Saffron Days in L. A.

JonLeave a comment

Tales of a Buddhist Monk in America

© 2001 by Bhante Walpola Piyananda
Foreword by the Dalai Lama, Published by: Shambhala Publications, 187 pp.

adventures in america

What’s too often missing in the whole field of religious writing, is something that goes beyond the “belief systems” into conveying what it is like, really, to be a passionate Christian / Muslim / Buddhist / Jedi or whatever, and explain it so that others can understand. Saffron Days in L. A. is an excellent book on Buddhism for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike since it has everything—humor, humanity, love, life stories, and yep, a pretty clear explanation about beliefs.

Bhante [the Sri Lankan title for Buddhist monks] Walpola Piyananda came to the United States on July 4, 1976, the very day of the Bicentennial celebrations. He established the first Theravada Buddhist temple in the Los Angeles area, and this book is a collection of memoirs of his experiences in the US. What great experiences they are, too! In the opening chapter, he tells about a young American convert who became a monk and soon found it unbearable to endure the constant harassment and taunts he received for wearing the traditional saffron-colored robe. Piyananda encouraged him by sharing his own difficulties wearing the Theravadin robe in L. A. including the hilarious story of waiting to meet someone in an office building and needing to make an adjustment to his robe (see sidebar).

the power of love

What strikes me most about Piyananda’s ministry is his gift for communicating gently but persuasively, with almost anyone, in almost any circumstances. One very funny story concerns how he and a friend were cornered by a threatening gang of punks on a pier. Piyananda not only turned the situation around, but had all five members of the gang asking him questions for the rest of the afternoon. Three of them later began studying Buddhism with him, and one even became a monk.

excerpt

Donning the robe is a reflection of the philosophy of dhamma, and an art in itself. Every crease and every fold has a meaning and a purpose. Carefully, I rolled one corner of the outer fold of the cloth and shaped it into a robe. While doing so, I spread the other fold of the cloth over my head, which completely covered my face. Then I wrapped the rolled fold of the robe around my neck before bringing the fold covering my head and face down over my shoulders. While my face was still covered, I saw the shadow of the woman on the couch rush past me to the elevator.

No sooner had I finished arranging my robe than I heard the fire sirens approaching around the corner. Within seconds, police cruisers and an ambulance pulled up in front of the lobby. The policemen and paramedics came running and as they approached I could see looks of utter astonishment on their faces. One officer stepped forward and ask me brusquely what I was trying to do. I was totally confused by then, and I asked the group of would-be rescuers if someone would please explain what was going on.

The first police officer said, ‘A woman called nine-one-one and reported an attempted suicide in the lobby. She told the dispatcher that an Indian guru was trying to suffocate himself with his long dress!

Saffron Days in L. A., pp.5-6

In a more serious situation, Piyananda received a phone call one night from a woman being held at gunpoint by her husband who was threatening to kill her and their children in a fit of jealous rage. Piyananda talked him into letting his wife go, got his children to safety before he could do them harm, and furthermore talked him into meeting him at the temple, surrendering his gun, and letting go of his rage. The incident ended not only without violence, but even without police involvement! A year later the man and his children were happily building new lives for themselves.

Other stories relate the challenges of helping a prostitute escape her profession and move on to a better life, the frustrations of constantly being mistaken for a Hari Krishna, explaining the Buddhist position to Christian fellow-students at Northwestern University, counseling junior monks, and the always-fun task of talking thugs out of killing him.

Piyananda uses his flair for story-telling to teach at every possible opportunity, and many a more serious student of Buddhism will find valuable information as he addresses popular misconceptions. For instance, the well-known story of the Buddha abandoning his family to live as an ascetic turns out to be false, a romanticized detail of the Buddha’s life added by Buddhaghosa in the fourth century, AD. Numerous earlier writings show that the Buddha left his family with their permission. Piyananda is not only a great storyteller, but an distinguished scholar who holds doctorates from both UCLA and the College of Buddhist Studies in Los Angeles.

Piyananda’s example is also likely to shatter the false notion which some non-Buddhists hold of Buddhism as lacking an ethic of service and social involvement. Piyananda lives a life of compassionate service, helping new immigrants from Southeast Asia, curing an alcoholic man by chanting with him nightly, and urging non-violence and forgiveness even after terrible tragedy (he delivered the eulogy for the funeral service of nine people killed in a massacre at a temple in Arizona). Piyananda’s renunciation of attachments and pleasures in order to freely give his love to all reminds me of no one so much as St. Francis of Assisi, the one who grew rich in having nothing but the blessings of God himself. Indeed, Franciscans are often attracted to Buddhism, and for good reason—the Buddha’s life and Francis’ are full of parallels. Furthermore, Jesus’ and Buddha’s life also have many parallels.

