In an often-told Zen tale, the parents of a village girl storm the hut of the aging monk Hakuin and thrust on him their daughter’s newborn child. They blame him for fathering the baby, mock his esteemed reputation, and name him a dirty old man. Awkwardly cradling the squalling baby, Hakuin makes a deep bow and responds with equanimity, “Is that so?”

That night, as a chill wind penetrates the hut, he encircles the baby with his own warmth, offering her protection. He nurtures this child as a father would his daughter: stitching her clothes from his monk’s robes, sharing his own meager broth and rice, as well as schooling her in poetry, brush painting, and the wisdom of the dharma.

When the true father is revealed, the village girl’s parents appear once again at Hakuin’s hut, this time to claim the child as their own and to take her away. They praise Hakuin for his generosity, ask forgiveness for tarnishing his image as a monk, and name him a great benefactor. As he releases the beloved child, he makes a deep bow and again with equanimity responds, “Is that so?”

I’ve found myself returning to the Hakuin tale as I’ve reflected on a recent school reunion. A reunion—what better occasion to confront the tight grip of the self image; the exquisite pull, and sometimes pain, of seeing through the lens of reputation, name, and identity?

The first class reunion for my progressive New York City private school was our twenty-fifth. Some of us, including me, had started at the school at age 6, and so we went back a long way together. At the reunion, my fifth-grade teacher told me a story. “At morning circle,” Joan said, “I asked for a volunteer. Before I’d mentioned the errand, you raised your hand and jumped from your seat. You raced out of the room en route to do that errand. Who knows where you went? It was ten minutes before you raced back, empty-handed, confused.” I’ve savored the tale of this small, intense enthusiast, and wondered, “Who was she?”

At our second reunion, our thirty-fifth, my childhood friend Suzy told my 10-year-old daughter about the young me: “Every single day at school your mom would cry.” And who was this? I’ve pondered both of these stories for hints of who I was and, in some ways, who I am now.

Over these many years, I’ve committed much time and effort to meditation practice, to therapy, to qigong or yoga, to countless modalities to train in awareness and equanimity. That’s meant I’ve often taken myself gently by the scruff of the neck—to listen with more care, to contain soaring emotions (not always so benign as enthusiasm or tears), and to pause and consider before I jump. At times I’ve taken pride in my progress; indeed, I’ve relished praise from friends for how I have “changed.”

Of course, in Buddhism we’re taught that pride is based in illusion and, ultimately, causes pain, as does attachment to either blame or praise. Yet how I’ve yearned for you to certify me, to stamp me, to applaud me, to mirror me back to myself as a new and improved self. And who is this “you?” I’ve been in awe of you since I was 6—the Big Shot, the primo-identity!

This past year, I’ve been one of the planners of a third reunion, our forty-seventh. In my kitchen in Berkeley I met with a classmate, Carly. She had been the queen Big Shot. When we were little, I dreaded the Fifth Avenue bus ride home with Carly, who teased me daily about my little-shot ways—a dreamer, a klutz, a teacher’s pet. Often, as we rode downtown, she would knock me down and sit on top of me, crushing my cheek against the seat. With me struggling underneath her weight, my face stinging with tears, we’d ride past my stop at 81st by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all the way to hers at 53rd, almost as far as MoMA. It was a long walk back uptown to my stop.

I still don’t know why she did it or why I stood for it. I do know that at some point I paid a high price to win Carly’s friendship. I also know that we continued a long love-hate history throughout school and beyond; listening to Mozart together, staying up all night talking about our boyfriends, our mothers. We went through her breakdown during college and mine ten years later. Since then, our on-and-off visits have felt strained for reasons that have remained mostly opaque.

At our recent visit, after reunion planning, we exchanged news of family and work. I picked up a booklet of photos from the past month’s meeting of the Berkeley City Council, where in their tradition of naming days in honor of local artists, my birthday for that year was named “Barbara Gates Day.” The cover photo featured a group shot of my crew, arrayed in jeans and shawls, running shoes and silver boots—family, the staff of Inquiring Mind, neighborhood kids—precious strands of my life that had come together to celebrate. But as soon as I opened the booklet, something felt off. I hurried through to the final shot of me at a podium, eyebrows raised, nostrils flared, gesturing with dramatic flourish. “Whoa!” Carly shook her head with a snort. “Same old Barbara!” She scowled, narrowed her eyes, and, as if to someone across the room, added, “Nope, hasn’t changed a bit!” I felt it like a wallop. A whole lot of words followed that I couldn’t take in, that I could barely hear, but three that I thought I did were: “Full of yourself.”

Where did that come from? I had the urge to grab her by the shoulders, to escort her out the front door, and, with an imperceptible shove at the landing, to knock her down the steep sixteen steps. Tongue-tied, I sat there raging. Once again I was pinned under Carly on the Fifth Avenue bus headed past my home stop. Again, I felt crushed into some diminished picture of my “self.”

But what if instead, like the Zen monk Hakuin, I had responded with a gracious nod, “Is that so?” What if I had let her comment breeze through our exchange?

Not so easy. I try to imagine our monk by the doorway to his hut clasping the dazed baby to his fast-beating heart, blamed, called dirty old man. Or years later, releasing this child, whose tender life felt inseparable from his own, now praised with the lofty great benefactor. When his world as he knew it was overturned and he was presented with opposing identities, what a feat to hold steady in himself, to be unshakable. For me, pulled as I am by enthusiasm, by hurt, or by thirst for validation, such freedom from the addiction to identity doesn’t come easily.

This visit with Carly touched off memories. So many memories from childhood were of the powerlessness of us little shots and the clout of the Big Shots—whom I feared, hated, and secretly craved to impress.

What if I had let her comment breeze through our exchange?

Who were the little shots? They were dreamers, artists, tellers of tales: Ariana, with her tender cheeks and spun-sugar halo of hair, a painter, even at 9 capturing the nuance of seasons; Plum, with her silky braids and embroidered tops, a book lover who wrote endless tales of mystery and imagination; and me, a fervent story-maker, rapt in the child’s worlds of dress-up and dolls.

And the Big Shots? They were the tough girls. Each and every one could throw a mean pitch in baseball or Soak ’Em—the scourge of little shots like me. In a Soak ’Em game, sometimes dubbed Dodge Ball or Murder Ball, the Big Shots seemed all powerful. When two teams faced off in the gym, the team with more Big Shots always inevitably won. When one of them got the ball, we knew they would slam it at one of us little shots and knock us out of the game. A sidearm throw aimed at the face could blacken an eye or bloody a nose, or aimed at the feet could send us flying–smack–against the gym floor. And for me, the choosing of teams was the most excruciating part. Big Shot captains took turns picking, and my friends and I were always chosen last. Talk about a diminished identity.

After two years of planning, when the forty-seventh reunion finally happened, our gatherings included a visit to a building overlooking Central Park that for many years housed our school. In a bizarre juxtaposition with our freedom-loving progressive institution, this building now housed a minimum-security prison. A bright-eyed, gray-haired, and balding group of us was graciously ushered around the site. As we toured the lobby (now complete with metal detectors and a gun arsenal) and the former classrooms (now dorm units with tight tiers of bunks), I had an eerie vision of the sacred chambers of our childhood illuminated in the background. Glowing behind a large, dimly lit room rose our school gym. A Soak ’Em game was in full swing, Carly in a blue mesh pinnie spinning a mean ball, sending me sprawling.

As I descended the stairs from the cafeteria and peered down the corridors of locked doors, a memory blossomed into consciousness:

With a passel of children, I skitter down the steps, laughing and shoving, dash left through the fifth-floor hallway, almost to the end, and throw open the door. It’s Fred Shultz’s fifth-grade math class. Fred is late, so someone seizes the boxes of fresh chalk and starts throwing. It’s like a multi-ball Soak ’Em assault, two Big Shot girls in alliance with the boys against the little shots—Ariana, Plum, and me. We recoil at the far end of the table and duck a barrage of flying chalk while flinging handfuls of broken pieces back at our tormentors. Suddenly, the Big Shot girls, armed with new packs of ammunition, jump up on their chairs and, towering above the rest of us, focus their full attack on Ariana.

Through the cloud of chalk dust, I stagger up onto a chair. In a sudden reversal, I turn on Ariana, pummeling her with chalk. Ariana, with her spun-sugar hair; Ariana, who has been my dearest friend. When I’ve used up the last of the chalk shards, I search wildly for more. That’s when I grab the eraser from the tray along the blackboard. With all of the force I hadn’t been able to muster in hundreds of failed Soak ’Em games, I hurl that eraser. When the speeding missile hits Ariana’s eye, she shrieks in pain.

Did Fred finally arrive and make us stop? Did Ariana leave in an ambulance? I can’t remember. I do remember that Ariana was out for the rest of the week while rumors spread that she might lose her eye. It was June already, almost time for summer vacation, and as the year drew to a close, she stayed home, and, in fact, the following year she never came back.

As we alumni headed out of what once was our school and into Central Park, I grappled with the karmic consequences of this chalk fight. By hitting Ariana with that eraser I ended our friendship and was catapulted into the ranks of the Big Shots. Heady with the pheromones of betrayal and victory, I was now allied with Carly and her pals. Secretly, I harbored the anguish of loss mixed with a stinking dirty sense of shame. And now, more than five decades later, despite the fact that Ariana’s eye healed quickly and that she and I reconciled during college, I have continued to feel the pain of that betrayal. Now, sitting on a park bench, I came back into contact with its burn. I lost Ariana. I lost my way.

Our school had espoused freedom; mostly, it was the opposite of a prison with metal grids and an arsenal. But indeed, we were human beings suffering from the same imprisoning habits as the rest of our species. How locked in we were by our fixed images of each other—Big Shot, little shot, crybaby, enthusiast, athlete, artist—and our images of ourselves—in my case, so rigid that I sacrificed what I loved most just to end up in a different cell.

Sitting on the bench, my thoughts steeped in the chalk fight, I returned to the grown-up event with Carly. In my Berkeley kitchen when I had felt accused, I jumped to anger so fast. Yet I hadn’t known my raw heartache underneath—of feeling somehow unseen and unappreciated. Now, I let that heartache seep through me. It then came to me, Carly may well feel that way too. Why would the pain that drove me to switch sides and assault a friend somehow be different from what drives Carly or anyone else to bully?

And I returned to “Is that so?” Is anything ever really “so?” I questioned the pictures I hold of myself or Carly, of little shots or Big Shots. Without those, what is left? Not me. Not her. Not us. Not them. Right there a glimpse of emptiness. And out of that, a taste of equanimity.

⧫

This piece has been adapted from the Fall 2010 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 27, No. 1). Text © 2010 Barbara Gates.

