Buddhism in Bordeaux

[Author’s note: I wrote this travelogue article for a local newspaper The Straits Times on 25 Sep 2007, describing my life-changing experience staying in 2 monasteries in France over 4 months practising meditation. I was 28 then. This story represents a pivotal moment in my life where nothing was the same again after. Sometimes people ask me about it, so I’m reproducing it here for onward sharing. I originally titled it “Inner Sanctums” but obviously too cryptic so the editor changed it to “Buddhism in Bordeaux”.]

INNER SANCTUMS

by Jason Leow

Sometimes, one goes everywhere by staying put, and at the end of it all, somehow come full circle back to where one started. Our writer finds out in his stays at Buddhist monasteries in the southwest of France.

My family and friends thought I had lost it. Questions and exclamations of disbelief were invariably the initial responses.

“Yes, that’s right. Buddhist monasteries in France.”

I would then calmly explain that I have not turned crazy. My mum worried most of all that I might actually become a monk. Nonetheless, for their sake, I somehow managed to convince most of my ‘critics’ that it was not such a bad idea at all. To be honest, answering queries of shock and surprise from people were not the hardest bit of my ‘travel plan’; staying put in it was.

Thus I committed myself to four months of monastic life – one month in Nalanda monastery of Tibetan Buddhist origin near the city of Toulouse, another three in Plum Village, a Vietnamese Zen monastery-cum-practice centre near Bordeaux. It does sound like a strange travel plan, since there was hardly any ‘traveling’ in the first place. But for me, I had grown a little tired of the typical backpacker agenda - whirlwind city-hopping, where there is only a day or two in a city before quickly moving on to the next. For me, traveling with a checklist was beginning to feel like a slideshow of vague visual memories, and I felt they lacked the true taste of the heart and soul of the city’s culture, lifestyle and people. So I thought what would be really heart-opening would be to stay in one place long enough to know how it feels like to live like a local. Moreover, I had always been drawn to the all things French and country. Coupled with a curiosity of the simplicity and peace of monastic life, I saw that the monastery stay might be just the right combination of everything I felt for.

It was through word of mouth and much good fortune that I came across Nalanda monastery and Plum Village. Finding out more and arranging the stay was much easier thanks to their websites and email - yes! Gone are the days when finding modern technology in a monastery is like finding water in a desert. This was just a start of an amazing journey of learning and discovering.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

One hundred and eight sheets of A4 paper, with Tibetan Buddhist prayers printed on them. Everyday, I have to roll them together in a particular manner in order to produce a tidy and tight bundle. Many such rolls will thereafter be stuffed inside a huge Buddha statue that will be housed inside the new temple they were building aside the current, older one. Such was the volunteer work - amongst various other types of work like building construction, making religious artifacts – that Nalanda monastery is offering. The monks were very gracious and kind to open their doors to live-in volunteers like me, and in addition to that, I was also fed three times a day, and allowed to practise together with the monks. It was a real privilege to peek into the world and life of these disciplined Buddhist monks, who woke everyday before dawn without fail for meditation and chanting! Thankfully for me, these monks of European birth also had a practice of having an off day on Sunday, where the only times the gong went off were mealtimes.

Most of the days at Nalanda focus around practices of prayer, chanting, and scripture study. I was very touched and inspired by the simplicity of life, and by the peace that the temple grounds and the monks themselves exuded. There were many poignant moments of heart-felt silence, where many wordless minutes pass in acute completeness and peace. If it were not the temple grounds inspiring me, it would be the farmlands around the monastery. They were a picturesque landscape of autumn colours – corn fields yellowing in the sun; cattle pastures so green and luminous that they resembled golf courses; and clear skies of such a deep blue it was as if the ocean had become sky. I felt like the opposite version of a country bumpkin – ‘city bumpkin’ perhaps? – but at the same time I am immensely glad for being so suah ku, for how else could I enjoy such beauty?

Much inspiration also came from working, living and eating with the residents the monastery. Everybody had their own unique story of how they ended up here. Most of the volunteers were taking time off from their lives back home. Some were aspiring monks testing the waters of monk-hood by staying in a monastery for an extended period of time. Some were on sort of a practice vacation – one guy flew in from London to stay for a month. For the whole period he devoted himself to his practice of making tsa-tsas, little plaster models of various Buddhist deities. He said that his teacher had tasked him to making half a million of them, enough for several life times! I was completely dumb-founded when I heard that, nearly falling off my chair.

