Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Part VHinsdale – Troy – Amaravati – Sutton Valence – Chithurst– San FranciscoJune 13 thThe winding up of the retreat begins – as usual with firm encouragements on therestraint of bhava, and the multiplication of goodwill – they are given the task ofa poetry assignment but, when the moment comes that evening only half a dozenof the folks have actually put pen to paper. The sharing is beautiful and warmnonetheless.It turns out there was no need to raise the noble silence that evening – the group(by some kind of mass presumption) all started talking anyway. It also turned outthat there had been considerable chatting going on during the retreat as well ascookies and other snacks put out in the evening. The whole affair had much moreof a loose feel to it than usual retreats; whether to make anything of it and put thefoot down for other years or to just allow the regime to vary, remains to be seen.No promises were made about the future.The Sunday morning flew by with a final blessing and tying of strings. I wasinvited to give the Monastery’s usual weekly public talk, on rebirth, and thenLuang Por Paññānanda gave a talk in Thai. Amongst the many people who showedup were the Thai consul and his wife; they said a hello and joined us all for themeal after. The latter was the usual crowded and colorful event with many of theregulars whom we had not seen during the week appearing as well.We said our goodbyes by 1:30 and I headed off with John Cianciosi to visit abookshop and go for a little stroll. By this time the weather had turned hot and thesun cooked us as we crossed roads and parking lots. He seems well and at ease inhis new life but, as yet, far from finding his way – he has a few part-time jobs atpresent (driving, store work and teaching a class or two at the local college) buthas no eye on a full-time occupation as yet. After 25 years in the Monastery it isstill early days to be making major investments of time and money into a trainingprogram. He is still reconvening and reassembling his world and will probablytread water like this for a year or two to come.Many wildflowers were out – as were a host of mountain-bikers – and weenjoyed the cool greens and summer scents on the shady trail through the woodsnear the Argonne Laboratories. We had to turn around quite soon, to make our rendezvouswith the others at the Monastery, but the brief spell in the magic of treeswas enough at least to refresh the heart.Back at BDMC we met with Richard, Sulipon and Maria, piled into his van andheaded off towards Michigan. Since I had always flown this stretch in the past Ihad been looking forward to seeing some of the local, midwestern countryside – Ieven entertained a foolish idea that, since we would be driving around the south-91