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Dear friends,
Magda shares the Dharma topic while facilitating at our online sangha Monday evening:
Traveling on an airplane over India, Thich Nhat Hanh became quite emotional as he envisioned the Buddha’s long pilgrimage that started in Lumbini. He vowed to continue the Buddha’s path by bringing “peace in every step”. In At Home In The World, Thay explains that whenever we walk in meditation, we generate a powerful collective energy of compassion, forgiveness, and peace. Those who walk in peace and freedom get connected right away. We do not walk alone since our ancestors are always with us.
In his phrase “A lotus for you, a Buddha to be,” Thay demonstrates the capacity for Buddha-hood he perceives in those he meets. He believes in the miraculous transformative potential of those encounters. He asks us to practice mindfulness during these meetings so that wholesome seeds may be cultivated in us. Thay’s message reminds me of Karen Armstrong’s definition of a spiritual experience. The comparative religion expert explains that an experience is spiritual if it transforms us. Transformative encounters also make me think of the Celtic meaning attributed to life’s meetings. In our meetings at the crossroads of our journeys, a multitude of opportunities for learning and human connections arise.
Like Thay, I find a lot of meaning in walking meditation. Based on the definitions above, I consider several of my encounters to be transformative, miraculous and spiritual. I find it fascinating to envision all of the conditions that have made our manifestations — and our meetings at a specific point in time and space — possible. I also feel that, as we meet, all of our ancestors join us.
A walking practice I love is labyrinths. I typically end the year by walking one. As I walk toward the center, I think of the past year. And before I proceed to walk outwards, I sit at the center for a long time. This exercise reminds me of the labyrinth concept according to Jorge Luis Borges. He presents the labyrinth as a metaphysical journey that, not only expands outwards, but also regresses inwardly to our origin, our center. The concept of the metaphysical center reminds me of when Thay was asked by a journalist if he was from Vietnam’s Communist north or the Catholic south. He answered: “I come from the center”. The center, Thay explains, is where the non-categorical truth lies. Similarly, in many of my journeys, I feel I am heading toward my center, my true home, the most genuine version of myself. And many of those I meet, I feel I bring home with me.
Thay has had mindful encounters with people all over the world like, for example, with a young French soldier who felt homesick while serving in Vietnam. The soldier was attracted by the silence he found in Bar Quoc Temple, a sanctuary for Thay. When the young man first tried to speak with him, Thay imagined that he just wanted to make fun of him like so many other soldiers had. But instead, in that encounter, they coincided in their need for their true home.
Like Thay, I have had my share of mindful encounters in my journeys. Here I would like to describe those I have had with Quakers, an Indigenous woman, a Kenyan woman, a German woman, the deceased Polish mother of my friend, and a Polish young woman.
In my pilgrimage through the north of Spain I made a connection with an American Quaker pilgrim, Milani. While I had learned about the Quakers’ impressive non-violent social justice record, I had never met one before. Milani and I talked for hours as we walked through Galicia. We have remained connected through the years. She was recently interested in the Healing Through Mindfulness event our sangha conducted with Community Family Life Services to support victims of domestic violence.
Thanks to the interest that Milani helped spark in me, combined with my love for New Mexico, I started following what Quakers there were doing to help farmers and poor children during the pandemic. One thing led to another, and I soon joined their virtual contemplative book group. Recently, a member of the group helped me explore the purpose of my involvement in socially engaged mindfulness through our sangha’s working group. She said: “Why do we serve? We serve to serve, for service.” A male participant added: “For God.” I wanted to answer, “ While I do not believe in your Christian version of the divine, it is in fact in service where I see a manifestation — albeit pagan — of the divine.” So in a way we all coincided in our belief that the divine is the reason we choose to serve. Their simple statements carried a lot of meaning for me. They helped me stop craving for an immediate result or for having others join me in my own mindful engagement. Paradoxically, Quakers reminded me of the Buddhist teaching on “letting go of the cows”.
Another powerful encounter I had in New Mexico was with an indigenous woman. The meaning of this meeting had most to do with our condition as daughters. We met on a day I was feeling sad, realizing that my elderly mother would never visit New Mexico with me again. I was looking for a pair of turquoise earrings to give her, but aware of the exploitation of Indigenous people, I decided to buy only from the natives. That decision led me to meet Genevieve. I loved her direct way of speaking and the sense of dignity with which she conducts herself, like she really knows where she comes from. I noticed no complex of inferiority or superiority, no illusion of separateness in her. I have bought a number of pieces of jewelry from her ever since, mostly through correspondence. Genevieve always sends me free jewelry during any of our exchanges. I don’t dare return whatever she sends as I know that it comes from the heart.
