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Magnolia Grove Monastery
Magnolia Grove Monastery
Sunday, March 17 I am going! The Monastery is in Batesville, MS. I live approximately an hour away, in West Memphis, AR.
I noticed on their website to contact them in advance, so I sent them a brief email. I don't know how long it will be for a response. For first-timers, they recommend coming at 8 am for a general orientation. The Sunday schedule goes something like this:
5:30am- Sitting meditation & chanting
7:00am - Breakfast
8:30am- Walking meditation
9:45am- Dharma talk
11:30am- Precepts recitation
1:00pm - Formal lunch
2:00pm - Total relaxation (if conditions are favorable
)
The dharma talk may be given by one of the monks or a DVD of Thich Nhat Hanh. I believe they are still in the middle of constructing a large meditation centre there.
Here's the email I sent:
Sunday, March 17 I am going! The Monastery is in Batesville, MS. I live approximately an hour away, in West Memphis, AR.
I noticed on their website to contact them in advance, so I sent them a brief email. I don't know how long it will be for a response. For first-timers, they recommend coming at 8 am for a general orientation. The Sunday schedule goes something like this:
5:30am- Sitting meditation & chanting
7:00am - Breakfast
8:30am- Walking meditation
9:45am- Dharma talk
11:30am- Precepts recitation
1:00pm - Formal lunch
2:00pm - Total relaxation (if conditions are favorable
)The dharma talk may be given by one of the monks or a DVD of Thich Nhat Hanh. I believe they are still in the middle of constructing a large meditation centre there.
Here's the email I sent:
Hello,I'll let you all know how this goes!
My name is Josh and I live in West Memphis. I am would like to visit for the Sunday Day of Mindfulness for Sunday, March 17.
I have been involved with Buddhist practice by myself (only with the aid of books, including a few by Thich Nhat Hanh) for the past three years but I have not yet been part of a sangha or been in any group meditation setting before. This is something I would like to now explore in order to deepen my practice and learn from others.
I notice on your website it says to contact you when visiting and also for first-timers to arrive at 8:00 am for a kind of orientation. I just wanted to make sure this is correct. My email is ******@outlook.com
I am very much looking forward to coming to the practice center this Sunday.
With much metta, gratitude and bows,
Josh
7
Comments
The day TNH was due to give a public talk near me, I dropped everything and turned up. As I started to queue for a ticket, someone came alongside the queue. His friend had cancelled - would anyone like a free ticket?
Everyone froze and went into mindfulness mode. Would it be selfish to accept?
In the brief moment when my fellow awaits would no longer have doubt, a mindful cructacean had a ticket near the front . . .
Oh the humanity.
I look forward to reports of a magical day . . . :clap:
it all...hahaha.
Im actually in a suburb outside of Memphis, so my
time is about 2 hours, but I'm still in.
Hubby and I are getting our ducks in a row
now, and I'll send my e-mail to them when I get home
today from work.
@Vastminds - for the 17th? It would be good for you, your husband & I to meet too then!
Thanks to everyone for your encouragement!
for confirmation for this Sunday.
Hubby and I are set to go.
to be cont....
If I hear nothing by tomorrow, I guess
we didn't make the cut, and I'll try again for
another time.
to be cont.....
Nothing there, either.
It's still all good.
I ended up being called in to work till 7 am and in order to get my sleep schedule back on track, I've had to remain sleep deprived much of today. --wouldn't want to fall asleep there! That wouldn't be very mindful of me, would it?
I'll let you know how it goes!
Sunday...(and may even call)...I'll see how I feel about it
at the time, hahaha. I just don't see them not responding
at all...who knows...???
May you have a fruitfull trip.
I definitely intend to return--and in the process met someone who invited me to another Vietnamese monastery that I wasn't aware of, Quan Am Monastery in Memphis. They have an open meditation night on Thursdays from 6 pm to 7 pm (their website says otherwise, but I don't think it has been updated).
Here is the website for Quan Am Monastery: www.buddhamemphis.com
I am inspired to visit my local YinYana Temple, just between my ears.
