Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts Faith Adíele Synopsis "TTungry Ghosts" is a chapter from StandingAlone:The ForestJournal ofa A J. Black Buddhist Nun, a memoir about sexual and spiritual tourism in Southeast Asia that is buüt around ajournai I kept whüe ordained as the first black Buddhist nun of northern Thaüand. Whüe researching how nuns are marginalized in the Buddhist church, I decided to take a sabbatical and live as a nun for a temporary period. At the age oftwenty-two, I became the first black and the onlyWesterner to ordain at Wat Thamtong. I shaved my head, donned white robes, and took vows that included prohibitions against killing living creatures and having any contact with men. The other inhabitants and I rose at 3:30 a.m., ate a single daily meal, forsook money and shoes, and spent nineteen hours a day in some form of spiritual practice. I was not aUowed to receive letters or visitors , and could break my silence only during dafly lessons with the head nun. My first day I was able to sit in meditation for only fifteen minutes; eventuaUy I worked up to seventy-two hours at a stretch. The book is divided into two narratives that are presented side-by-side and can be foUowed separately or read across the page for inter-textual reference . The right-hand column recreates my daily journals, aUowing the reader to chart my progress (and lapses). The left-hand column is a presentday memoir that comments on the journal, supplements experiences that aren't covered in the journal, and attempts to process the experience. An amended version of a part of this work recently appeared Transition: An International Journal, no. 81/82 (Spring 2000). Several of the journal entries appeared in Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women, ed. Patricia Bell-Scott (NewYork, WW. Norton, 1993) and were subsequently excerpted in Ms., vol. IV, no. 4 (January/February 1994). 55 Realization of the desires that govern action aUows these desires to cycle and cease; either ignoring or judging desires leads to action without consciousness, which is subject to kilesa (defilements, impurities, passions). —Nyanaponika, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation During the Hot Season the mountains are dry and the monks wear bright orange robes. In the middle of the night I awake to the crackle of activity: bare-shouldered monks in only their under-robes on our side of the stream, darting past my window, disappearing into the forest. The dogs tense and bristling. Dancing circles of light from flashlights on the dark pathways. The suggestion of women's voices, high and rapid. Flashes of white. Pranee, the seventeen-year-old, stands high on the mountain face, beating the earth with a broom. Her guti, meditation hut, is on fire. During the Hot Season the dry underbrush surrounding our side of the temple frequently bursts into flame, the unfortunate side effect of the slash-and-burn farming techniques the local viUagers use in the deep forest. For some reason, the temple was built at the forest entrance, forever binding its fate to that of the village. Men who live dominated by anger, hate, and violence will be punished in the hells. Those dominated by concern for food and sex will undergo punishment in animal forms, and those dominated by greed will suffer as hungry ghosts in the purgatories. —Stanley Tamblah World Conqueror and World Renouncer Day 2: The Meal The walk to the meal today is marvelous—cool, our feet firm and soundless as we move along the pathway. Blind to all but the spot on the path six feet in front of me, I can feel the beauty around me. Far below, streams slice the vegetationtangled greenery ranging from fragile celadon to black pine, from iced orchid to glossy crimson. Long bugs skimming over the water. Suddenly we run Into sunshine on the path, the sun still low in the hills. The path glows red-gold and warms our feet Today I take even less food, barely covering the bottom of the bowl. Once I taste how delicious it is, I regret my restraint, but by the time I have mindfully chewed every...