by Ajahn Brahm
Then, inexplicably, he grinned. “What’s the point of living so long? Can’t you see that I’ve lived enough? Do you think that I’m greedy for life? Is that your idea? I’ve done enough. It’s time for the younger generation to take over. It’s your turn now!”
We went through this baffling routine a number of times. No matter what I said, he contradicted it. Everything was up in the air, being flipped around and reversed on a whim.
I stayed by Songnian’s side in the hospital night and day, sleeping in a chair in his room. Sometimes he would wake and call for me to fetch his prayer beads or bring him water. He was unfailingly polite and cooperative with the doctors and nurses. A real pussycat. But as soon as they left the room, he was fierce. “You’re trying to kill me,” he insisted. “You want the old fellow dead. You’re licking your chops. You want to murder me so you can take over and become abbot!”
I tried not responding. I thought that if I gave his anger free rein it might burn itself out. Fat chance!
“Seeds for Hell! Are you deaf? Am I talking to a block of wood? A stone? Are you awake? Or asleep?”
He had a sharp tongue even in his weakened state.
I often did feel as though I were half asleep after many nights in the hospital chair and many days that were spent waiting on him. I was dead on my feet. A zombie. And his words bounced off me.
Instead of arguing with the accusation that I was trying to murder him, I thought it might be a better tactic to just agree with whatever he said.
“Yes, Shifu,” I said, bowing and bowing.
“Yes, Shifu.” He mimicked me in a prissy, mocking voice. “Yes, Shifu. Seeds for Hell! That’s all you know.”
Songnian had been strong and vigorous before the operation; afterward he wasted away. He began to steadily lose weight and he became increasingly inward and inert. He was wheelchair-bound and refused to wear diapers. This often meant we didn’t get him to the bathroom in time and he would shit himself.
It was my job to clean him after these incidents, helping him up from the chair, supporting him in the shower, and gently and carefully washing the excrement from his body. Most of the time, however, he screamed at me that the water was either too hot or cold. “Are you trying to boil me alive?” he hissed. “Do you want me to freeze to death?”
I came to recognize that this was not the kind of purely contrary, oppositional behavior you might encounter in a child. There was a correct water temperature, which I could deduce from the weather, the time of day, and how active Songnian had been. He was teaching me to see under the surface of things. To be flexible and constantly adjust to circumstances and not to be entangled in any one fixed approach or method. This was very Chan. To trust in another kind of knowing and doing — the method of no method.
After I bathed him, I carefully dried him off with a towel. If I rubbed too hard, he screamed at me: “Bapi!” which could translate as “You’re skinning me alive!” When he gauged my touch too soft, he accused me of purposefully leaving him wet so he would catch a chill. “I know your tricks. You plan to give me pneumonia and watch me die a slow and terrible death!” he said.
Occasionally, when I anticipated a tongue lashing, he sighed with contentment as I dried him off and thanked me for cleaning and bathing him, calling me a bodhisattva! It was impossible to know what to expect.
He refused to let me sleep in his room at night. “You plan to murder me and steal my things,” he insisted. He distrusted banks and kept all the money he had received from dana offerings in his cupboards and in ancient suitcases under his bed.
I slept outside his door on a mat. When he needed me, he pressed a button and a bell rang. I dragged myself awake, stumbling into his room, drained after a long day of dogged service: cleaning, sweeping, mopping, laundry.
Most of the time when he called for me at night it was because he needed to urinate or move his bowels. By the time I was able to respond, he had often already wet the bed or shat himself. He would scold and scold me, accusing me of purposely waiting to enter so he would soil himself. In my exhausted state, I had to change all the bedding and undress him and wash up the bed and clean his body and then put him into fresh clothes. The smell was often so foul it made me gag. This process was exhausting, intimate, and awful.
Yet it was the strangest thing. When I was washing up his shit and piss, stripping down the bed of its soiled sheets, Songnian was happy. More than that. He was positively gleeful! He was not humiliated. Not in the least! It was me who felt a stifling intimacy and convulsive disgust. I didn’t grasp it at the time — it was as though he was beyond such considerations. Or perhaps it was that our dynamic did not admit them; I was his disciple. It was my duty to take care of him. To follow him absolutely. To serve. I was the one who had embarrassed myself. I had failed him. I hadn’t come in time. His incontinence made me feel ashamed. And he knew it.
“You think that I’m trying to humiliate you by making you clean up my shit,” he said with an inexplicable smirk.
“No, Shifu. It’s not that. I’m so sorry that I came in late.” I bowed and bowed, eyes downcast. I was twenty-two years old. What was I supposed to make of all this? I never imagined that this was what my monastic training would involve.
I was completely exhausted, beaten down by his lectures and scolding. Burned to the ground. I sometimes felt like giving up. I took a deep breath and told myself to relax. To come back to the present moment. To do my work. To help. To respond in whatever circumstances that I found myself.
Later, when my photo was all over the papers, and my court case was dragging on, I realized the old monk was still teaching me. He had been preparing me for what I would endure. This face is nothing. Humiliation is nothing. What a lesson in staying in the present moment. Of maintaining equanimity. In keeping my bodhisattva vows and responding compassionately. Songnian was planting the capacity to make peace with whatever life threw at me, although I didn’t know it at the time.
Waking Up the World
ONE NIGHT, after the seminar with Ajahn Brahm, I drove back quite late. By the time I reached Chan Forest it was nearly midnight. I was sitting in the front seat of the car, next to the driver, as we sped through the night. The vast cityscape of Jakarta’s brightly lit buildings went on and on. And then finally we passed into the countryside, and I could see the moon and stars and the soft light coming from small houses and huts.
