Meeting Bhante

I was waiting for the Head Teacher, Soryu Forall, to enter into the main hall to have our last checkin before the beginning of an Awakening Week, (a meditation retreat). Being in the Head Monk position involves this last touch point between Head Monk and Teacher before the retreat’s opening ceremony.

Early that day Bhante Buddharakkhita, a renowned Theravadin Buddhist monk and teacher, had been visiting the MAPLE community. As part of our welcoming for Bhante, we had made a steady fire in the main hall’s fireplace. All that remained of the fire was smoldering ash and smoke, gently rising up through the chimney. As I was waiting for Soryu, I was reflecting on how the group had inappropriately shown up for Bhante.

A couple of hours beforehand, we were supposed to have had a Q&A period with Bhante. Soryu had given me explicit and specific instructions on how to prepare the community for this precious opportunity; I chose to ignore these instructions and prepared the group in a different way. While the group technically did have a Q&A period with Bhante, we were silent and shy because of how I’d prepared the group. Bhante, being a highly trained and experienced monk and teacher, used this situation as a teaching opportunity for the group. However, even with Bhante’s kindness and skillfullness as a teacher, I felt in that moment how the group had not met him.

As I watched ash dance into the chimney, everything became very intense and energetic in the main hall space. Suddenly, flames shot up from ash and smoke, a new fire spontaneously emerging. Within a couple of seconds of this new fire, Soryu came into the main hall, his steps weighty and eyes like a tiger’s.

Soryu asked why I’d not prepared the group in the way he asked. I had no answer. My method mostly consisted of us being in silence together listening to one person ask a question at a time. Soryu explained that how we practice is how we show up when the moment matters. Because I’d helped the group be quiet, that’s how we showed up.

Soryu then asked why there was a still a fire going. I told him how it’d reignited seconds before he entered the main hall. There was a slight pause before he told me I should make sure that it went out completely.