Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998plugging in with various meetings and plans over the coming months – either as Ipass through England or via long-distance communication.After the meal Anagarikā Joanne came and said hello and, in the fifteen-minuteinterlude that she made in her stint at the washing-up, she gave me an update onher spiritual life. She has been an anagarikā for nigh on three years now but, thankfully,has given up torturing herself to DECIDE – should she go or stay? Owing toa crucial conversation with me when she was still a lay-woman, she has made apoint of checking in whenever I am passing through. As with most of the monasticcommunity, it is revealing and remarkable the changes that we all go through– and how visible when there are months or years between contacts. She is a greatbeing and, once she has clearly opened up the Path before her, there will be littlecapable of stopping her from reaching the goal.I retreated once more to the forest for the day’s abiding and resurfaced to havetea with Ajahn Sucitto and Ajahn Attapemo. Again, we spent most of the time onthe Temple Opening questions and, in particular, the publications that are in theoffing for the event.The evening brought the official closing of the ordination session and a grandsharing of the remaining folks who had been gathered for the events. It was alsothe first anniversary of our dear old friend Alina’s death – I had just spotted herburial plot out to the east of the Ajahn Chah Stupa only a day or two before.The evening was a slow-paced session – many long silences – but it pickedup energy as the night wore on and people’s nervousness diminished. It can takea while for the efforts of burrowing into the heart to reach the buried gold and tofeel safe enough that, when brought to the surface, raiders and raucous ones willnot grab your treasure and run with it, or scorn it. Many lovely words, goldenwords, eventually came to light and we carried them out into the ghost-still night,bearing them in circumambulation around the Stupa. Afterwards we even camein for chai and chat before retiring – a move that the old Ajahn Sucitto would havedismissed with furrowed curtness: “What do we need tea for? We’re all just goingto sleep...”July 2 ndIt was 2:30 a.m. after chatting, packing and cleaning up and our departure timewas to be 5:30 so, after a blink of sleep we took to the road: Edward Lewis,Ajahn Attapemo, Stuart (the driver) and I. Vigorous chats on the way cut thejourney down to a flash. Once at the airport Stuart drove off, Ajahn Attapemo methis lift and Edward and I parted in search of our separate planes – both headed forSan Francisco but by different routes.In lounges and on the plane I work my way through the tragedies, farces andjoys of A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry’s poignant tale of life in Indira Ghandi’sIndia, finishing the epilogue a half hour before touching down in the thick fogof San Francisco’s summer. Along the way we were treated to Sliding Doors, anintriguing romance running on two possible story-lines simultaneously, and104