Looking forward to your report. :clap:
First, I got up at 5:00 am, got ready and got onto the road by 6:15 am. I arrived about 7:45 am (I had to stop to go to the loo midway between). It is roughly an hour and 15 minutes to get there non-stop. Of course, I was consulting the map a good bit too. On the way there, I watched the sun rise and while I was driving I ended up writing this haiku:
dusk hues
a row of bare trees
& their patience
I parked, apparently on the far end of the monastery grounds, but that was fine, since I got to walk around and see a bit of the grounds there-- much of which is under various kinds of construction.
I was actually surprised to see monks AND nuns there-- they both have separate living quarters of course, but I still found that surprising. The first thing I think you would notice though is that they were all smiles. Many of them were shy-ish, but many of them don't speak English. A good deal of the monks and nuns there actually will be returning to Vietnam soon. What happened is a few years ago, Thich Nhat Hanh said something in an interview about the Dalai Lama ought to get to return to Tibet. Well, this upset the Chinese government and immediately after that the Vietnamese government (under the influence of the Chinese government) cracked down on the Buddhist monasteries in Vietnam, so many of these monks and nuns fled temporarily to the US. That was about three years ago. There are some of them there who do speak English and some of them are not monastics per se but very involved with the monastery.
The 'orientation' was really just an informal explanation of what happens on Sundays and where various things were located. We all gathered next to this pine tree and began a kind of walking meditation, which I've never really done before. It isn't like what in Japanese tradition is called 'kinhin' which is a very formalised slow walk with the hands in a certain position, etc. Everything done here is very simple and not as strongly ritualised as in Japanese Zen (which is much more formal). Thich Nhat Hanh's main focus is simply on mindfulness. If you are mindful, everything else will naturally fall into place. The main focus is on the breath, regardless of the activity-- whether it is sitting meditation, walking, eating, going to the loo, you name it. But at the same time it isn't like the Soto Zen tradition in Japan. The Vietnamese 'flavour' is very different-- gentle and not as regimented.
Speaking of mindfulness--the main clock in the porch area has chimes for every 30 minutes. Whenever it goes off, for a few seconds, everyone stops whatever they may be doing to focus their mind back onto the breath. And then everyone resumes what they were doing. This is one of Thich Nhat Hanh's ideas for helping with mindfulness. I think of it as a kind of an occasional 'mental re-calibration.'
So, back to the walking... The day started mostly overcast, though not too cold. Later in the day it brightened up and warmed up. I wore my moccasins which was good because I could feel the ground under my feet better which was nice. We all walked together--not in a line or anything-- just walked around the grounds quietly, not in a hurry, focusing on just one step at a time and on our breathing (the breathing and the walking were not synchonised in any way). But like in most Buddhist meditation practices, focusing on THIS step and THIS breath is a way anchoring yourself to the present. Thoughts will inevitably wander about, but you observe the thought and then let it go (rather than chase it).
We stopped about midway in a clearing, where we just stopped. Some people were talking quietly amongst themselves, doing stretching exercises, some people sat down, and so did I. I noticed dewdrops on the tips of grass and listened to the wind in the trees. I noticed some grass blades still and others moving ever so slightly because of the breeze and right there I wrote another haiku:
a clearing
wavering & still
the tips of grass
The leading monk started off again and so we all followed and we circled back toward the small meditation hall. It was interesting walking in this mindful way because time was measured out as THIS moment and then THIS one and then THIS one, staying present because of the feet. It was almost as if I had never walked before!
Afterwards, me and some of the monks and nuns played an impromptu game of volleyball-- none of us were particularly good at it but we had fun anyway. Then we went into the meditation hall where there was a brief talk using computer hardware and software as an analogy to mindful practice. We all sat on cushions (these were slightly higher than I was used to). The talk was given in English, and there was a translator who spoke into a microphone while the non-English-speaking monks and nuns wore headphones. There was some chanting and recitation of vows a little afterward, which is sometimes given in English, but today it was in Vietnamese, what are referred to as 'mindfulness trainings' which, from what I can tell, is something Thich Nhat Hanh came up with in a clever westernised modernisation of the five precepts and the eightfold path that the Buddha taught. Because this was in Vietnamese, I didn't participate (this time!) but drank some green tea and wandered about the monastery grounds. There is a large bell (similar to the peace bell at Hagley Park) and several cabins. Some of the monks and nuns were cooking lunch too and it smelled really wonderful!