Related Inquiring Mind articles:

• “Happiness Beyond Worldly Measures”
• “Gabe and the Medicine Buddha”
• “The Buddha as a Parent”
• “Reunion on the Path of No Speech”

The post Who Was She? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

—From The Buddha’s Five Remembrances, presented by Thich Nhat Hanh

Today’s hike begins as a detective caper. Can we, Patrick and Barbara—two long-married 75-year-olds—find and walk the zigzag trail we climbed thirty-five years ago in Oakland’s Redwood Park, where the younger Patrick, unbeknownst to the younger Barbara, planned to propose marriage—but didn’t?

The forest ranger we consult, the dog walkers to whom we explain our quest, respond with delight. Seeking advice on how to locate our trail, we describe what we remember—narrow, steep, heavily wooded, many switchbacks—and share our story: the two of us in the prime of life, charging up and down, pressing through tight passages between trees, hunting for a sunny nook for a picnic, Patrick hauling a heavy wicker basket where he had hidden a bottle of champagne.

On this day, with our pup Tony in tow, we head out on the soft needle duff beneath rising redwoods. While I’ve become an ardent daily walker, since those courting days it’s been hard to pry Patrick away from his books, writing, and cooking to get out on a trail. But here we are. The search feels fun to both of us, maybe a little more riveting for me. Primed with expectation, I feel particularly alive. I hurry ahead, glancing back every few minutes at Patrick carefully forging forward. I try to curb impatience but finally burst out, “Couldn’t you pick up the pace a bit?”

In my rush, I trip on a tree root, lose my balance, and hurtle to the ground, scraping my forearm and elbow. Patrick catches up, making sure I’m OK, and I hasten on.

The price of my “exuberance”! I’ve continued to defend this view of myself, even as evidence has mounted for contrary assessment. My lickety-split pace, in which I’ve taken pride, isn’t necessarily a wonderful choice. It is, I’ve come to suspect, a way of avoiding what is truly going on. Hurrying has consequences: not just injuring the body but also distracting the mind.

After the slip, I remind myself:

I am of the nature to grow old.

Recently I’ve been practicing the Buddha’s five remembrances, reciting them in early morning meditation and reflecting on them throughout the day.

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

These five verses from the Upajjhatthana Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 5.57) are meant to be memorized and recited as constant reminders. By regularly repeating the truths of inconstancy, I hope to absorb them in the whistle of breath at my nostrils, the throb of my pulse and beat of my heart. But why does the practice of the remembrances feel so urgent for me? The specter of separation from all I love is especially charged. I know this. My dad left when I was 3, touching off years of yearning for stable connection. As life has gone on and as family and friends have disappeared through deaths and feuds, that yearning has continued—sometimes as a low hum in the background, but now with my advancing age it is much more often in the foreground. Fighting impermanence, I constantly feel betrayed by life. Maybe if I can accept the truths of change, this sense of ongoing betrayal will release.

The Soto Zen teacher Yvonne Rand introduced me to the remembrances long ago in a yearlong seminar on death. But it wasn’t until the pandemic that I began to take on the practice with discipline. Increasingly, the reminders repeat themselves back to me at unexpected moments during my waking hours, and at night in dreams.

Fighting impermanence, I constantly feel betrayed by life. Maybe if I can accept the truths of change, this sense of ongoing betrayal will release.

There is no way to escape old age, ill health, death, separation from all that we love. . . . No way to escape. Yet there are plenty of ways to escape believing that these apply to me. Despite a few falls—one off a ten-foot ladder and one down the back stairs—I’ve continued to trick myself as I’ve hurried along, particularly when it comes to old age: surely that is one thing I can put off. But Patrick, with three eye surgeries, digestive ills, and now arthritis, has often noted, drolly, “We’re falling apart.”  I’ve hotly disagreed. “We are not!” Well, maybe it’s true for him, but certainly not for me. Yet just a few days ago the dentist told me I’m soon to lose yet another tooth, while I still haven’t gotten the implant to hide a gaping hole from the last extraction.  In this same week, my bone density scan reveals bone loss and my eye exam, cataracts—both to alarming degrees even I can’t deny.

The vibrating hoot of a train far below echoes up through city streets and canyons, into this forest.  I hear it now as a warning toll:

No way to escape ill health, growing old, death.

So as Patrick and I go on our search, I am also tuning my senses to the fundamental truths of impermanence.

We hike along the Redwood Creek bed, dry in our time of draught. That summer long ago on the almost-proposal walk, it flowed with the wash and rustle of living water.

Interrupting my memories, today’s Patrick observes, “During the last thirty-five years, these trees probably grew 50 feet.” We crane our necks to view the tops of the trees, 100 feet above us. “They must have sprung from the roots of the giants felled by loggers in the 1850s.”

A political science professor before he took up law, Patrick draws on constant reading in history and politics. When we met in college on the East Coast, I thought of him as the nerdy roommate of a boyfriend. It took twenty years until, finally at 40, I paid attention. There Patrick was—brilliant, absolutely trustworthy, loving, and playful.

“I keep thinking about the original redwoods,” says Patrick. “They became Oakland, Berkeley, much of San Francisco.” He unpacks the moment by expanding it into broad history, seeing through the smallest event to the world, and how and why it turns. Maybe that’s his version of impermanence practice.

Prompted by his observations, my attention widens, and I ache for the trees that were felled, those great redwoods reaching up into the sky.

All of the nature to change.

“This couldn’t be the route we took, could it?”  I return us to our mini-story. “Too many rocks. Too much space between trees. Remember how we couldn’t find a cranny to sit and eat?”

“It was definitely steeper,” says Patrick, “Of course, I was hauling that basket!” He cocks his head, his version of a wink.

That day we had hiked for hours, looking for a place to sit. Finally we broke through dense forest into sunshine: the perfect picnic spot! But we found ourselves, hours after setting out, back in the parking lot where we had started. We both collapsed on a log and devoured our sandwiches. Patrick never did break out the champagne.

Today, hiking on now in silence, we arrive at a fork. One path is gentle, circling back the way we came, gradually going further up the hill. The other goes vertically up. The steep trail looks familiar to both of us. I say, “Let’s head up!” But then I remember my broken bones in recent years—both heels when I fell off the ladder and a shattered kneecap when I tumbled down the stairs. I think of the warning from the recent bone density test: high risk for fracture. I shake my head. “Can’t do.”

There is no way to escape growing old.

We take the easier slope to our car. As we complete this hike, I sense my humped shoulders—resistance to the way it is, resentment at what I can’t do.

Not to be daunted, a week later we enter Redwood Park through a different gate and set out on our second sleuthing adventure. Surely we were wrong. There must be a trail that calls to us but doesn’t look dangerous.

We loop around on a new path, breathe in the spicy smell. Light trembles through branches. My thoughts coast to raising Caitlin with Patrick. Each weekday evening when Caitlin was little, at some much-anticipated moment she and I would hear the key turning in the lock, the front door flying open, and Patrick’s voice booming from the landing: “Hello Hello.” Patrick would stride into the living room, handsome in his lawyer’s suit and tie, and Caitlin would race to him. “Daddy!” I would run up too for a welcome hug.

I don’t know when that stopped—the hello hello, with such energy and hope. But it lapsed and never resumed, and I keep wishing it were back. These days—three years into his retirement and a year into Covid—when Patrick comes in the door he’s quiet, his shoulders sloped.

But is it really his enthusiasm that I am wishing for? Or am I struggling with my own fear that nothing hopeful can be expected anymore, that some essential life energy is over?

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.

On the trail, recalling those happy hello hellos, an unarticulated longing becomes clear: if we can find that lost route through the redwoods and retrace our steps, we’ll miraculously turn back into the dreamy 40-year-old couple. Right here, my two quests collide. The first—a drive to magically reverse time, to recover our younger selves—clashes with the second—an intention to get real, to know that we are old, that we are of the nature to get ill, and that we are always dying.

As we hike farther, the forest turns increasingly dense, the path darkening. My thoughts grow somber.  That’s happened a lot lately, taking me over unexpectedly as I’ve grappled with the remembrances.

There is no way to escape being separated from all that is dear to me.

Each time this verse sounds in my head, I rush along the trail, just as, I’m guessing, the threat of separation has always kept me fleeing.

A few times lately I’ve been overtaken by fear; everything has suddenly turned hazy and my body has gone numb. I’ve leaped to my feet and run from lamp to lamp, from wall switch to wall switch, flipping on lights. Has the house dimmed? Or is it my eyes? Maybe all my systems are shutting down? This panicked feeling is familiar to me; it came up most intensely forty-five years ago when my father was dying, leaving once again.

Some nights now awake in bed, a chilling scenario returns to me.  Patrick dies, leaving me on my own. This feels unbearable. Before we were together, my moods swung up-and-down-crazy, and often I popped off, angry. Once he and I settled together, his anchor kept me more stable. I don’t know how well I could be grounded on my own.

Slowing down on the trail, I call back to Patrick, “Hey Babe, one of us is going to die first.”

He laughs, as he often does when something painful comes up.

I insist, “No, really. Do you ever wonder how that would be?”

“Well, aren’t I supposed to die first? Wasn’t that why we did all that will stuff …?”

“What if it was me who died first?”

Silence. Finally he says, “Our home would be very sad.” A pause. “And quiet.”

We both start walking again, me already picking up my pace. Then he calls toward me, “I guess I’d have to start walking Tony.”

I laugh, behind my cheekbones a prickling of tears.

Even as you keep teasing, Mr. P., I’ll keep practicing, teaching myself to take in what is true: old age, sickness, death. Just a few days ago, I sat in the dental chair facing a monitor. On the screen I saw a skull—teeth protruding,  hollow cheeks, empty cranium, nose hole, eye sockets. A  gap where there must have been a molar on the lower mandible. Disconnect, then recognition. Oh my God, that’s my skull.  I turn to the endodontist, raise a brow, “Wow. A memento mori moment.” And he, catching my dark humor, “Yes, that’s you in thirty years!” A generous estimate.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

The skull is mine, yet it could be anyone’s. A shock of truth, like Dorian Gray staring at the image of his debauched nature revealed in his portrait; but this screen is everybody’s portrait. A precious opportunity in the dental chair: to look at an X-ray or mirror and recognize one’s impersonal nature. A moment of release. From what? From seeing my self at the center—that’s how it feels.

A harmonic chord hums through the forest—a train calling from across the city below. I imagine linked cars, clattering in a continuous series along tracks by the Bay. Vague images return to me from last night’s dream—rattling sound, skidding feel. In months of practicing the remembrances, dream visitors have insinuated themselves into my sleep. In an underworld descent, I’ve met my father, dead forty-five years, and an old friend, Allen, dead five years. These were men dear to me, each with a professorial air. Patrick is in their lineage.

