One Face: October 2019

Your own face

The face of a stranger

O World! O Life! O Time

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before;

When will return the glory of your prime?

No more—O never more!

—Percy Shelley, A Lament

Magnolia Grove Monastery

Harvest Moon Festival

13 September 2019

September

Spiders grown

In every corner

Friday Night

The brothers and sisters gathered on the steps of the Great Meditation Hall for a moon viewing party. Colorful paper lanterns were strung across the courtyard casting a warm glow on the paving stones and the grass growing in the borderlands between them. The moon, round and orange, hid behind the treetops as we enjoyed hot tea and lotus root mooncakes. Rising into the night, the sound of the sisters’ singing, the moon showed its face.

Rabbit

Pausing in the garden

Harvest moon

Saturday Night

The altar had been prepared. All the brothers and guests were seated on cushions in the Brothers’ Meditation Hall to celebrate the beginning of the Rains Retreat with the Sticks Ceremony. The bell. Moving, two brothers stood, the first carrying a number of small post-beam sticks on a tray approached each brother in turn who took a stick and placed it solemnly in front of him, the second coming behind with another tray to collect those same sticks. The ritual is ancient and intended as an accounting of the presence of all the monks for the Rains Retreat. A reading of the physical boundaries of the monastery property was given next. No brothers or sisters are permitted to go beyond the grounds for the duration of the retreat. A special ceremony of chants and music together with sitting followed. In my excitement to attend the ceremony I misunderstood and brought a stick myself that I had picked up under the nearby oaks. Nothing was said. Not a single frown. No stick in the mud.

Six Buddha statues

Sitting

One with bird poop

Sunday Morning

Sitting in the Great Hall—The moon is still with us.

Squirrel skull

In the window

White sun

Moon in morning sky

Path to meditation hall

Footprints on footprints

First falling leaves

Grasshoppers

Take wing

Sunday Afternoon

Both the brothers and the sisters were united in a Rains Retreat ceremony in the Great Hall today. Bowing to each other after chanting and sitting together is yet another mutual reaffirmation of their commitment to the monastic community as a whole and to keeping to the confines of the monastery for the nascent three month period.

Gong

Singing

With voice of Great Hall

Before dinner I found a dried cut tube of bamboo short enough to use as a bud vase. I went down to the vegetable garden and picked a flower from the trellis of bitter melons. One bud is opening on the same stem, and I hope that the others will soon follow.

Melon vines

Blooming sunshine

Yellow flowers

Sunlight

Standing in bamboo

Green silence

Sunday dinner: eating alone at a picnic table looking down at the small meadow in front of the Great Hall as a caterpillar approaches.

Sunset sloping

Butterflies wings

Temple bell

Monday Morning

Lazy day. Waking up a little later than usual, I make it to the Sisters’ Dining Hall for Vietnamese coffee around 7:30 AM. I sit quietly sipping, then wash the cup. I pass the lotus pond and temple bell on the way back to the Men’s Dorm to take a shower. Outside my window is a row of flowering myrtles luring birds to play.

Greenfinch

Leaves behind

Stripes

Monday Afternoon

Word gets around that a puppy followed one of the brothers returning from a hike. When I arrive at the Brothers’ Dining Hall, I see what looks like a blue-tick hound mix chewing on a flip-flop pulled off an outdoor shoe rack. The pup is small and wide-eyed but the brothers aren’t really supposed to keep pets, so they will try to find him a home. For now, compassion wins out.

Puppy

Newness of playing

Old shoe

At dinner that evening, I suggested maybe the little hound had heard about the Sticks Ceremony. He has not yet been given a name.

Monday night lights out just at the time for noble silence—9:30 PM. Early sitting in the morning.

Dawn bell—

The owl greeting

A lone bat

I’m not used to sitting on a cushion. I got a tip from a fellow pilgrim about the technique of spreading your knees wide and getting them down on the mat in order to open up your posture for breathing. Next time I will find my position.

The walking meditation takes a path past the Great Hall meadow and around along the edge of a wooded patch to a bending gravel road that connects to the gently rising Macadam road leading to the entrance of the monastery itself. The sign on the gate says:

Arrived and Home

A brother told me there used to be a path in the woods themselves for the walking meditation to wind through, but in the course of a season it quickly became overgrown. Chiggers and snakes are in there.

Tick

Breathe

I saw an old deer track in the dirt. Here they are more than safe from hunters.

Wednesday

One of the melon blossoms fully opened today—yawning yellow. I’m yawning too.

Candlelight sitting in the intimate Brothers’ Meditation Hall, heart of pine walls and ceiling with a bamboo floor. Sitting before sunrise. Rhythm of sun and moon.

The afternoon finds us on working meditation in the hot sun weeding the rock garden—this kind of beauty takes a bit of nurturing. Some of the weeds stand their ground, but mindful persistence completes the task at hand. Such is the nature of impermanence.