Whether you are Christian, Buddhist, both, or other, and whether you have never read about the faith before or have been practicing it for years, read Saffron Days. It will make you laugh, teach you, and inspire you.

the rhythms make us one

JonLeave a comment

tonight the city dances
salsa colombiana
three thousand people sway
one being and one purpose
six thousand feet, six thousand hands
but one head, one heart is all
for the rhythms make us one.

we are one
with pulsing guitars
and throbbing drums
and sweet crying curls of tenor voice
and Spanish words
and human hope
and universal joy
and single-hearted love

we are one
the black man, the white woman
whose bones become lambada limbs
serpentine symphonic skin
pyrotechnic arms and legs
erupting choreoectasy.

we are one
the red-haired tentpole Chinese boy
and his happy Chinese girl
his gangly steps, her awkward turns
the foolish smiles and toothy grins
all laughing life and living love.

we are one
the old, toothless man who twists
and the little boy who spins
and the little girl who jumps and shakes
and the guard who walks and waves

for here there are no countries
and here there is no race
here no ideologies
and no fights for time nor space
our creeds do not divide us
from communion in this place
and age and sex and wealth are null,
the dance is our embrace.

in this twelve-thousand-chambered heart
we beat Your Kingdom come,
and with all three thousand of our parts
we dance Your will be done.

and even when the breezes blow
the last salsa strums away
the last melody fades and stills,
the last guitar is packed away

like wind-borne dandelion seeds
the crowd scatters into the night
three thousand sparks of firework flash
go speeding out of sight.

but a broken wave returning round,
the rhythm spreads and softens
ripplings reaching farther now
for the music will go on.

mix heartbeat throbs in a Harlem crib
with mourners’ sobs by graveyard stones
and the backbeat track of the lovers’ bed
and the racing rush of the runner’s feet
and silent streetlights cycling above
and ceaseless circles of timeless hours
the sweet spinning of this world in space
and high singing of its star.

the music will not end,
the rhythms still go on,
this dance is for infinity —
we must know that we are one.

© jon zuck | lincoln center, new york | july 20-21, 1999

Seven Years in Tibet

JonLeave a comment

A profound story of spiritual transformation

Seven Years in Tibet

Even as I write this belatedly by more months than I care to think about, I am still simply amazed by the poor reception given to this masterful film, which was in my mind, the only contender to Titanic as Best Picture of 1997, and probably even more deserving. After seeing it, I rushed back to see it again as soon as possible, which is something I almost never do. Seven Years in Tibet is a masterpiece, which was destroyed by critics who couldn’t understand it, apparently expecting it to be something it was emphatically not: a story about the Dalai Lama.

Certainly the Dalai Lama figures extremely prominently in the latter portion of the film, but this film is a cinematic translation of Heinrich Harrer’s prosaic memoirs by the same name, and it is infinitely superior to its source book. If you didn’t catch that, let me say it again: This movie is not about the Dalai Lama. This is the true story of the arduous spiritual transformation of Heinrich Harrer, from Third Reich poster boy and all-around asshole, into a genuine and loving human being. One more time: This movie is about an Austrian, not a Tibetan! Understand that, and I think it will be impossible not to love this film.

Harrer, the Aryan poster boy and asshole in question, is played by Brad Pitt. His performance is superb, despite an exaggerated accent at the beginning. Harrer is a young mountain climber, attempting to conquer Nanga Parbat, an unclimbed mountain in the Himalayas, for the greater glory of the Fatherland. So what’s wrong with that? Leaving his very pregnant wife behind, for starters. His pride and self-absorption become almost fatally evident on the expedition when he endangers the lives of himself and the other climbers. The expedition fails due to weather, and the return home fails due to war. The climbers descend into India, a British colony, and are taken as prisoners of war.

In the prison camp, we begin to see the complexity of Harrer’s character, which is just as tormented as it is tormenting. He repeatedly attempts futile escapes by himself, (even though each one brings recriminations down on his comrades left behind), but he finds that he can not escape, neither from the British, nor from himself and his remorse about abandoning his family. A particularly moving scene shows Harrer in the exercise yard during a downpour, repeatedly throwing himself onto the barbed wire as a self-inflicted punishment when he learns his wife has divorced him.

