Buddhist Gifts

Over the past two months I’ve been visiting a monastery with Buddhist nuns of the Theravade tradition in Luang Nuea, not far from Chiang Mai. Here I’ve been introduced to the teachings of the Buddha. I’ve been taught by Bikkhuni Bodhi, a charismatic Malaysian nun, full of love, understanding, compassion and patience. I could not have asked for a better teacher. I’m more grateful than words can say for the gift of this encounter. And it happened totally out of the blue, but I know that this was probably the most important experience on my trip so far.

Two months ago I moved to a homestay and the nice lady I stayed with suggested to introduce me to a “lady who can teach me meditation”. I agreed not knowing what I was up to. Two days later I followed her – she in her car, I on my bicycle – to Suddhajit.

I thought she would take me to a private home of a lady who teaches meditation and was not prepared to be taken to a monastery. But those who know me know, I just go with the flow…
The premises of Suddhajit are big with two big buildungs and a restricted area with the kutis of the bikkhunis, an area with kutis for Maechees and lay people  and even a fish pond all set in this dry garden. There were nuns in their orange robes walking around, and the whole place radiated peace and humbleness.
I was asked to “first go upstairs and pay respect”. My host came with me and showed me how to properly pay respect. That is you kneel down and bow down three times so five points, namely the knees, the palms and the forehead, are touching the ground. Once you bow down before the Buddha, once before His teachings (the Dhamma) and once before the spiritual community (the Sangha). After that I was brought before a nun, who asked me what I wanted. Not sure what to answer I said I wanted to practice meditation. She said she would help me and sent me to a table where I should wait for another nun. At that point my host went back home and I waited for Bikkhuni Bodhi to come.

She was responsible for foreign visitors and again asked me what I was here for. Again I said I came to meditate. But what happened was that she first offered me lunch and then we talked about my personal life and struggles and she gave me advice from a Buddhist perspective.
I had gone through a rather difficult phase, so it was a relief to talk to somebody who helped me see things clearly. And that is probably what Buddhism is all about – to see reality as it is. In this first conversation she revealed so much wisdom to me and I left with so many insights that I gratefully agreed when she asked me if I wanted to come again the following day. That’s how my private lecturs on Buddhism started.

And not only did I come back the following day, I visited the monastery almost every day for the following weeks and kept coming back after trips to the north and the south.  And now that I’m about to leave Thailand, this might be the place I will miss the most for it helped me grow and learn more than I could have imagined.

Since Bikkhuni Bodhi shared her wisdom in such an applicable way and was there to answer all my questions, I learned to look at all difficulties in life from a different perspective.
And since I gained so much from that, I want to share my insights here with you. May you benefit in the same way as I did.

There are three pillars of Buddhism. Those are keeping a moral code (but other than in e.g. Catholicism you are not condemned by anyone if you don’t stick to it, you rather do it for yourself, so your mind stays pure), mental concentration and training a skillful mind, which is the key to true happiness. Our conversations mainly revolved around the training of the mind, and in my experience this was where I found the biggest treasures.

The first thing I want to share with you is the teaching of the second arrow. That revolutionised my world…

Let’s say something “bad” happens. Let’s start with a minor thing, say, you notice you’re out of bread, you go to the store and come home with a big bag of groceries, but forgot the bread. Happens… So what now? How do you react? Do you get upset with yourself? Do you call yourself stupid, asking how you could forget the one thing you went to the store for? Well, then you shoot yourself with the second/third/fourth arrow, and those are the arrows that hurt. A wise person would not do that. Zwinker, zwinker…

According to the teaching, in that situation the first arrow would be that you forgot the bread, so you don’t have bread now. But when you get angry with yourself, blame yourself etc. YOU inflict yourself with more suffering. The real suffering of that situation comes from your reaction to it. YOU cause yourself to suffer when you shoot yourself with the arrows of anger and blame. You might as well choose to react with equanimity or compassion for yourself. You could smile at your little mistake and go back to the store or carry on with your day, eating something else that day.

The great thing about this is that you can apply it in any situation. Once you have some routine in minor situations, you can also choose your reaction in more challenging situations.

I’ve tried it in many many cases and I saved myself a lot of suffering through that. It frees my mind, I find.

One of the first times I managed to spare myself the second/third/fourth arrow was when I found out I had forgotten the key to my bungalow in my scooter which was parked at my friends’ place where I had just walked home from. It was 2.30 in the morning, I had slept an hour on their balcony but decided to come back to sleep in my cosy bed. So there I was – tired and in front of a locked room. But I remembered – I could choose how to react and cause myself more suffering or not. So I decided not to and just went back, got the key and laid down in my bed 40 minutes later. That was a milestone and I knew it. My life would never be the same again. Haha!!

But seriously, since then my view on the things that happen has changed. I’m not the victim of my unconscious reactions anymore and that’s a great thing! That’s true autonomy and self empowerment. Go girrrrl!

And now that I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the beautiful flower garden of my repeated host and the peace of the warm summer night is only disturbed by the drunk karaoke singers at the resort next door, giving me again the opportunity to practice what the Buddha taught.

“Allow things to happen the way they do and react positively”, Bikkhuni Bodhi once said to me. It’s such a simple sentence but carries the biggest secret to happiness inside.