numbness in my limbs is actually a welcome relief compared to the excruciating, hatchet-like attack in the center of my forehead—certainly a mega-migraine. Since it’s after 4:00 p.m., this is probably the result of major caffeine withdrawal. “Going to God no matter what,” I become “one with,” although I’m not sure with what. I try to settle in and even out my breathing.
Hardly noticing the time pass, I hear a deeper brass gong and then a monk’s soft voice announce, “Walking meditation.” I note tremendous rustling as all stooped bodies become erect and begin a slow walk. As I kick back my stool, my legs shoot forward like matchsticks. No matter how much my Western mind urges me to get upright, I roll over onto the sides of my feet and buckle under. Undaunted, I push and work my way up like a grasshopper, immediately crumbling onto the rug. Feeling no sensation from my hip socket down, I have no fear of amputation, just embarrassment that I can’t get up from the floor.
Reverend Penelope’s voice whispers close to my ear, “Are you having trouble, Judi?”
“Is the pope Catholic?” I want to scream at her naked earlobe. I nod instead.
“I think you’d better try the bench. Come, I’ll find you a place.” She holds my elbow and we waddle over together. Sitting through the second stage with “old” ladies on the bench, demoralized at my “failure,” I don’t even notice how many others chose this more practical perch.
When meditation ends, I finally find the answer to that mysterious “nooooooo rrroooooommmmmm.”
Reverend Kincaid enters the darkened hall, flipping on the lights to alert our squinting eyes and announcing melodiously, as he’s no doubt done for the previous two weeks of the retreat, “We will now prepare a chamber for sleeping.”
All of the retreat trainees huddled below the Buddha statue know their assigned roles (except for me) as they bow to the Buddha, bow to the door, and then race down a ramp to a storeroom filled with sleeping mats and room divider screens. They scurry like squirrels, each grabbing a screen and bowing to Buddha on the way back in.
The screens are set up to create a division between the male and female sides of the hall. All carry in futon mats, each knowing which one is his or her own. After placing sleeping bags atop these futons, they rush quickly out to the “conversational tea.” We are scheduled to be there to make small talk with selected monks. But I’m having none of it.
Observing this human anthill hurriedly moving large objects, I stare straight ahead, totally transfixed. My breathing is shallow and I’m clueless as to how to proceed. Reverend Kincaid stirs me out of my stupor. “Judi, would you like to choose a mat?”
I rush to comply as neither of us notices the large tears swimming along the rims of my eyes. Overcome with a sick feeling of flight like a threatened animal in the wild, I want to relieve myself and gallop off.
I’m expected to sleep in this large hall with all these other trainees? No privacy? No walkman? No rrrrrrooooommmmm!
I’ve found my room, but hit the wall.
Too much is just too much.
I must have a room. I like my comfort. I need privacy. I have music to play.
I begin planning my escape.
I’ve done all they said. I’ve willingly crushed my legs under the stool, pushed leaden limbs erect, and now dragged a futon to the last empty female space in the shrine. I’m obediently accepting whatever is put in front of me, but enough is enough. I can’t take any more. Without a chance for privacy, I can’t last.
In a daze, I spread out my mat and push myself to the next scheduled activity: the monk’s “conversational tea.”
I don’t bow one gassho at any shrine on the way, and then, in a tearful trance, I enter the recreation room where Reverend Paul leads the tea party. He’s telling cute stories while old-timer trainees giggle and sip. They’re serving newly picked cherries. I scoop myself a bowl and begin popping them absentmindedly, spitting pits and stems back into the same bowl. Tears now unashamedly roll down my cheeks.
I have to leave.
I just can’t take one more minute of this place.
I run out, and, despite the Buddhist exhortation against wasting food, I toss my cherries, pits, stems, and all into the nearest trash bin. After racing back to the luggage room to get quarters, I leap cloisters hurriedly to reach the public phone booth.
I call Yves’s motel. “You’ve got to get me out of this place. I can’t take it. I don’t belong here. Kincaid was right; I shouldn’t have started midstream.” I sob and gulp.