Eventually, Harrer does escape, but only when he learns to cooperate with some of the less impulsive prisoners, one of whom (Peter Aufschnitter, played by David Thewlis) was the captain of the failed expedition. Together, they wander across Tibetan mountains for years, seeking refuge (and generally getting none), fleeing bandits, and clashing as enemies do in the process of becoming the closest of friends. There is great comic relief in some scenes, and magnificent beauty in the starkness and strangeness of their exile. You will now have to see this on video, and you’ll kick yourself for not having seen it on the big screen. Harrer’s transformation begins here, in the cold and isolation of being a man without a country and without a hope, unrelentingly challenged by the beauty of the Roof of the World.

Eventually, both men do find a haven (and friends) in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. After the war ends, they stay in Tibet, Aufschnitter because he has married and found happiness with a Tibetan woman, and Harrer, because he has nothing to lead him anywhere else. That changes when the 14-year-old Dalai Lama sends for Harrer, and commissions him to build a movie theater adjacent to the Potala Palace. Jamyang Wang Chuck is astonishing in his performance. He is both a humble and capable ruler-in-the-making, winsome beyond belief. He is eager to learn everything possible about the world, and Harrer becomes his tutor. The scenes between Pitt and Wang Chuck are the crowning jewels of the film, filled with sensitivity, humor, and a love that is spiritual as well as friendly and filial. During this, the Chinese begin the war against Tibet, committing atrocities by the millions. Several excellent subplots describe the descent from peace to murderous destruction. Out of duty and love, the young Lama remains with his people. And for the same reasons, he sends his friend away.

Costuming and set design were astonishing. Although Annaud tried every possible avenue to shoot the film in the Himalayas, the Chinese government was successful in intimidating every Himalayan nation to deny him. Nevertheless, the Andean scenery which we do see, is so inspiring it is not easily forgotten, even if we only experience it in the theater. I desperately wanted to get a Seven Years in Tibet calendar, although it appears none were ever made. Pity.

Is there a flaw? The Dalai Lama enters only in the last third of the film, and I don’t think a single viewer would not want to tilt the film so that the bulk of the film was his story, so engaging is his portrayal. Yet to do so, would destroy the nature of this story, which is the transformation of Harrer. And even though the screenplay wisely concentrates much more on Harrer’s relationship with the Lama than the book did, you will leave with a sense of wanting more. Perhaps that is the lesson of Seven Years, that we do not love enough, that when we see how beautiful love truly is, we will regret that we didn’t love more.

Movie still © 1997, Touchstone Pictures

The Book of Privy Counseling

JonLeave a comment

(Back to Page 1: The Cloud of Unknowing)

book cover

Although not even mentioned on the cover or spine, the greatest advantage of Johnston’s edition over others is its inclusion of another work by this nameless abbot, The Book of Privy Counsel. (Strangely, its title is altered here to The Book of Privy Counseling.) To me, this lesser-known, later work is if anything, even more valuable. Johnston’s decision to include it in with this translation of the Cloud was a stroke of genius and love. With only twenty-one micro-chapters versus the Cloud’s seventy-five, Privy Counseling is shorter and pithier. Radiating an even more mature and transcendent faith, it dispenses with apologetics for contemplation and descriptions of errors, and simply presents sound advice on doing “the contemplative work.” Also gone is the feeling of any halfway or introductory steps; for instance, the author here does not even mention the use of a prayer word as in The Cloud, nor does he forbid the use of words when praying. He simply cautions, “do not pray with words unless you are really moved to this,” and gives the soul its freedom to respond to the Spirit as it will. And while not specifically recommending it as a prayer word, he extols the singularity of the word is:

There is no name, no experience, and no insight so akin to the everlastingness of God than what you can possess, perceive, and actually experience in the blind loving awareness of this word, is. Describe him as you will: good, fair Lord, sweet, merciful, righteous, wise, all-knowing, strong one, almighty; as knowledge, wisdom, might, strength, love, or charity, and you will find them all hidden and contained in this little word, is. (p. 158)

contemplation as the awareness of isness

Perhaps it was this passage which inspired Meister Eckhart, the mystic genius to use the word “Isness” for God. Privy Counseling’s technique is quite different from the Cloud’s. No doubt from both his own growing intimacy with God, and his studies of Pseudo-Dionysius (St. Denis) whom he quotes, the author relies simply on a calm certainty of God’s panentheistic Presence as the “Ground of Being.” The method can be summarized as follows:

  • Become aware of your own being, “do not think what you are, but that you are.” (p.152) Do this not with thoughts, but just the “blind, general awareness of your being.” (p. 156) (This point is striking in its similarity to the Buddhist technique of vipassana, non-judging awareness on one’s being in the present moment.)
  • Knowing that God is “the ground of being,” that “he exists in all things as their being,” that “he is your being,” (p.150) offer your being to him “in words or desire” thus:

That which I am, I offer to you,
O Lord, for you are it entirely. (p.151)

The pure offering of your being to God’s being is considered the most effectual supplication, as it imitates Christ who gave “himself without reserve that all men might be united to his Father as effectively as he was himself.” (p.157) “Conceived in an undivided heart, [it] will satisfy your present need, further your growth, and bring all mankind closer to perfection.” (p. 157)

  • As your practice develops, let your will long “to experience only God…. as he is in himself.” (p. 172)

the work of rest

 Is it difficult? It truly seems easier for me than the methods of Centering Prayer and the Cloud, but Centering Prayer is certainly easier for a newcomer to contemplation to understand. This is an advanced practice, intended for someone with at least a bit of meditative experience under his belt, who doesn’t need an explanation to know the importance of embracing God within the self. It’s contemplation, and contemplation is far from easy. In the final chapter, the abbot addresses the situation with an honesty that will surely make every contemplative and meditator smile:

You may say, “All I feel is toil and pain, not rest. . . . On the one hand, my faculties hound me to give up this work and I will not. On the other, I long to lose the experience of myself and I cannot. . . . If this is rest, I think it is a rather odd kind of rest!”

Yes, I know it is painful and toilsome. And yet I call it rest. . . . Persevere in it with humility and great desire, for it is a work which begins here on earth, but will go on without end into eternity. (p. 188)

Indeed it will. Although I have given a lengthy summary here, please don’t depend on my sketch. Get all the insights of this wonderful teacher for yourself, and let it guide you into the wonder of touching God in this deepest of prayers. It will likely become one of your most valued books, one of the few which may truly change your life.

(Back to Page 1: The Cloud of Unknowing)

The Cloud of Unknowing

JonLeave a comment

two historic jewels of christian mysticism

This translation by William Johnston contains not one, but two of the great books in the literature of contemplation, , the well-known classic The Cloud of Unknowing, and its lesser-known sequel, The Book of Privy Counsel(ing). These 14th century classics by an unknown English abbot have long been among the most respected and beloved texts on the subject, and had a profound influence upon St. John of the Cross’ writings on contemplative prayer. It has received renewed attention in the last few decades as interest in meditation and contemplation has skyrocketed.

Fr. Johnston’s superb translation makes these 700-year-old manuals feel almost contemporary. There are no anachronisms, no words that make you run to the dictionary, nothing that takes you from out of your living room to medieval England. You feel almost as if a living person is teaching you about this wonderful method of prayer. The Cloud is far more readable than other contemplative works I have read, such as Teresa of Ávila’s The Interior Castle, and Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross.

the cloud: meditation as concentrated love

Yet it is every bit as passionate. The title comes from the author’s metaphor of contemplative prayer as struggling to get beyond a “cloud of unknowing” which separates us from experiencing God’s presence. He dismisses the idea of using understanding as a means of reaching God, since God is unfathomable; instead, he suggests, we embrace God with our love. Having established that love is the means of going through “the cloud,” the author urges the reader to “beat upon the cloud of unknowing with the hammer of your love,” and to “pierce the cloud of unknowing with the arrow of your love.” The author’s passion for God is contagious, and his prose is inspirational. The Frimster could easily find a year’s worth of profound and moving quotes for the home page here!

As for technique, the author urges the reader to dispense with meditations (visualizations), petitions, and so forth during the time of contemplation, in order to be present to God alone, not God and meditations, etc. He suggests the use of a short word like “God” or “love” to bring one back to being alone with God whenever distracting thoughts intrude, which is central to the Centering Prayer method.

There is a dull middle zone of around twenty short sections dealing with errors to avoid, which will not speak effectively to most modern readers. Nonetheless, upon reading The Cloud again, I’ve understood and appreciated it far more than I did upon my first reading. Its method really comes down to one word: Love. Over and over, the author describes the quiet prayer as love: “this contemplative work of love,” “lift up your heart with a blind stirring of love,” and “each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love.”

There are few books which radiate such a powerful and infectious love of God. The author really is driving home one thing: Love is the beginning, end, and means of deep prayer. Nothing else is necessary, but a willingness to spend time alone with God in love.

Go to page 2: The Book of Privy Counseling.