However, even though there were no short of colourful characters, living with them within the tight spaces of a monastery can at times be trying. Most of us volunteers bring our hands to help, but we also bring along our personal and cultural habits which can unwittingly step on others’ toes. I guess it was only natural that disagreements arise from time to time. The monks too, were also not always above the usual little concerns and petty arguments of daily living, but what stands out is the very compassionate and loving way in which everyone deals with disagreements. Issues were swiftly and amicably handled, and thus there was little room for dislike and anger to fester. I guess this was what the community taught me most; that we being human, is natural to feel emotions, but what makes the difference sinner and saint is in how we deal with them.

One month can pass fleetingly by even though life in Nalanda moves slowly. Bidding my new friends goodbye, I was on the road again, this time to Plum Village near Bordeaux.

Hot tea, cold days

My ‘critics’ were definitely skeptical about Plum Village, especially when they found out where it was located.

“A Buddhist monastery near Bordeaux, right in the middle of France’s infamous wine-country?” my friends would teasingly inquire. “Are you sure you cannot drink wine in the monastery? It’s such a pity, you know ……” they would probe. Indeed, I shared their intrigue of Plum Village, but also enjoyed their humorous interpretations of the whole thing.

True enough, the drive up to the monastery was postcard-picture after postcard-picture of vineyards picturesquely seated upon green rolling hills, punctuated by rustic stone farmhouses or the occasional dairy cow. But strangely, there was no thirst for that forbidden fruit, for nobody in the community did. The main practice in Plum Village was a Vietnamese blend of Zen Buddhism, and being Buddhist of course, drinking alcohol is not “encouraged” within the monastic grounds. I quoted “encouraged” because no one, not even the monks, would stop you if you did. However, they would ask that if one has to drink, he or she try to do so in complete mindfulness. Through the deepening practice of mindfulness and awareness in every facet and moment of our daily lives, we can slowly realise for ourselves how some forms of consumption are not worth our while. Such are some of the teachings in Plum Village, many of which impressed deeply upon me due its simple and almost secular nature. In fact, during my three-month stay, I met many people from other religions who came to Plum Village to stay and practice, and their presence seemed a good testimony that there is little difficulty synergising the seeming different belief systems.

Synergising to the local weather was, however, tough for a sun-kissed Singaporean like me. The wine country in this part of Southwest France seems to breed a winter that was both cold and damp at the same time, with a damp that seem to seep right through the countless layers of jackets and T-shirts! Though the winter was unbearably cold, the atmosphere was anything but cold. Everyone was kind and gentle almost to a fault, leaving me in disbelief in the early days of my stay. The many tea breaks with my new friends, all of us sitting in a circle sharing hot tea and biscuits while the outside cold frosted everything from roads to tress, was heart-warming and probably the most definitive of the Plum Village experience.

Tea was perhaps one of the many ways in which I experienced the celebration of little things we do in our lives at Plum Village. Watching dawn break after the routine morning sitting meditation session, counting the innumerable stars on a clear, moonless night, or taking a slow, silent afternoon walk with the tress as company, were the little things which gained a whole new light during my stay here. I found that perhaps gaining that perspective was the most valuable gift I received from this journey, for it is this fresh pair of eyes which will allow me to return home and see the country again like a traveler in a foreign land; to enjoy the little things of life as well as the larger ones, and to treat the ‘mundane’ with a sense of freshness and novelty that one usually finds while on the road. It is a journey come full circle, and for the first time, I have never been more excited returning home.

Do’s

1. Do avoid the misery of cold, wet socks and sneakers by bringing study, waterproof boots for the many countryside paths and trails.

2. Ear-plugs – absolute necessity when in communal sleeping arrangements.

3. Inform and arrange early with the monastery – it ain’t no drop-in hotel!

4. Be prepared to face vegetables only, every mealtime.

5. Do bring along an open mind – any traveler should never leave home without it.

Don’t’s

1. Don’t worry – everyone, including the monks, are warm and receptive, not stern and dry as we usually think them to be.

2. Even though there are daily routines and rules to follow in the monastery, don’t forget to enjoy yourself!

Photos here