After the monks and nuns finished their chanting, lunch was prepared--which was all vegetarian (not all Buddhists are vegetarian, however, I've been vegetarian myself for about a month now). I had rice, some sort of cooked green leafy thing (bok choy I think?), some kind of kumara/potato (?) which was good and, for something really exotic, some kind of cooked seaweed. The seaweed tasted good, but texture-wise it was not for me (you know how I am about textures!). There were some sauces, but I avoided them (one of them, which I tasted, was very tasty, but I knew it was just too spicy for me). We ate in the meditation hall again in silence (but again, not in the rigid formal Japanese way which is called oriyoki and is very ritualised). Afterwards that we had cake. We all washed our own dishes and put them in a rack to dry.
The other good thing about today was something that I had in the back of my mind--something that I just know about myself. I've never felt particularly comfortable in crowds, especially by myself and I tend to keep to myself. This is not meant to be standoffish, though it could be interpreted as such I'm sure. I can, when pushed, do small talk, but it doesn't come natural to me, and I switch into a very introverted state of mind. I just prefer sitting back watching and listening to other people rather than directly engage myself. Oh, I did have brief conversations, but I felt no pressure to 'be gregarious.' It felt perfectly acceptable to be just the way I was without feeling awkward or self-conscious about it. One obvious reason would be that at least half or more of the people there couldn't speak English. The other reason though I think is that introversion isn't regarded as something negative-- after all, it is really the bread and butter of this sort of thing! So it was nice to just be myself without feeling out of place. Being my quiet self was nothing unusual--there were no expectations placed on me (I have often felt this way in other social gatherings of various types).
Best of all about today is that it was all very conducive to a sense peacefulness and calm of a sort that I haven't felt in a long time (actually, I know when the last time was-- in 2007 in Chch). Needless to say, I will be going back. But I am thinking rather than getting there at 5:30 in the morning to join them for sitting meditation, I'll continue to go for just the walking meditation at 8:30 instead, and perhaps on Thursday nights do sitting meditation with the other group in Memphis. So my trip was fruitful--much more than I could have imagined.
I finally recognize what "not chasing thoughts" means, basically. (Yes I read mindfully!)
Many of us think we are unworthy, too uncouth, too worldly, too heterosexual, too Catholic, too crazy, too unwell, too [insert your reason] to go to a Buddhist Monastery or centre.
In fact they are full of the unworthy, uncouth, worldly, heterosexual, Catholic, crazy, unwell - or maybe that is just me.
They are people on the Middle Way.
If in doubt, go. If uncertain, go. Write Haiki. Pretend you are a tourist, maybe you are.
"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Also, I really loved what you had to say about introversion and Western vs. Eastern culture. I think you're really onto something. In Western culture, quietness seems to be looked upon as a weakness. I think this is quite an incorrect way to see things. If we are not quiet, we can't even know how we really feel about things, and we certainly can't know how others feel. No wonder we have such communication problems and neurosis in the West.
I am more convinced now that I must experience this wonderful oasis called Magnolia Grove Monastery! Thanks, again!
http://www.plumvillage.org/mindfulness-trainings/3-the-five-mindfulness-trainings.html
I brought my seiza bench this time (my sciatica was up from the last visit, which I nursed back to health the past few days). Something different today: the Dharma talk was given by a monk in VIetnamese, so the English-speaking folks wore headphones while a translator spoke into a microphone for us (last week, it was the other way around, with the Dharma talk being in English). It took a bit of adjusting for me at first. Some time afterward, we had two different groups (English speaking and Vietnamese speaking), got in a circle to discuss our practice, where we were at (a 'weather report' so to speak) and offering any of our own personal thoughts on the Dharma talk.
Breakfast and lunch were both delicious and I am discovering I like Vietnamese food (which I've never had before). I don't always know what it is I am eating, but it is certainly good! It is all vegetarian, also. Actually, it may be vegan (there was cereal available for brekkie too, with soy milk).
And it was so windy today!