Yves, in his deep, mellow, radio-announcer tones, coos, “Oh, poor baby. You’re really having a hard time, aren’t you?” Despite the fact I’d initially fallen in love with his gentle, soothing voice, I have no time for that comfort crap now. (We’d had a phone romance for three months before we actually met. He told me then, “I give great phone.”)
Phone, shmone; like E.T., I want home.
Keeping up my gently oozing sobs, I can’t think of anything else to say.
Yves asks, “Have you talked with anyone there about this?”
“No,” I whine, and the rest tumbles out quickly. “I don’t know what to say. They’re all very nice, friendly, happy folks. I can’t take the bowing. I don’t have a room. We sleep on the floor. There’s no free time. I’ll never get to use my computer or hear my music. I can’t sit on a stool. My legs are giving out. I don’t know how to meditate. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I just can’t take the bowing. We have to bow at everything!”
“I think you’re feeling really lonely,” he soothes in his best silver-tongued-devil voice. “Why don’t you talk to someone there first, and then if you want I’ll definitely come and get you. Could you hold out ’til morning? I’ll come for you in the morning if you decide to leave.”
“Okay,” I sob. “I’ll talk with them. They’re having tea now. I can’t interrupt the tea. I’ll go back and listen. I just don’t understand what I’m doing here. Is this for the benefit of my patients or what? I don’t need to be doing this. Let me read a book. I’m not a Buddhist.”
“Jude, it’s about control. They’re taking away your power. You’re in a scary new place where no one knows what an important person you are. You aren’t in the power position. You don’t have all your usual trappings of contentment. There’s no podium or image to hide behind. No one wants to hear your words of wisdom or see your winning personality. You’re just there for you to go inward and get to know yourself. If you can stick it out, you’ll probably get a lot from it. Remember, you said you weren’t attached to your lifestyle, your possessions, your position, or your things. You tell people in your lectures that you can walk away from anything whenever you want. Now is the time for you to walk your talk.”
Damn. I know he’s right.
I just sob harder.
“Honey, you sound just like one of our patients,” he says with a loving smile in his tone.
I shriek, “I know that. I know that. I understand exactly what I’m doing and what’s going on. I see it all clearly, and I don’t care. I don’t care, shmare, wear, bear! WHATEVER! I just want OUT.”
I regret every day I’ve ever shared with him those family therapy principles about “release with love,” or letting people “work their own side of the street,” or “no pain, no gain,” or any of that crap.
I growl, “Call you back in the morning,” and then slam down the receiver.
Crying all the way back to tea, I reenter with crazed, crimson eyes, glaring at all their contented, tea-soaked grins. When his speech ends, I approach Reverend Paul and quiver. “Can I talk with you?”
Smiling quietly, he asks, “About what?”
That’s it. The floodgates burst as I now sob uncontrollably. Ushering me gently out the door, he sits us down on the kitchen stairs.
I begin blankly. “I have to leave, and I thought I should talk to someone first,” I boohoo, getting out all my frustrations and fears.
“Everyone’s great here. It’s a great place. It could be a great time, but I just have to go. I just can’t stop crying.”
“There’s nothing wrong with crying,” he answers, staring quietly straight ahead.
I boohoo more.
After a minute, he gently faces me dead-on. “This place makes you come up against yourself. It’s quite frightening. You can’t run or hide anywhere. It makes one go inward, deeper, and closer to the real Self.”
How the hell does this guy know about me? I’m not afraid. I just have a lot of things to do and don’t really see the value of wasting a week with this. I just don’t have enough motivation or desperation to stick it out. After all, my patients want freedom from food obsessions. They’re suffering and seeking relief. I’ve already done that. I’m doing quite well, thank you very much. I don’t want or need anything. I surely don’t need this. I must be on some stupid kick to investigate alternative lifestyles. This is an intellectual mission of mercy to benefit my staff and patients. I’ve made a mistake. I don’t need to put myself through this.
“I love my life,” I scream at his bald head. “I don’t want to be a monk.”
He slowly turns toward me again and gently responds to my panic. He breathes, and then pauses before speaking. “No one here would ask you to give up anything about your life. Principles you learn here can be carried back to your world, or not. It is true, however, that once you see and experience the truth, it burns like a fire within and you can’t pretend you haven’t seen or known it. I’ve obviously made my choice about things.”