Now, beneath these dense trees, the gloom feels unrelenting. Last night’s dream coalesces: I am alone in a runaway railroad car, unhooked from all others and careening off the tracks, hurtling backward in free fall. Sliding wildly back and forth between shuddering walls of the car, I am totally unmoored.

As I walk, I try to contact the dream’s tone. Panic? Not quite. There’s an element of exhilaration. How can that be? The feeling is terror, but not only terror. It’s terror along with amazement that I am conscious in the midst of it.

I take a deep inhalation. I ground my feet, as if I too have roots reaching into the soil. I have an inkling that if I can know the terror through and through, I can find a measure of peace within it.

As we begin another descent, I hear the faint sound of lilting water, the creek, still streaming  through one glade. I feel the sweetness of the memories from our early life together. I also feel the fear and pain of loss. But that’s not all. I know that I will never retrieve and hike the trail of many years ago. And much to my surprise, I’m OK with that.

I look far back toward Patrick, barely seeing him behind me, stepping carefully forward.  Steady. Even though Patrick suffers from weak ankles and aching knees, his calves are strong and muscled like his father’s, his brother’s, his sister’s—all now deceased. Patrick simply keeps going. He measures his steps to accommodate arthritic joints, uneven vision, aches of the heart.

So often I’ve jumped ahead, balked, or blurted out. Have I sabotaged my own longings for connection? Sadness seeps up from my chest, through my neck, behind my cheeks.

There is no way to escape being separated from all that is dear to me.

My actions are the ground on which I stand.

I stop on the trail and turn around, head back toward Patrick, then resume walking—for now—together. I cock my head and meet his eye. Foot to trail. That’s all we’ve got.

The post All of the Nature to Change appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

From time to time, Tricycle features articles from the Inquiring Mind archive. Inquiring Mind, a Buddhist journal that was in print from 1984–2015, has a growing number of articles from its back issues available at www.inquiringmind.com (help Inquiring Mind complete its archive by donating here). The following interview with Thich Nhat Hanh  from the Summer 1986 issue of Inquiring Mind was conducted in Berkeley, California, in November 1985, a few days after a retreat at Green Gulch Farm. Participants in the interview included Jane and Jamie Baraz, Barbara Gates, Jack Kornfield, Wes Nisker, and Henrietta Rogell. Interspersed with the interview are a few gathas, along with excerpts from Nhat Hanh’s writings and talks. 

Inquiring Mind: In your life in Vietnam, in your work there during the war, you saw tremendous suffering. You must have witnessed a great deal of death and difficulty in the war years and afterwards. What makes you choose to teach about joy, rather than teaching that life is dukkha or suffering?

Thich Nhat Hanh: Maybe it’s because suffering is not enough. I think Theravada Buddhism stresses too much on that aspect, suffering, and Mahayana stresses a little bit more on the other aspect, the wonderful nature of life.

IM: In the Theravada teachings, in the suttas, there’s a lot of emphasis on ending the realms of rebirth, on getting out of life. In the Mahayana teachings you speak more, you say, of finding the beauty in life. How do those fit together? You have studied both.

TNH: I think that people tend to go to extremes. The Buddha spoke about dukkha, and he also spoke about sukha; we don’t want to make everything into suffering. When we talk about “getting out of life,” when we use the word “extinction,” we are always referring to the extinction of something. So extinction means the extinction of ignorance, suffering, attachment, and it means, at the same time, the blooming of the opposite things.

For example, when I draw a circle, you might call it a zero, nothing. But someone looking at the circle can think of the totality of things. You see, it depends on our way of looking. When I say that a person is empty or something is empty, you think ”empty of what? It must be empty of something.” So, in the case of Buddhism, I think it is empty of separate identity, but it’s not empty of other things.

Like the table over there is empty of separate self. This means that without the non-table elements, the table cannot be. The table is empty of self but it’s full of everything: the forest, the clouds, the sunshine, the water. The table is full of everything but self as a separate entity.

So, we are trapped into words, and people tend to go to extremes in their talking. When we talk about “extinction” we mean, at the same time, the coming into existence of the opposite. 

IM: So, maybe that’s why you emphasize joy so much. Because you saw so much suffering and you want to balance . . .

TNH: I don’t think that is the reason. The reason is that we should be able to smile at our own suffering, that we should not drown in our own suffering. That is the practice of Buddhism. You know that in both the Theravada and Mahayana the joy is something that you begin with while practicing. You leave the noise and complications of daily life behind to go to the forest, and you experience joy, joy of being alone, joy of going back to yourself.

You do not escape life, but rather go to yourself in order to fully realize that you are in life, that you are one with everything. So joy must be the keynote of Buddhism, both in Theravada and Mahayana. I cannot see it otherwise. 

IM: But in order to fully appreciate the wonder or the joy in life, do you have to deeply experience the truth of life’s suffering?

TNH: Yes, but everyone is doing that anyway. You don’t have to do extra. You only should be aware that you are experiencing suffering, and also open yourself to joy.

A New Western Dharma

IM: You talk about creating a new dharma in the West, new forms appropriate for the Western mind. Can you give any specifics?

TNH: Buddhism is a tree that grows all the time, you know, and from time to time there is one person who is able to renew Buddhism for a certain time or a certain society. That’s why we have a variety of dharma doors that can serve different cultures. Suitability is one of the characteristics of Buddhist teachings. Buddhism for the West should be fit to serve the West and the Buddhists in the West have to work for it. They can profit from the experiences of Buddhists everywhere, but they should work for their own Buddhism in order for their own people to accept Buddhism, to practice Buddhism. 

IM: How would you compare Western minds to Eastern minds? Do you think our minds are more complicated here in the West? Are we a faster, more aggressive people, more concerned about being individuals?

TNH: In the East there are people like that also. I cannot generalize on that. But I do think that the West tends to be more dualistic in seeing and thinking. It seems to me that the Westerner is more afraid of losing his or her identity, and, therefore, has some difficulty in being with the other, of being in the skin and flesh of the other person.

Just look at the American tourists who go out of America, but never try to stay and live in a different way. You see Hilton Hotels everywhere, and many Americans who have been out of America are never out of America in their way of life, in their way of seeing. I knew an American who went to Chinese restaurants, but only ordered omelets.

According to Buddhism, to understand something is to be one with it, thus to lose your identity. And many Westerners are afraid of losing their own identity.

IM: In America, part of our identity is bound up with material things and it seems we often confuse comfort with the good life.

TNH: It depends on your way of looking at things. Something might appear to be the good life to some people, but not to others. Something might look comfortable to some and not comfortable to others. When we drink liquor or eat meat we may find them very good, very comfortable. But to make meat and liquor you have to use a lot of grains while people are dying of starvation around the world. With the awareness that liquor and meat mean the lack of cereal to many hungry people, you cannot enjoy them any longer. So you might find it more comfortable to refrain from drinking liquor and eating meat.

Sitting is another example. Some people think that to sit quietly for a half an hour, not saying anything, not making any movement, is very boring and uncomfortable. But other people enjoy it because they have another way of looking. The problem of comfort should be looked upon like that.

IM: In America many people have started learning about Buddhism through meditation. They go to a Zen sesshin or train in Vipassana or Satipatthana, but they return to a culture which contradicts Buddhist principles. How can we teach people to translate from sitting—where they mindfully watch the breath, thoughts and feelings— to living with compassion and seeing the interconnectedness of all of life? 

TNH: I think that depends on our idea of practice, because to practice meditation is to be aware of what is going on, not only when you sit, but when you walk and work and eat.

My plate is now filled.
I see clearly the presence
Of the entire universe
And its contribution to my existence.

When you are in your daily life you are caught up in so many things that you cannot see clearly. You go to the meditation center to see the reality of the world more clearly. In the meditation hall you learn to be really aware, and if you learn it well, then you will be aware outside of the meditation hall.

If your practice of meditation in the meditation hall does not have an effect on life outside of the meditation hall, I think there is something wrong with your practice. You have to practice in the meditation hall in a way that awakens you outside, therefore bringing Buddhism into daily life.

Before starting the car, I know where I am going.
The car and I are one.
If the car goes fast, I go fast.

The Path of Compassion

IM: Are social concerns, such as helping to relieve the suffering of famine and war, part of the Buddhist tradition, or are they something new introduced by spiritual activists, such as yourself and [Sri Lanken social activist Dr. A.T.] Ariyaratne?

TNH: I don’t think they’re something new; the Buddha said that suffering is; that means that he knew about suffering in the life of the individual, in the life of society, and so on. If you don’t accept the First Noble Truth, then you cannot be a Buddhist. And if you are really aware of suffering, then you cannot resist doing something to relieve that suffering. It’s so simple: Seeing the suffering leads to compassion. Compassion, in Buddhism, is also basic. If you have compassion, you are not afraid to act; awareness and compassion will certainly lead to action.

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hate and violence,
even as they step on your life and crush it
like a worm,
even as they dismember, disembowel you,
remember brother,
remember
man is not our enemy.
— from The Cry of Vietnam

IM: What was your action when you were in the midst of the war in Vietnam? You were moved to act. How did you protest?

TNH: We protested first against the lack of awareness, because many people did not want to look at the reality of suffering. So we brought awareness of the suffering to their doors, into their homes. That is the work of information, bringing information about suffering.

Secondly, we trained young people, monks, nuns, and lay people to help the victims of the war—the orphans, the widows—to set up resettlement camps for the refugees, to build new villages, to rebuild villages that had been destroyed. We were quite active during the war, and many of our workers died while in service—because of the bombs, because of the bullets, and also because we refused to take sides. Each side thought that we were allied with the other.

We suffered a lot, but we continued. Recently, we even went to the ocean on missions to rescue the boat people. We don’t just talk about suffering; we go to the people who suffer.

IM: Do you believe in collective karma, that there was some kind of karma that Vietnam had to suffer as a society?

TNH: Did the Vietnamese War only happen to the Vietnamese? Isn’t it still here in this room with us? The karma of Vietnam is the karma of the world. Vietnam is everywhere now. Vietnam is in America, in Central America, in Africa, in Cambodia, everywhere, and we all suffer the same things more or less. The conflict of Vietnam was the conflict of the world: two giant blocks and Vietnam in the middle. Everyone wanted to take up guns in order to kill our brothers, and they thought they had to do it in order to save us from the “other side.” Buddhist monks burned themselves alive in order to appeal to the outside world to intervene, to stop that kind of confrontation. But not many listened because they wanted to take sides either with the Communists or the anti-Communists.

If we look, we see that Vietnam is everywhere now, and everybody is taking sides. Few are trying to do the work of mediation, reconciliation.

