Hungering for Truth

As May 1971 drew to a close, I was not sure that I would be able to stay on at L’Abri, since so many were clamoring to study at this unique place. To my surprise, Udo and Debbie along with others persuaded me to stay another month. I wrote my parents, “They must really want me and feel it’s for my good, since many others are being turned away daily. Debbie and I have had some great talks. Growing up in an environment like this has really made her extremely sensitive to all kinds of people.” I wrote to friends, “It becomes less and less easy to interpret the things I’ve gone through as anything other than the leadings of a loving God.”

Though I was still a couple months away from placing my faith fully in Jesus Christ, the simple message that I was hearing was beginning to resonate with me. There is a God who is there. Jesus Christ came in the flesh, died and rose again in space, time and history. It was dawning on me that, much more than being merely a nice concept, Christianity is a complete philosophical system, which can give strong answers to modern’s questions about self and the world. Schaeffer criticized most modern evangelism as being “contentless.” He saw modern theology’s attempts to take the Bible less and less literally in an attempt to make it more universal, as removing the great strength that it has as it stands.

The community of L’Abri was full of music. There were several talented musicians among the workers, including the flamboyant Jane Stuart Smith, who traded a promising career in opera to join the Schaeffers in ministry at L’Abri. The chapel at L’Abri had a lovely organ built by the world-renowned organ builder, D. A. Flentrop, which was given as a gift to L’Abri by Jane’s family. I had carried a recorder (the instrument) with me throughout my travels. I was delighted to be part of a number of impromptu recorder ensembles.

During this period, in addition to the workers of L’Abri, I received much help from people my own age who had been heavily into drugs and, like me, had spent extensive time in the East. I saw in them a real, living faith, which was beginning to fulfill their personalities. The way the schedule was structured, there was plenty of open time for interaction. The USA had just come through some times of extreme racial tensions, including the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The blacks who came to L’Abri (and others from diverse backgrounds) found a community that was fully accepting of them.

There was an amazing guy named Mark who was staying at an extension of L’Abri in France. He was part of a group that came over to the Swiss L’Abri once a week for fellowship and to participate in a lecture. Mark and I had some great “raps.” He did acid (LSD) for about four years, and started out for Switzerland with a stock of drugs and a library of books on Eastern mysticism, planning to sit on the top of a mountain and “get his head together.”

God had other plans. His luggage was lost on the flight over. Someone he knew was at L’Abri, so he came there. Mark wrote letters to his friends about Christ illustrated with wild cartoons. He said something beautiful one time he was over for a visit. He said that he was sleeping out one night and woke under the canopy of stars and the moon glowing electrically. He said that he was just devastated by the fact that the same “cat” that made all of that also came to this smallest place to die for the sin of the world.

I was grateful for the privilege of being able to stay at L’Abri through the month of June. I really needed that time to process all of the amazing input that I was receiving, both formally and informally.

I won’t attempt a history of L’Abri. If you are interested, the best source is Edith Schaeffer’s book L’Abri. By the time I arrived 50 years ago, there were about 100 students and guests. Students were housed in seven chalets, situated within easy walking distance of one another. Each chalet was overseen by a L’Abri ministry couple. I was assigned to Chalet les Sapins. The “father” was a German, Udo Middelmann, who was married to Debbie, one of he Schaeffer daughters. There were about 16 living in our chalet. We took breakfast in our own chalet and were assigned elsewhere for lunch and supper. The only building constructed by the community was Farel House (named after the Swiss reformer, William Farel), which consisted of a chapel and a tape library.

The first couple weeks at L’Abri were quite an adjustment from my seven months on the road. In some ways, the daily routine was reminiscent of the routine in the Indian ashram, with a combination of work and study. For five days of the week in the mornings, I worked in the house and garden of the main chalet, Les Mélèze, which housed the Schaeffers’ residence, office and common area. In the afternoon I listened to lectures by Dr. Schaeffer and others. There was a weekly lecture and two open discussion sessions. Sunday was worship. On Wednesday, my permanent day off, I was handed a bag lunch and given the option of eating at L’Abri or taking off on my own.

