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0700, Wednesday 7th July, 2010. Heathrow terminal
1. The United Airlines flight from San Francisco has landed on time
and Francis Checkley and I are waiting at arrivals as an interminable
stream of world travellers emerges, still perhaps air borne, wide
eyed into a hustling world of movement and harsh lights. Eventually
she emerges; a small figure dressed in black. We bow and present
our small bouquet of wild flowers. Her smile lights up the airless
gloom of the place. Catherine is to be with Dancing Mountains Zen
sangha for two and a half months! Those of us at the ‘Envisioning
Weekend’ in Totnes in Nov 2009 had prioritised this as one
of the aims for the sangha for 2010. Consequently Francis Checkley
had corresponded with Reb over the intervening months and all this
was now coming to fruition.
Catherine was ordained a Soto Zen priest in the lineage of Shunryu
Suzuki Roshi by Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2005. She had been in residential
training at San Francisco Zen Centre since 2000, and served as Shuso,
or head monk, for the Spring 2010 practice period at Green Dragon
Temple/Green Gulch Farm. She had previously received precepts as
a layperson in 1998 from Rev. Shohaku Okumura. Before entering residential
training, Catherine wrote fiction and taught creative writing in
the Master of Fine Arts programme of the University of Pittsburgh.
Her novel Isabel Out of the Rain was published in 1991
by Mercury House and her shorter fiction had appeared in many literary
journals.
She was to spend some time in each Dancing Mountains sangha beginning
with a longer period in the south-west in Totnes where Francis and
Bernadette had offered her accommodation.
Almost immediately we were participating in early morning sittings
on Mondays and Thursdays with Catherine instructing us with expert
detail on the forms for morning service. Josh and Francis had organised
a series of talks, sittings and discussions at a local natural health
centre. Those on Bodhicitta and Emptiness looked at teachings on
bodhicitta both in terms of practices that cultivate and sustain
it (including reasonings about suffering and ignorance, practices
that cultivate compassion, and precepts, ritual and zazen), and
in terms of the emptiness teachings of the Diamond Sutra
and the importance of emptiness in our practice of the bodhisattva
vow. Altogether there were eight evenings and these for the most
part were well attended and we came into contact with many other
Buddhists from Totnes that we had never met before as well as young
people wishing to learn more about Buddhism. There was much very
positive feedback on Catherine’s clear, humorous and succinct
approach to teaching and discussion.
On four Tuesday afternoons we met in the zendo where we immersed
ourselves in the sophisticated, mind bending, philosophy of Master
Dogen’s Fascicle on Painted Rice Cakes. We all felt that we
could have spent much longer on this difficult but absorbing text.
We had a number of translations available which proved to us the
difficulty of translating medieval Japanese and Chinese into our
modern English idiom.
Catherine was also approached by The Barn at Sharpham and asked
to give talks on Meditation and questions arising from practice.
The Barn is a Buddhist meditation retreat centre set in a stunning
hillside location overlooking the River Dart. It has been a friendly
retreat centre for over 25 years where people are given the opportunity
to reconnect with themselves and with nature in a tranquil, supportive
environment. Through a mixture of mindfulness practice, teacher-led
inquiry and working meditation in the organic garden, small groups
of retreatants focus on and support the development of mindful practice
in everyday life. Again retreatants were very appreciative of the
insight and depth that Catherine brought to sessions with them.
Catherine as a writer in her ‘previous life’ had offered
to lead a ‘Writing as a Wisdom Project,’ workshop during
her stay. I knew this would be of interest to many of the writers
I knew in the area but I admit I was a little concerned as to how
they would react to the sitting in silence and stillness at the
beginning of the morning and afternoon sessions. This is a pretty
lively garrulous group! Again Catherine’s experience as writer
and tutor was apparent and we spent a lively, fruitful day writing
questioning and discussing books and literary matters. Again the
feedback was very encouraging and appreciative and asked for more
of the same!
A formal one-day retreat ended Catherine’s stay with us.
To sit in silence and stillness in a beautiful rural setting, the
leaves on the trees fading was perhaps a fitting conclusion to a
visit that had brought to all of us in Totnes so many riches and
eloquent teachings.
Leaving Catherine at Heathrow both Francis and I felt that her
visit had emphasised what we both already knew; that a good teacher
is an inexpressible blessing.
Michael
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