Saint Francis

JonLeave a comment

an amazing encounter with the “alter christus”

It’s always best to drop your baggage and approach each book you read with a fresh, expectant state of mind, but undoubtedly, many people will find that difficult with Saint Francis, as I did, with an aversion to wordy translations. No matter. By the time I was fifty pages into the book, that “baggage” was history, and I was entranced by Kazantzakis’ incredible retelling of this man’s story, the man whose life was so radically distinctive in purity, poverty, and peace, that he created one of the most lasting and far-reaching reforms in Church history.

Saint Francis starts slowly, with Francis’ companion Brother Leo mourning the death of his friend and bemoaning the years of self-denial he suffered in following Francis and his life of self-imposed deprivations. He begins to write of the life of Francis, at first erratically, and then, chronologically, remembering how he met him, and how God began changing Francis. From this point on, (about the fifty-page point) Leo’s recollection becomes a seamless chronological narrative, inevitably progressing from fascinating to gripping to utterly captivating. I read the last seventy or so pages in one sitting, and felt I was not in this time or space, but with Francis himself at the incredible close of the earthly phase of his life.

Unlike The Last Temptation of Christ, Saint Francis is much more biography than fiction. The main fiction Kazantzakis uses is making Brother Leo the constant companion to Saint Francis, and thus an eyewitness to all the miracles in his ministry. (In reality, although Leo was one of his first brothers and biographers, he did not accompany him on all the journeys.) Leo also conveys the irresistible charisma of Francis, and the contagiousness of his vision of abandoning all worldly desires to pursue and serve Jesus through boundless love for not just every person, but everything, with determined peace, and perfect simplicity.

This book is dangerous, in the same way the Gospel is dangerous:If you are satisfied with your spiritual life and want no challenges, don’t read this book, because it might blow you away.

Am I exaggerating? Soon after I began read Saint Francis, I seriously began to consider formally becoming a Franciscan. While I’ve since realized that I don’t have a Franciscan vocation, something of the spirit of St. Francis has stayed with me to this day, years after encountering this wonderful book.

Don’t read this book at all, unless you want to fall more deeply and passionately in love with Jesus Christ. But if you do, run to a rare bookstore or library and get it! And as Francis would say, may Peace and Good rain upon you.

The Alchemist

JonLeave a comment

a spiritual gem

With nearly two million copies sold around the world, this wonderful fable is becoming recognized for what it is—one of the truly great charmers of the late twentieth century. It’s like a surprisingly cool sea breeze coming over the desert in the evening. The innocence and charm of this fable are comparable to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but The Alchemist is more humorous, more spiritual, and wiser. This is the story of Santiago, a wanderlust shepherd boy in Spain, who decides to act upon a dream he has one night—of discovering a buried treasure at the Pyramids of Egypt.

Santiago’s journey is not easy, but his humility, faith, and simplicity are simply unshakable. In fact, he is so naïve (in the best way possible) that it does not seem to occur to him that he could be shaken. Reading it, I was reminded of something Søren Kierkegaard wrote regarding spiritual warfare:

One thing there is which all Satan’s cunning and all the snares of temptation cannot take by surprise, and that is simplicity.

After Santiago has his dream, he is soon visited by Melchizedek, the mysterious King of Salem, who tells him that soon after someone embarks upon the path of their destiny, all the Universe conspires to help them, but only for a little while. Soon after embarking upon a trip to Africa, his money is gone and he must struggle, as almost all of us do, with precariously balancing his material needs against not losing sight of his dream and his destiny. I don’t want to give too much away, but Santiago does a much better job than most of us. He never confuses the good for the best, in spite of all temptations to fear, anger, hardships, contentment, pride in achievements, and other distractions that successfully derail most of us from pursuing our callings. Santiago’s weapons are not “determination,” but trust, not willpower, but fascination, and not strength, but wonder.

One of most poignant passages comes after Santiago leaves a comfortable oasis in Egypt, (and his new love) to attend to his dream once more. As he pauses in the desert, a horseman dressed in black rushes him, with a scimitar raised to kill. Instead of fleeing or or attempting to fight, Santiago bows his head for the blow, ready to accept even death as a gift of the adventure. His steadiness has become what St. Francis of Assisi called “perfect joy,” a joy that is totally independent of any kind of circumstance on earth, being rooted so strongly in faith.

The Alchemist is profoundly spiritual without being preachy in any way. Anyone who reads it will be impressed that this is a spiritual metaphor, an extended parable about searching for our true heart’s desire, the gold that lies buried within our own souls. It is interesting to compare this book with the more popular Celestine Prophecy. I see Coelho’s little gem as being everything the latter book should have been, but wasn’t.