For the first week, I had to take it on faith that we were high in the Swiss Alps. L’Abri was enshrouded in a thick pea soup fog, as I wrote to my parents.

The formal aspect of the study was conducted on the English system. I was assigned to a proctor who worked with me to guide my course of study. I was blessed to have Os Guinness as my proctor. As the name suggests, Os was the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the renowned Dublin brewer. Os was born and raised in China and has a fascinating life story. At the time I studied under Os, it was two years before he published his first of many books. Today, he is one of the most influential evangelical Christian thinkers in the world. His first assignment for me was a study of the New Testament Book of Romans, which was to prove transformative for my life.

In addition to the formal study, there were always extended discussions around the meal tables. Topics were far-ranging; theology, philosophy, culture, and many more! Edith Schaeffer was a whirlwind of energy—planning meals, supervising work, creating beauty, interacting with students, and often traveling with Fran for conferences. How to describe Fran Schaeffer? I cannot do better than the affectionate description by Os Guinness regarding his first meeting with Fran (which he wrote many years later).

“So there I was as a student in the middle of ‘swinging London’ and the exploding Sixties, and no Christians that I knew understood what was going on at all. Then a friend took me to hear a strange little man in Swiss knickers, with a high-pitched voice, terms all of his own such as ‘the line of despair,’ and appalling mispronunciations and occasional malapropisms. But I was intrigued and then hooked. Schaeffer was the first Christian I met who was concerned to, and capable of connecting the dots and making sense of the extraordinary times that puzzled and dismayed most people.”

Finally, after about a week, the fog lifted and revealed this magnificent view of the Swiss Alps and the Rhone river valley. The fields were carpeted with Alpine wild flowers, and the trees were beginning to leaf out. It was refreshing to see all this color after the parched summer brown of India. Because Huémoz was a typical Swiss village, the melodious clanging of bells as cattle were led to and from the pastures was the background music of every day.

I will conclude this post by talking about the dizzying array of people at L’Abri. Even though people were constantly coming and going, the Schaeffers had managed to create a family atmosphere. I tried to describe this array at L’Abri in a letter to friends. “Except for Fran and Edith Schaeffer, the people running things are our age and have incredibly good heads. Quite a few are former freaks. There are enough ‘real people’ that one feels like paying attention to Christianity for the first time.” Many of the students were “seekers” like myself, while others were Christians who had come to L’Abri desiring to learn how to think Christianly about the cultural dynamics of the 20th century and the seismic cultural shifts of the late 60s and early 70s.

In looking back on those days—50 years ago—I’ve concluded that I needed two factors to fall into place if I was to wholeheartedly embrace the Christian faith. First, I needed to be convinced that the Biblical story was true and that the Christian worldview provided a satisfying description of reality. Second, I needed to see the Christian faith lived out in a way that demonstrated the transformation of heart and mind promised by Jesus. While I was unaware of this in the midst of my initial days at L’Abri, God in His sovereign grace had led me to the perfect place to provide me with what I needed.

The following day, 50 years ago on April 23, the plane landed in London at 3 p.m. after a refuelling stop in Beirut. I was glad that I had accepted the Stringham’s generosity. The custom’s agent wanted to see how much I had in cash and Traveler’s Checks before the Brits were going to allow me into the country. Someone had tipped me off that the Blackfriar’s Youth Hostel was a good deal and centrally located in London. So, that’s what I put on my embarkation card. When I arrived it was sunny, and warm, but the weather soon settled into typical London weather—cold with a light drizzle.

The reverse cultural shock wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Even after my immersion in Eastern culture and Zen Buddhism, it was clear that I was essentially still a Westerner at heart. While in London, I enjoyed a surfeit of food, beer and sounds. I managed to get tickets to a concert by The Incredible String Band, a quirky group that was a favorite of mine at the time (the year on the ticket is wrong). A couple nights later, I returned to the Royal Festival Hall for an all-Bach organ recital.

