Back to Buddhism, Hard-Core at Zen Mountain Monastery

With Massachusetts long-gone, I booked it through the Catskills to Mount Tremper, N.Y., home of the Zen Mountain Monastery. And Nick Fulgoney.

Nick and I went to high school together, and were rather good friends. He liked Metallica and Pink Floyd. I didn’t. But it was all good. But, when I graduated college and whiled away the time in Baltimore, he went to Zen Mountain Monastery. He’s been there more than three years, and has been given a dharma name, Shinsei, which means “holy truth.” This is what he looks like now:

A pretty big difference. But he’s still the same, shy, awkward guy. Except, rather than being an evangelistic atheist, he’s a centered Buddhist.

He came to Zen Buddhism above other forms, partly because he likes the difficulty. Where other forms of Buddhism often offer certain steps to take towards enlightenment with certain results, Zen is different. In distinction to many other Buddhist sects, Zen de-emphasizes reliance on religious texts and verbal discourse on metaphysical questions.

“Here, enlightenment is within you, and they’re just like, ‘What’s wrong with you that you don’t see it?’ “ Nick explained, in his irreverently religious manner.

Zen holds that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, the universality of inherent wisdom and virtue. The aim of practice in Zen Buddhism is to discover this nature through meditation and mindfulness of daily experiences, especially work. Zen practitioners believe that this provides new perspectives and insights on existence, which ultimately lead to enlightenment.

Anyhow, here’s the monastery:

That’s right, it’s Jesus, looking stoically down over the Buddhists. It’s actually a quite interesting story.

Zen Mountain Monastery was originally built in 1929 as a Catholic Seminary. That didn’t last long, and the Lutherans took it over as a day camp. (There’s an old swimming pool on the grounds, filled with weeds and too gross to picture). Then, in the 1970s, the socialists got ahold of it. They took Jesus down and used him for target practice (so I was told by Nick).

When the Buddhists came to Mount Tremper in 1980, they had Jesus restored and put back, with a protective wire mesh to guard against pigeons. I think that’s beautiful.

So, I hadn’t been at the monastery two minuted before they put me to work, diggin up the yard:

Monks here get up at 5:00 a.m., meditate, eat breakfast, work, eat lunch, work, meditate, and go to bed. Five days per week. It’s a semi-secluded lifestyle intended to clear the head, foster awareness, and make you tough. And it was tough. Especially for me. (I may have legs of steel, but my upper body is noodly.)

But the work wasn’t nearly as hard as the meditation. In Zen meditation, called zazen, you are expected to assume a position and maintain it in silence for extended periods of time. Your eyes are to be half-open, loosely focused in front of you, and your mind open and clear.

As my Zen teacher for the evening described it, it’s not actively forcing the things around you out of your consciousness, as many try to do. It’s paying attention, noticing your feelings, the car honking on the road, and the candles flickering on the wall, then letting it all go.

As soon as I settled into meditation, I felt I go it. The meditation room had power and stillness, and I could feel my mind float into a different state, with time slowing, and my body becoming immaterial.

At least, for the first half hour. After that, my left leg sent out an emergency flare. I was in Burmese position, with my legs folded neatly in front of me, and my left leg was in crisis. It wasn’t just asleep; it felt like it was going blue and falling off. I may sound like a sissy, but I have never known pain like that in my life, and I’ve had tattoos, jumped off bridges, and eaten Mexican peppers.

I spent the last few minutes just praying for it to all end. I couldn’t move and disturb anyone, but I couldn’t handle it. “Please let it end,” I would think with each breath. In and out.

But when it was all over, there was a little chanting, with one of the meditation monitors closing with an evening gatha, one of my favorite writings ever:

“Let me respectfully remind you:
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes and opportunity is lost.
Awaken! Awaken! Take Heed;
Do not squander your life.”