Beautiful Greetings

Na Mu Myo *Ho* Ren Ge Kyo

This is the proper greeting to a monk or nun of the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist order. Three times, with deep bows, hands in prayer in front of your heart, a warm smile.

If you have trouble with that for any reason, "hi - how are your feet? have you had lunch?" works just great.

It is a relatively small sect, started in 1947 as a response to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They do two things - they walk very, very long distances - across continents, it can take years - and they build peace pagodas, or stupas.

On September 1st, Jun-San Yasuda, the nun who started the Grafton Peace Pagoda, will begin a walk from Grafton, New York, to the site of the World Trade Center to promote awareness of the global climate change. She will arrive on September 11th.

I spent some time with Jun-San in the summer of 1993. With little else to do - no job, no debt, no larger intentions - I showed up with a puppy and a tent, and worked: lifted rocks, cleaned potatoes, chased my puppy out of the moat.

Inspiration for the entire summer came at a Finnish sauna party at the Maine home of a dear friend. When I expressed concern about the enormous amount of time in front of me and my questionable lack of direction, people volunteered their projects. Among them was Debbie Chess, a sculptor commissioned to create the scenes of Buddha's life for the peace pagoda.

There was no grand excitement in those weeks. From Jun-San I learned many things: not to worry when my puppy ran across a freshly raked Zen rock garden; the unspoken secret of truly exceptional - and organic - flower beds; the etiquette of the outdoor Japanese bath; and to love the grace in the lilting cadence of that greeting.

I learned my first vegetarian lesson - to eat whatever a loving person cooks for you - whether it is vegetarian or not. I was not a vegetarian at the time but was concerned that well-meaning Girl Scouts were dropping off pork buns for Jun-San.

I also learned that when the group ran out of money for the scaffolding under which the giant dome of the peace pagoda was to be built, a Japanese structural engineer miraculously showed up and taught volunteers how to cut saplings from the surrounding woods and tie them into a sturdy scaffolding. And so the giant dome continued upwards.

The peace pagoda was in every respect a wonder to me. At 5:00 am volunteers sleeping in the main house walked the grounds with drums, blessing the site, each morning newly scaring me and the puppy into an awed awakening. I'd peek out the side of the tent, praying they wouldn't come over, lift the flap and invite me to join them.

I watched people carve prayers from different languages and traditions into the cement bricks we poured, like teenagers carving their love lives into fresh sidewalks. And from this vagabond group of volunteers reflecting on the passion that had erected the giant stupa, I saw that Buddhists love miracles as much as Christians do.

Jun-San's walk is being supported by many spiritual organizations along the road from Grafton to Lower Manhattan. I heard of this particular walk from some Quakers in Westchester. She will sleep at night in homes as people offer and eat as loving people feed her.

It isn't the longest walk she has taken, but I have learned that her loving-kindness will touch people's hearts and hopefully illuminate the value and art of thoughtful, low-impact living.

Here is Jun-San's most recent schedule:

Millerton 9-2-07
Ten Mile River / Dover Plains 9-3-07
Pawling 9-4-07
Brewster 9-5-07
Yorktown 9-6-07
Peekskill 9-7-07
Ossining 9-8-07
Dobbs Ferry 9-9-07
Fort Lee 9-10-07

Fuzzy Bazillapedes

I wake up from a nap on my meditation cushion in the late afternoon sun of an August day. Head on the cushion, blanket below my shoulders, feet stretched out towards my bed. Yesterday I met my ex-husband to put to sleep the puppy we raised, but today I am still.

The sun filters through the screen door and boat masts clank brightly outside.

I know I was humming a mantra when I fell asleep, but on waking what I recall are the long feathery bugs with a bazillion legs I've seen skimming across the floor when I've turned on a light in the middle of the night. I guess they come out of gaps in the floor boards of this old house, or chinks in the fireplace, close to where my pillow is right now.

May he be safe. May he be happy. May he be peaceful.

I suppose because it's daylight, or because my sadness has given way to exhaustion, I'm relaxed as I wonder if these are centipedes or millipedes or something altogether different. Not long ago I gave to a hospital thrift store stacks of nature guides that belonged to my grandfather. And I wonder if I gave away his guide to insects. I know I held onto books of Eastern Birds, Shells of the Atlantic Coast, Trees, and Night Skies. They keep me good company in this garret studio on the little harbor. But I gave away many that pointed to other places and times.

My grandfather is buried in a quiet town in South Carolina, his body strangely confined in a steel vault that will separate him from the natural world indefinitely. He did not live that way, so it's nice to think that each book might provide a moment in someone's life where they step outside and look at a flower or some local creature in a new way. I remember Georgia O'Keeffe's observation "Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time."

On the first page of each book he wrote his name in elegant, long letters. I like to think of them being scattered like seeds around this little town as people pull them from the shelves and carry them home, tucked under an arm. I wish I'd added my own inscription to each of the books: "This was my grandfather's book. I hope you enjoy it." And maybe dated them. Or maybe added the dates of his life and how he grew up hunting and fishing in the woods of Appalachia, son of a town doctor who died much too early in a car accident. Or how frustrated he was by the hernia that kept him from serving in World War II. And how incomparably gentle he was.

It is said that the karmic balls the Buddha started rolling 2600 years ago are still rolling. So it was a small, happy measure to share these books that mingle my grandfather's karma with that of this little town.

I will probably not mention the fuzzy bazillapedes to my landlady, although she is fascinated by every aspect of this house. It was built by her grandmother, who kept her writing desk in the very spot my computer now sits.