IM: How does one do the work of reconciliation?

TNH: You need to stay independent in order to understand the suffering of both sides. The American side is scared. The Russian side is scared. We are all scared of the situation. To do the work of reconciliation you need to inform each side of the suffering of the other. 

We need you very much if you can do this. But you must know that doing this work is very dangerous because, as with our experience in Vietnam, each side may think of you as belonging to the other.

IM: It takes a very, very strong commitment to be effective in transmitting the message of reconciliation.

TNH: Yes. You have to use your whole life in order to hope that the message will come through.

IM: Today we’re faced with ecological disasters, the threat of nuclear war, and people in power who refuse to pay attention to the other side. A rare quality of mind is needed to do the work of reconciliation at this time. What are skillful ways that the peacemakers can create change without polarizing people?

TNH: Even in the Peace Movement people take sides. Meditation is very important in the work of reconciliation. To meditate is to understand, to see deeply. Through meditation we see our interconnectedness. We understand that identification with the delusion of a separate self means an incapacity to understand other people. To see beyond duality, to understand other people and situations is a beginning.

IM: Suppose I have developed awareness through meditation. How do I translate that awareness into effective action that wakes up others, that wakes up especially the people in power?

TNH: Meditation should lead to a new relationship with the people in power. The fruit of meditation is understanding, and understanding is acceptance and love. Through meditation we can understand the people we used to consider our enemies. We have called the people in power our enemies; we have blamed them for not giving us peace. This is because we don’t really understand them, and we don’t understand the situation, which prevents them from doing what we expect.

If you do not understand a government, it is very hard to make the kind of suggestions that can be accepted by the government. Sometimes you have the impression that if you had the power in your hands you could make peace right away. But that is not the case. I think when you have the power in your hands you will do exactly the same thing as the people you protest against now.

So try to understand first and talk to them in the kind of language that will help them to understand you. And try to see whether in the present situation they can do the things you suggest. And if they cannot, consider how we together can make it possible, because all of us dictate the policy of our governments. The way we live our daily lives, the way we consume, is the root of everything. If we do not live the life of reconciliation, then it will not be possible for our government to bring reconciliation in the world.

When I say “reconciliation” I mean peace. I just told you about drinking some liquor, enjoying the liquor. I don’t think we can reconcile that with 40,000 hungry children who die every day if you drink that glass of liquor. If you try to reduce the eating of meat, say 50 percent, I think we can be more able to reconcile ourselves, our life with the life of the world. Then if each of us lives a life of reconciliation, we have the weight of our words in order to push for a change in policy.

Meditation has to do with all these things. 

Teaching Buddhism to Children

IM: You put so much emphasis on teaching children at the retreat just now and in the community in Plum Village. What does Buddhist teaching have to offer for children?

TNH: I don’t think that Buddhism is only for adults. It is better that our children begin to sit when they are young. Sometimes I notice that children understand Buddhism more quickly than adults. They have less prejudices. Their minds are very fresh. I put a lot of my time into teaching children because I see more effectiveness in that work.

The other day, during a dharma talk, children were sitting in front of me and there was a boy whose name is Tim smiling beautifully. I said, “Tim, you have a very beautiful smile.” And he said, “Thank you.” I said, “No, you don’t have to thank me, I have to thank you. Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful. So instead of saying, ‘Thank you,’ you should say, ‘You’re welcome.’” For the past two days the children have been smiling a lot, and when I look at them, they say, “You are welcome.” – From Being Peace

If you wait until a tree is big and plant it, it’s quite difficult to take care of it. When you plant a tree very young it is always easier. The tree will grow more beautiful. 

IM: What message do you try to get across to the children? 

TNH: The same message as for adults: to be aware. To practice meditation is a clever way of enjoying life. If you are happy and you are not aware that you are happy, then you are not happy.

Also the children can be aware that their father and mother have problems, and they can try to understand the situation of the family. If they understand, they will be able to accept and to love. That is the most important teaching of Buddhism, and I think both traditions have it in depth: to be awake, to understand and to love.

♦

More Inquiring Mind Articles by or featuring Thich Nhat Hanh:

Peace Becomes Possible: An interview with Thich Nhat Hanh
Refuge from Violence: Tools for Nonviolent Living
Walking a Landscape of Change
The Next Buddha May Be a Sangha

The post Suffering Is Not Enough: An Early Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Last October my husband, Patrick, and I went on vacation to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, serendipitously arriving just as altars were being prepared to celebrate el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. I was new to Spanish, to Mexico and to Mexican festivals, but as a longtime follower of the Buddha Way, I was already a student of death. So in our daily one-on-one Spanish tutorials, while Patrick and his native tutor practiced grammar, my tutor, Oralia, and I conversed in Spanish about this holiday when the dead return for their yearly visit and the living make altars to share their food with the dead. Oralia and I sat at a little table in the garden of the Instituto—two women, one from Berkeley and one from San Miguel—discussing the symbolism of the offerings: of seeds and water, of candles, and dancing skeletons. To translate a point, Oralia leaned over my notebook and drew a little skull, then labeled it with the Spanish word calaverita. On the forehead, she wrote my name: BARBARA. Our eyes met and we both laughed. That’s when we connected—at the gritty junction where dark humor and truth converge.

Oralia sent me out into markets, squares and cemeteries to see for myself. Nose pressed against shop windows, I relished miniature dioramas of ordinary people—my favorite “the birth,” with the doctor, in surgical greens; the mother, legs spread; and the baby, emerging—all with tiny skull heads, all equally, whimsically, mortal. I immersed myself in the evolving imagery of el Día de los Muertos, dating all the way back to Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of death and rebirth, who wears a necklace of human hearts, severed hands, and skulls.

Throughout the city, paths of marigold petals guided the returning souls of the dead to feast at the many colorful altars of fruit and gourds, hearkening back to festivals of the harvest. Playful public altars showcased a mocking Death, with his scythe and sombrero. More solemn altars in homes and cemeteries featured offerings tailored to the personal passions of deceased relatives—tamales, a gardening hoe, a bottle of tequila—and were more focused on grieving. Confused, I asked Oralia, “Is this festival of death alegre o triste (happy or sad)?”

“Más alegre!” she flashed. Mexicans, she told me, don’t take either death or life too seriously. That was an angle I hadn’t expected. It made me think.

I’ve always loved to laugh, but much in this wide world has felt heavy and dark—no room to joke. And in my own personal life, some things have felt just plain sad and unfair, particularly things having to do with my fathers. I told Oralia, “Mi padrastro (my stepfather) has Alzheimer’s. Mi padre is dead.”

For me, the celebrations of the dead in San Miguel called to mind these two men and brought up thoughts of their comings and goings—mostly their goings. I felt the huge weight I’ve given them both in my personal story. And I noticed that for most of my life I’ve blamed—and praised—these two weighty figures for just about everything. In fact, I realized, I’ve often thought that pain over my blood dad’s death when I was still in my twenties—that, and still-raw memories of how he’d left home when I was three—catapulted me into Buddhist practice.

Deluged by cartoon images posted in the Mexican squares—of heroes on skeleton steeds and flouncing ladies with skeleton tibia—I began to see my dads in caricature on the big screen of memory. My blood dad strode in, handsome in a white naval uniform, while my stepdad galloped past in blue jeans and Stetson hat. The White Knight, as my grandmother had dubbed my blood dad, took off for parts unknown, leaving a three-year-old me with a bereft mom; and she and I spent a year “recovering” in Rome, she painting and having an affair and I having tantrums. Hero Dad abandons ship. When we returned to the States, my stepdad, a giant Texan, arrived to save the day; he could wiggle his ears and raise and lower his furrowed brows—bing bong, bing bong—all to my delight. Cowboy to the rescue. But the Texan loved women and drink, and the White Knight did play his fatherly role from time to time—only to disappear once more. And so it went—each of the dads, Savior, Villain, then Savior again, with myself, Victim, Heroine, Victim—all moving through memory on these Days of the Dead.

In the year since our trip to San Miguel, my stepdad also died. On a second vacation in Mexico this coming fall, I will make altars for the two dads and perhaps dedicate a calaverita to each of them. I wonder what kinds of altars I can create for these men. I’d like to be playful, but that doesn’t come easily as I sort through occluded memories of the two. Over the years, when I’ve thought of my blood dad, it has felt so heavy and tragic: his erratic daddyhood, tormented marriages, cancer and a failed attempt to drive the car into a tree. His suffering, my loss—all of it. Little material here to suggest a whimsical offering. And as to my stepdad—yes, he was playful and tender, but he was also sometimes changed by alcohol into a stranger not to be trusted or withdrawn into his own brand of inner torments. Few lighthearted gifts come to my mind for his altar.

So what are these laughing altars about anyway? Are they dismissive, derisive, mean-spirited? Might they be seen as forgiving, accepting, recognizing our shared human frailty—thus fundamentally kind?

What I’ve really been trying to figure out is how best to hold the “hard stuff”—conflicts, failed understandings, sickness, inevitable loss, assured death. As I see it, this is what altars are for, and this is why I practice Buddhism—to find a way to hold experience. It can become a habit to either dismiss or indulge the painful (or the pleasant), but I am gradually finding the “middle way.” Years ago, I asked Zen teacher Tenzin Reb Anderson: “Some Buddhist teachings seem to be saying that nothing really matters. Doesn’t everything matter?” Reb smiled. “Nothing matters and everything matters.” When he said that, I wondered if this was a cop-out. Or was it a wise paradox pointing toward something mysteriously true? I recall now how among my college friends, when two seeming opposites converged, we used to quote a phrase from Shakespeare: “Both, both.”

I think again of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess whose opposing qualities intersect—both dark and light, both destruction and creation, both death and life. So what about the altars? Can’t a serious altar and a laughing altar converge?

Another conversation with my tutor/translator suggested a possible answer. Over these weeks, as we’d discussed the Day of the Dead, we’d both hinted at the intimacies of our lives, at stories of women and men, of husbands and fathers, of love and heartbreak. On our last meeting, I tried to explain to Oralia that at age four I had lived in Italy with my mom, just my mom. “I went with my mother because my father se fue (had left us).”

I was stunned by what happened next. We both began to laugh. Who knew exactly why, but something felt unbearably funny. The typical unreliability of men? The imperfections of life? The failure of love?

As Oralia had often done for me, I drew stick figures in my notebook for her, and with her help I translated a little more of the story: “My father fell in love with otra mujer (another woman).” This time the laughter was uproarious. We were doubled over, the two of us rocking back and forth, tears flooding our faces. Each time our eyes met, we were overcome in a new crescendo of hilarity.

