RovingMind: Conversation With A Monk

Monastery Kopan

After two weeks in Nepal I found myself faced with that inevitable question -- what do you do after you've been beat up by the roads, choked by the dust and smog, deafened by the swarms of motorbikes?...

Why, check in to a Buddhist monastery, of course. In my case it was the Kopan Center for Buddhist Study and Meditation, on a hilltop overlooking the city of Kathmandu and its urban sprawl.

Sign outside check-in.

I was shown to a dorm with ten bunks, the mattresses about as thick as a book of the Sutras, their sacred texts, and about as hard...handed a sheet and pillowcase, and shown the bathroom down the hallway. After that I was pretty much on my own.

The cost? $7.40 U.S. per night, which includes three meals (vegetarian) and 5 p.m. tea and socializing. You're free to attend morning Puja (chanting and prayers) at 6 a.m., Dharma lectures at 10, and various other monk-related activities.

Don't interfere with the monks in their day-to-day activities, I was advised. Then pointed over toward the dining hall, where people were gathering for afternoon tea.

Entrance plaza and forum.

View from dining hall.

Decorations over Gompa (chapel) doorway.

After a few days there I came to realize, what a difference from the rest of Nepal, where most of the people are Hindus. They routinely eat meat (buffalo, goat and chicken mainly) and their culture/religion is somewhat shrill.

In contrast, Kopan is an island of Buddhism hovering above the exotic madhouse that is Kathmandu. Instead of motorbikes blatting by, it is meatless-ness and tranquility (except for the planes roaring over from time to time from Tribhuvan International).

But sounds do echo through regularly, of course. Monk sounds. Chanting starts up pre-dawn and occurs at periods throughout the day, punctuated by the ringing of bells and the occasional BONG from the main Gompa or chapel. In their introductory literature, they ask that you "talk small" while there and don't even harm an insect. I blinked aplenty at that last one, let me tell you, not even an insect?

Monks debating and discussing the morning lesson.

Lady monks at nearby monastery for women. Note shaved heads.

Lady monks bundling incense sticks to sell.

I managed a private session with a monk, a respected teacher there. He in his sandals and burgundy robes. Me in my New Balances and black nylon pants. (Shoes were shed at the door.) I had questions about monk life and he had questions about American life. A sample of what transpired:

"About this no-killing thing, not even killing an insect," I started things off. "What about if a mosquito is biting me? I'm not supposed to swat it?

"Our teachings are that all living things are sacred," he explained, "and that all should be granted the sanctity of life. Such thinking is necessary for the higher progressions."

These higher progressions refer to reincarnation and getting off the endlessly rotating wheel of life. We can never escape this cycle, never break free, unless we progress in our thinking and in our actions. Not killing is a way of doing that, I came to understand, not even an insect.

(As best as I could, I respected this and didn't mash a cockroach once scuttling across a floor in the dorm. So I expect to be getting off that rotating wheel pretty soon.)

Wheel of life...Note monster putting the bite on we mortals.

Then it was his turn: "You in America are very changeable. A lot of newness in your culture. A lot of new things."

"Oh yes," I responded. "There's a new fad, a new product, a new music every month practically. I can't even keep track of it."

"My question is, what do you have that lasts?" he wondered. "What in your culture is old and golden?"

This took me aback and I struggled a bit to answer, not being used to such a question. Eventually though, I ticked off a few things -- religion, the English language, the U.S. Constitution, etc. "To tell you the truth," I sighed, "a lot of these seem to be waning in the U.S. these days...are under assault even. I'm not sure where we're heading with all that."

The main Gompa where our discussion took place.

I asked him why monks were so persecuted in S.E. Asia through the years -- in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge hunted them down in the Seventies and killed them by the thousands, almost wiping them out, in Tibet where the Chinese Communists did much the same in the Fifties, and so on. I was curious, why the viciousness toward monks? I mean, what harm are they causing?

"It's a question of devotion then, isn't it? he shrugged. As short as this answer was, I could appreciate it -- In five days at monastery Kopan, one thing that stood out about the monks was this quality of devotion...and it wasn't devotion to some totalitarian government.

Talk about a contrast: I was representative of a culture that changes every fifteen minutes or so; he was representative of one that hasn't changed in centuries.

It was an interesting half hour, to say the least.