Here I was, the "great" Ed Rock, 38 years old and hiding out in a Zen monastery — amazing. I pictured myself having long, metaphysical discussions with Roshi Kennett, the founder of the Abbey who was still alive then. Right . . .I was soon to learn the status of a newcomer at a Zen monastery, which was one of silence and obedience.
I melted into the schedule, keeping a low profile and behaving myself, (I had no choice) and things moved along swimmingly, until I got the surprise of my life. If I intended to live at the monastery, I would have to ordain as a postulant, and pay a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month! This was not good! I left everything with Janet in Phoenix and I was next to broke. Now what?
I dashed off a letter to Janet revealing my whereabouts and inviting her to join me, but I addressed it just “Rock." I didn’t want the mailroom at the Abbey to know her name (I had a plan). I cautioned her not to write her name or return address on the envelope that she would reply with. I didn’t tell her why, I just told her to trust me.
I couldn’t imagine how she would react, a shy, Catholic girl who didn’t know the meaning of the word “Zen," except maybe when describing a sparsely furnished dorm room. But she surprised me as usual, and couldn’t wait to come to Mount Shasta even though she knew nothing about Buddhism. (She had a great thirst for adventure). Her only stipulation was that I return to Phoenix and help her sell everything. Except, of course, her prized Chevy Camaro.
So back down the mountain I went, where I boarded my old Greydog friend and soon found myself back in sweltering Phoenix keeping a watch over my shoulder for bill collectors and selling or giving everything away. I was slowly catching on that this “giving away" and “giving up" was becoming a way of life for us!
My strategy was to return to the Abbey alone. I would take the bus and Janet would drive up a week later. This way, the monastery wouldn’t know that we were acquainted (my great plan). I wasn’t ceratin that couples could ordain, or even stay at Shasta. I just could not stop lying about things; the truth always got in my way. But I was definitely in over my head this time. These Buddhists were smart cookies!
The gravity of what we were doing slowly dawned on Janet when I explained that we would have to keep our relationship under wraps for awhile (which she thought was dishonest). Plus, she didn’t know what to expect, and became a bundle of nerves. She would really be on her own.
I made it back with no complications, and was watching for her the day of her expected arrival. It was getting late. Finally, I saw her standing outside the gate with her fingers hooked through the cyclone fence, looking in with big, wide eyes at the monks. She probably spotted the swastikas . . . and she didn’t look happy. But she either trusted or cared for me more than I realized, or perhaps both, because in she came, and was permitted to stay without going back into town, (of course). Her karma was always better than mine!
Eastern religions were foreign to her; she understood nothing about them, but had always been prone to precognition. For some odd reason, she had saved a newspaper article she ran across while we were in Phoenix , a piece about a monastery in Arizona and a contemplative nun, and some kind of monk living with deadly snakes and diseases in a strange, foreign country. Why she would cut out such a thing was beyond me. She didn’t know why she cut it out and saved it either. As fate would have it, the monk, Janet, and I . . . and the snakes, were soon to cross paths.
Then there was her abstract watercolor in seventh grade, called The Endless Journey, and the reading assignment in high school of the book Siddhartha. Only years later did Janet discover that the book was about an unusual man . . . Siddhartha Gautama; the Buddha!
Janet could never understand why God turned his back on her when she was only seven. He took her mom when Janet needed her most. The depression that began at that early age only deepened when she found herself pressured to do everything perfectly in Catholic grade school, and was warned not to associate with people unless they were Catholic. In her heart, this instruction didn’t feel right or make sense, and she became increasingly confused. She realized, even at that innocent age, that there were good and bad people all over the world, and she couldn’t understand why their religion or race should matter.
She had graduated from Bowling Green University in Ohio, but even this extensive exposure to academia could not match what she was discovering at a simple Zen monastery — meditation — which in her own words saved her life.
Initially terrified with the idea of exposing herself to a practice so foreign to her culture, and giving up her psychological dependence on the Church, including Jesus and God, was a most difficult thing as any Catholic can imagine even if they didn’t spend twelve years in a Catholic school! But it was a strangely liberating thing as well. Questions that had tormented her since childhood were actually being answered here at Mount Shasta, in meaningful, optimistic ways, and her mental outlook began swinging 180 degrees toward positive.
She found the monks at the Abbey to be real people, uniquely compassionate and understanding. When she confided in them about her personal, past problems, they approached the problems in an unusual but effective way; they didn't specifically address her problems or try to reason with her regarding them, but instead showed her how to sit in meditation with an open, free mind. This allowed the excess psychological baggage that she had been carrying around for so many years to naturally exhaust itself, while a repressed, inherent wisdom that had been buried deep inside of her, covered up by all her problems, began to surface. It was a self-healing experience.
For myself, I quickly became aware that my logical, thinking mind and high IQ would not get me far here at the monastery, about as far as a “mosquito trying to bite an iron bull," as the monks would say. Every one of my thoughts, and every attempt to understand with my reasoning mind would be of no use. The only thing I could rely on now was a mysterious, deep wisdom, which I could supposedly access through meditation.
Surprisingly, I found the experience to be quite interesting, the first vacation my mind had ever had. It was an opportunity for the mind to relax for the first time in its life. After arriving at the Abbey overloaded with facts and ideas that I knew in my head, but not things that I felt in my heart, I soon discovered that meditation could touch that heart, and it felt good.
We found that the monks at Shasta, and actually all the Buddhists we were to meet later, never instructed from an attitude of . . . “Believe this, this is the truth." Instead, it was, a low-keyed attitude of . . . “Consider this, and don’t believe anything unless you can prove it true to yourself." Whatever psychology was involved, it was working, and Janet was feeling better about life every day, distancing herself from her endless negative thoughts.
One day a female Roshi, or senior teacher (men and women are considered equal at Shasta) explained the elementary theory of karma, or the irrefutable law of cause and effect. It struck a deep cord in Janet’s heart, and she began to see things from a radically different perspective, as her past grieving and confusion began to dissolve.
For so many years she was confused, and now for the first time in her life things began to make a little sense. This law of karma explained why some are wealthy and others poor, why some live long healthy lives, why others die young; and why some are nurturing while others murder. This resonated deep in Janet’s heart, so deep that she intuitively discovered for us the First Great Freedom, The Undeniable Freedom of Karma.
If it was true that our karma results from our own actions, in both our present and our past lives, then Janet could see that her mom’s sufferings were possibly results of actions in previous existences and not a consequence of a God that didn’t care. Furthermore, after an explanation of how karma and rebirth are linked, she felt that her mom, or part of her mom, would soon be back to try again!
E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com
anagarika eddie is a meditation teacher at the Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation Retreat Sanctuary (www.dhammarocksprings.org), and author of A Year to Enlightenment. His 30 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Thervada Buddhist monk.
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