Afterwards, I realized that translating into another language is also translating into another way of understanding. It can truly reframe experience. Through my primitive Spanish and tears of laughter, I could now see my dad as a cad and a sweetheart, at once both and neither one. He was just an ordinary guy, and that seemed so funny. In fact, much of what I’d seen as extraordinarily sad or extraordinarily unfair in this father/hero story now seemed absurdly and comically ordinary. Maybe Oralia and I were laughing at the ways we humans endlessly goof up—and that made my own story even more hilarious. What a release it was to laugh at myself for having spent so many years feeling sorry for “me”: for the failure of ordinary life and an ordinary man to take care of me in the way I wanted.

In this “both, both” world I’ve explored through el Día de los Muertos, as I’ve translated my questions and memories into Spanish with Oralia, I’ve ended up with some of the very insights I’ve come to through Buddhism. Years of sitting on the cushion and watching my mind have allowed me to “translate” my experiences. I’ve changed the frame on what is happening, or what happened long ago, into a language of no-victim, of nonduality. Here rejoicing and grieving or forgiveness and accountability, like alegre and triste, coincide. In this way, translation into another tongue is not so different from translation into the language of Buddhism, each allowing a dynamic shift in perspective.

Last year in San Miguel I caught a glimpse of my blood dad—in translation—not as White Knight or Villain, but both and neither, as an ordinary guy. This year I’m going back to Mexico on the heels of my stepdad’s death; it’s his turn. As I think on it now, that complicated hombre whom I’d seen as so flamboyant in the extremes of his living seemed resonantly ordinary in his dying. In the last stages of pneumonia, lulled by morphine, with lungs filled with fluids, he took long, rasping, unpredictable breaths. As our family sat with him, the jagged rhythm of his breathing filled the room. I heard it like tides running over sand and found it unexpectedly calming. It felt to me like those tides were drawing us from the idiosyncratic to the ordinary—the universal ordinary, beyond praise and blame.

Early on the day before my stepdad died, his feet and hands turned gray and cold. By evening, his senses were shutting down one by one. When we put our faces right up in front of his, he no longer registered a response. Now, even when my mom held his hand, he couldn’t squeeze back. Except for irregular labored breathing, he was immobile. As I was leaving, I came up close by his face. He was pale and bony, his eyes blank, his eyebrows pronounced in dark tufts. I found myself saying to him, “You sure have the most amazing eyebrows!” There and then, to everyone’s shock, he raised and lowered, raised and lowered, those tufted brows. Bing bong, bing bong. Another ordinary guy, on his way, completely heartbreaking and completely playful. Both, both.

 Before going to Mexico, Barbara Gates’s only knowledge of Spanish was a poem on love by Bécquer and the song “Cielito Lindo.”

♦

Related Inquiring Mind articles on making friends with death:

Dying to Live Again

Interview with Yvonne Rand: The Critters Project    

Stories of Lives Lived and Now Ending  

The post Found in Translation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

We have been wandering since beginningless time in these
samsaric worlds in which every being, without exception, has had
relations of affection, enmity and indifference with every other
being. Everyone has been everyone else’s father and mother.
–Patrul Rinpoche (1808–1887)

In the ambulance, lurching bumper to bumper down York Avenue toward the emergency room, my 94-year-old mother changed her mind.

“I wanted to die. I’ve been telling everyone.” From the gurney, she craned her neck to look up at me, jouncing beside her in the back of the van. “But here I am strapped to this contraption—” Between blasts of the siren, she wheezed. “All I can think is: I want to live!”

The ER reeked of urine, vomit, and antiseptic. Gurneys lined the corridors, one jammed up against the next; officers from the NYPD lounged by the entrance, chatting up the techs. Call bells and IVs beeped. Doctors and nurses hunched over computers at their stations or rushed back and forth past patients calling from their cubicles. Deluged by addicts who’d overdosed, by car crash and stabbing victims, none of the staff paid attention to my mother, despite her age and her pneumonia.

My mother arrived sporting a T-shirt proclaiming in bold aqua: “Nancy at Ninety.” We’d all worn them at her birthday celebration four years earlier. That was her unique hospital attire. Her style had always been her own creation. As a child, she’d insisted on wearing white gloves when she went with her nanny to play in Central Park. Long after she’d stopped riding horses, she wore her old jodhpurs when she chaired meetings at the League of Women Voters or painted in a studio in SoHo. Even in her eighties, she complemented a silk chemise with pants tailored to look exactly like those jodhpurs. In chemise and jodhpurs, she orchestrated her signature dinner parties—small gatherings of eight or nine friends—which she called “my theater.”

My mother wore her T-shirt instead of her green hospital gown throughout her two-day stay in the ER. No matter how I wrangled on her behalf, no beds were available, and neither were any nurses. She voiced her outrage: “Why isn’t anyone attending to me?” She spoke with the entitlement of someone who had been born to wealth and had long since mostly lost it. Her demand for immediate service touched a raw nerve, especially since I was trying very hard to help out. I thought, but didn’t say: No, Mum, you’re not the center of the universe. Just an ordinary human, suffering like the rest of us.

After a half day’s wait, she was given a bed in a curtained space all her own instead of a gurney in the corridor. Although she was squeezed into a shared cubicle that was intended for a single patient, my mother was lucky to have even that. But for her, the cubicle—with its sheet separating her bed from that of a groaning stranger from Bangladesh—felt like an indignity and became the stage set for high drama.

The “villain,” my mom’s cubicle-mate on the other side of the curtain, was an intense little man sporting a dyed carrot-colored Mohawk. With a stream of Bengali invectives, he screamed for morphine as he passed kidney stones. Each time he thrashed in pain, he flung out an arm or leg, bashing into the curtain that served as a makeshift wall separating his half of the cubicle from my mother’s. And with each seeming invasion of her half, she shouted, “Get that crazy man away from my bed!”

The racket in the ER increased as the night went on. All along the corridor, patients, packed end to end on gurneys, pleaded to be housed in cubicles, and those like my mother, assigned to cubicles, begged to be sent upstairs to rooms in the hospital. In the corridor right outside my mother’s cubicle, three hefty NYPD officers closed in on a screaming woman as she jumped off her gurney. Heading toward the street, she pulled on the rubber tube feeding her oxygen and hollered, “Lemme outta here!”

Despite ongoing pleas from me, no nurse or aide took time to replace my mother’s tee with a hospital gown, to wheel her to the bathroom, or at the very least to change her diaper. “I’m utterly wet,” my mom told me. After six hours of asking politely for some help, I wrote a nasty note to the nurse, but then crumpled it up and stomped down the corridor to track down an adult diaper.

I remembered my first clumsy efforts to fasten Caitlin’s diapers. To be struggling with my mother’s 25 years later felt topsy-turvy.

“Mum, I’m doing it,” I tried to reassure her. Gingerly, I pulled back the covers and saw her distended belly, long slim legs. I forced myself to look at her frail pelvis swaddled in the drenched diaper. This is my mother. My tears welled up. Biting my lip, I pulled the covers over her again.

My elegant mum. I imagined her in her cozy living room, surrounded by her vibrant oils painted over many years. She is presiding at one of her dinner parties. With impeccable posture, she tilts her head back in a laugh and crosses one leg over the other to show off a shapely calf. “I can’t stand conversations about ordinary minutiae,” she’d often told me. “At my dinners, I only invite people with something original to say. And I rarely invite people who know each other,” she’d drive home her point, “so there are no boring stories about children and grandchildren.” Like me, I supposed, or my daughter, Caitlin.

Returning to my mother here and now, I pulled back the covers once more. As I tried to roll her on her side, my fingers trembled and slipped. Bumbling, I strained to pull off the sopping diaper, balled it up, and hurled it onto the floor. I strove to turn her, to heave her up without hurting her. But her body resisted my pushes and pulls, and she began to whimper. Stumbling in the cramped space, I finally lifted her buttocks and slid the fresh diaper underneath. I stretched the sticky fasteners all crooked, but somehow they held the diaper on. I remembered my first clumsy efforts to fasten Caitlin’s diapers. To be struggling with my mother’s 25 years later felt topsy-turvy.

As the evening went on, it became increasingly clear that a bed would not free up in the hospital until the next day, if then. “You’re not at the top of the list,” a nurse let us know. “There’s another woman even older than you who’s been waiting 30 hours here in the ER. She has pneumonia too, and she’s a hundred and four.”

I dimmed the lights and, scrunched between two open folding chairs, settled in for the night. Now I followed my breath in and out—not an approach I would suggest to my mother. A third-generation German Jew, my mother was adamantly secular. She worried that Buddhism, which I had practiced for 40 years, might be dangerous, maybe even a cult.

Her IV antibiotics on drip, oxygen clipped to her nostrils, my mother clutched her thin blanket, trying to cover her bare arms. I laid her winter coat over the blanket for added warmth, and she slept. I slept too, on and off, on my two chairs with my own coat as my blanket. It felt a bit like camping out, and I appreciated that—making do as best I could with whatever was available. It’s how I like to live. My mom, absolutely not a camper.

After midnight, the lights suddenly blazed and a  handsome young resident strode into our cubicle. Green scrubs, designer haircut, silver cuff on the helix of one ear. He looked like he’d been sent from Central Casting. “How are you doing?” A disarming smile.

“I wouldn’t say I was comfortable,” said my mother, with a raised brow.

The resident dragged a stool right up close to the head of her bed.

Thrilled at the entrance of this new player, my mother struggled to sit up. In her Nancy at Ninety T-shirt, she lengthened her neck and tilted her head back in a characteristic pose, graciously welcoming. “Do make yourself comfortable,” she gestured, with the IV tube swinging. She leaned confidentially toward the young resident. “What is it you would like to discuss?”

Then she turned to me. “Could you roll up my bed so I’m more upright?”

Struggling past the blue IV tubes, the clear line for oxygen, I managed to crank up the bed a few inches.

“My pillow,” said my mother, and the doc reached to adjust that. He stood up, his clipboard in hand, and in a courteous tone rivaling hers began, “There are a few questions I need to ask you.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not that we’re expecting that you won’t be coming out of this hospital soon, but just in case . . . we do need to make sure that you have an advance care directive—”

“Of course,” she broke in, “I’ve set everything up, a health care proxy, all of it. . . . I’ve been fully ready for a long time; it’s really what I’ve wanted. To die, that is. Just think of all the expense and trouble I’m causing everyone.”

“Oh Mum, stop!”

The young doctor continued, “So we’re just going to ask you these questions because it’s part of the required admission process. In fact, we can’t admit you to the hospital proper until . . .”

It’s well past midnight, I thought, paltry chance we’ll be seeing that admission to the realms upstairs any time soon.

