Thanks to Wappingers Falls' Grinell
Public Library for helping my bring you this special tinyblog post from New
York.
After a brief amount of time at JFK airport, I was transported to the magical land of
upstate New York.
It's pretty here, first of all. It's just spring here, and the land is so green and
hilly, kind of like I remember Tenessee being, only more...rocky I guess. There's a
cool little health food store that's a lot like a PCC in Seattle, so I don't have to
worry about being able to get good coffee or soap.
Wappingers Falls is actually quite a nice place. There is a little suburbian strip with
gas stations, mini-malls, and K-Mart, but there's also a rustic part of town that has a
bunch of pretty little shops and such. (People who know me know how I feel about pretty
little shops.) My sister drove me through town when I arrived so I'd know where
everything was.
People who know my sister often ask how she's doing, and I could never really answer.
"Good, I guess," I'd say, since she never really gives such a succinct statement in her
letters to me. But now I can say she is doing good. She's living a life I think a lot
of people wish they could live. Or maybe without the consecutive hours of chanting in
Tibetan.
The land is right on a river, and it's spacious and lovely. The main building where she
stays has rooms, a kitchen and a dining room downstairs. Then, upstairs, is a big
pretty shrine room that gets a lot of use. Most people don't know how elaborate
Tibetans like to do their shrines. They are usually of the opinion that More Buddha
Stuff = More Blessings. So it's not this austere zen sort of thing. Really vivid colors
and many many buddha statues. They cover the upper walls in rows of glass cabinets.
The statues are called rupas. There must be about 100 or so 6" Buddha rupas, and then
about 18 8" Tara rupas. Then there's a Guru Rinpoche one that's about 4 feet tall, and
then there's a large buddha statue that's about...well...a little bigger than life
size.
Every morning, there is a morning chant that starts at 6am and lasts a little over two
hours. They chant into Tibetan so fast I can't even read the transliteration (the
English pronunciation of the Tibetan, which I can actually read pretty well). The
morning prayers are over 100 pages long. I'm used to doing only silent meditation on
retreat, but really in Tibetan monestaries they don't do much silent meditation. I
asked my Lama why once, he said, "Tibetans would just go to sleep."
During the chanting, one person is the chopon. They have a bunch of ritual jobs they do
during the puja (chant), so they are always getting up and filling water bowls and
lighting butter lamps and setting up little sybolic representations of the universe to
offer to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. All this activity happens every day...seems
like for about an average of 5 or 6 hours a day, and that's why they're all there.
About 15 people stay there, and they are all really nice. However there is the telltale
neurosis of strangers living communally. There's a certain finicky low-grade tension
about all the chores and things. Many of the people work a part-time job (like my
sister) but some are able to make it work on almost no income. Some of them do seem
very spiritually mature, and they are all there for the sole reason of practicing
diligently and growing spiritually in a very humble way and so it all holds together
very well.
I love my sister, and she really was not happy living in Seattle and trying to be some
kind of worldly success at something or another. So even though I really miss her
living near me, I'm really glad she's in a situation where she feels like her time is
not wasted. And of course I myself know to some extant what it feels like...the
blessing of practicing dharma in one's life is very noticeable. So I think it's healthy
and sweet for her to be here.
Well, I guess I'll walk back to the monastary now. It's so pretty here in town, but I
think it's time I went back and did some dharma practice myself.
I think I probably will come back and post again before I leave. Oh, a poem I wrote at
the airport...this is mostly for Josh and Yoni, so someone tell them it's here:
JFK
I want to record all these people who sound so
New York Ish
I ordered a Kosher meal on the plane
To get in the spirit of things in New York
It was a corned beef and pastrami sandwich.
What, is this some kind of joke?
I couldn't resist, though...
milk in my coffee.