Even before we began packing boxes, a primary personal goal for moving back to Seattle was to find a spiritual community. I’ve leaned (see what I did there?) toward Buddhism for the last twenty years, without actually committing to a sangha or even a lineage. I have a small library of books that range from Zen to Tibetan, and a zafu and zabuton that sometimes get used. I’m the most accomplished, lazy, armchair Buddhist you’ll ever meet. Except that this isn’t much of an accomplishment. My ass is getting tired, and it’s not from all the meditating.
In the first week we lived here, I made my own Google map of Local Buddhist Stuff. Then I decided to try the closest locations of two different lineages; Zen and Tibetan. First would be a visit to the Blue Heron Zen Community, and after that I’d visit the Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism (yep, it’s where they shot Little Buddha, a story based on true events, although many of us remember that film simply as The Movie Where Keanu Reeves Had A Really Strange Tan).
Blue Heron Zen Community
At Blue Heron, I chose the Guest Night. Greg and the kids dropped me off, a tall house near Northgate Mall. There’s a hike up a hill, and at first I wondered if I had the right place, but then I saw the back door; a line of shoes. I don’t know why that delights me so much. A small token, something we all give up before we enter. Of course, it keeps the floors clean, too. Buddhism is practical, in a thousand ways.
I met Eric Nord, a teacher, who welcomed me and showed me where to put my sweater. I liked him right away. He has a very genuine openness about him, as if just the space around him is a refuge from the trials of every day life. There was one other person there for guest night, a young man. After donning guest robes (Look at me! I’m official!) the two of us followed Eric upstairs, and arranged ourselves on cushions. We spent maybe twenty minutes chatting, mostly going over posture and breathing and our past experiences with meditation. I felt comfortable, even confident. That is, until all these people began filing in, and Eric explained we’d be meditating with the sangha for their evening sit. PANIC. He got up to get something, and I stood up, following him toward the door.
“But I can’t sit,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked me.
“I mean I can’t sit. I mean my record is something like seven minutes. I can’t get past seven minutes. If you make me sit here with these people, I’ll crawl out of my own skin. My head will explode. And your white walls are SO LOVELY.”
The room was filling with people, arranging themselves. I’m sure they could hear me. I looked around, hoping to see someone giving me the “thumbs up” sign, or smile, or just anything that said they’d been there too. Instead, expressions were serene, and unreadable.
Eric laughed. “You can do this,” he said. Or something encouraging like that. Then he said, “If you have to get up, just rise quietly and go outside, and I’ll come out and make sure you’re okay.”
In the end, I sat through the entire meditation period, which included chanting (in Korean!), a silent walking meditation, and two sitting periods of 13 minutes apiece. My head didn’t explode, and the walls of the zendo are still white. When it was over, everyone went downstairs, while I sat and talked with Eric and the other visitor for awhile. Eric asked how it’d gone. “I hated it,” I said.
“You hated it? Really?”
“Oh, it was awful. It was torture. I’m pretty sure I did everything wrong. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, and I kept looking out at the tree, even though I wasn’t supposed to.”
He was unfazed. He said I did amazing for someone who’d so much trouble sitting before, and he was right, it was a personal best. The torture didn’t faze me much either. I’d read enough to know it was normal, but of course it’s a lot different to read about how cold the ocean is than to leap off the boat. Later, when Greg picked me up, he asked how the meditation went. I told him it was horrible, awful, the worst 26 minutes I’d had in a long time.
“You’re going back, aren’t you?” he said, more a statement than a question. It was the same tone he has when he sees me in front of a slice of pizza. “You’re going to eat that, aren’t you?”
My answer was the same. “Probably.”
Sakya Monastary of Tibetan Buddhism
But I didn’t go back. I didn’t get that far. A week later I went to the Sunday morning meditation at the Sakya Monastery, and it was love at first chant. Jason and Beth went with me. Just driving up to the building, I felt like I was home, a sensation that only increased the longer I was there, even though I had no idea what was going on half the time.
The shrine room at Sakya - thanks to Wonderlane on Flickr for this beautiful photo!
Beth spent her hour in their Dharma School, which is like Buddhist Sunday School. Jason and I spent our time upstairs in the shrine room, listening to chants. I tried to keep up, but much of it was in Tibetan, and I got lost a few times. I didn’t mind. It just felt right.
Toward the end of the service, the Dharma School class filed in, the kids doing their three prostrations, and then sitting down on cushions in front. I was straining to see Beth, wondering if she’d look back and search for me too, but she was watching the Rinpoche, her big eyes going between he and the other lamas seated near him. Someone had given her a mala to wear. Later I asked her if she’d enjoyed herself, and she said it was THE BEST, like the BEST THING EVER, and I almost asked her if it was better than pink unicorns or chocolate chip cookies or white rice with soy sauce, but instead I just asked her if she wanted to go back. “YES!” she shouted.
“Me too!” I replied.
And so we are. I went back this week for an orientation, and joined formally as lay member. On October 4th, I’ll take refuge, which is a ceremony where you declare your intention to live as a Buddhist; “taking refuge” refers to taking refuge in the three jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. That probably needs more explanation than a Wiki link, but I’ll get to it later – I’m already up too late.
I have rarely written about Buddhism in my own life, mostly because it’s been so personal, and because I’ve never felt like I was very good at it. I’m horrible at meditating, and I’m attached to everything. Why now? Well, when I turned 35 this summer, I decided that my motto for this year was going to be GO. That’s it. As in, GET OUT THERE. Go do the things I want to do, and stop planning to do them.
I also recently read, What Makes You Not a Buddhist, in an effort to see whether I was kidding myself. Had I spent twenty years developing a fondness for prayer beads? Or was I truly on a path that deeply resonated? I wouldn’t suggest using any one book as a “test”, to see if you belong to one spiritual path or another, but keep in mind I’d read several dozen books before this one; and I found this particular book to be incredibly useful. Concepts I’d only barely understood before became suddenly clear, and I felt so grateful to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse for his wisdom. When I finished reading, my decision to take refuge felt even better.
So, there it is, or here it begins. What’s been an interesting journey up until now is getting a lot more interesting.
Nice, Hollie. Beautifully done.
Awww. Thanks.