“So in the unlikely case that you had a stroke or a heart attack with no hope of recovery . . .” The resident looked down at his checklist. “. . . leaving you unconscious and unable to breathe without the assistance of a machine—”

“Oh, I’ve figured out all that,” my mum cut him off again. Then she directed me: “Dear, do get out my advance care statement from my wallet,” gesturing in the direction of her handbag. Several times over the past few years, my mother had shown me this miniature statement, beautifully calligraphed, then copied and reduced to create a tiny version of itself.  “A friend wrote it out,” she told the doctor. That list had been penned by Genie, my college roommate, who had befriended my mother in our sophomore year, when I’d let my mother’s many letters to me stack up unread.

My mother continued, “My young friend copied it in her exquisite hand, beautiful and perfect,” and aside to me, “just the way Genie does everything” (rekindling my old fear that Genie was a much better daughter to my mother than I).

She sure knew how to needle me. “Okay, Mum,” I snapped. I reached for her handbag, rummaged inside, yanked out the wallet, and foraged for the damned statement.

Unflappable, the young resident went on with his protocol. “Well, it’s just that we need to know if something happens, if you have a stroke or heart attack and your condition will not improve, would you allow CPR or an artificial respirator or—”

My mother waved her hand with the IV attached to her wrist. “Oh, I made that absolutely clear. If I would never again be able to enjoy friends, appreciate art, music, or conversation, how could I possibly want to be resuscitated?”

My mum. I had to hand it to her. What spunk she had, what commanding presence.

“Darling, please read the statement to the doctor.”

I adjusted myself so I could get more light from the corridor and read aloud the opening: “If I become terminally ill; if I am in a coma or have little understanding—”

“Barbara dear,” my mother interjected, “tell the doctor about the marvelous film Frontline featured about Genie and Jeff.” She explained to the doctor, “The film’s about Genie’s husband, Jeff, who had some incurable blood cancer. It’s about his death. . . .” As was her way, my mum veered into a new story.  “And of course, when Jeff was at Yale Law School, during the weekends when we were in the country, they would stay together at our apartment in New York. That’s where Jeff asked Genie to marry him.” She’d begun with tragedy and moved on to romance.

“Mum!” This time, I was the one to interrupt. “Not now!” Her dramas within dramas drove me mad. I heard my voice trembling. I handed the miniature directive to the doctor.

As he skimmed it, he kept nodding his head. “Yes, well, you do cover the essentials.” An alarm beeped shrilly from somewhere close. “Terrific that you carry it with you, and—”

Abruptly my mum silenced him again. “Tell me,” she interrupted, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Taken aback at this breach in his doctorly script, the young resident stuttered, “Well . . . well, yes. I do.” He ran a hand through his blond hair. “A nurse on this floor, in fact.” Then he cut himself off, as if he had perhaps said too much.

“Wonderful!” she pronounced. “When all this nonsense is over…” She waved her arm, including in one sweep the corridor of sick and injured, the officers from the NYPD, her nemesis on the other side of the curtain. “You must bring her over to my apartment for a festive party and join me for dinner!”

I’ve heard it said in many dharma talks that every being, in one birth or another, has been one’s mother. Yet I am reflecting about my particular, unique, and challenging mother. On my recent visit, five years after that night in the ER, she is frail, mostly dozing as she enters her one-hundredth year. I happen on a copy of the miniature advance care statement. I sweep back to the dashing doctor, to years of tangles, conflicts, sweetness, fun. Unaccountably, my mind opens—to the fragility of life, the nearness of death. I find myself warmed by memories of my mother’s bold spirit, and the blessing of graciousness, her particular brand.

The post Cycles of Motherhood appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Driving home from a ski trip in 1983, vipassana teacher Joseph Goldstein had an idea. He turned to his pal, journalist Wes Nisker, and suggested that Wes start a journal to serve the growing Theravada community in the West and to explore the path of dharma as it made its way through the new frontier. Wes accepted the challenge, asking his friend Barbara Gates to join him.

Soon thereafter, Joseph came up with the name Inquiring Mind. We at the Mind took it from there. For the next three decades, the Inquiring Mind published two issues per year dedicated to the creative transmission of buddhadharma to the West.

The journal became known for its thought-provoking interviews of Buddhist teachers from many traditions, as well as neuroscientists, environmentalists, and other thinkers. Contributors included Gary Snyder, Jack Kornfield, Dan Goleman, Joanna Macy, Jane Hirshfield, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, to name a few. Each issue focused on a theme (Addiction, War and Peace, God, Money–Sex–Power), and presented contrasting and sometimes controversial views, as well as poetry, art, and humor.

By 2015, as a donation-supported print journal, we couldn’t afford to keep going. While we put the finishing touches on the final issue, miraculously a check arrived in the mail from the estate of recently deceased Buddhist teacher Ruth Denison. Ruth’s generous bequest, along with several other anonymous donations, allowed us to begin developing an online archive.

The Inquiring Mind archive went live this summer. Sixteen complete issues (2007–2015) are available now, with more added every month. We encourage you to visit the archive and enjoy its wealth of articles. While you’re there, if you are so inclined, please make a donation to help the Mind finish digitizing articles dating all the way back to 1984.  

Each month, beginning today, Tricycle will republish an article from the Mind archive that captures the magazine’s spirit. The first offering is “The Bhikkhu and the Butterfly,” a 2005 conversation between Ajahn Pasanno, abbot of Abhayaghiri Monastery, and Julia Butterfly Hill, the environmental activist who lived for over two years atop an ancient redwood tree.

—Inquiring Mind Editors Kim Criswell, Barbara Gates and Wes Nisker

♦

Interview with Ajahn Pasanno and Julia Butterfly Hill: The Bhikkhu and the Butterfly

By Barbara Gates, Dennis Crean, Wes Nisker

Ajahn Pasanno ordained trees in Thailand as a way of saving them, and Julia Butterfly Hill climbed into one grand old redwood in order to save it, creating news that inspired millions. Inquiring Mind editors Dennis Crean, Barbara Gates, and Wes Nisker brought the two of them together for a conversation about trees, activism, and love.

Ajahn Pasanno (AP): Soon after I arrived at Abhayagiri Monastery in Mendocino County in 1997, people began to tell me about this woman, Julia Butterfly, sitting in a tree. After speaking to her on the phone a couple of times, I decided to take some of our community to visit her. We brought some offerings and did some chanting for her.

Inquiring Mind (IM): As a Buddhist monk in what’s commonly referred to as the Thai forest tradition, you too must feel a deep connection to the forest.

AP: Well, I live in the forest, and it helps form the ethos of my tradition of Buddhism. The Buddha was born in the forest, he was enlightened in the forest, he gave his first teaching in the forest, and he died in the forest. Thai forest monks repeat that truth almost as a mantra, and we are constantly referring to how much the forest plays a part in our lives. My teacher Ajahn Chah would place a big emphasis on how nature teaches us all the time—if only we are aware enough. The basic truths of existence are there for us to see in nature. So when I heard about Julia’s commitment to protecting and saving forests and her role in being a catalyst for others in this work, I wanted to support her.

IM: Julia, did you have any connection to Buddhism when you began sitting in your tree?

Julia Butterfly Hill (JBH): Not much. I was raised with a traveling preacher for a father, and we lived in a 31-foot camping trailer that we pulled behind our car, going from church to church throughout the Midwest and South. In my early teens I became disgusted with what I saw as profound hypocrisies in Christianity and with a tradition that really didn’t allow me to be honored as a woman, other than the role I might play for a man.

For a while I thought I didn’t believe in God, and then I realized I was angry at God. But how can you be angry at something you don’t believe in? [Laughs.] Eventually I began to study different religious traditions, including Buddhism, and I started taking little pieces from many of them. But I didn’t really embrace any spirituality until I was up in the tree, when everything—my mind, my body, my heart, my spirit—was completely broken. At that point I started asking myself, How can I make every moment an act of meditation? That was the only thing that was going to allow me to survive. And now that’s the way I try to live my whole life.

Related: Why Trees Are The Ultimate Meditation Teachers

One of my practices is to get up in the morning and sit. In my meditation space I have different sacred objects that people have given me, including a little amber bracelet from Ajahn Pasanno. While I’m sitting, I pick an intention for the day based on where I am feeling some weakness or need. So on days when my heart is hurting, I’ll choose to be focused on love. On days when I’m feeling shy and withdrawn, I’ll meditate on connecting with people. I set the intention and then try to live that day with that intention as my meditative practice.

IM: Did you make that practice up or did you read about it somewhere?

JBH: I think it came partly from my reading, partly from my life experiences, and partly from my experiences in nature. I’ve found that all faith-based traditions have a way to tap into sacred wisdom and interconnection, and one fairly common path is through nature. So after I came down from the tree, people were telling me that my spiritual practices were just like tai chi, or just like tonglen [the Tibetan practice of giving and receiving], and I thought to myself, “Wow! My tree taught me all that.”

AP: Julia, you are now out on the road a lot, trying to encourage people to focus on protecting the life of the planet. But I live in a monastery in Northern California, which is to some degree in a cultural and political bubble. From what I read and sense about the current social climate in America [in 2005], people are caught up in a lot of fear. Is that your experience?

JBH: Yes, the common language being spoken is often one of fear. So I am trying to be a holistic practitioner, and my medicine is the language of love, which creates a space where all people can sit down together. Our world is literally dying for us to become emissaries of love, and that love has to be based in every thought, every word, every action. I’ve been blessed to see real miracles happen in that space. But when I fall out of my center and begin thinking of a lot of four-letter words—none of them love—you can bet I don’t have nearly as much success.

AP: At the monastery we get your newsletter, and I have noticed that you always try to go underneath the individual issues to the place where human beings can be with one another as human beings. It reminds me of one of the practices of monks in Thailand who traditionally begin discourses or sermons by greeting people as “brothers and sisters in old age, sickness and death,” as if saying, “Here we are together in this human condition. So what are we going to do?”

JBH: My whole approach to the people I meet is to communicate the language of love, so I make it a point not to have conversations based on issues. I learned in the tree that “issues” are just symptoms of a disease.

IM: But Julia, how do you talk about the environmental crisis without talking about individual issues, without talking about the species die-offs, or the need to transform our oil-based economy? Where do you go?

JBH: In my organization, Circle of Life, every time we approach an issue or problem, we approach it from the place of the solution versus the place of the problem. We focus our intention and awareness on what it is we want: peace, love, justice.

When I climbed up in that tree I was new to activism, but I soon realized that we had become so good at defining what we were against that what we were against was beginning to define us. I saw the problem in meetings where activists were “clear-cutting” each other with their words and their anger. As people were talking, I could literally hear the chainsaws in their words, cutting each other apart. I saw that the peace rallies had become anti-war rallies, places where I couldn’t even walk up close to the rally because of the way people were speaking through the megaphone; it sounded like they were dropping bombs.

