PLUM VILLAGE, 40 YEARS

 

From the first seed planted by Sister Loc Uyen to each and every aligned step, it felt as though Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh himself was pulling one of his sparrows home, after ten years. The last time I was in Plum Village, Bordeaux, was for the 30th anniversary. Incredibly I ended up in the same bed, in the same gite in New Hamlet, Dieulivol, looking out on hay bales, far from the croaking of the lotus pond frogs, close to the moon and sunflower fields.

I traveled with friends, met up with the two young nuns I teach English to and made new friends. I wrote a single poem and kept two diaries for my twin nieces, who cried the night I left. ‘We’ll never see you again!’ I’ll cry too, I told them. At some point. And I did. My friend Anh said I had cried a cup full of tears by my last day. Why the tears? Because of the hot French sun, fatigue, the desire to keep up with a monastic schedule far beyond my body’s limits, gratitude to be taken care of by loving friends when I was sick, and gratitude to have a monastic sister guide me to leave early because covid cases were spreading. People had arrived from all over the world for this first in person opening up of Thây’s practise centre, so of course the virus came along for the ride.

On my last day, June 9th, I managed to attend the 40 years celebration in Upper Hamlet, got a calligraphic signature from Brother Phap Huu, the abbot who was Thây’s attendant for seventeen years, met my friend Shantum Seth after ten years, fan girled over the sculptor Paz Perlman, ate cake and generally arrived, at home, fully present. The next morning, I was driven to tiny Bergerac airport by Zoe, a friend who offered her car and company, and the next thing I was outside our front door, with the twins not quite believing I was really real… ‘but you didn’t even tell us you were coming home!!’ 

I am writing this at 11:30am. In France it is 12:30pm. The sangha of 800 lay and monastics, are going as a river in Lower Hamlet, led by Sister Chan Khong, spreading the last of Thây's ashes into the home he created for thousands. Refuge continued. In England, I visited Mary's grave, with flowers, for what would have been her 106th birthday. Death is just a game of hide and seek. 

THE FINAL RESTING PLACE

After many bends in the road, some looked for, some hated (war), some simply endured, we laid our beloved Mary to rest beside her husband John in St Mary's Church, down the road from where Mary and John spent most of their married life. 

Mary was born June 11, 1916 and died on the 15th of December, 2020, and I have been not at all impatient to say formal goodbyes. I liked pretending that Mary had gone quiet in the room next door, quiet but for her piano, fingers practising her favourite pieces of Beethoven or reading Barbara Pym, her always comfort read. When I'd ask Mary what she was reading, she'd sometimes say, 'Oh it's not for you. It's too old-fashioned.' But occasionally she would want to share the 'not for me' books anyway, and my collection now includes some of her favourites from Kathleen Raine to Gervase Phinn.

In the end, there was nothing formal about it, and nor was there any goodbye. Just four poems, among them this one by me, a blackbird singing, and school children laughing next door. The trill of birds, the peals of laughter and her parents’ shared gravestone watching over a marriage blessed, in life and death.

Mary's hands. Mary's voice on the telephone. Mary saying 'darling' or even just my name, 'Oh Shaista...' These I hope never to forget. May I recall them a hundred years from now. 

Sea Changes and Red Threads

The sea blew away
my identity

without asking -
the sea knew me,

stormed in
without asking -

and I gave in
gratefully.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2012
The sea was at high tide along the Gold Coast of Australia, in the last days of 2011, but we were permitted to let the waves buffet us between two red flags. The salt sea spray scraped away eons of my past life. It is 2012, and I am experiencing a steady bliss, an endless river of joy; the monk David Steindl-Rast describes this joy as 'that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens'.
I catch myself in moment after moment thinking 'This is it. This is where I have always longed to be.'

Not just reunited with both my brothers, but meeting, at long last, my beloved artist friend Jeanne-ming Brantingham, who fascinated and riveted us with tales of the red threads that connect her to a precious life. I am one of those threads now, and will hold on carefully.
I wish us all a quietly joyful year, but every year seems to peak and trough, so if this is as good as it gets, that is alright by me!

Image of Marilyn Monroe courtesy Magpie Tales

Surprised by Joy

"Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!"

- Rilke

In Cairo, Joseph Farquharson

It is howling with wind outside. The bare branches are orchestrating an original work, no doubt in communion with the trees of Cairo, on the Day of Departure. Hosni Mubarak does not seem to hear the orchestrated sounds of revolution, but the wind's force grows stronger regardless. Angelina's flight back to Malaysia has been cancelled 'due to the aircraft being required to perform humanitarian evacuation flights from Cairo'. The wind howls on.

A few weeks ago my brother returned home after visiting a friend, with a book for me. The cover shows a brightly coloured bird sitting on a barbed wire fence, in a concentration camp. The book is Victor E Frankl's 'Man's Search For Meaning', and although I have read and studied Holocaust literature, my instant reaction to it was not dissimilar to a horse, unexpectedly approached. In other words, a high level of anxiety. My mind has been a fragile thing these long weeks of waiting for the consultant to respond to my emails, my basic request for her to view me as more than a case on her desk. She has agreed that I should have the treatment I requested, but on her terms, with twice as many months in between each dose, and at half the usual dose. I am a cost she is cutting. We meet again on the telephone on the 18th of February, when things will be 'reviewed' again.

Pawel Sawicki, photograph, flickr

I determinedly dived into Frankl, because I love my brother, and because I would always rather be brave than cowardly. 50 pages into it, I started to seriously consider the possiblility that I was on the brink of a mental breakdown. For five long minutes I entertained this reality. Then I re-opened the book, and read on. And on page 52, the words 'Et lux in tenebris lucet' - and the light shineth in the darkness. The guards are insulting Frankl as he attempts to dig a trench in the bitter cold of dawn; he is silently conversing with his wife, trying to reason himself out of suffering, when he suddenly has the strong feeling that she is present, she is there... 'Then, at that very moment a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had just dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me'.

The night before Rizwan brought me the book, I had written and published a poem on Rilkean anxiety. On page 86, Frankl quotes Rilke himself, "Wie viel ist aufzuleiden! - How much suffering there is to get through!" It surprised me with joy to see the connection. And I have continued to be surprised by joy. The next day as I was printing out a letter to the consultant, an email arrived in my inbox from the editor-in-chief of a medical journal asking me to write a few articles on lupus for an issue of IGI global. And last night Dr Jane Wilson wrote to ask, would I like to be on the radio? Would I like her to speak to the producer of the show about me? Er... yes!! Hey, I think I'm going to be on the radio!! And today, flight cancelled, means an extra day with Angel!

Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind

I turned to share the transport - Oh! with whom

But Thee...

Love, faithful Love

- Wordsworth