From Looking For Dad...
“Here,” said the bearded monk, carefully plucking from a shelf a small bottle of iodine. He held it
gingerly between his thumb index finger. It emanated fear and suffering. “This will help.” He took
my wrist, which I volunteered, and turned my arm over to reveal the injury. Then the younger monk
drew a breath. “Oh!” He stepped closer. “Offer it up for me . . . ” There wasn’t time to weigh this
or even think of offering it up for myself. Maybe things would have turned out better if I had. The
bearded one upended the bottle. A supernatural pain spread like an electrical current, arm to brain
and back again. My knees began to buckle, but I held on. “Ah, yes,” said the old monk, tightening
his grip on my wrist and smiling. “Good for you, good for you.”
After they bandaged my arm I was shown to a space in a little shed with a cot, a chair, and a small
table with a candle and a gray metal crucifix standing in a metal base. No questions were asked.
Someone brought me a plate of boiled potatoes and kidney beans, plus a mound of coleslaw. It
tasted good. Soon darkness fell and I lay on the cot with my burning arm, astonished at where I was,
but not as cocksure as I’d been yesterday, sitting by the ocean in Carmel, or last night in a sleeping
bag beneath the great swarm of stars at Big Sur.
gingerly between his thumb index finger. It emanated fear and suffering. “This will help.” He took
my wrist, which I volunteered, and turned my arm over to reveal the injury. Then the younger monk
drew a breath. “Oh!” He stepped closer. “Offer it up for me . . . ” There wasn’t time to weigh this
or even think of offering it up for myself. Maybe things would have turned out better if I had. The
bearded one upended the bottle. A supernatural pain spread like an electrical current, arm to brain
and back again. My knees began to buckle, but I held on. “Ah, yes,” said the old monk, tightening
his grip on my wrist and smiling. “Good for you, good for you.”
After they bandaged my arm I was shown to a space in a little shed with a cot, a chair, and a small
table with a candle and a gray metal crucifix standing in a metal base. No questions were asked.
Someone brought me a plate of boiled potatoes and kidney beans, plus a mound of coleslaw. It
tasted good. Soon darkness fell and I lay on the cot with my burning arm, astonished at where I was,
but not as cocksure as I’d been yesterday, sitting by the ocean in Carmel, or last night in a sleeping
bag beneath the great swarm of stars at Big Sur.
The urban sprawl around Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kobe can be a bit scary even to a Westerner:
gigantic cities with smokestacks and perpetual motion and clusters of tall apartment buildings where
people live atop one another when they’re not out and about keeping the whole thing in motion. In
the midst of this Japanese environment, about an hour’s drive from Hiroshima, the three-hundred-
year-old Zen monastery Sogen-Ji sits like a koan in an Okayama neighborhood that was once a rice
field. Its old bells and gongs compete with the roar of jet noise, the blare of commercial
loudspeakers, the rumble of nearby traffic, and the barking of neighborhood dogs. Where once there
were hundreds of monks, there are now a few dozen. But the greatest change from olden times is
that the modern monks, and now nuns too, are mainly Europeans and Americans.
In the spring and early summer of 1992, during an intense, brief time of work, wonderment, struggle,
laughter, occasional peace, and not much sleep, I lived at Sogen-Ji. It was here, following years of
Zen practice in the States, that three important facts finally became clear: how old I was (mid-fifties),
the limitations of intensive Zen practice in monastic settings such as this, and, most important, an
urgent need to confront personal losses and heartbreak, both recent and bygone. I was still
struggling with the accidental death of my son seven years earlier, followed by the sad end of my
nearly twenty-year marriage. And there was a much older issue from youth -— the Catholic debacle
that I’d resolved simply by walking away—and it haunted still. I went to Sogen-Ji in hopes that living
there would allow me to begin probing into these matters as I pulled weeds, cleaned pots, heated
community bath water, washed clothes, cooked rice, chanted sutras, and spent hours, days, and
weeks sitting in the zendo (meditation hall).