Related: The Tree Guardians of Kyoto

This all became clear to me about halfway through my time in the tree, when I was experiencing a lot of pain and really felt like I was falling apart. That’s when I went deeper and realized I had climbed up in the tree not because I was angry at corporations and governments—although I was angry at them—but because I loved the forest and I loved the planet and I loved this sacred life that we’re all a part of. And so I began to approach all the issues from that place of love.

When we are committed to approaching issues from the perspective of what we want—rather than what everyone else is doing wrong—it’s important to look into our own daily practice to see all the ways we are out of integrity with the world we want to live in.

IM: So on a concrete level, how can we live our daily practice with integrity?

JBH: I am committed to raising awareness about what I call “disposability consciousness.” I went up in the tree with this disposability consciousness, and I came down without it. Now I see forests in every paper cup, every paper plate, every paper napkin and every paper bag. In every plastic cup and plastic lid and plastic bag I see the oil fields of Ecuador that I’ve walked through and the people whom I’ve worked with in Africa. I now see the Earth being destroyed by our disposability consciousness.

So now I am a fierce communicator about this. I’ve been in meetings where we were getting ready to do a direct action, and when I saw disposables in the room, I said out loud that we hadn’t earned the right to do that action. How can we tell a company to stop logging when we’re throwing away paper cups that support that logging? Saying such things doesn’t make me very popular in the movement. But I am passionate about this because our work has to be about creating what we are for. Such work, truly based in love, can only happen if we do what we do with integrity. I want us to become what I call the “resolutionaries.”

IM: How did the tree teach you to see the world through love? Can you describe any specific events or moments?

JBH: I compare it to when I was little and learned how to take a magnifying glass and turn it in the sun to just the right angle so that it concentrated the rays and started a fire. I feel like my time leading up to the tree was the forming of the magnifying glass, but the tree really focused it until it ignited my passion. Then, when I was completely broken, the fire turned into love. I was literally in the fetal position, sobbing, rocking back and forth, saying, “I can’t take this anymore!” I was sitting up in that tree and being a witness to an old-growth forest being destroyed. I was witnessing the brutality of what disconnected consciousness does to us. All around me I heard the saws whining and saw the trees falling. I could see for miles, so everywhere I looked there were clear-cuts forming. And I’d breathe through a wet rag while they lit the clear-cuts on fire with diesel fuel or with napalm from helicopters. I had to bear witness to it every day, and there was no running away. It felt like the pain and grief were killing me.

One day I was praying and begging for help, and the answer that came was, “Julia, you must simply love.” I thought, “That’s a funny answer,” and I kept praying, but the same answer came again: “Julia, you must simply love.” Prayer is very powerful for me, and now I know that the trick is being willing to hear the answers. It’s just as in meditation practice when you find yourself saying, This is not really what I wanted to happen right now, but it’s still happening, so what am I going to do with it?

I learn very well through images, and so I am grateful when the universe gives an image to me when I need it. Of course, what came into my mind was a tree. Big surprise. As I was focusing on this tree in my mind, hearing, “Julia, you must simply love,” the branches of the tree began to move. They were moving out and back in, out and back in; it looked almost like arms that were gathering in the air. As I watched I started seeing all of this very dense-looking smoke and grit being absorbed into the tree. As the branches moved back out, I saw little prisms of light coming out of the tree. At that moment I had an epiphany, realizing that trees actually grow by transforming our toxins into healthy air. That is what love is all about. Previously, in my life and in my mind, love was either associated with lust or somehow conditional. Suddenly I saw it as a transformational tool. Every time I can take something that’s hurting, something that’s toxic, something that’s out of balance, and actively participate in its transformation, that act will help me to grow. And then I will be able to take on the next challenge, which may be even bigger. One day when I was sharing all of that, someone told me about the practice of tonglen. Once again, I realized that the trees had taught me a spiritual practice.

IM: Nature has certainly played a special role in your spiritual transformation and growth.

JBH: Nature has always brought me a sense of peace. I grew up living in some violent neighborhoods and had a very troubling childhood. I actually tried to take my life at a young age. But even if it was just a tree on the corner, even if I couldn’t climb up into it, I could go and lean my back against it and feel something profound holding me when everything else was in chaos. So I’ve come to understand that the divine is in all of life and that nature holds up a mirror for us that is much more ancient than we are as a people. We come from this ancient life of the planet. For me it is a deep, deep soul home.

AP: It occurs to me as I’m listening that the Thai word for nature, dhammachat, could be roughly translated as “the birthplace of truth.” Embedded in the language is the idea that nature is where we can see the dhamma, both in terms of how the teachings display themselves in the world as well as in the natural truths the Buddha pointed to. In Buddhism we look at the cycles of nature that are outside of ourselves but also inside. That’s what meditation practice is all about, looking at how we experience our own nature—the ways we live and breathe, experience emotions, create suffering or live in harmony. We can only really understand this within ourselves. That’s why your theme of love is so important, Julia. When we’re in conflict with something, we’re pushing it away and making it “other.” It’s only when we rely on love, or have a very caring attitude, that we bring the outside into ourselves. Only then do we understand it, do we see its truth.

JBH: That’s a really important point. A lot of my work is to remind us that we are not separate from nature. Even a conversation like this is hard to have, because it makes it sound like nature’s something separate from me. The violence of our words, the violence of our actions—even the violence of our inactions—disconnect us from the oneness of human nature, which is inseparable from nature. That’s part of why I felt driven to stay so long in the tree. I saw how disconnected we had become from the nature we are part of. My prayer was that if I put my life in the same position as these trees, maybe it would help build a human bridge for people to reconnect.

IM: To offer this bridge, you make yourself extraordinarily vulnerable to the vicissitudes of weather, of the seasons, of people’s reactions.

AP: Being vulnerable is a necessary part of spiritual growth. As Buddhist monks, it is a big part of our training as well. The way of life keeps us dependent on the generosity of others. For instance, we sometimes take the opportunity to just wander, relying on people’s offerings of food and shelter. This puts us in a very vulnerable situation and can be difficult at times, but it also tends to expose us to people’s goodness. It is very inspiring to us, and it also gives others the occasion to remember their own goodness. There is a yearning within the human condition to live with a fundamental goodness, but it seems to get deflected by so many distractions.

IM: Ajahn, the forests of Thailand where you lived and studied for so many years have also been decimated. Can you tell us about your practice of ordaining the trees to protect them?

AP: Yes, I’ve done that on many occasions. It’s quite a skillful means for drawing people together and then being able to talk to them. I actually started a couple of organizations that worked with villagers in northeast Thailand to protect areas of forest. Sometimes the dynamics that go into cutting a forest are very complex. Often it’s outside interests that are paying to cut down the trees, so it’s important to get the local people involved to truly make it their forest.

We found that one good way of protecting the trees was to ordain them. We put robes around trees and held traditional ceremonies, and then we chanted for the protection of the forest. We would always pick the largest tree in a particular grove for ordination, because the people believe that guardian devas [gods] live in those trees. We wanted to get people to reflect on that.

In northeast Thailand, people’s lives are completely intertwined with the forest. Traditionally, they plant rice and keep a little garden patch of garlic, chilies, and spices, but all other nurturance comes from the forest—bamboo shoots, mushrooms, edible leaves, the creatures who live there, and the water, which disappears as soon as the trees are gone. But the villagers are very poor and easily enticed by the promise of money. Our ordination ceremonies offer a tangible way to remind people of their sincere wish to protect the forest and make it sacred rather than seeing it as a resource to be exploited.

The protection of the forest is delicate work. There are some areas where people have marched in to do tree ordinations without doing the groundwork and have literally been shot. I know one particular monk who ended up in prison trying to protect the forest. There were just too many forces against him. But generally the ordination ceremonies offer an opportunity to draw people from different factions together and create a base of communication.

IM: Maybe you should take some monks and hold an ordination ceremony for Luna, Julia’s teacher tree. How is Luna doing, Julia?

JBH: About a year after I came down from Luna, someone attacked her with a chainsaw and tried to kill her. All the best scientists and tree experts said that two-thirds of the tree would die back and become a snag while the other third would continue to grow. They said we would begin to see significant dieback within two years. It’s been four years now and there is no dieback at all. In fact, every spring the tree is covered in new growth. This is largely due to the work of amazing scientists, structural engineers, tree biologists, activists, and even workers from the Pacific Lumber Company, who all came together to save the tree.

I was in the tree for more than just trees. It was my commitment to create a space of healing for all of us. What really moved me was that some Pacific Lumber employees put their metal shop to work building what are basically metal bandages to hold the tree’s cuts together while the wounds heal. I talked to some of these Pacific Lumber workers, and they said, “Julia, we didn’t necessarily agree with what you did, but you were always respectful, you never called us names, and you came to a respectful agreement with the company. Whoever attacked this tree does not represent all of us.” When I was thanking them, one of them even said, “Anything for Luna.” He even called the tree “Luna”! This is what our collective work is about—healing our planet, our world and ourselves as one—peace on Earth and peace with the Earth.

♦

Articles related to “The Bhikkhu and the Butterfly”:

Like Moths Circling a Flame: Climate Change and the Danger to the World’s Food Supply, by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Interview with Gary Snyder: Not a Throwaway World  

Interview with Mayumi Oda: Pilgrimage to the Sun Goddess

Dukkha for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, by Rebecca O. Johnson

The post My Teacher, The Tree appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the sitting room at Kashmir Cottage, situated between the main town of Dharamsala and the area that is the seat of the exiled Tibetan government in India, I shared a pot of ginger tea with Rinchen Khando Choegyal, founder and director of the Tibetan Nuns Project and wife of the younger brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I enjoyed the resonant cadence of her voice as she described the history of the project and the work of women, lay and monastic, in keeping alive the teachings of the Buddha and the richness of Tibetan culture amid the hardships of exile.

Rinchen Khando was born in eastern Tibet; her parents, from a farming and business background, were, as she put it, “well-to-do, but very devout and simple people.” At the end of 1958, her family came to India for a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya and Varanasi. The plan was to leave the young Rinchen in India to attend a boarding school run by Catholic nuns. But before her parents returned home, the Chinese invaded Tibet. Since then, her family has lived in India. “Because we were already in India in 1959,” said Rinchen Khando, “we were saved.” They’d left behind almost everything they had.

In 1987, together with other activist women in the exile community, Rinchen Khando established the Tibetan Nuns Project (TNP). The project is committed to education, empowerment and improved status for ordained Tibetan women. It now supports over 700 Tibetan nuns living in North India.

