by Ajahn Brahm
Patacara took these words to heart and immediately asked to be ordained.
Her story does not end there. She became enlightened when the flame of her oil lamp was suddenly extinguished. Her poem in the Therigatha, the verses of enlightened nuns, ends with these lines:
Lo! The nibbana of the little lamp!
Emancipation dawns! My heart is free!
I was tremendously affected by this story. Here was a woman who had lost everything and yet was still able to discern wisdom and attain enlightenment. Her story seemed to me to be a perfect parable of the spiritual search: a giving up of life to attain life, a quest to find happiness and truth beyond the inevitability of suffering and the endless, heartbreaking cycle of birth and death. When the oil lamp blew out, that was the last little piece of Dhamma Patacara needed. My god, what she had been through!
Why can’t we have these kinds of bhikkhunis around today, I wondered. Over the years that had been a recurring thought. And when I had my chance to make that happen I was determined not to let it go. I knew that I’d regret it for my whole life if I didn’t respond to what my heart knew was right.
A week after the ordination ceremony at Bodhinyana, I was summoned to an assembly of monks at Wat Nong Pah Pong.
Wat Nong Pah Pong, or just Wat Pah Pong, is the main monastery in my teacher’s lineage. It is in what could be considered the Bible Belt of Thailand — an extremely poor, flat, brutally hot backwater six hundred kilometers from Bangkok that borders Cambodia and Laos. Until recently, most of this region had no electricity or paved roads. That’s changed, but not the region’s religious fervor and conservative character, or the attitude among its clergy that they are the Republican Guard: the elite defenders of the faith and the hardest of the hard-core.
Three long flights brought me from Perth to Wat Pah Pong in the late afternoon. My summons coincided with the kathina, a ceremony for fundraising purposes at the end of the monsoon and the annual three-month rains retreat. Laypeople had been drawn from far and wide to make offerings, accumulate good karma, and listen to Dhamma talks that would go all night. My business preceded that marathon. I entered the large “discussion hall” at seven p.m. and took my place on the concrete floor, surrounded by a battalion of monks. The room’s mood brimmed with hostility, even outrage.
It was already dark outside. The big room was stiflingly muggy and hot. All the windows were thrown open, but the air was dead. The lay community who had come for the kathina were not allowed into the hall — this was official monks’ business in which they played no part. They gathered by the sills to eavesdrop — much more interested, I’m sure, in what was quickly clear would be my excoriation than the droning Dhamma to which they would be subjected through the night.
I was asked to justify my role in ordaining the bhikkhunis. When I had lived at Wat Pah Pong, my Thai had been fluent, but over the years it had deteriorated and become shabby. Imagine my difficulties in trying to explain the nuances in the Vinaya and presenting the case for the legality of my acts. But even if I had had the oratorial gifts of Cicero, I was doomed. The hostile elements had already made up their minds, and they drowned out the gentle voices that urged loving-kindness and compassion. I quickly realized that all argument was futile, but I nonetheless decided to dispute.
This took time. The inquisition lasted three hours. Finally, they made me an offer: formally state that the four women in Perth were not bhikkhunis and sign a statement to that effect, and then, they assured me, everything would return to normal. No punitive measures.
I took a moment to reflect in what was suddenly a very quiet room. People who were there said later that they thought I might have lost my breath. I was thinking! I recognized in myself a rather unseemly temptation to save my own skin. Yet I knew that I would never be able to live with myself if I recanted. And strong in my heart was the presence of the women I had ordained — how worthy they were, and how they had earned full ordination’s rights and privileges.
The most junior of the four candidates had been keeping the ten precepts for over two years, whereas the senior had been maintaining her ten precepts for over twenty years. The senior had been a pioneer at Dhammasara Monastery in Perth, showing inspirational endurance by living alone for two years in a dilapidated caravan in the bush with no electricity, withstanding the extreme heat of the Australian summer and the cold winter mornings all without complaint. Had they been male, any monastery in the world would have felt privileged to have them in their community. Frankly, they were so impressive that they outshone most monks that I had met!
“I can’t say these are not bhikkhunis. They are bhikkhunis,” I said at last.
And that was that! They promptly excommunicated me and removed Bodhinyana and Dhammasara as affiliates of Wat Pah Pong.
A maelstrom erupted in the wake of the events at Wat Pah Pong. I was branded a renegade. I was suddenly out on my own, very exposed and reviled by a contingent of my fellow monks, some of them my Dhamma brothers. The whole episode influenced the way I teach and my appreciation of the Dhamma. And the ongoing controversy, which scandalized some in the Buddhist world, caused me to reflect on my acts.
Two moments had shaped the position in which I found myself. The first was the moment the bhikkhunis had asked for ordination. They stood before me not as emblems of the tradition in which I had trained and committed my life but as human beings. They asked for justice, a recognition of equality, what I felt were inalienable human rights. The second moment was when I had been asked to recant at the kathina assembly.
The impact of how such moments shape us was beautifully portrayed by novelist Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim. Jim is an idealistic first mate on a ship carrying Muslim pilgrims to Mecca. The ship hits something and begins to sink. The crew, including the captain, takes to the lifeboats, abandoning the sleeping pilgrims. Jim is torn between his moral duty to the pilgrims and fear for his life. In a moment of great confusion, not even conscious that he’s doing so, Jim abandons ship, leaving the pilgrims to drown.