About one year ago, Genevieve and I met again during Covid times. After I described what I had gone through taking care of my ailing mother, she suddenly started adding jewelry pieces that I had not paid for. Crying, she said: “You are making me miss my mother. She recently died.” When she met my son, for whom I had asked her to create a necklace, she hugged him. When I meet her daughters I know I will do the same.
A very special meeting I had in Kenya was with Beatrice at Ubuntu, an organization which supports women who have been estranged from their husbands and banished from their tribal communities for giving birth to disabled children. This young woman’s demeanor impressed me as professional, dignified, self-confident and independent. Our guide shared that not too long ago she was starting to learn English and lacked the self-confidence needed to engage with visitors. Her steadfast growth has naturally turned her into Ubuntu’s spokesperson! When I told Beatrice that I have worked with special needs children throughout my life, she smiled with natural enthusiasm and hugged me. I felt an instant human connection with this beautiful lady, so deserving of admiration and respect. She helped me select two bracelets, one of which is black and white with the word “love” in it. We have developed a relationship of mutual support. We both are mothers, women, human. Suffering, the deepest and humblest transformation agent, bonds us.
Another encounter that developed into a friendship was at Sainte-Foy-La-Grande, the train station near Plum Village where I met Anita, a German lady. Before we met in person we had exchanged details about how to identify each other when we met. She explained that she would be wearing a violet blouse. The first thing I said when we met was “Your blouse is blue!” to which she answered emphatically, “No, it is violet!” We both started laughing at the absurdity of our different color interpretations! Our friendship launched in the universal language of laughter, in a place of pilgrimage I hold sacred, where I feel I have met the cream of the crop, which she definitely is. When we speak from the heart we both step out of our linguistic and cultural comfort zones to meet at the center. She is a beautiful being in my life who shines in and out whenever we meet. Through serendipity, my son now lives in Germany. Last summer Anita and I met during two very special occasions. At her home, eating a delicious vegan meal she prepared for me, and drinking a warm cup of tea, I felt that I was at home, that I had arrived.
The closest I have felt to the mother of a friend, even though we have never met in person, was when I visited Poland. I had gone as an envoy for my friend who had never visited her deceased mother’s homeland. I tried to open my own boundaries as much as it was humanly possible across generations, religion, nationality, ethnicity, language and culture to experience the life her mother had lived in Poland before she emigrated to the United States. That was the closest I ever felt to transmutation. I got my friend a hand-made tea set which we always drink from when I visit her home, one of my homes.
I recently visited Poland again, her mother’s hometown this time. My friend asked me to bring her a stone. In a Polish hand-made vase I brought her soil, pebbles, pinecones, bird feathers and wild flowers. I also taught her how to pronounce the name of the town, Jasło, in Polish ł. We met the year my Venezuelan grandmother and her Polish mother died. Our friendship grew as we comforted each other through our most difficult losses. We say that they met in heaven and plotted for us to meet. When we drink tea from the Polish tea pot, next to her mother’s hometown humus, I sense my grandmother and her mother joining us in a joyful eclectic meeting.
It was also recently in Poland on a train to Austria where I had an encounter with Elizabeth, a Polish woman whose patience and loving kindness toward her toddler daughter moved me. From the moment we saw each other across the aisle, we exchanged smiles — another universal language —— until we finally started speaking in English. When she found out my name she exclaimed with excitement: “Magda! That is such a common name in Poland!” I nodded: “I know!” After I noticed that she was asking other passengers for something in Polish, I offered her help. She said with enthusiasm: “No Polish people have cared to answer my request, except for you. Where are you from?” I answered: “I come from Puerto Rico, the land of ‘Despacito’. Do you know the song?” “Of course,” she responded joyfully. At the end of the journey, while I tried to help her as much as possible, it was she who helped me the most. With her daughter on her back she helped me carry my two bags out of the train. I was afraid she would drop her toddler between the tracks. When it was time to depart, we stood in front of each other on the Viennese platform as if we had known each other for much more than the last three hours. In full mindfulness, like there was no one else in the world, we both said simultaneously, “Thank you, Magda; Thank you Elizabeth.”
In the labyrinth of my journeys, I consider my multiple mindful meetings to be of a miraculous nature for they have transformed and grounded me. They have made me more humble and have expanded my notions of interbeing. I feel that, with these humble-at-heart people, I have arrived. We are at home at the metaphysical center, among all our ancestors. As I resume my journeys, I vow to follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s legacy of cultivating peace in every step.
For dharma sharing, you may consider exploring the following questions:
1) Now that Thay has passed, how do you see yourself continuing his legacy of cultivating peace?
2) Describe meetings that have had a miraculous power of transformation in your life.
3) Describe experiences that have taken you back to your true home.