A letter from Arinna, 10/27/07

Greetings Dear Friends;

Some years ago I told a story while I was living in Massachusetts, about some ants who in a long stream took to inhabiting my kitchen and especially my honey pot. A few nights ago as I was preparing to go to bed, my glasses off, now I need to wear them almost all the time, I noticed a number of moving dark spots on the carpet. The previous morning I happened in a wave of good will towards my cabin/yurt, and squatting with a dustpan and brush, to clean my carpet so I knew these weren't bits of dirt moving in a mirage of late night imagination. I donned my glasses to see three large black ants wandering around. I grabbed a piece of paper and knelt down in front of each ant moving the paper in front of its path. None of them were interested in walking onto this piece of paper which happened to have a drawing of birdseed by someone in the community who was in bed with a relapse of multiple sclerosis and had taken to drawing humorous pictures for each person living here. As I fed the birds every morning with birdseed I bought at the local supermarket, they had very little of anything else, this scattering of black and brown dots was my gift. The ants clearly didn't think much of it and I had to develop complicated cornering strategies to entice them onto "Birdseed for Arinna" and out of the room.

Now I wish I could say I did this with compassion. After all I was in the middle of an intensive two week retreat, the time when each of us at Santi Monastery pretty much stay in our cabins meditating and our lunch is even brought to us. It so happens that right before my two weeks, which I was really looking forward to as I had been working many hours in the kitchen cooking and cleaning, I sprained my ankle. This meant no walking meditation which is one of the great pleasures in my life.

This particular evening I felt some frustration at this loss and the ants were "the last straw" so to speak. So I tossed them out over the balcony imagining their resilience surviving this parachuting and at the same time being deterred by the rough treatment. They perhaps practicing the path of mindfulness, I have been studying Analay's "Satipatthana" ( Sutta on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness) were being "ardent and diligent" for they or family members kept on appearing as though from deva or angelic realms.

I back on hands and knees crawled around my floor again searching for their entrance with the thought of blocking it. But to no avail. I too "diligent and ardent" cornered the next twelve and took them outside. Then I became aware of irritation. I stopped and said to myself, "I know irritation as irritation" and in this reoccurrence of mindfulness surrendered my resistance once again to these visitors and got into bed. The ants unconcerned with my mind states continued unhampered to crawl over the bed and my face of course waking me each time.

The mice in the roof decided to join in this foray of activity with thumping and scratching. I put in my ear plugs, pulled the sheet over my head and repeated, "May I have ease and happiness, may I have ease and happiness", and drifted off to sleep in a state that could be described as somewhat contented.

They are still around I guess searching for something, as we all are, and happily I can say I have reached some clarity as to my next steps on this journey.

I will not ordain but return to the US. It has been a wonderful, challenging and transforming time. While sitting on a ledge overlooking the gorge which is part of national park land abutting the monastery I felt the calling to once again share the teachings and practice of the Buddha.

So I am planning to return to the States in January, visit Ruth Denison my root teacher, teach in Feb. in Massachusetts, visit my mom in March in South Africa and then am open to practicing and teaching. I have also decided to lead retreats specifically for trauma survivors and allies and look forward to finding how to manifest
that.

I think, though always subject to change, that I would like to spend more time on the west coast, so again perhaps that will manifest. It has been a long time, and also it sometimes (the mind is so contrary) feels like hardly any time at all since I have seen you all. I really look forward to reconnecting. I am on e-mail again and happy to hear from you. Blessings and love, Arinna.

A letter from Arinna, 10/31/06

Ajahn Amaro had already warned me: Kitchen duties are unavoidable at the monastery. After a few weeks the kitchen manager Maria, announced it was time for me to train as head cook. HEAD COOK! OH NO!!! “Can’t I remain a veggie chopper or tea maker?” I pleaded. All guests who intend to train as anagharikas, she informed me, have to take this on.

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of experience to fall back on. My cooking includes steamed or baked vegetables, soup, salad and sometimes rice with baked chicken sausages from Whole Foods.  This is supplemented with a lot of bread and boiled eggs, cheese puffs and chocolate. And with this I am to cook for 50-100 people?

Armed with beginners mind I have learned to cook lentils, bake potatoes for many more than myself and cook pizza. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have ordered pizza in my life but here at the monastery it has become my favorite food. And so last week contemplating my menu for the next day I decided on pizza.

One of the guidelines we have been given as head cooks is to create a menu according to what we have in the pantry and so I went in search of the ingredients. There were lots of tomatoes canned and fresh, zucchini and onion for the topping but when I opened the refrigerator door for the most precious ingredient-cheese, there was, ominously, a sign on cardboard written in large letters with a black felt pen “For Lada only” Could I sneak some of the cheese peeking out from behind the sign, I asked myself, the precept of not taking what is freely offered barely holding me back from acting on this passion for pizza.

I went in search of someone more knowledgeable than myself about kitchen matters and ran into another head cook Anna Sophia who said I didn’t need to make pizza because she had made it on Tuesday. I reassured her I did need to make it and was there ANY possibility of using some cheese. She said it was probably okay to take a small block of it.