His shaved head bears witness.
“Do you think you could make it through until tomorrow, or should I get Reverend Kincaid? We can get someone to drive you into town right now if that’s what you’d like.”
Secured by some returning sense of power, and also aware I’ve promised Yves I’ll wait until morning, I assure him I can make it through the night. He comforts me further with “Perhaps a good night’s sleep will make things clearer.”
Before reaching the women’s bathhouse, I’m approached by Reverend Kincaid.
Who ratted on me?
He begins gently with “Let’s sit here by the fountain and talk.” I make my way over and sit down to sob some more.
“I told you it might be hard to jump in midstream,” he reminds me.
“I know, I know,” I screech. “You were right, you were right. I shouldn’t have come. It’s the bowing. I can’t take the bowing. I don’t want to be a monk. I just wanted to study how Buddha’s principles work in the world.”
“I’d better go home and read more. I really thought I’d have some space and time to think. I’m just a dilettante. I never should have come. You’re all very nice. Everyone’s been wonderful. I just can’t stop crying. I can’t figure out the bowing. I’ve got to go.”
Reverend Kincaid showers me with the same gentleness shown by Reverend Paul. With no attempt to convince me of anything and with no condescension, he replies, “Rituals, such as bowing, are here to develop a certain orientation or practice, but they are really reminders of deeper meanings. The principles of gratitude, love, and service that you practice by bowing can be incorporated back to life outside of here. You are experiencing a loss of your normal structures and it is forcing you to move to other levels with which you have not yet been acquainted. We provide you with enough structure so that you can feel free to move to deeper levels without worry. We are freeing your mind of some decisions so you may focus on others and so that you can let go.”
Could it be that this dear man actually knows how much of my life is spent organizing my closet, scheduling appointments, and devising new treatment plans for patients? If my body and soul were not occupied with such diversions, what would I think about?
Oh, I get it. This is about not thinking at all.
What will my head do all day long? Even if that dilemma was solved, what about my room? Doesn’t he know my zodiac sign is Cancer? We need to nest.
“But despite all my best intentions, I can’t even do this stuff!” I seem to be screeching into yet another naked ear socket. “I couldn’t even meditate on a stool. I had to be benched.”
He stares directly ahead, not looking at me, just like Reverend Paul, and, with a slight smile, answers, “I use the bench.”
Yet another image shattered!
Eyes bugged in amazement, I wonder, How could the “Guestmaster of the Abbey” not sit in lotus position on a pillow? Don’t these people know anything about leadership qualities and motivational techniques? I’m totally giving up on expecting any professionalism.
He interrupts my head’s rant. “You seem extremely wound up right now. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will help you sort things out.”
Thanking him profusely for all his kindness, I apologize for my panic and tears.
“Why don’t you take time out of the morning cleanup schedule to make your decision? I’ll relieve you of any work detail so you can meditate more, make necessary phone calls, and then either fully participate or jump ship.”
“Sure. Thanks again for everything.” Smiling a sweet goodnight, I leave him to tiptoe into the temple past inert forms already cuddled into their sleeping bags. I crawl into mine and begin a quiet sob. Torn and disappointed and totally confused, I finally fall asleep. The Reverend and I both know I’ll be leaving in the morning.
But morning finds me still unresolved. I certainly feel increased compassion for those poor patients who’d come to HOPE House for treatment. Many had left their secure homes in the Midwest or even from faraway Spain, Sweden, or Hong Kong to come to the Mecca of eating disorder treatment, HOPE House, Hollywood. I empathized with their disappointment and fear of facing themselves and their lives. I understand now exactly what was going on. After all, I am a therapist. Even so, I still want out.
I remember there were those few crazed patients who ran off in the middle of the night, then called us next day from hotel rooms, pleading to return to treatment. I now clearly understand what they meant when they cried, “I don’t know why I ran. I just had to get away.” The open-door policies of Shasta Abbey and HOPE House are both a blessing and an equal curse. I’d welcome more restrictions to limit my choices.
I’d like to be bound and gagged to enlightenment, please.