Except they don’t drown. The ship doesn’t sink and instead finds its way into port with the pilgrims still alive. Jim spends the rest of his days atoning for that one moment — that one act. He wanders the world, seeking redemption.
In both my Lord Jim moments, I could have jumped to save my skin. But my heart said otherwise. I knew that I couldn’t have lived with myself. There were more important things at stake than my comfort and ease.
Years before the bhikkhuni ordination I had been meditating on Bunbury Beach one afternoon when a stone came whizzing past my ear. And then another.
“Hey, Rajneeshee! Get off our beach!” These words were obviously directed at me.
This was a time when Rajneesh, the notorious spiritual leader, had sent Sheela, his second-in-command, to Western Australia to establish a center.
I ignored the taunts. Another few stones flew past. It was only a matter of time before one struck me. So I rose and walked toward what I saw were a group of excited boys. This was the last thing they expected. They ran. All except one.
“I’m not a Rajneeshee,” I explained. “I’m a Buddhist monk. Totally different religion.”
One by one the boys returned, and we had a nice little talk about Buddhism.
In the punishing aftermath of the bhikkhuni ordination, I thought of those boys. Life sometimes throws stones at us. Friends push us away, belittle us, even try to hurt us. But we shouldn’t run. We should move toward them with gentle determination. We need to listen to the prompting of our hearts and remain open, like Patacara, to a deeper understanding and a larger truth. That is what should always dictate our direction. We must always resolve to move toward life, no matter how difficult or even perilous that choice may seem.
Caring Not Curing
I HAD KNOWN JIVAKA (not his real name) since he was a little boy, when his family had emigrated from Sri Lanka to Perth. The father was a psychiatrist, and although Anglicized they were also devout Buddhists and came r
egularly to our temple in town. Jivaka went to the Dhamma School where I supervised the children, gave talks, and taught meditation.
Jivaka grew up in our temple and was a bright, hard-working, humble person. If he had any problems in his life, he would come and see me. He decided to follow his father into medicine, and when he was an intern, in his midtwenties, he asked to speak to me privately. I immediately saw that he was extremely distraught.
A young woman in his care had unexpectedly and suddenly died. He was shaken by her death, and the distress he felt was amplified when it fell to him to be the one to tell her husband that he no longer had a wife. He knew the husband would have to tell two young children that they had lost their mother. He felt that he had failed this young family: they had placed their trust in him, and he had failed them.
“I want to resign,” he told me, “give up medicine. I don’t think I could go through something like this again. I have realized that I’m not cut out to be a doctor. Still, before I handed in my resignation, I wanted to come talk to you.”
I felt his pain and confusion. How hard the experience had been for him! But I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. The fact that he cared, and cared so deeply, I knew, would make him a good doctor — a better doctor, in fact, than someone more detached and unfeeling. I looked at him for a long moment. He was drowning in sorrow and shame.
“You have misunderstood the purpose of being a doctor,” I finally replied. “If you think the purpose of practicing medicine is to cure people, you will fail over and over and over and go through the same anguish you’re experiencing now. The purpose of being a doctor is not to cure your patients. It is to care for them.”
It was as though the burden that had been weighing on his heart lifted. He understood what I was getting at straight- away and went back to work and eventually became a gastroenterologist. A few weeks ago one of my monks had to have an endoscopy, and guess who did it? My old student Jivaka. Out of gratitude, he waived his fees.
You can always care for people even if you can’t cure them. Some of Jivaka’s patients will undoubtedly die. But if he knows that he has cared for them, that changes everything. They will be more likely to die peacefully, comforted by the care they have received. The pain experienced by the people who love them won’t be as severe. They will know that the person they loved was cared for at the end. And, although I have no statistical proof, I think that it’s pretty obvious: when you make care your first priority, you’re also more likely to cure.
Compassion is a form of caring. Kindness and compassion. Compassion and kindness. We could sum up the core teachings of Buddhism and just about any other religion in those two words. Compassion can be more potent than the most powerful drugs. When we truly care, when we are in the moment with a compassionate heart that is fully engaged and fully present, we can help alleviate at least some small part of the suffering in this world.
Jivaka’s wife volunteers for an organization called ASeTTS (Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors). Its purpose is to deal with those refugees who have managed to find physical freedom in a country like Australia, but whose minds are still in cells where they are being tortured, abused, and raped. They are not really free at all.
I was invited to give a talk at ASeTTS. I asked why in the world they had invited me. I was surprised when I was told that many of the psychiatrists and psychologists who worked there had come to my Friday night talks. They had adopted many of my teachings to help traumatized refugees.
I asked what story helped the most. And they told me they had used something from my book, Opening the Door of Your Heart. They had adapted it to fit what so often appeared to be the irreparably damaged hearts and souls of the refugees ASeTTS serves.
