First 4 weeks in the Land of Oz

It’s been 4 weeks since I left the states. I wanted to give myself a settling in period before I began writing my experiences so that first impressions could be vetted, a necessary action because things seemed a little too good to be true. The good news- they still are!

There is something wholesome and good natured about every aspect of my surrounding. First and foremost- the people. I have met the nuns- called Venerables as well as the volunteers and employees who work here and all of them have been kind and welcoming. I do not have a roommate, I originally anticipated having one, but the other international student is a nun and she cannot share a room with a layperson. One thing I really enjoy is watching people greet each other by pressing their palms together and saying “O Mi To Fu” as they pass by. It translates to blessing someone with Endless Light and Wisdom. Just imagine if each person you met you blessed with wishes of wellbeing and endless light…I think everyone would be happier. 

The place. I live at the lodge in a single bed room. Nothing too fancy but very cozy and comfortable. I have my own bathroom in suite  and there is a tea room and a meditation room down the hall. The complex is large and nested at the base of a hill. Sometimes Venerable Xian Xing and I climb the hill after breakfast to look out at the ocean and another nearby hill where a heard of sheep hangs out. We have seen a bunny before, no kangaroo to report however. There are two shrines, a museum, an art gallery and a reading room at the temple. There is also a meditation and Tai Chi room and a cafeteria. The institute I go to is a 4 minute walk down the street. The university is an architectural marvel. I feel like I am in a space ship when I walk around there and the meditation room looks out at the temple which is a nice meeting of east and west. It was designed to have the same color scheme as the temple but with a very modern shape so the blend of the two is very symbolic.

The food. Oh the wonderful wonderful carbs. Not a day goes by that I don’t have enormous platefuls of pasta, noodles or rice with a variety of fresh and steamed veggies. There are curries and mock meats (the only somewhat questionable part of the diet) and salads and we even had flan once! Meal times are regimented. Breakfast at 7:30 (this is immediately after 40 minutes of chanting and 20 minutes of Tai Chi) and if you get there even 3 minutes late all the good tater tots will be gone. Lunch is from 11:30 until 2pm but I usually try to get there at noon as to avoid the crowds. This meal varies the least from day to day because the majority of visitors eat in the cafeteria during this time and they provide more standard fare (rice or noodles) to appease the masses. Dinner is anything from communal hot pot (yay!) to lunch leftovers (less yay! but still delicious) and each meal is always served with some type of fruit. They have a green house in the back of the property as well as some fruit trees so oranges are fresh picked! 

We eat together at tables, sometimes in silence, and there is a blessing that is said before each meal. The blessing is one of loving kindness to all beings and it has become such a routine that I almost did it when I was sitting down to eat in Fiji. Same goes for eating with chop sticks, I often get comments about how I am the only Western person in the room and also usually the only one using chop sticks.

Class. So much to say. There were 15 people in my first class. There is a small cluster of people aged 30-ish (I consider myself part of this cohort) and then another group in the later 40s to 50s and rounding us off there was one sweet man who was retired and could school us all with his knowledge of Sutras. The class was a week long intensive course, starting at 9am and getting off at 5pm with a break for lunch. I learned 2 things: that most of what I had thought of to be “Buddhist” was wrong and that the more I understood the more mysteries there were to resolve. Before the course we were assigned with writing a one page response to a pre-class reading and I foolishly tried to argue that Buddhism refrains from mysticism and it is a rational religion that would not allow for a thing like Immaculate Conception into it’s teachings only to find out that Buddha was reportedly conceive when a small elephant walked into his mother’s right rib cage. My paper got a C. I also didn't do a great job on my citation. One thing that I really appreciated about the Intro to Buddhism class is that we did, just like the Buddha prescribed, practice as well as learn. So each day included a 10 to 30 minute mediation. The Triple Gem is the idea that the Buddha, the teachings (Dharma) and the monks and nuns doing the practice (Sangha) are the way to enlightenment. Thus, we must not only learn and discover, we must also practice these things through meditation. Lot’s more to say about this topic, but I will give it a rest for now. 

Explorations have been limited because I was studying. I did go up to Sydney for a few days and saw the famous Opera House and looked out at the Ocean from Shadi’s Manly Beach apartment! The weather has been pretty cold though, I now know why they make UGGS here! It was so cold in fact that I jetted off to warm up in Fiji. I wanted to get my PADI license because the perk of being in Australia is that it is so close to all of these exotic destination for diving! The diving experience was more challenging than I thought and I loathe taking my mask off 30ft below the surface. The cool part is that once I got over water jetting into my nostrils I saw a shark on my very first dive! A pretty big one about 20 ft away, just chillin. The good thing about Fiji is that since the sea life is so abundant the sharks have plenty of fish to feed on and so they don't go for humans. They called them tame sharks. I also saw a large sea turtle swimming along and it came up to us to give us a "Good'ay mate".

That's it for now. 

Namaste.