gigantic cities with smokestacks and perpetual motion and clusters of tall apartment buildings where
people live atop one another when they’re not out and about keeping the whole thing in motion. In
the midst of this Japanese environment, about an hour’s drive from Hiroshima, the three-hundred-
year-old Zen monastery Sogen-Ji sits like a koan in an Okayama neighborhood that was once a rice
field. Its old bells and gongs compete with the roar of jet noise, the blare of commercial
loudspeakers, the rumble of nearby traffic, and the barking of neighborhood dogs. Where once there
were hundreds of monks, there are now a few dozen. But the greatest change from olden times is
that the modern monks, and now nuns too, are mainly Europeans and Americans.
In the spring and early summer of 1992, during an intense, brief time of work, wonderment, struggle,
laughter, occasional peace, and not much sleep, I lived at Sogen-Ji. It was here, following years of
Zen practice in the States, that three important facts finally became clear: how old I was (mid-fifties),
the limitations of intensive Zen practice in monastic settings such as this, and, most important, an
urgent need to confront personal losses and heartbreak, both recent and bygone. I was still
struggling with the accidental death of my son seven years earlier, followed by the sad end of my
nearly twenty-year marriage. And there was a much older issue from youth -— the Catholic debacle
that I’d resolved simply by walking away—and it haunted still. I went to Sogen-Ji in hopes that living
there would allow me to begin probing into these matters as I pulled weeds, cleaned pots, heated
community bath water, washed clothes, cooked rice, chanted sutras, and spent hours, days, and
weeks sitting in the zendo (meditation hall).
 |
It took just three rides to get from Louisville to Bardstown, and then in the last hour of daylight I
was picked up by four young bucks in a big four door Lincoln. They’d been drinking cans of beer
from a case on the back floor. They screeched to a stop. The driver was drunk. “Ho, there! Where
the hell you goin’?”
“Gethsemani,” I said. “The, ah . . . monastery.”
“Monks?” The driver craned his neck toward the backseat. “We gonna take this guy to monks?”
There was general agreement. “Hop in,” he said.
I squeezed into the back, then the driver let the clutch go and we bumped onto the road. Somebody
opened a beer and handed it to me, and the foursome launched into a drunken, heated conversation
that must have started miles ago. We snaked along a country road for what seemed an eternity but
was probably only a few minutes, then came down a long, tree-lined driveway and stopped in front
of the monastery gatehouse. As I got out, a voice in the front seat said, “Now, you be a good boy,
hear?” There was laughter as wheels spun on gravel and the car roared back up the driveway,
leaving the silence of “monks”.
Bag in hand, I turned to the front of the abbey. Gethsemani! Wonder of wonders, I’m here. The
monk in the gatehouse studied me from the from behind his window and desk. “You’ve made a
reservation for a retreat?”
“Reservation . . . actually, no.” I casually put my hand to my mouth, hoping to hide any beer breath.
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“All right, then, come along.”
was picked up by four young bucks in a big four door Lincoln. They’d been drinking cans of beer
from a case on the back floor. They screeched to a stop. The driver was drunk. “Ho, there! Where
the hell you goin’?”
“Gethsemani,” I said. “The, ah . . . monastery.”
“Monks?” The driver craned his neck toward the backseat. “We gonna take this guy to monks?”
There was general agreement. “Hop in,” he said.
I squeezed into the back, then the driver let the clutch go and we bumped onto the road. Somebody
opened a beer and handed it to me, and the foursome launched into a drunken, heated conversation
that must have started miles ago. We snaked along a country road for what seemed an eternity but
was probably only a few minutes, then came down a long, tree-lined driveway and stopped in front
of the monastery gatehouse. As I got out, a voice in the front seat said, “Now, you be a good boy,
hear?” There was laughter as wheels spun on gravel and the car roared back up the driveway,
leaving the silence of “monks”.
Bag in hand, I turned to the front of the abbey. Gethsemani! Wonder of wonders, I’m here. The
monk in the gatehouse studied me from the from behind his window and desk. “You’ve made a
reservation for a retreat?”