At some point in treating trauma, when the trauma victim they were treating felt safe, they led her through the following visualization exercise:
Imagine your heart in your chest. Imagine it as a Valentine’s Day heart, a nice pink or red heart as it would appear on any greeting card, not your real heart. Imagine there is a little door in your heart, and that the door can swing open. Inside your heart, imagine a part of yourself that you feel comfortable with. A part of you that is a happy, free, healthy person, that is smiling, relaxed, and full of life. Then look down toward the floor at your feet. There are many people there who are being tortured. They are crying out in fear and pain. See those suffering people as parts of yourself that are now outside you, small and helpless and despairing at your feet.
Imagine a stairway being lowered from the door in your heart where the whole and trusting and happy person is standing. The stairway stretches down to the ground. The whole, happy person standing in the door of your heart holds out her hand for the damaged, despairing, terrified people on the ground below who have been tortured and raped. “Come into the door of my heart,” she says. And those terrified people, shaking with fear, walk up the stairs one by one. The door is wide open, and she embraces each person and says, “Come in. Do not be frightened. You are part of me. You can come home.”
When those terrified, suffering parts of yourself are invited to come into the door of your heart, when they are shown care and compassion, a huge change is possible. You can be at peace with your past, at peace with life. You can never forget what you’ve endured, but you don’t need to be traumatized by it ever again.
To move beyond life’s traumas and disappointments we need to open the door of our hearts to all of life — to the sickness and pain and fear and horrendous experiences some of us have had to endure.
It’s counterintuitive. Our instinctive reaction is to run away from pain. But the only way to attain freedom is not to run away but to bring the pain in, to embrace it, and to accept it into the most tender, open, vulnerable, feeling part of ourselves.
When I gave my talk at ASeTTS I overheard a woman who had been repeatedly raped describing her experience to a young man. The young man was understandably shocked.
“What you’re describing makes my skin crawl. It’s horrible! Disgusting.”
She came back fast and hard. “NO! You can’t say that about me. It’s made me who I am. You can’t say it’s terrible. And I won’t say it’s terrible.”
She was no longer ashamed or traumatized. There was no stigma. She was free! She had made peace with life.
When you meet a person like that, they’re powerful. They shine. They are magnificent. They really deserve to be called awesome.
The Wind of Wanting
THE CAUSE OF HAPPINESS is stillness.
My teacher Ajahn Chah would wave his hand like a wildly blowing leaf. He said when the wind dies the leaf comes to a default state of stillness. The leaf is like our minds, which only move with the wind of wanting, even if that wanting is for something good! Let go of all wanting and the mind stills. It is a mountain lake that reflects the moon and the stars.
Pick up a glass of water. Try to hold it perfectly still so the water doesn’t move. You can’t! It doesn’t matter how hard you concentrate or how long you try. Yet through the boundless wisdom and compassion of the Lord Buddha, there is a way: put the glass down. The great wonder of the Dhamma is revealed. The water becomes perfectly still all by itself. It only moves because you grasp it.
At Wat Pah Pong I lived in a small hut on stilts, perhaps two by three meters. It was floored with uneven planks that the villagers had sawed by hand. The floor was full of gaps that let the mosquitoes in. I slept on a thin straw mat.
At three o’clock each morning the bell rang, summoning us to the Dhamma hall to chant and meditate. I walked barefoot through the warm, fine sand from my little hut in the dark. The jungle was an impenetrable wall of deeper darkness on either side of the narrow path. A few cicadas hummed in the blackness, giving the familiar background music to the last hours of the night. All else was quiet. A couple of big candles on the wide altar were enough to let the assembling monks shuffle safely to their mats. Two larger-than-life brass Buddha statues glowed
in the candlelight. There was no reason for having two statues other than that two were donated. Their number and size was often a disappointment to me, as they had to be polished every fortnight by the junior monks. I was one of those junior monks and the polishing took several hours. One statue would have sufficed, I often thought — a small one, preferably not made of brass. The chanting was an endurance test too, but the meditation that followed was peaceful. That was because I usually fell asleep. I was sleep deprived, malnourished, and trying to be aware in a humid and hot climate that I was not designed for. I was “Made in London.” There were no fans or air conditioners or dehumidifiers. There wasn’t even any electricity. Just the warm, numbing, consciousness-strangling, heavy blanket of the motionless jungle air.
Dawn came and we set off for the village and our alms rounds. We collected our one meal for the day. The quality was such that we usually didn’t want another. Rice, frogs, ant soup, snails, water buffalo afterbirth. It kept you alive — just.
That part of Thailand had never been colonized. It was a pure, indigenous culture. Life went on as it had for centuries. The seasons rolled around. We called them “hot,” “very hot,” and “hot and wet.” Dirt roads ran off into nowhere. There was no electricity. The raised houses of the villagers were like slightly larger versions of my hut. The water buffalos that were used to work the paddies huffed softly through the night beneath the raised floors where families ate, talked, and slept.
Sometimes I would walk back to Wat Pah Pong at night through the village after doing a funeral service. In house after house, I would see the same scene: fifteen or twenty people seated on the floor around an oil lamp. The light was just enough to see a semicircle of golden faces. All generations, from young children to grandparents, sitting around telling stories. This was what the whole family did each night. There was nothing else. Just being together.