I had a final task to complete before boarding the boat train from London to Switzerland. As a Zen Buddhist practitioner in India, I had shaved my head completely bald. By the time I landed in London my hair had grown out about half an inch. I went to a barber and had my head completely shaved. I was determined to arrive at L’Abri on my own terms, making a clear statement that I was interested but not really needing what they had to offer. So it was that on April 28 I boarded the train for Dover. I was able to book the entire trip from London to Paris, through Lausanne, and on to Aigle, where I would catch the Postal bus up into the mountains to Huémoz, where L’Abri was located.

The trip went without a hitch, given the legendary Swiss efficiency. I was able get on the correct Postal Bus heading in the direction of Huémoz, I was dropped off at the door of Chalet les Mélèzes, the central chalet of the L’Abri community. Since I don’t have a picture, you’ll have to form an image in your mind of the bizarre creature that washed up unannounced on the shores of this Christian community. As I’ve mentioned, my head was freshly shaven, adorned with small, wire-rimmed “Gandhi glasses.” I was dressed in a completely green outfit from Nepal, with skinny arms and legs. On my back was my huge red backpack, which contained all my worldly goods. To my surprise, I was received warmly, as warmly as if I had been dressed in a 3-piece suit.

My future wife, Margaret, saw me the morning after my arrival. I will let her give her first impressions. “See him, I did! The sun was reflecting off his bald head and he was shoveling down the oatmeal with gusto. He was at the far end of the breakfast table so I was not able to get the full effect of the green outfit. Leaning over to Debbie Middelmann, I whispered, ‘Who’s that?’ She whispered back, ‘I don’t know but his name’s Paul and he just came from India.’ Since I was preparing to head off on a journey by thumb with a friend, the bald guy in the green suit was not given much more thought.”

When I crossed back into India from Nepal, I had made up my mind to head back overland to Switzerland backtracking the route I had come beginning in September 1970. I wasn’t overly excited about the journey, since it would probably involve traveling most of the way alone. I had written the Stringhams from Kathmandu to tell them that I had decided not to continue the formal Zen Buddhist meditation, planned to stop with them, and then head back overland to L’Abri, the Christian community in Switzerland. Shortly after I arrived they asked me why I didn’t fly to Europe. The main consideration, of course, was money. I would arrive in Europe with only about $70 to my name.

Jim asked me how much more I would need to consider flying. I replied that I thought I would need about $100. Jim said that he and Charlotte had agreed not to try to influence my decision to go to L’Abri, but that if I decided to go, they would give me $100—a significant amount, about $650 in 2021—to help me get there. Ordinarily I would have refused. But the fact that the Stringhams worked more on leadings of the Spirit than whims convinced me that there was some reason for me to get to L’Abri quickly (and certainly more safely). So I accepted. I found a company called Worldways and was able to book on a BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) charter flight for London leaving on the 22^nd—the last day of my Indian visa—for $230.

After several enjoyable days with the Stringhams, I traveled for the last time by my beloved 3^rd class sleeper to Delhi. It turned out that this Worldways charter company was rather “sketchy”. I found out on the 19th that the flight was leaving from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) rather than Delhi. The travel agent was not going to pay my airfare to Bombay at first, but we dickered and finally settled on half the airfare; it would have cut it too close to travel by train. I flew to Bombay the afternoon of the 20^th and spent the night in a cheap hotel. I showed up at the BOAC office the next day. The agent for Worldways was there but had no tickets as yet, because of the underhanded dealings involved. In order to fly charter, you had to be part of an organization—the Yehudi Menuhin Circle in this case. The agent sent the names to London, and they sent back a “revised,” backdated membership list.

The departure time on April 22—the last day of my India visa—was 8:15. I showed up at 5:30—still no tickets. The other passengers and I went to the airport with the agent and finally got our tickets one hour before departure! A little too close for comfort. The luxury of the BOAC VC10 soon settled my nerves after the ticketing drama. I found myself in the First Class cabin. I can only imagine what my urbane fellow travelers felt about sitting next to a largely unwashed hippie. I was on the way to London and clearly headed back into Western culture. As you might guess, I never refused anything that the stewardess offered to the First Class passengers.

