Day 1 - Welcome to Nirvana (or a piece of it)

Photo: Path to the Green Pine Hamlet.

“Hello, hello”. Nada. But noise is coming from what I guess is the kitchen. The rest of the house and area is in total silence. “Helloooo”. Nada. Again. A nun comes out. This very young sister might have recognized my face of exhaustion, since first of all she offered tea, water, soy milk, and asked me to relax in the tea room (a small area with a few sofas around a coffee table) while she looked for the other sister. I was impressed by the simplicity and informality of the place. I have been to many other retreat places, and although simplicity is comparable, maybe because these were German places, the order was hospital-like (I mean, first-world, top-line hospital). This felt like coming into a house where people are living: tea mugs on the table, someone who had left her knitting work, books marked...


This sister explained that it was the second day of the New Year’s Celebration (Vietnamese TET), and that day of my arrival is unique: in the morning, they visit the sisters’ rooms and in the afternoon, the brothers’. It is only once a year that their rooms are open to the public and to each other. Then the older sister came, gave me a bag with linens, and showed me with her finger where I would sleep. “Now it is busy (maybe 30-40 people, including kids), but then they all go and you can have a room for yourself.” I would sleep with 5 other women, in a bunker bed (in other circumstances, I would be wondering about this experience, but in my conditions, I just want to sleep!). This other house is just as simple, but new. You can even still smell the fresh wood of the floors, doors, maybe the beds. After leaving my bags in the room, I headed to the brothers’ hamlet for a taste of that unique experience. There are 11 brothers. The first room was very small, with a big monk sitting on the floor, and people around, in a circle, food on the floor in the middle. It was too packed, so I continued to the following one. This one was large, maybe the largest room. I was not sure of entering since there seemed to be 2 or 3 circles of people and very much caught into their conversations. But a monk with the kindest and most transparent eyes I’ve seen (even though they are dark), realized I was hesitating at the door and invited me to join their circle. He invited me with hot tea and there was plenty of food too: from dried fruits, to Viet treats and western goodies. I stayed there, just observing, too tired to reach out for conversation, with a pulsating headache out of lack of sleep, lack of hydration and I cannot say emotional stuff because I think I had already faced all that while still in BA. They offer to visitors and sisters red envelopes with something in it- there was a 1-dollar bill in each. He also grabbed his Spanish guitar and started singing a beautiful quiet song that he said he had composed, inspired on Plum Village. After a while, the sisters joined him in repeating his lyrics. I wanted him not to stop singing. Even if I could not understand a word (Viet), the voice, the melody, the guitar were soothing and mesmerizing in their simplicity. Maybe understanding the lyrics would have been a distraction from this balm.

After that I went to another room at the end of the corridor, where there was a western monk and an eastern younger one, who spoke perfect Spanish (born and raised in San Francisco). The western monk offered thoughts printed in colorful paper, on a bamboo tray. I grabbed mine, had some dates and nuts, and left. I was too tired for all the festivity. When someone would leave, they would kneel, with their hands together in prayer and wish good things to each other, or thank each other. This is the message that I got in the bright  red rectangle of paper:

“We should let go of pride; we shouldn’t sleep too much, nor let ourselves fall into indolence. We should know how to live and work moderately, and not let ourselves be carried away by the majority. Let us not be caught by any dazzling appearance, and let us know how to walk away unfazed. Let us always contemplate the empty nature of all things in order to attain the quiet Nirvana.” (Sn. 942)