Rock garden

Weeds

Hardy hello

At dinner the brothers again have a platter of fresh sliced watermelon. After working in the sun for a few hours, the juicy melon is fragrant and silky on the tongue. A large wedge was passed down the length of the table to me.

Many hands

Light work

Deep red cold melon

We wash our own dishes after dinner. The brothers have a system of four water trays set up—the first brims with suds and the others contain progressively clearer water. Clean and clear. The dishes are racked, wheeled into the kitchen and sanitized. Washing dishes is a good chance to chitchat with the monks, as there are rules about talking during mealtime. Silence is a way of life here. Whenever a clock chimes, everyone stops what they are doing and comes back to mindfulness. Breathe and smile. Also, during dinner, mindfulness is a rule. It goes without saying that gratitude is an appropriate feeling when someone places a meal of the freshest ingredients in front of you. But the monks also encourage us to chew and eat meditating on our food.

For me, looking down the table at the good monks dining together, the interconnectedness of all of us to the earth and beyond comes to mind. My personal thoughts while chewing are:

Love in

So many hands

Love spelled out

Peace in

So many hands

Peace spelled out

Repeat. Rep-eat.

Relishing a crumb

Fly

On the table

I spotted an unusual rock in the garden today, but instead of picking it up I left it where it lay.

Crystalline streaks

Otherwise ordinary

Brown rock

Thursday Morning

Another early sitting session in the Great Hall—this time in silence except for the sounding of the bell. After slowly rising, we step over our mats and turn to face the sisters and bow in respect. Then we turn to face the altar and bow low on hands and knees with foreheads touching the earth.

Slipping into my shoes in the anteroom, it is first light when I step out into the courtyard.

Happy and alive

What a miracle

Now, the third thing

Birds

Breathing

Flowers

Back in my room, I sit in my bunk and wait for the sun to cross before the window opposite me. In my practice I like to touch foreheads with the sun as well.

Nothing

Limits

But possibilities

Dharma talk in the tearoom at the Brothers’ Residence.

Lotus pond

Fetching

Moon

Pebble

Concentric ripple

Concentric

Walking meditation left without me so I spent some time looking at the fallen magnolia leaves. There were many leaf showers in the soft wind—chimes.

Magnolia leaves—

green supple

brown leather

I walked to the rock garden before heading back down to the Brothers’ Tearoom for dharma sharing. I arrived early and had the pleasure to join in an informal tea. The tea was brewed by one of the brothers from what he called one-leaf tea, from each plant only one leaf is picked, new and tender.

One-leaf tea

All in

One cup

Rock garden

Pebble heart

Golden fly

Lunch with the sisters at the Brothers’ Dining Hall. So many hands. Chocolate cake!

Dinner Thursday

On my plate I put a fair portion of what I took to be kimchi. I used to teach English in South Korea so I am accustomed to hot foods. But this kimchi turned out to be not kimchi. It was hotter Vietnamese-style fermented green papaya. So my mealtime meditation was:

Warmth

Loving kindness

Gratitude

After the bell, betrayed by a sniffle, I told the brothers about my peppered insight. We all had a grin.

Tiny red chilis

Matter of hotness

Vast and wide

Outside the Men’s Dorm is a small basketball court. When I heard the distinct sound of a bouncing ball, I parted the curtains. To my surprise, a sister in her monastic dress was shooting hoops. Making it rain!

Friday Morning Already

Before dawn, entering the Brothers’ Meditation Hall.

Keyhole

In the clouds

Shape of the moon

Around the Brothers’ Residence, there seemed to be many unmatched flip-flops.

Packing the car. Saying goodbyes at breakfast.

Dragonfly

On walk

Sharing stillness

Love in

So many hands

Love spelled out

Warmth

Loving kindness

So many roads

Safe travels

Walk in peace

Freedom

One kingdom

Touching foreheads

A little prayer

Another yellow bud opened this morning.

Perhaps when I come back the otherwise ordinary brown rock in the garden will be one shining crystal.

I leave the flower pressed between these pages here for you.

Find the rock yourself.

The midnight moon is as gentle and wondrous as a mother’s love.

—Thay

Written at Magnolia Grove Monastery, Men’s Dorm, Dandelion, on the week of Harvest Moon Festival, September 2019. Thinking on the sweetness of many fresh watermelons and the benefits of seeds.

Most important is knowing how to ride the waves of impermanence, smiling as one who knows he has never been born and will never die.

Nhat Hanh

One Face

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Mist

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Pine

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Seed and Fruit

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Doves

Friday, October 4, 2019

From the Sketchbook

Acorn

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Incense Offering

A Pilgrim's Retreat

The Geango Verses of Old Hermit Badpenny 古仙庵庵庵

Report Abuse