Armed with our precious trekking permits, Richard and I began our climb into the foothills of the Himalayas on March 31, 50 years ago.

Our route was to the northeast of Kathmandu. The first day we did nothing but climb and end the day at the “high point” of our trip, a small village of six houses on an 8,000 foot peak. Most of our trip, the weather was quite hazy, but we were fortunate in having the sky clear just before sunset for a superb view of the snows. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to capture a picture of that moment, but I do have a picture of the village.

Almost every village on the main trekking routes has one house that provides meals and a place to sleep. The second day, we descended to Patibhanjyang, which is in a 6,500 foot mountain pass, had lunch and climbed the 7,800 foot peak on the other side. Descending, we somehow got off on a side trail and ended up in a small village that hadn’t see too many Westerners. After several tries, we managed to communicate with the inhabitants of one house that we were willing to pay if we could sleep there and eat with them. We got the royal treatment including chhang, which is the local “home brew” made from corn.

The third day we did a short hike to Talamarang, which is at the juncture of two fairly large rivers. We had most of the afternoon to swim—there was a pool deep enough to dive into. We also got to cross one of the bridges for which Nepal is famous—one board suspended between two chains. We put in a full day the next day, ending up in a beautiful village on top of a medium-sized hill. We had a short walk the next morning to the China road, where we caught a bus into Kathmandu.

The beauty of the land and people of Nepal is something that can’t be put into words or captured in pictures. The Sierra Club’s first Everest book did a credible job as far as pictures are concerned, and it was my inspiration for the trek. I had the disadvantages of haze and a cheap camera. The Nepali have deep black eyes and expansive smiles, which would draw even Ebenezer Scrooge into a jovial mood. Most available arable land is terraced and planted in wheat or barley and is an otherworldly green.

After Richard and I returned to Kathmandu, I spent a couple days and then bid farewell to the members of our Zen meditation group. I was back on the road again, heading back to India for a final visit with the Stringhams and then back on the road alone for the return trip overland to Switzerland (or so I thought). I crossed the border back into India on April 6. My tourist visa allowed me until April 22 to leave India. I ended up cutting it perilously close.

Our Zen meditation group left Bodh Gaya on the 25^th of March, 1971 headed for Nepal. It turned out to be a full two day ordeal. The first day, we woke at 3 a.m. and piled on two horse carts to travel from Bodh Gaya to Gaya. We caught a train at 5 a.m. for Patna. We arrived in Patna at 8 a.m. just in time to catch horse cart to the ferry to cross the Ganges at 8:30 a.m. On the other side, there was about a mile walk to the train station. The train left there at 11 a.m.. At that time, there was still a section of the route that was narrow gauge. We switched to the narrow gauge at 5 p.m. and arrived in Raxaul at 8 p.m. Whew!

The second travel day, we got bicycle rickshaw to the Nepal border. Some of our group were able to get bus and some trucks at the border, but we were too late. We began to despair at noon when a taxi stopped and offered to take the remaining five of us the 84 miles to Kathmandu for about $3 apiece. The drive was spectacular, leaving the low-lying plain of the Indian subcontinent, then climbing steadily to an 8,000 feet elevation before descending into the Kathmandu valley at 4,600 feet, We arrived at nightfall and were reunited as a group. An exhausting two days!

Kathmandu was an amazing city 50 years ago. There were and are a host of Hindu temples like the Jagannath Temple in Durbar Square (above), most of them with their own fantastically painted and adorned resident sadhus (holy men). Yet, it was also one of the most “Western” cities that I had experienced in the East. There were a great number of Westerners, both hippies and straight. Many restaurants served typical Indian and Nepali dishes. Others catered to Westerners, serving steak (Buffalo) and French Fries, pork chops, and pasteurized milk.

A favorite with many of us was an establishment named Vishnu’s Pie ‘n’ Chai Palace on Pig Street, where we could get a slice of a great variety of pies along with a cup of chai (tea). Walking down the main tourist street (nicknamed Freak Street at the time), music of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and other rock bands came blaring out of tea shops, along with the ubiquitous smell of cheap, legal hashish. In the midst of all the hedonism being catered to on Freak Street, I heard Mike Jagger’s voice shouting, “No Satisfaction!” Ironic?!?

