Days 5-9: Why are you going to a Buddhist Monastery?

Signs like this appear all over the campus

When people asked what I was doing for my sabbatical I always told them I was going to a monastery.  What I didn't always mention was that it was a Buddhist monastery.  When I did mention it, some people were surprised, others confused, a few were disappointed, but everyone was curious.  "So tell me," many asked, "why are you going to a Buddhist monastery?"  This is a fair question.

Before arriving at Deer Park Monastery I answered by talking about Thich Nhat Hanh, the founding monk.  I had never heard of Hanh until a few years ago when he was interviewed by Krista Tippet on her podcast "On Being." In that interview I learned that he was born in Vietnam in 1923 and became a Buddhist monk just sixteen years later.  He was influential in establishing Engaged Buddhism which attempts to apply the insights of meditation and Buddhist teachings to help alleviate suffering and social injustice.  While in Vietnam the communities (Sangha's) Hanh founded trained lay leaders and worked diligently to educate, heal and encourage impoverished Vietnamese people.  When the Vietnam war began he worked to bring reconciliation between North and South and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. who called Hanh "the Vietnamese Ghandi."  Neither the North or South viewed Hanh this fondly.  He was unwilling to take sides and as a result both communist and non-communist banned him from the country.  He has lived in exile ever since. In that time he went on to establish Plum Village, a monastery in France. From this home, dozens of other monasteries have been established including Deer Park, where I was over the last few days.  So, I would answer those who asked why, that I am drawn to learn more about a person who was so peaceful that both sides wanted to get rid of him.  That kind of person sounds familiar to me.

View of Deer Park from a surrounding hill.  

It wasn't until I had been at Deer Park for a couple of days that I found myself able to articulate the second reason, and perhaps stronger reason, for my visit.  During our orientation one of the monks started by saying, "Each day has an abundance of gifts to offer, but to receive them we must slow down, stop and notice."  Hanh puts it this way in one of his books, There are things available to us twenty-four hours a day.  It depends on us to enjoy them.  The fresh air is available to us twenty-four hours a day. The question is whether we have the time and awareness to enjoy it.  We cannot blame the fresh air for not being there...one of the conditions that helps us be free to enjoy what is there is our mindfulness.  If our mindfulness is not there, then nothing will be there.  We will not be aware of the beautiful sunshine, the fresh air, the stars, the moon, the people, the animals, and the trees.  In the words of another great thinker, "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around for a while you could miss it."  Thanks Ferris.

Not only do I sit at the beginning of a day full of boundless gifts, but I sit at the beginning of a four month rest from work.  There is no way to fully appreciate all that is before me, but I desperately want to suck the marrow out of as much as possible.  Mindfulness, a term you have likely heard, is the practice of this awareness.  I went to Deer Park to cultivate mindfulness, a mind fully attentive to each moment; each image, sound, creature and person.  Is this possible?  Absolutely not.  No one can be fully attentive to everything, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.

It is in part because each moment holds so many stimuli that the teachings of mindfulness involves so much meditation.  A typical day looked as follows:

5:45 Sitting Meditation
7:00 Eating Meditaton
9:00 Working Meditation
12:00 Eating Meditation
1:00 Walking Meditation
4:30 Sitting Meditation
6:00 Eating Meditation
7:30  Dharma Sharing
9:30 Holy Silence (Sleeping Meditation)


Do you notice a theme?  It is as if someone said, "Meditate always."  In one of our sharings someone did say this.  If you're familiar with the New Testament this might sound familiar.  Change one word and this phrase could have come from the lips of the Apostle Paul who in his letter to the Thessalonians said, "Pray always." (1 Thess. 5:17)  If you view prayer, as I have, only as the time I spend talking to God in the morning and giving thanks before meals, then Paul's imperative feels impossible.  However, if it means something more like, "always pay attention to the gift in each moment" then that feels different.

In the next few days I hope to post a few more reflections on my time at the monastery, but until then you might be wondering, "Well, did it work?  Are you more mindful?"  If I had any doubts about the answer when leaving the monastery they were  eliminated when I dropped my rental car off.  After handing him the keys the attendant said, "You seem really relaxed."  I paused before answering "Yeah, I am."