When morning comes, I hurry out to the north woods of the abbey, hoping to question myself one more time to finally come to some decision. Each minute I vacillate. One second I have firm resolve to stick it out, trusting in possible future benefits; then, in an instant, I reverse course, clamoring, “Who needs this? This is a real waste of time. This place works for some displaced sixties hippies, but what do their choices have to do with my life?”
Reverend Kincaid meets up with me on the path. I look in his eyes and start to cry. “I want to stay. I just don’t think I can.”
He answers simply, “Anyone can. You first need to resolve if you want to. If you want to, then you can. Just do your best. That’s all anyone can do. In Buddhism we say, ‘begin at once and do your best.’”
Such clarity.
His simple statement bores softly into my heart as the pine needles rustle a bit in the still morning calm. My crying stops as I face him and myself.
Of course, what else could I do but my best? What else can anyone do? Who cares, anyway? Who’s watching or evaluating? Judge Judi’s the only judge in the room. No one else notices. No one cares. This experience is totally for me.
But I just want my own room, a little privacy, a little chance to think or write alone. I want, I want, I want . . . a chance to hear Bessie Smith’s bluesy wail.
Ladies who sing the blues know how to fight. So do I. Why don’t these monks try to fight to convince me to stay? Battling is easy. I already have good arguments: Didn’t they see how ill-prepared I was and how it was all their fault? I know whom to blame. If they would have just told me about all this bowing.
My self-justification looms up with “It’s their disorganization that worries me.”
I want control. I want to handle it. I want a guarantee. I want ice cream. I want to know that I won’t change and this place will not affect me. I want. I want. I want.
I recall how much I’d looked forward to this week with such enthusiasm and excitement.
Couldn’t I recapture some of that spirit of adventure, go ahead and accept their structure, but not necessarily lose myself? Can’t I hold on to some of my discerning eye and maintain perspective? Why not make the most of it? I can stop feeling so responsible, blaming myself for “choosing” to be here. Hell, I don’t even know how or why I’d received the brochure.
As the initial wave of fear begins to subside, I feel such love from these monks. I’m clearly not afraid of them or their rules; I’m afraid of me. What might I learn about me? I have met the enemy and she looks like me.
With no one to fight, the answer comes slowly but clearly.
I face Reverend Kincaid with no tears, just a straight stare of confidence and a determined tone in my voice. “I’ll stay.”
I’ll apply the same principle that has kept my food in order for many years: “One day at a time.” If it becomes unbearable, I’ll just pack up and move on. Just for today, I can take it. I am willing to stay for one full day.
Countdown begins . . .
My first morning. I arrive early at the bare-bones dining hall. All trainees line up alongside steel tables surrounded by folding chairs. A soft bell sounds and pandemonium ensues. Chairs screeching along the flagstone floor disturb my early-morning stupor. Once we’re all seated, the din subsides as bowls are passed with silent gasshos.
Breakfast is cardboard.
Tears keep streaming down my cheeks while I chew laboriously, staring blankly. Who cares about food at a time like this? Meals at the abbey are eaten in silence with accompanying rituals and prayers, and, of course, bows. In this environment of love and honesty, openness and respect, all I can do is cry.
Stop crying.
Finish up.
Bow to your plate.
Scrape leftovers into the “compost” can.
Bow to it.
Scurry over to the “job assignments” monk.
Bow to him.
He finds my name on his clipboard and says, “Construction. Go see Reverend Joel.”
After perfunctory introductions, Reverend Joel walks me over to a ditch and describes my task. I’m ditchdigger for the maintenance department.
“Dig down past these electrical wires to find where the water pipe makes an ‘L’ turn. When you find that, ask me for further instructions.”
Thank Buddha I’m assigned a loner job. I need time to think. Since only minimal talking is allowed during work periods anyway, it doesn’t much matter. Work is supposed to be done as a form of meditation.
Reverend Joel gives not one second to demonstration, but hands me the pickaxe and shovel, and smiles with a slight bow and a whispered “get to work.” I try the shovel first, and the damn ground is hardened clay.
No wonder he left without demonstration.