There were (and are) also many Buddhist temples and shrines, of particular interest to our little group of Zen Buddhists. The most famous of these is Swayambhunath, an ancient temple complex on a hill to the west of Kathmandu, which sported hundreds of the traditional Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags. It is also known as the Monkey Temple because of the hundreds of monkeys that inhabit the site and are considered holy to Hindus and Tibetan Buddhists. The monkeys had the run of the temple complex, especially at night.

While in Nepal, I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream by trekking in the foothills of the Himalaya mountain range. Fortunately, my British friend Richard, with whom I’d been meditating, also had a desire to do the same. We set out on the 31^st of March 50 years ago on a trek into the mountains northeast of Kathmandu. That trek deserves a post all of its own.

After a quick excursion to Delhi to check for mail and to Lucknow to spend a couple days at my home way from home (the Stringhams), I headed back to Bodh Gaya. I once again “enjoyed” my 3^rd class Indian Railways accommodations. I have a powerful image in my mind from this time, which highlights the vast distinctions in Indian society that existed 50 years ago (and still exist today). I arrived at the station early one morning to catch a train. The train platform was covered with poorer people sleeping on their blankets. A wealthy Indian lady arrived dressed in a gorgeous sari with accents of gold thread woven into the pattern. She gingerly made her way through the mass of humanity on the platform and into her first class carriage.

I got back quickly into the daily routine that I’ve described in an earlier post. There was some excitement during the month of March. The advent of the full moon on March 11 was celebrated by oboes and 10 foot trumpets from the roof of the Tibetan temple. The following day, the Hindus celebrated Holi. It’s the festival of colors, in which colored water is squirted on passersby, something none of us escaped entirely.

Something more profound was going on in my mind and heart. As much as I wanted to find an honest way of holding to both the Christian faith and the Eastern religious worldview, I was finding it more difficult. Two experiences led me to make a far-reaching decision to at least postpone my Eastern search in order to more fully investigate the form of Christianity that I had witnessed in Christians in India and was reading about in the Schaeffers’ books.

One incident is permanently seared on my mind. One evening, our little group of Zen Buddhists had gone over to the Mahabodhi temple to meditate under the Bo tree (the ancestor of the tree under which Gautama Buddha gained Enlightenment). I still have two leaves from that tree. We had an especially long time of meditation seated in a circle. One of our group, a big dude, Danny, had played football in high school and college. As a result he had very bad knees, which made it difficult for him to sit cross-legged for long periods of time.

At one point in the meditation, Danny shifted his position ever so slightly to try to relieve the increasing pain. Zengo noticed and commanded, “Stop moving!” Another 10 or 15 minutes went by slowly. Once again Danny moved slightly. This time, Zengo shouted, “Stop moving! The pain is all in your mind!” I can still recreate the scene in my mind. A Tibetan Buddhist monk in his maroon robe is crossing behind our meditation circle. Then Danny falls over backwards from the pain that was all in his mind, his legs still crossed.

The second incident was, in retrospect, of even greater significance. I’ve mentioned before that each member of our group had a daily interview with Zengo, during which we could ask any question we wished to ask. One day I asked Zengo, “What do you think of Jesus Christ.” Zengo took a moment to formulate an answer, then replied, “I think he was very enlightened man.” Either that same day or the next, I was reading in the Bible I carried with me and “chanced” to read in John 14:6 this outrageous statement by Jesus. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Here was this highly enlightened man claiming to be the only way to God.

Gautama Buddha never declared himself the only way to God or encouraged any kind of veneration from his followers. There’s a famous Zen koan (a paradoxical statement that is supposed to shove the mind toward enlightenment) that goes, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” The basic idea is that any conception of Buddha outside oneself needs to be put to death before being able to discover the Buddha nature within. Something like that. Whereas Jesus was pointing to Himself, the man standing before His disciples and proclaiming Himself as the only way to God, the only full embodiment of Truth and Life.