According to Elizabeth Napper, Tibetan scholar and codirector of the TNP since 1991, “Opening up education to the women, particularly in conjunction with training in debate, has been transformative for the nuns. Not only have they been given access to the full intellectual richness of their Buddhist tradition but also, through debate, they have been trained to actively engage with it in a way that gives them confidence in their knowledge. Their body language changes from the traditional meekness of nuns to that of women who occupy space with confidence in their right to do so.”

In a trip to Dharamsala in January 2013, I visited two nunneries supported by the TNP. At Shugsep Nunnery, which follows the Nyingma tradition, many of the nuns are from the original Shugsep in Tibet, which was destroyed in 1959 and partially rebuilt in the 1980s by the nuns themselves. One of the senior nuns at the new Shugsep told me about her own escape from Tibet at age 20, after having spent two months in prison. Traveling on foot at night through the mountains, she and two other young nuns managed to survive along the route by exchanging prayer services for food and shelter.

At Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute, nuns now pursue the 17-year course of study for the Geshema degree, which, like the Geshe degree for monks, is equivalent to a PhD in Theology. The historic decision to offer Tibetan nuns this opportunity was made in May 2012. “While the issue of the Geshema degree is decided, full ordination is not yet available,” Elizabeth Napper told me. “Full ordination for nuns would involve a huge shift in status; the series of decisions to make this possible involves the monastic community as a whole, and is long and complicated. Twenty-seven nuns from five different nunneries will be taking the examinations for the Geshema degree in a four-year process that involves a month of testing each year.” The first round took place in May 2013. “This,” Napper pointed out, “is an essential step in the process toward full ordination, as it removes any questions about their basic competence and abilities.”

Step by step, women in the Tibetan exile community are gaining opportunities to become full participants in the religious, cultural, and political life of their people. In recent years, the Dalai Lama has even said that he would be pleased to have a woman successor. Radical shifts in the role of women involve changes in Tibetan traditional culture and, ironically, serve as a force in its survival.

–Barbara Gates

Commitment to education is crucial to the preservation of Tibetan culture. Could you talk about that, both in your own life and in that of the exile community? After 1959, my family and the other Tibetans who were in India could not go back to Tibet. In the early 1960s, the Tibetan government in exile, formerly known as the Central Tibetan Administration, started schools for the children. But when my sisters and I were young, these schools were not yet there. My family had to pay for the schools that we went to.

My mother sold the jewelry she brought with her on pilgrimage to pay for our education. She barely knew how to read, but she deeply knew the value of education. I remember her saying, “We’ll sell the jewelry and give the children education. That’s something which nobody can take away.”

It is because of the schools started by His Holiness that Tibetans in exile are Tibetans today. The Central Tibetan Administration has come a long way in terms of educating the young since those early days. They have now 76 schools and over 25,000 students, and a university for Tibetan students in India is in the process of becoming fully functional. The schools have given the Tibetans in exile their language, a sense of belonging, and a sense of identity.

This commitment to preserve Tibetan identity and culture has clearly fueled your own lifework. Yes. Like many others, I have been dedicated to my community, but first, I will tell you, woman to woman, because I had chosen to get married and have children and I felt it was my responsibility, I took care of my own family. Until my children were 9 and 10, I was totally at home for 24 hours. Also, at that time we lived with my late mother-in-law, His Holiness’s mother, and I felt that this was my time to look after her. When my mother-in-law passed away and my children grew up, I thought, “Okay, now I need to do something for the community.” While I had my secret eye around, women began to meet to reestablish the Tibetan Women’s Association.

Why do you say “reestablish”? Good that you ask this. The original Tibetan Women’s Association was actually founded in Tibet by women in my mother’s age group on the 12th of March in 1959. A courageous group of women demonstrated on the grounds below the Potala Palace in Lhasa, 15,000 of them protesting against the Chinese occupation.

After 1959, some of the women from the original Women’s Association managed to flee. They got together in Dharamsala to talk and keep that moment of protest alive. But after most of the senior members passed away, the organization gradually disappeared.

In 1984, His Holiness rallied our interest: “I remember there was once a Women’s Association. What happened?” The women in my age group said, “Now it’s time for us to wake up.” So we contacted Tibetan women from all over the world. Within a few months, with their support, we held the first general meeting of the revived Tibetan Women’s Association. His Holiness addressed us, saying, “I have great faith in women’s strength. For all of the Tibetan people, I am glad you have revived this.” He added, “You must also help the nuns.” That seed was sown in my head so strongly that it never went away.

In the mid-1980s, there were only two nunneries around Dharamsala, and maybe a few in Nepal. Those first nunneries had no proper facilities, and there was no education provided whatsoever. The newly revived Tibetan Women’s Association established a new nunnery in the south and made the commitment to provide education for the nuns.

Suddenly in late 1990, we had a great influx of nuns from Tibet. We decided to separate the Tibetan Nuns Project, a religious entity, from the Tibetan Women’s Association, a political entity. And the TNP decided to look after nuns in all the Tibetan traditions and not any one solely, whether Gelug, Sakya, Kagyu, or Nyingma.

Is this the first time that nonsectarian institutions have been established for Tibetan monastics? His Holiness had already introduced a nonsectarian institution for men in Dharamsala. But for the first time we started nonsectarian institutions in the women’s world. We are trying to bring in the goodness of the four traditions; they all go to the same ultimate goal. It would be foolish to say, “Mine is better than yours.”

Isn’t it also the first time now that higher education equivalent to that offered for monks is available to Tibetan nuns? Yes, this is new. Many institutions have now opened their programs to nuns, but none have yet granted the highest degrees. At Dolma Ling, nuns can pursue the 17-year program of philosophical studies required for a Geshema degree, the highest degree available. Courses are also offered in Tibetan language, English, mathematics, computer skills, and basic medical training, as well as in ritual arts such as sand mandalas and butter sculpture.

One of the most exciting new opportunities for the nuns is training in debate. Debate demands brave and rigorous practice intellectually and also physically, involving complex and dramatic gestures. Was debate culturally challenging for women initially? The nuns are training in debate for the first time in the history of Tibet. Some say that long ago there were nuns who did debating and they did so well that the men were jealous of them, so the training was stopped. Of course, this may be simply a legend. The current debate training is the first that we know of for sure. And to answer your question, yes, initially when we taught the nuns the dialectics and all the other aspects of debating, they were very timid. So we’ve had to encourage them.

The annual inter-nunnery debate, a month long with six nunneries participating, is a major source of inspiration for the nuns to seriously pursue their studies and offers them the confidence they need to become effective teachers in nunneries and schools. Over the past 18 years, the number of nuns participating has grown, and the nuns have become increasingly confident. Also, when we first started debating, the male counterparts were encouraging, but some seemed to take the attitude “Hmmm, let’s see. . .” Now they have gotten more accustomed to it!

I’m imagining that doing debate practice is very personally transformative. Yes. As you may know, the Buddha said, “My words are not to be simply accepted; they are to be tested.” So debating trains you to be clear and gives you an analytical mind. When you study Buddhism you can analyze what really makes sense rather than simply memorizing. And to daily life, you bring skills in analysis and clear thinking.

So through analytical skill the nuns gradually learn to de-construct some of the delusions that drive their lives? Exactly. As you analyze your experience, you have new understanding. For one thing, you come to realize that your “self” may not be here by this time tomorrow. Therefore, why cling so much onto that so-called self?

I tell the nuns, “Eventually, when you become a scholar, don’t just say, I am going to write a book. I am going to be famous. I am going to earn this much salary. After all, you have shaved your hair. You have chosen to wear the robe. For what? You’ve chosen not to get married, not to have children. For what? You have to always keep thinking, otherwise you could be more selfish than those of us with husbands and children. At least we have a family to look after. You don’t have anybody to think about but yourself. So if you focus on that, you could be the worst person on this planet.”

I encourage them: “Your duty is to reform yourself into a good human being, and then be an example to the rest of the world. By having had this opportunity to study, you’re not going to be selfish. You’re not going to be elaborate. You are going to be altruistic and simple.”

Some say that long ago there were nuns who did debating and they did so well that the men were jealous of them, so the training was stopped.

The retreat cottages you have recently built are an ideal place for the kind of sustained contemplation you are suggesting. Are retreat facilities for nuns also an innovation not offered in Tibet? Again, the concept is not new. Nuns also retreated in caves in Tibet many years ago. In fact, it is said that some of them were wonderful retreatants, highly realized people. But over the years, the retreat practice changed. Nuns may go on retreat for many months, but mostly they recite mantras. I want to offer them the opportunity for more than that. I say, “Recite the mantras, but understand them and make them part of yourself. Once you come out of the retreat cell, if you are the same as when you went in, then what’s the point?” His Holiness has always said that women have more ability to be compassionate than men, because we have the mother seed in us. But I think we have to really water it.

In the past, in Tibetan culture, the status of women, and of nuns in particular, has been low. Changes offering new opportunities for women might appear at first to be in conflict with the effort to preserve Tibetan tradition. Not at all. In general, in the whole exile life His Holiness has done nothing but what you describe: preserved the better part of the culture and tried to get rid of those parts which were not necessary, introducing new concepts that would be good for the people and the nation in the long run. He has worked for over 50 years to give the Tibetan people freedom and democracy, to give women education. This is introducing a new system.

Coming to the nuns, we’ve preserved the old, because there were nuns even in ancient times, from whenever there were monks. But what nuns didn’t have was their current status and education. So we have introduced that, giving them the chance to learn more for themselves from the dharma.

With these innovations in the nuns’ education, we are not changing anything in the substance of what they are learning, because you can’t change buddhadharma. In the past they were having lots of soup, but it was all broth. The soup was very delicious, but the nuns didn’t have a chance to see what the soup was made of. Now, with education, they’re getting opportunities to learn the ingredients—what the Buddha taught.

In addition to the opportunities for advanced study, for debate practice and solo retreat, you are also empowering the nuns through encouraging an ethic of increased self-sufficiency. At Dolma Ling, the nuns take responsibility for managing their institution even if they are never going to be completely self-sufficient. They take on the work of running the nunnery: sewing, papermaking, tofu-making; tending cows for milk, gardening; training in computers, cameras, and video; and for modest income, sewing and crafts, and running a guesthouse and a small café.

As we study the buddhadharma here in the midst of exile, we are making Tibet part of ourselves so we can carry the teachings wherever we serve in the world. Learning to take responsibility for our institutions is crucial in this process. We deeply appreciate the generosity of our donors, but if they take care of everything and we do nothing, a little light goes out. That would be the saddest thing. We lost our country, but we have not lost ourselves.

See more debating photos from Jeanne O’Connor:

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