day three

The past three days have been a whirlwind.

The first was much about rules, etiquette—that in and of itself was overwhelming and had me wondering whether this was a good decision after all.
Bowing, prostrations, lining up, walking meditation. Even eating is an exacting process. Meals are taken in complete silence. All you can hear is the tinkling of hundreds of pairs of metal chopsticks, like a chorus of thousands of tiny silver bells.


I can’t decide what my favorite part of the day is—the ones in air conditioned rooms are at the top of the list. Meditation time is very relaxing and fulfilling. We had our first real lesson today. I am finding it relatively easy to make my mind shut up, at least relatively well---either that or waking up at 5:30 every morning has made me too tired to think. I may even be falling asleep without realizing it (no wonder it seems so restful!) but who knows.

I also really like mealtimes (I hope we’re not surprised—this is me we’re talking about.) The ritualistic-ness and the fact that you are literally eating with about a thousand other people is pretty unique to this experience. Not to mention I’ve actually thought ‘I want more meat’ at times before realizing that what I really want is some sort of soy meat substitute. I am used to the “don’t ask, just eat” policy that Asian food demands, so I try not to think about it. It tastes so good that I know better than to ask questions.

The flies are pestilential, however. In their 48 hours of life they somehow figure out that the dining hall is a bangin' place to be, and they’re right. No place better for a fly than a dining hall where people actually aren’t allowed kill you.


They’re not completely awful, and they don’t bite like the awful black flies in India do. They still have an irritating habit, however, of coming over to sniff you out at the worst possible times. During meditation, for example, they have a tendency to take particular interest in your nose and other similarly ticklish places.

I had a rather interesting epiphany, though. I had finished my meal and had set my bowls, plate, and chopsticks just so, in the necessary arrangement. Two flies landed on my chopsticks and began to comb them, crawling all along their length, seeking out the small morsels that had been left behind. And as hard as I had tried to listen to Master Hueifeng and not leave a single grain of rice, there were some things I couldn’t catch—and my little friends had found it.

I smiled to myself, and a droplet of the wisdom that had been showered on me since I arrived sank into my skin. We tend to think of some things with such narrow minds. Flies are pests, weeds kill. But a weed is a plant. Even flies have a purpose. Everything does something good, has its place. I just hadn’t really concretely thought about it that way before.

After dinner, I let them dance their way over my plate when I’d finished. During the evening meditation, I let one alight on me and it fluttered its way over my hand, playfully inspecting the wrinkles on my knuckles and the spaces between my fingers, its tickling bringing a smile to my face.