This shocking statement, more than any other single factor, led me to a pivotal decision. Our Zen group was about to leave for Nepal to escape the oppressive heat of an Indian summer. I decided to travel with them but then to part ways rather than continue to pursue Zen or any other Eastern practice. Instead, I purposed to travel back overland to Switzerland, to hopefully participate in the life and community of L’Abri. I wanted to fully examine the way of Jesus, knowing that I could always return to the Eastern way if the Jesus way proved to be a dead end.

From the end of March to the end of April, I was going to be once again on the road.

During the month of February 50 years ago, I began to settle into the new way of life at the Ashram. The daily rhythm of work and meditation began to feel more and more natural to me. The temperatures were still moderate with days in the 70s and nights down to the 40s. So there was little difficulty staying awake during the early morning meditation at 4:30. We usually walked once around the Mahabodhi Temple each morning at about 5:30 for a break in meditation. Most mornings we encountered an ancient Tibetan woman walking, chanting, and turning her prayer wheel. There was a prayer written around the circumference of the wheel. Each spin of the wheel supposedly repeated the prayer, thus adding to a person’s merit.

To help my parents understand the basis of Zen, I wrote this: “Most people view Zen Buddhism as highly esoteric. The basis, however, is quite simple. Ego is at the root of all evil. As long as I have a preconceived idea of what you are like, I can never see you as you really are. My love for you will never be free of self-interest. It is the same with anything—if you look at a rose and think “rose,” you start to limit it (sorry, that is a little too subtle). It’s a real difficulty to put words to things I’ve just felt for the first time.”

“Zen Buddhism teaches that people develop myriad preconceived ideas of the world and gradually become blind to things as they really are. So, when we sit for meditation, we try to quiet the mind and rid it of stray thoughts. When you observe this closely, it’s amazing to see what percentage of your thought is useful and what part is serving no purpose whatsoever. The second thrust of Zen is mindfulness. If working in the fields, have your entire attention there. Our meals are passed in silence—just eat, nothing else.”

One day our meditation group took a beautiful field trip to some nearby mountains. We took horse cart about four miles. From this point we crossed the river and had about a two-mile walk along the dikes between rice paddies, wheat fields, and fields of dal (a kind of lentil). The mountain we climbed was serpent-shaped and rose abruptly out of the otherwise flat terrain. Half way up we rested and had lunch near a small Tibetan temple, which was built near a cave where Buddha practiced asceticism before coming to Bodh Gaya. The view from the top, looking on a cluster of houses, was like that from an airplane.

Although our diet remained largely the same, changing seasons brought some variety. During the month of February, we began to have some nice salads with carrot, banana and papaya. We also had a special breakfast treat from time to time called sattu, which is made from a flour ground from toasted corn, wheat and chick peas then served with sugar and hot water. It may not sound that appealing, but it was a great change of pace.

Along with my other reading, I was immersed in a couple books by Francis and Edith Shaeffer that the Stringhams loaned to me. L’Abri (the shelter) by Edith spoke about how the couple founded a Christian community in the Swiss Alps to which hundreds of people (both Christians and seekers) come from all over the world to study and be part of a community seeking to live out their faith. The God Who Is There by Francis interacts with the main philosophical currents of Western thought from a Christian perspective. I was intrigued by what I was reading.

At the end of February, I took off for New Delhi to check for mail and update my visa then took my favorite overnight 3rd class sleeper to Lucknow to spend a few days with the Stringhams before returning to Bodh Gaya to continue my meditation practice.

 

Heading into February, 50 years ago, the daily routine at the Samavaya Ashram became more natural for me. I mentioned in my previous post that part of the day was spent in work that benefitted the community. I wrote home, “The fields are beautiful. The ashram grows all of its own food and uses excellent scientific farming methods. There is wheat, rice, sugar cane, bananas, cauliflower, eggplant, and much more. Lately, we have been clearing banana trees that have ceased to produce and dragging them to the compost pile. We also take turns grinding the wheat for flour [with a hand mill].” The picture below is of me standing in the farm.

