My life as a monk
in Mainland China for five years was punctuated with valuable and life forming lessons almost as if the natural environment worked in deliberate synchronicity with the intellectual understandings.
As a novice I was aware that the room I was assigned was a little more comfortable than the other monks. I was always a little embarrassed about this as I felt I may have been given more special attention for being a Westerner. The room had a ceiling while the other monks slept in rooms with just the bare roof tiles above, often minus a few tiles which made star gazing wonderful but quite challenging during rainy or snowing days. Oh, I also had an old armchair in my room which was an added comfort.
It was Saturday morning and I made a trip to the local village to purchase some sticking tape to place some posters of the Buddha on my bedroom wall. I happily walked back to the temple and immediately began to place the posters on the wall. As I stood back to admire the ‘décor’ of the room the Abbot entered, barely glanced at the posters and gently told me to move to another room. Impermanence has its way of fixing one’s attachments including the posters I had just attached to the wall. As I was moving the only bag I had along with some books, and of course the newly acquired posters, the other monks gathered to help and began laughing and chanting “lao shu, lao shu, lao shu” which in Chinese meant “rat, rat, rat.” Naturally inquisitive to this chanting I asked one of my brothers what was its significance? What had a rat to do with me moving? “This room”, explained the older monk, “has a family of rats.” “Oh! That’s wonderful”, I replied with a sinking feeling in my gut. I had never come close to rats before but that was soon going to change.
My first night in my new room was uneventful. I didn’t even hear any rats scratching during the night. This was to change dramatically on the second night as I heard scratching and gnawing sounds under my bed. I got out of bed and checked under the bed with a torch. I could observe a small pile of nuts in the far corner but no rat. Trying to go back to sleep again I suddenly felt something scamper across my blankets. No way! No way was I about to share my bed with a rat. I got out of bed again switched on the light, moved to bed to one side and removed the cache of nuts throwing them out of the door hoping that would encourage the intruder outside. I switched off the lights, climbed back into bed, took a deep sigh and tried to gather some sleep. Only a thought awoke me. Intruder? Who was the real intruder? I have just intruded on this rat’s space and removed his only food. Anyway I consoled myself by intellectualizing that he or she would be able to fetch more forest nuts.The following day I mentioned my dealings with the rat the night before to my Master. He laughed gleefully. “Well, now you have a friend, feed it!”
Night time came again. I had not heard any scratching sounds so I concluded that my “friend” had moved on. Then in the depth of the night I again felt the rat run across my chest. I bolted upright and switched on the torch. I could see no rat on the blankets or in the space between the bed and the wall. Suddenly I sensed a presence behind my head. As I shined the torch on the bed head, a thin wooden railing just above my head, there was the rat staring straight at me. I don’t know for how long we were both transfixed looking into each other’s eyes but I sensed sadness in my friend at perhaps me throwing out his food from the night before. As I moved to get out of bed the little rat ran out of sight. I went to the small wooden cupboard and took out some peanuts a farmer had given me some days before. I waited on my seat beside the gongzhou , a small room altar upon which I had a statue of the Kuan Yin, the Boddhisattva of Compassion and Mercy. It was 1:30am. I began to nod off to sleep on the seat when my friend appeared on the stone floor in front of me. I placed a handful of nuts in front of him. At first he was perhaps figuring out if he could trust me. I suddenly felt a deep compassion for this little creature who was trying to make his way into my life. In careful movements he made his way forward to nibble on a nut. I spread some more before him. Our friendship was sealed.
Each evening master Laoshu, the rat, would come out from behind the cupboard as I was reading and stand still in the middle of the room looking at me. I would return the gaze with a smile. I would talk to him as a friend, telling him about my day, about the Dharma, about the new peanuts I had been given and we would share a small supper together. Sometimes I would chant mantras to him. This went on for about a week then one night he didn’t appear and I never saw him again. I was saddened that my friend and gone. Had he gone to be with a larger family? Had he been captured by a snake or tree lion? I will never know. However I was deeply grateful for my friend.
Naikan, the mindfulness exercise and meditation of deep introspection, is a practice which brings about a powerful shift of consciousness allowing us to see the gift of life in all things. Naikan is best experienced rather than learned about. In its traditional form it is a seven day intensive meditative introspection of one’s entire life from birth to your present age looking at your life and the people central in your life from three strategic questions:
1. What have I received from this person?
2. What have I given to this person?
3. What problems and difficulties have I caused this person?
They are simple questions yet at the same time not it’s easy to find the answers particularly when the relationships we have had have been challenging. It is not easy to find the gifts in a relationship that has been abusive, hurtful , unkind or despairing. We can often feel affronted by the very thought of finding a ‘gift’. The rat gave me no material gift but gave me the gifts of trust, friendship and learning.
Finding what we have given to others can also be hard. Sometimes we can be harsh judges of ourselves. When we relax more we can find those often small things we have given – our attention, our encouragement, our forgiveness, not to mention material things. I was able to give the rat respect, a safe space, share my food and my thoughts of compassion.
The third question in Naikan is often the most difficult. Yet, in traditional Naikan meditation it is the question we are directed to spend the longest amount of time on. The third question often raises feelings of guilt. However, guilt, is not a helpful feeling. It is self-punishment and external. This is not the purpose of Naikan, a mindfulness exercise. It is designed to elicit an “I’m-not-living-up-to-my –full-potential-loving-self feeling. “ That is different from guilt. That is a feeling of wanting to be and do better.
The third question also helps us to understand that all relationships have inherent within them problems that need to be solved, things that need to be sorted out. My friend the rat showed me the problems and difficulties I had caused him by throwing his food out. I know, I know. Many I have told this story too have come back at me and said: “But what if, more rats had come to eat the food you offered? You could have been overrun with rats!” It is easy to make up the “what if” scenarios based upon fear. We forget that there is often a second option and a third and a forth. Mindfulness is not about elimination; it is about relationship. Mindfulness does not teach us to eliminate our problems rather than to see them for a new and different perspective.
When we detach from our own perceptions about things then we are able to see things differently. When we discover that we have been given to and at the same time have given we see ourselves in a great web of relationship. When we understand we are many times the instigators of problems and difficulties we can then take personal responsibility and grow to our full potential as human beings. When we can see the true gift of life in all things then we have risen above all problems and struggles and become truly awakened to the beauty of life in all its fullness.
And it took a rat to teach me this. And I am grateful to him.
NeuroMindful 