I grab the pickaxe, raise it up over my back, and swing with all my might. Clunk! It hits the ground and sends shock waves up my arms and down my back. It’s a bit titillating. I swing again and crash into the hardened soil. With each swing, I breathe in a great gulp of air and blow out what seems like endless waves of emotional pain. It is exhilarating and cathartic. Hardened bedrock within me dislodges as my ditch widens.
Finally, I have loosened enough earth to begin shoveling. A rhythm develops as I crouch down, shovel in, lift, and hurl the dirt. I’m Paul Bunyan, swinging and puffing and breathing in the pine scent as I blow out great stores of repressed energy.
I can’t stay with the flow of my body for long, as my head resumes its worrying.
Great that I brought those rubber gloves. I had no idea I’d be doing such difficult physical labor.
I get instant calluses anyway.
If I develop too many muscles, will my rings still fit? I’ve planned well, but still, what will I do if a nail breaks?
But can’t complain.
Can’t talk.
Alternating between pickaxe and shovel, I make a small dent in the work at hand, but move past a mountain of my fear.
I’m afraid?
I can’t quite acknowledge that yet.
Anger is easier.
I wonder if they know I have anger to express. At HOPE House, we’d give a job assignment based on clinical needs of the patient. Did I need the digging, pounding, and smashing of rock?
Obviously.
I’m trying to do not just a good job, but an impressive job. I’m sure Reverend Joel will shower me with glowing accolades later. The ground is hard, a light-sand color, but it gives way to my pounding. I notice a dank, but pleasant, smell arise from the loosened earth as I gain access deep into its bowels. I am entering new territory, and no one has been here since the pipe was initially laid. At one point I notice a small ant scurrying up my arm. Instead of smashing, I lay him gently on the ground. Treated by these monks with such gentleness and kindness, I want to give back the same.
This place is growing on me.
The work period passes more quickly than expected and the physical exertion takes the morning’s chill out of my bones. We’ve been up since five; first meditating, then working by seven, breakfast, meditation, and back to work. No rest for the unenlightened.
Just when my digging settles in to a rhythmic pattern, Reverend Joel stops by my ditch to announce, “Time for class.”
Not a word about the job I’m doing. I’m sure he’ll comment later.
With a quick clothing change and cleanup, I’m ready to race around the abbey to the classroom to relax into learning what this is all about.
My brain will get its much-needed exercise.
My time to shine.
Energized and thankful I didn’t leave too soon, I have a little trouble finding the classroom. Finally, I arrive and plop in just a little late to see all my fellow trainees listening attentively to yet another male monk in brown robes.
Some of them are even sitting lotus at this session.
This monk is short, with the same bald head and the same brown robes, but he seems a little nervous, not as centered as the others.
Clearing his throat, he begins. “Today’s session will be about moderation. The Buddha had scorned extremes of eroticism or asceticism and recommended that we find the middle path to enlightenment by living an ordinary life.”
I’m excited. I’ve been debating with treatment professionals over rigid versus laissez-faire food plans, and I’m writing a book about moderation in recovery.
Great. I’m gonna get my money’s worth.
I truly value intellectual pursuits and discussions almost as much as I devalue meditation, which the monks hold in high esteem. For me, the class is over too quickly, and we’re sent back to meditate before lunch. I suffer through yet another meditation session. There’ve only been three since I first arrived.
And I have six times a day coming.
During meditation I cry while my nose twitches and pain pounds in my head. In each session, my mind races around a NASCAR track. But the minute I leave the meditation hall, all thoughts cease. I feel breezy, relaxed, and lightheaded.
So, I’m not getting it the way I think I should, but I am lightening up some. It takes time.
Time for lunch.
I follow others, grabbing a bowl, silverware, and cup, and then scramble with the rest to find a seat, each of us pretending it doesn’t matter where we sit. Massive screeching follows as those steel chairs scrape the floor again.
Is this loud irritation our signal to eat?
It is certainly a contrast to the melodious gong that announces meditation. I’m sure there is more psychological interpretation to devise, but I’m too hungry.
I like the seat facing the picture window that offers a crystal-clear view of the mountain.