I promised more detail about our times of meditation. Each of the long periods of meditation contained two 30 minute intervals of sitting mediation (zazen), a short period of walking, then a lecture and Q&A by Zengo. That meant a normal day would contain three hours of absolutely quiet and motionless meditation. Some time during each day, there was a personal interview with Zengo for each person. Here’s a sample interaction: BOW. EYES MEET. BOTH SMILE. SMILES FADE. Zengo: “What is ego?” Ego (me, giving the stock answer): “Clinging.” Zengo: “What is non-ego?” I search my mind. Ego (me, not having a clue): “I don’t know.” BOW.

Here are more thoughts that I wrote to friends, showing my thought process at the time. “The way to freedom is to have no likes or dislikes. The wash in the cold mountain stream is as beautiful as the hot tub bath. The mouthful of brown rice is as beautiful as the hot fudge sundae. The sweaty feeling at the end of work is as beautiful as the fine, cool feel after the shower 10 minutes later. As one of the people here wrote to his sister, ‘You can either do what you like or like what you do.'”

These thoughts were practical expressions of the Buddhist philosophy that all of life is impermanent, that nothing in this world lasts forever. Suffering comes from attachment, clinging to this impermanent life. Buddhists often give this illustration of the power of desire. At one time, there was a simple method used to trap monkeys. A large gourd was hollowed out with a hole just large enough for a monkey’s paw. Some treat was placed inside the gourd. The monkey was not able to pull its clenched paw out of the hole because it had the treat clenched in its paw. The monkey became trapped—not by any physical restraint but by his desire to have what was grasped in his paw. In the same way our desires trap us.

In like manner, when we learn to sever that attachment to our desires, we can be free of the mental trap which binds us to this world. This, Buddhism claims, frees us from suffering. This state of non-attachment is called by various names—Enlightenment, Satori (Japanese), Nirvana (Sanskrit). Zen further claims to offer a fast track method to reach this goal. Zen has it’s own set of scriptures, most particularly the Platform Sutra, also known as the Sutra of Huineng,

During my personal times, I was continuing to read the Bible I carried with me, not willing to totally abandon the Christian tradition of my youth. I continued to also read books that others in the group had found insightful and that they loaned to me, such as Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics by R. H. Blyth.

I will try to give a fuller sense of my journey deeper into Zen in future posts.

Upon entering the Samanvaya Ashram, I discovered that the program being offered was an immersive course in Zen Buddhism led by Zengo, a Zen Buddhist monk from Japan. There were only eight students (including myself) enrolled in the program—three women and five men. We were from the US, Canada, England and Germany. This picture shows our group with Zengo center front, me behind and to his right, and, on the far right, an Indian man who joined us occasionally.

My only previous exposure to Zen was one visit to a Zen center in Rochester, NY run by Philip Kapleau, author of Three Pillars of Zen. Zen can fairly be described as the most radical form of Buddhism, a fast track path to Enlightenment. At the core of Zen practice is the discipline of Zazen, seated meditation. There was no gradual easing into the rigors of the course for me or my fellow participants. For starters, I had my head shaved as a symbol of giving up worldly attachments to pursue the discipline fully. This was an especially gutsy move for the women in the group. A typical day for us looked like this (from a letter home):It seemed like quite a rigorous schedule at first, especially sitting for long periods in the full lotus position (legs crossed, with feet resting on the top of the opposite thighs). All the men lived and slept in one large room. Our diet was simple—porridge for breakfast; rice, vegetable, and chapati for lunch and supper. It was clean, wholesome, and no limit was set. I would add a little variety from time to time from street venders in town.

The founder of the ashram saw it as a laboratory for implementing methods and technologies appropriate to rural India. One was quite amusing. The bathrooms were modern (with squatty potties) and clean. The outflow from the toilets went to a large underground tank, which had a top that would raise or lower based on how much biogas was generated on any given day. The biogas was piped to burners and used for cooking our food. If the cooks needed more gas, all they had to do was increase the amount of lentils they fed to us!

In my next post, I will describe our daily routines of work and meditation in more detail, in addition to some insights into how I was processing all this new input at the time.

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