For some reason I was touched. I thought of my shifu, Master Sheng Yen, and one of the last times I had driven with him before he passed on. He was teaching at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in Pine Bush, a drive of over two hours from the main Chan meditation center in Queens where we were staying.
We left very early in the morning. Sheng Yen sat in front next to the driver. I was his attendant and sat in back. At that point, he was already quite ill.
He taught during the day and there were also meetings. We had to return to Queens that night. It was already dusk when we set out after dinner. Heavy traffic on the roads meant it was quite late by the time we came back into the city. The bright lights were all around. The dark outline of Shifu’s head and neck were in front of me. The driver was looking straight ahead and everyone was quiet. Sitting behind Shifu that night — it is very difficult to describe my feelings. The car was quiet. The world flashed by. Everything was moving, but inside the car it was so still. Outside it was cold; inside the car was warm. The driver drove carefully, not making any sudden brakes or turns to disturb Sheng Yen. When I shifted in my seat, I did so slowly and carefully so as not to upset the cocoon-like feeling of the car’s cabin. I tried to make my breath as light as possible, so soft that it was inaudible.
Looking at Sheng Yen’s silhouette, the words of the four great vows rose inside me. We do these vows before each meal, before the morning and evening service, after waking up and before going to bed:
Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to deliver them all.
Vexations are endless, I vow to eliminate them all.
Approaches to the Dharma are limitless, I vow to master them all.
Buddhahood is supreme, I vow to attain it.
I had been reciting these vows seven times a day for many years, but they had never quite reverberated inside me the way they did that night on the journey back to Queens. I felt the full weight of Sheng Yen’s deep determination and strength, the unbreakable power of his commitment. He was so determined to help. To wake up the world. He was in constant motion, a ranger of the Dharma, always traveling to spread the teachings. The vows to which he gave his life were paradoxes, unsolvable contradictions. Yet he had an unshakable certainty that the impossibilities they asked of us were possible. How could that be? We traveled on through the vast and glittering city. Innumerable. Inexhaustible. Endless. Impossible! And yet unshakable. An absolute commitment and belief in the path.
In these last years of his life I often wondered whether people actually understood what he was trying to teach them — a refrain that often went through my head as I watched him work day in and day out, exhausting himself. Was it worth it? I suppose that I wanted him to slow down and take better care of himself. But there was no stopping him.
“It’s a race against time, and I’m almost at the finish line, the end of my life. No time to stop now. Whatever I can complete in this life, I will do it. What I can’t accomplish, I will do in my next life,” he told me.
Nonetheless, I had my doubts. After a particularly punishing trip, I voiced them: “We fly here, fly there. Is it worth it? Do people really understand?”
“Not our problem. Our job is to teach the Dharma,” he replied.
I did not yet have the life experience to understand what it is to give and keep giving. To give, as he did, unconditionally, expecting nothing in return.
Our vows are inconceivable, unattainable, beyond conception. Yet now I know, as Sheng Yen did, that they are possible. He gave his life to them. He held nothing, absolutely nothing, back. He gave without reservation. With total commitment. Endlessly, innumerably, inexhaustibly — with his body, speech, and mind. And with the goodness, the limitless goodness, of his heart.
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About the Authors
AJAHN BRAHM (Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera), born Peter Betts in London in 1951, is a Theravada Buddhist monk. Ajahn Brahm grew up in London and earned a degree in theoretical physics from Cambridge University. Disillusioned with the world of academe, he trained as a monk in the jungles of Thailand under Ajahn Chah. A monk for over thirty years, Ajahn Brahm is a revered spiritual guide and the abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, in Serpentine, Western Australia — one of the largest monasteries in the southern hemisphere. He is also the spiritual director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, and spiritual adviser and inspiration for Buddhist centers throughout Asia and Australia. His winning combination of wit and wisdom makes his books bestsellers in many languages, and on his teaching tours Brahm regularly draws multinational audiences of thousands. He’s the author of The Art of Disappearing: The Buddha’s Path to Lasting Joy; Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator’s Handbook; Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life’s Difficulties; Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy: Inspiring Stories for Making the Most of Each Moment; Kindfulness; and Bear Awareness: Questions and Answers on Taming Your Wild Mind.
MASTER GUOJUN was born in Singapore in 1974 and ordained as a monk under Ven. Songnian of Mahabodhi Temple, Singapore. He is one of the youngest Dharma heirs of the renowned Chan master Sheng Yen. He has practiced meditation intensively since 1997. He has studied Tibetan Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, as well as various aspects of the Mahayana tradition. Master Guojun is also a spiritual and guiding teacher of Chan Community Canada and Chan Indonesia. He was the abbot of Dharma Drum Retreat Center in Pine Bush, New York, from 2005 to 2008. He is the author of Essential Chan Buddhism, which has been published in several languages, and Chan Heart, Chan Mind. He is currently the president of Mahabodhi Monastery in Singapore.
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© 2019 Ajahn Brahm
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ajahn Brahm, 1951– author. | Guojun, Chan Master, author. | Wapner, Kenneth, editor.
Title: Falling is flying : the Dharma of facing adversity / Ajahn Brahm and Chan Master Guojun edited by Kenneth Wapner.
Description: Somerville, MA, USA : Wisdom Publications, 2019. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018020829 (print) | LCCN 2018036491 (ebook) | ISBN 9781614294375 (e-book) | ISBN 9781614294252 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Suffering — Religious aspects — Buddhism. | Buddhism — Doctrines.
Classification: LCC BQ4235 (ebook) | LCC BQ4235 .A33 2019 (print) | DDC 294.3/4432 — dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020829
ISBN 978-1-61429-425-2 ebook ISBN 978-1-61429-437-5
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Cover design by Jess Morphew. Interior design by Gopa & Ted2, Inc. Photo of Ajahn Brahm on page 135 is courtesy of the Ehipassiko Foundation.