Everyone but me knows the meal procedures. I follow along. We ritualistically unfold napkins and give gassho as each family-style bowl is passed. We give gassho before receiving the bowl, then spoon out our serving and bow again as we pass it on to the left. After all are served, a gong sounds and we take silent bites, giving gassho before each forkful.
Why, this could be heaven for my anorexic patients who love to perform elaborate rituals over the food they never get around to eating. Eventually, some of these tools will become a cornerstone to my maintaining permanent weight loss.
Wastefulness is considered morally unethical, and all food that is taken must be eaten. There’s nowhere private to stow leftovers for later. The other trainees know not to take what they won’t eat.
I make a big abbey mistake after breakfast right in front of the kitchen chief. As we stand silently in line to wash our individual plates, I beam proudly and say, “Where can I store the uneaten half of my orange?” I’m feeling terrifically virtuous at not finishing a meal.
Notice the big deal I can make over half an orange. I wasn’t saving a pork roast or anything.
As he swoops up my uneaten citrus, the monk scowls and growls about me to someone in the kitchen.
I’m ready to lose it again. Lower lip starts quivering. I am aware how vulnerable and open I am to any feedback.
Here we go. Here come the tears.
My head brews up a fight. A margin of safety has returned as I sense anger and irritation from this man.
I can deal with that.
My head starts racing defensively to tell him off.
I didn’t know the rules. It’s your fault.
Instead, I just stand quietly and watch. Frozen in front of his dishwashing window, I psychologically leave the scene, remembering all the many meaningless battles I’ve fought over the years.
According to the Buddhists, the process of awakening involves seeing in stark relief all the areas of your life that haven’t been working. In that awareness, you might feel despair, disgust, and sadness.
Well, it’s all happening for me right now.
In this loving environment, I’m beginning to see all the paradoxes in my life and all those areas that don’t quite measure up. I’d been so concerned about achieving and proving myself in the world and accomplishing great pioneering things in a very few years. For what?
No one cares here. In this cloistered environment, it’s more important that I pay attention to not wasting food or not taking more than my share and being aware that the planet needs all of us to remain conscious. In fact, it’s continuous awareness, paying attention, and staying present and alive that are the gift and burden of being human. And I have wasted so much time in pursuit of being the top-of-the-heap superhero. All of my efforts were expended in the service of a fearful ego so that I could avoid feeling like a total failure and an inadequate, scared little rabbit.
Is either of those necessary? The truth lies somewhere in between.
I will find my way into mediocrity, daring to be average.
All those years of therapy and training had helped me see the root causes of my competitive striving. My own fat and furious disposition germinated in a home where both parents repressed their own constant fear, pain, and sadness. Their generation didn’t talk about deep feelings. They only knew how to express anger. I carried their sadness for them. And no matter how cute and precocious I was, I couldn’t fix them. I compensated for this perceived inadequacy by developing a winning personality to use as I went out into the world to win friends and influence people. But then I’d come home to hear, “You’ve got them all fooled. They can’t possibly know how rotten you really are.”
Believing from an early age that I was really “no damned good,” I walked out into the world seeing and creating my own violence and violation. It’s so difficult to avoid hurting self or others. Sadness and pain are just unavoidable.
But who’s to blame?
In medicine, the Hippocratic oath admonishes us to “never do harm.” The prescription in this monastery is to try to do no harm to any living thing. Facing the difficulty of that prospect, I’m anxious to make small talk with fellow trainees.
I’m anxious to start commenting on these ideas and this experience.
I want someone to see that I tried hard to be good, but screwed up anyway. I want to rant to someone that “the kitchen monk hurt me.”
Doesn’t he know that I just want to be a good kid? I want to know all the times to bow and to whom. I want to dig the deepest ditch, swoop with the lowest bow, and eat the fullest orange. But I just can’t. Instead, silence is the golden rule. I don’t say a word.
Silence.
Clearly, I cannot tolerate anything less than perfection. Attached to my need for a perfect image, I will be given innumerable chances to flunk out.