When I went back to the refrigerator I just didn’t feel comfortable taking the cheese. What a dilemma, so I sat on the outside steps leading to the kitchen with a big bowl of flour and butter mixing them together between my increasingly arthritic fingers hoping for a solution. Janie, a long term resident walked by innocently on her way to her room. The divas must be with me I thought because she was one of the few residents with a car. I jumped up, and asked her, Janie is there was any way you could drive me to the store I have this desire for pizza and there is no cheese. She looked at me with great compassion and agreed. And so we drove off to Potten End, about a fifteen-minute drive, to buy 5lbs of cheese. On the return journey I mentioned how much I was looking forward to the practice of renunciation if I choose to ordain and felt her stiffen in response.

As I walked back to my room and recollected our conversation I realized how little I had renounced in the last hours. It was so lovely to see my attachment. I continue to enjoy failing at the practice of renunciation. More difficult and triggering for me is the ongoing sexism in the environment.  Some examples; when the head monk and nun of Chithurst, the sister monastery, came to Amarvati on a visit we were invited to bow to the monk but not the nun; and the central part of the day is receiving dana from the outside community and chanting a blessing of thanks which the monks do and never the nuns. And of course after the blessing the monks go first to take food even the most newly ordained teenager goes before the most senior nun. I knew about this and yet to live it every day is a constant reminder of the pain of internalized and institutionalized sexism.

It is for this reason I have decided to leave the monastery and continue my journey, first to Plum Village and then to Thailand to explore other monasteries.

It has been raining most of the week; dark grey clouds are carried by the wind in a stately procession releasing themselves over the monastery as though they too are joining in the letting go practice. I have just washed some of my clothes, a daily occurrence, as lay guests are not allowed to use the washing machine, and hung them out to dry in an apparently unrealistic burst of optimism. I remain here in the drizzle writing to you all on a hard wooden bench dedicated to Richard Newcomb “dear and fine by faith and virtue” and hope that these energies too may bless you all. Arinna.

PS I have looked in various second hand stores and not seen any pajamas. If anyone has a spare pair that is warm and white it would be a great gift also some white woolen socks.

When I went for a walk today I remembered one of my favorite songs:

Where I sit is holy,
Holy is this ground, mountain, forest, river,
Listen to the sound of the great spirit circling all around.
Where I walk, pray, stand…is holy.

I learned it in a sweat lodge, sitting in a circle of bodies flushed hot with heat from the red glowing rocks in the middle of the makeshift lodge we had constructed from young branches and old woolen blankets.

At the end of my first retreat with S. N. Goenka, who, like Ruth, is in the U Bha Kin lineage, he suggested we create a special place to meditate, a corner of a room or even a whole room for our practice. I imagined statues of the Buddha, fancy cloths draped over a table, lots of candles, and bells along the wall of the small cabin I was living in at the time. This pictured alter never materialized because I have always felt most comfortable sitting in my bed on my down pillows with my comforter wrapped around my shoulders.

I do have an alter now, downstairs in the hallway on a green chest of draws left by my former partner that guests and I have to pass to go to the kitchen, dining room, and living room. It has a picture of Ruth holding flowers, looking young and radiant; one of Thich Nhat Hanh on a swing which Edward caught when we were at Plum Village in Southern France, looking pensive and a little sad; and one of Punjaji, with two of his companion students at his side who had just helped him stand up from the dining room table. I am standing behind some other students in the second row grinning. We had just celebrated his birthday and I was wearing a lovely blue silk dress. He died only a few months later.

There is a picture of the Dalai Lama, and one of the Buddha in gold with the garish colors of Hindu Goddesses and Gods-bright reds, greens, and blues. For some reason I appreciate this Buddha, not one bit unsettled in this flamboyant color scheme seated in his lotus position with a smile on his face looking more delighted than the Mona Lisa.

Almost every day I light some sage and bless, with the smoke and a pelican feather I was given in Mexico, each of these beings, the small bronze Tara, an embodiment of wisdom , and the four directions. I take a moment to stand with them without thought or wish or spoken prayer. We come together as though on a conference call without words, then I blow out the candle, make sure there are no burning leaves of sage left, and go about the chores of my day. Often when I pass my alter to go up the stairs to my office or bedroom or when I come down, an ember of this connection flares for a moment and I smile as I continue on my way.

Each year the community I was part of in Albion, California would come together at the summer and winter solstice and the two equinoxes to pray. We stayed up all night, using a form inspired by the Native American Peyote Church. A rattle was passed around the circle followed by a drum; this called forth the heart beat of the earth. Each person shook the rattle, which became a bridge between ourselves and the Great Spirit that inspired our songs. There was no talking or lying down; the rattle moved around the circle from one person to another until dawn.
Some of us sang in key with melodies so exquisite we were in tears and others of us squeaked out our songs. We sang for peace, for a world without war or suffering; we sang for our sons and daughters, friends and parents who had just died; we sang in thanks. As I looked at each face-brown or white, with long hair or short-with such tenderness that at least for this night all grievances fell away.

The places where we have prayed are holy to me. I visit them when I can as though on a pilgrimage: the great redwoods, who stood with such grace through those nights; the waters of the Navarro River, who has blessed us for so many years, and her beach where she runs into the ocean.

Behind my apartment, old grazing hills have been reclaimed by oaks, maples, pines, and firs. The land is part of a conservation area owned by the city and has remained undeveloped. Trails climb up to the highest point, which looks out over the valley with a large old water reservoir and the Berkshire Hills. Each time I walk up, I take a moment to give prayers of thanks, and I pray also for those I know who are struggling. I sing to all these places, giving thanks for the holy places in my life.