“Reservation . . . actually, no.” I casually put my hand to my mouth, hoping to hide any beer breath.
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“All right, then, come along.”
We drove around this incredibly beautiful valley and she showed me farms and apple orchards, and
she talked a lot about herself. She was pretty and sexy and very aware of it. I wondered if she was
Mormon but decided not to ask. The weather was warm, and the deep sky dwarfed even the
mountains. I looked out the window on my side and saw a big, dark hawk wheel like a kite against the
blue. The horsewoman pulled off next to a plank fence by an orchard and shut off the car. In the
sudden quiet the engine ticked, giving off heat.
She got out and said, “Come on.”
I followed. She climbed over the fence, walked to a tree nearby, and lay on her side on the grass,
propped up by an elbow. I sat next to her.
“How come you’re going to the monastery?” she asked.
“For a retreat.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s . . . sort of like getting away from it all.”
“You do that often?”
“No. I mean, yes, in a way.”
She was interested in this. “Are you going to be a monk?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Why am I saying maybe? I’m saying maybe because I want to go riding in the shade of this tree. A fruit tree, of all
things ... an apple tree! Only four hours earlier, in the ditch with thorns, I had noted that this day, the
eighth of August, was the feast of three obscure martyrs – Cyriac, Largus, and Smaragdus.
Smaragdus? One of the prayers had said, “Grant us this boon,” and went on to ask for a martyr’s
fortitude in suffering. And so, a boon, fortitude, and Smaragdus (who was skinned and beheaded in
Rome in 303 under the persecutions of Diocletian). My mind and body now began choosing which
was most desirable: this very beautiful and natural woman, or the “fortitude” to suggest that we get
back in the car and go to the abbey.
The horse girl was already way ahead of me and made the decision. “Well,” she said, “I guess I
better take you up there.”
What a moment. It lingers almost half a century later. Without much conversation, we drove up a
dirt road and across pastures to the north end of the valley and an arching white sign supported by a
couple of poles. Holy Trinity Abbey. At the gatehouse I got out and thanked her, thanks for
everything and – farewell. Then she was gone.
she talked a lot about herself. She was pretty and sexy and very aware of it. I wondered if she was
Mormon but decided not to ask. The weather was warm, and the deep sky dwarfed even the
mountains. I looked out the window on my side and saw a big, dark hawk wheel like a kite against the
blue. The horsewoman pulled off next to a plank fence by an orchard and shut off the car. In the
sudden quiet the engine ticked, giving off heat.
She got out and said, “Come on.”
I followed. She climbed over the fence, walked to a tree nearby, and lay on her side on the grass,
propped up by an elbow. I sat next to her.
“How come you’re going to the monastery?” she asked.
“For a retreat.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s . . . sort of like getting away from it all.”
“You do that often?”
“No. I mean, yes, in a way.”
She was interested in this. “Are you going to be a monk?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Why am I saying maybe? I’m saying maybe because I want to go riding in the shade of this tree. A fruit tree, of all
things ... an apple tree! Only four hours earlier, in the ditch with thorns, I had noted that this day, the
eighth of August, was the feast of three obscure martyrs – Cyriac, Largus, and Smaragdus.
Smaragdus? One of the prayers had said, “Grant us this boon,” and went on to ask for a martyr’s
fortitude in suffering. And so, a boon, fortitude, and Smaragdus (who was skinned and beheaded in
Rome in 303 under the persecutions of Diocletian). My mind and body now began choosing which
was most desirable: this very beautiful and natural woman, or the “fortitude” to suggest that we get
back in the car and go to the abbey.
The horse girl was already way ahead of me and made the decision. “Well,” she said, “I guess I
better take you up there.”
What a moment. It lingers almost half a century later. Without much conversation, we drove up a
dirt road and across pastures to the north end of the valley and an arching white sign supported by a
couple of poles. Holy Trinity Abbey. At the gatehouse I got out and thanked her, thanks for
everything and – farewell. Then she was gone.
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