By bedtime, I am resigned to wandering through this place without being appreciated or receiving any praise. I will just be. In a brief twenty-four hours, I have managed to survive and sit in stillness through all the meditation sessions, albeit from my high perch on the bench. I have become acutely aware of sensory input—from quiet gongs of meditation bells to screeching chairs on dining room floors, to the rich smell of earth inviting me to enter deeper. I’ve watched calluses sprout on my fingers and felt “moderation” ideas sprout in my cerebellum. I have absorbed the security offered by these monks and their structure, and though shocked by the kitchen monk’s judgment, I have not diminished my resolve.
Exhausted by nightfall, I tumble into bed with no more energy to cry.
On day two, dressing becomes easier and I can do it faster. I stand upright to put on my prayer skirt while the others are squirming to get dressed while still inside their sleeping bags. “We try not to offend ourselves or others,” Reverend Muldoon’s words echo.
Well, the hell with that. I’ve lived a lifelong struggle with obesity, full of shame about my body, stretching hand towels in high school gym classes across rolls of pubescent fat.
So now I should cover up and worry about someone viewing my sleek, slim torso? Offensive? Disturbing someone’s practice? Give me a break.
My concession to this monastic modesty is to dress quickly, albeit standing.
Right after morning prayers we are sent out into the freezing cold to line up for work details. The crisp, cold essence of pine needles seeps up my nose as the morning work assignments are called.
“Maureen Richter, who is new today, will work with Judi Hollis for the maintenance department.”
Why had they announced my last name? I’m here for an anonymous private retreat. Why are they even giving me a helper? I was doing quite well by myself.
I’m back in the ring.
Maureen wears all the right gear: hiking shoes, baggy pants, a thick pink sweater, and green fleece hat. She is short, with pixie-cut, curly brown hair and a smile that says, “I’m at peace.”
I catch her eye and whisper, “I’ll show you to the toolshed to get further direction from Reverend Joel.”
I pray she’s on a different assignment. My head screams, “I want to be alone.” I’m sure there’s room for only one pick and shovel at my ditch.
Guess what? She’s assigned to help me.
Damn.
We walk silently and then she asks, “Didn’t you give a training presentation at a hospital in San Bernardino last week? I recognized your name.”
Clenching teeth, staring straight ahead down the path, I can’t decide how to respond.
Caught. I’ve traveled 600 miles to the top of a mountain to get away from my life. I’m finally settling in to being a newcomer, accepting that I have nothing to do or say but learn. And then, this.
I start laughing. “I don’t believe it.” I laugh harder and louder. “I just don’t believe it.” Maureen catches on immediately and laughs with me.
She leans over conspiratorially. “I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable. I can understand how you’d want to be away from your roles and responsibilities. I just wanted you to know I thought it was a great seminar and I can really see how your treatment ideas reflect much of what is taught here at the monastery. This is my sixth summer here. My husband and I have been meditating for many years and we incorporate Buddhism into our work as therapists.”
I have such a warm, ironic giggle bubbling up and just waiting to escape from my pursed lips.
This is the best cosmic joke ever.
I draw furtively closer to her and whisper, “I try to get away from my professional roles so I can be in a position of learning rather than teaching.”
Then I immediately start teaching.
I tell of my struggles: how my center is like this monastery, but how difficult it is to justify within a medical model. I go on sharing my debates about mechanistic, standardized recovery programs teaching “adjustment” versus my more spiritually oriented program of “expansion.”
I’d love to rattle on and on.
This is my first conversation, and on my turf, yet.
Something stops me. I explain to Maureen that it’s probably best to avoid such discussions. “I’m happy you like my work. I feel guilty talking during work period.”
“Me too,” she smiles, shrugging her shoulders and giggling like, “We’re so, so bad.”
However, I keep talking. “I’ve been quite shaky since I got here. I cry all the time. I see there’s a lot for me to learn if I can just stick it out.”
“I cried during my first week, too,” she counters. “Each time we return here, I find myself getting anxious and queasy during the drive up. There’s something inviting and repelling about the experience. I do like the quiet time and the loving people.”
We agree not to mention things back down in the world again.
As it turns out, Joel assigns us to the same ditch. Our further “minimal” conversation involves positions for digging, who’ll wield the axe, who’ll heave on the shovel, and how it seems we’ll have to dig much deeper. Very soon it is time for meditation again.
I see that the schedule is difficult because we need so many costume changes.
