Burning: A Monk with a Heart of Perfect Compassion, and the Call of the Sea

The little homestead is tucked in for autumn and winter. The food gardens have been taken down and all that’s left to be put to sleep is the flower beds. But morning glories and cosmos are still blooming. In a couple of weeks, we’ll finally set the flower beds to rest.

We bought a new Droll Yankee bird feeder, a large, pricey, multi-port metal feeding station. We feed birds through winter every year and the right equipment is worth the investment. We’ve stocked up on black oil sunflower seed and corn for squirrels. Just before Halloween, we’ll hang out the feeder. In a couple of days, the birds find it, and we’re on our way. We’ll feed straight through late spring.

We also bought a squirrel feeder, since the population of squirrels in our area has exploded. There’ll be a food shortage this winter for sure, and many will die. We decided to help them along with some free grub.

We’ve crushed most of our smaller terra cotta pots and added them to the compost pile. There were too many little pots everywhere this summer. It was decided that a few large pots of needed plants are better than a cacophony of small ones. Simplifying.

My husband and I have already been talking about next year’s food gardens. We’re thinking of scaling down. This has little to do with the horrible growing season we just had. We plan to spend more time on the boat, sleeping on it on our days off. We’ve always enjoyed boating, but in recent years, together we’ve fallen deeply in love with the sea. We love boat people. They’re unique and a little quirky, and very kind and friendly. Boat people form a family. It’s very cool.

We love traveling to other places by water. Block Island has become a second home. But next summer, I’d like to boat to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket more than once – both would be overnight trips on the boat. The smell of salt spray, the rhythm of the ocean, the beautiful marine life. The sea is calling us, yes it is.

By no means are we giving up gardening, no. Next summer, if we’re all alive, we’ll be tending tomato plants, cucumber vines, billowing squash plants, towers of green beans, and melon patches. We’re just going to be tending fewer of them. Steeping back for a season and see how it feels. Here we are in October, hunkering down for winter, and all we’re talking about is next summer and being on the water. What you talk about, that’s what’s on your mind. You follow where the heart leads and go where the joy is to be found.

I’ve been reading the short stories of science fiction author Ted Chiang and loving them. Science fiction is not my genre of choice. I went through a spate of science fiction authors in college, but that was it. Somehow, I recently found Chiang, and from the first story I read - called ‘Understand’ - I’ve been devouring his writing. I love when writing is this good. The story could be about anything – aliens and hauntings and invented creeds – but if the language is beautifully crafted, you’ve got me.

And I’ve been meditating on compassion. There are many esteemed forms of meditation, and many that I’ve practiced. For me, compassion meditation keeps coming back and coming back. The word is in my mind all day; and in each moment, I ask how I can personify the greatest compassion. It’s an eternal meditation.

I’ve also been meditating on Venerable Thích Quång Dŭc, known as The Burning Monk, who, in June 1963 in an act of protest against the Catholic South Vietnamese government that was killing Buddhist monks and nuns and eradicating Buddhism in the country, martyred himself in fire before hundreds of witnesses in Saigon. You’ve probably seen the photo, or even the grainy film a journalist caught of the burning.

This Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk, in one supreme act of self-sacrifice, brought the world’s attention to the bloody regime of the Diêm government, forced international pressure on Diêm, and ultimately led to a U.S.-backed coup that dethroned Diêm, who was assassinated just five months after Thích Quång Dŭc’s sacrifice, in November 1963.

Today, nearly 70 percent of Vietnam’s population practices Buddhism openly and with no meddling from its government. Thích Quång Dŭc sat in Lotus position, was doused with gasoline, and struck a match. And with that, he freed millions from the tyranny of Catholicism as it was enforced under a cruel dictator. This is the soul of compassion. It’s the perfection of wisdom and loving kindness. It’s the embodiment of the Heart Sutra.

On the night of Thích Quång Dŭc’s death, thousands reported seeing the Buddha’s face, crying, in the Vietnam sky. Gate, gate; paragate; parasamgate. Bodhi, svaha. Gone, gone; gone beyond; altogether beyond. Awakened, and so be it.

Barbie xo