I could really help them with this. I can understand that they want us to alternate meditation with work and then study, reading, eating, rest, and work. This constant shifting of focus keeps us a bit off balance and open. This makes us resort to using different energies and abilities.
I am very comfortable with my brilliant, albeit silent, comments.
But there are flaws in the schedule. Don’t they see how difficult it is to run halfway around the abbey, take a sink bath, change into a skirt and slipper shoes, race back to the classroom, bowing en route, remove shoes, bow, and arrive fresh and on time?
Trainees and monks turn the cloisters into the Indianapolis Speedway and make scheduled events loosely on time. Of course, everywhere, at every shrine, I have to bow. I also learned that as I went through the day, whenever the spirit moved me, it was a good idea to bow. I wanted to do my very best to follow the bowing rules.
Let’s not forget that no one asked for my opinion on scheduling. They’re certainly missing out on a lot of valuable expertise here. I’ve been organizing therapeutic communities since 1967. Boy, I sound like all the nursing director patients who came through HOPE House and wanted to devise new charting procedures to make things more “efficient.” It is so difficult to move from the helper role to that of the person being helped.
The mind likes its comforts.
Mine quickly races to its lowest common denominator during meditation sessions: “What am I going to wear?”
Quickly surmising that three-quarters of what I’ve brought is unacceptable—loud, sexy, or inadequate—I have to juggle what I have left for classes, meditation, meals, and work assignments. There are also the rest and reading periods to consider, as well as the hourly weather changes that go from sweltering heat to foggy, cold, and damp. Even more complex than what to wear is how to transport the changes from the luggage room around the cloister to the bathhouse cubicle in as few return steps as possible. Timing is everything. Each outfit has varying requirements and necessitates alternative advanced planning.
If only I had my own room with a closet, I could really settle down to meditating.
On the third day the temperature drops below freezing, forcing me to bring out my suede, fur-lined hunting jacket. Why hadn’t I considered that these vegetarian, “do no harm to any living thing” monks might find this jacket ghastly and offensive? I’d never given that a thought as I’d packed, instead musing that the jacket had a rugged and mountaineering feel to it.
It’s always about image. Would it help if I told them I bought the jacket used at the Rose Bowl swap meet, that I was not the first owner or initial purchaser, and that I would never custom-order such carnage? Wrapped sheepishly in dead hide, I wend my way around the cloisters. No one says a word to me, but I cringe whenever I catch anyone glancing at my furry lapels.
Don’t some of them wear leather shoes? Isn’t that a real fur hat covering that shaved dome?
I grasp for straws.
Who cares? It’s not about me. No one has time to sit in judgment of me. All monks seem to have a busy schedule, getting quickly from one place to the next, their robes swishing along the path, hopefully not brushing any bugs to imminent doom. All are busy racing around the cloister, chasing their own enlightenment.
Part of the morning’s class session deteriorates, as so many do, into a heady debate about male-female issues. The conflict is introduced by an elderly woman, dowdy, with scraggly hair, and awful beige “wedgie” shoes.
With raised brow, she peers down the tip of her nose through wire-rimmed spectacles and starts speaking through pinched lips. “I take offense at the scripture’s description of ‘woman as temptress.’”
Even on this mountaintop, do we have to find yet another campaigner for the women’s cause?
I’m livid.
If I didn’t feel so new, little, and scared, I’d rejoinder with “Shaved heads, all monks look alike, each is sworn to celibacy, and we’re all sleeping on the same temple floor. Do we care at all about sex? Who the hell cares about temptation at a time like this?”
Well, I guess the dowdy old windbag does. I prefer to let these issues lie. I find myself letting the discussion go by rather than attaching myself to any position.
Am I above such attachment? I think it’s more that with all my shoveling of real dirt in the ditch, I’m just too tired to transport any more.
After lunch, I have a new job and a new partner. My coworker is Larry, Maureen’s husband, who is tall, with reddish hair, and possessed of her same contented, sweet smile that seems to project a “let’s wait and see” attitude. I’m more the “jump in and do” type. Our job is demolition. Now we’re into something that can well utilize my talents as well as my defects. Let’s destroy whatever it is.
