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Rites of the People
Jun. 18th, 2016 07:39 amMay featured two interesting events on strangely divergent ends of the spiritual spectrum.
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The first was Vesak, which is the biggest holiday in the Buddhist calendar. Traditionally, the May full moon marks the date of the Buddha’s birth, the date of his enlightenment, and the date of the passing of his physical body.
For whatever reason, the American Buddhist groups I’ve associated with have never bothered to observe this occasion. However, the active Sri Lankan expatriate group here in Pittsburgh has organized an annual observance in accordance with their customs, and invited other local groups to contribute in their own ways.
So on the 15th of May I made my way down to the community park by the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum to join about a hundred others in my first observance of Vesak. Ironically, the downtown streets had been blocked off, so I had to hop off the bus and walk an extra half mile to get there. The reason: a big procession of Christians carrying idols and chanting the Lord’s Prayer. Very strange synchronicity.
One thing I have to say about Buddhists: their celebrations really suck. The observances included chanting, recitations from the dhamma, and a dhamma talk: all very stolid, head-y stuff. The most demonstrative display was by some beautifully elegant traditional dancers, who did an excellent job, though they too were pretty sedate.
When the talking was over, there was a procession down to the banks of the Allegheny for a peace ceremony that featured releasing rose petals and water into the river, to disperse throughout the world.
For me, the observance and opportunity for reflection were nice, but almost comically staid. Still, it was heartwarming to be able to participate in such an important community event, having had been offered no such observances by my American Buddhist communities.
A week later, at Inna’s prompting, I found myself driving into the remotest parts of the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts to attend a huge week-long pagan festival: the Rites of Spring.
I approached Rites with a twofold purpose. On one hand, nature—wood, wind, rock, and sun, and especially the solar holidays—are an important part of my spirituality. But I’ve always preferred to honor those in silence and solitude; so Rites was something of a test to see whether there is any room in my veneration of nature for community. And failing that, my fallback plan was to simply go my own way and treat it as my own five-day woodland meditation retreat.
In the end, I wound up balancing involvement with the community with solitary reflection and a good helping of meditation. I observed a few of the big community rituals, but felt more turned off by the people than spiritually moved. Inna and I did bring our drums to one of the fire circles, and that was fun. I summed up my feelings at one point: “Nature is majestic and mysterious and magical enough without all the dumb human inventions like magical energies and mythical beings and healing crystals and blah blah crap.”
My community experience was saved by a dear old friend who had coordinated the Sandwich Retreats back at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. Whispering Deer is an amazingly wise and lovable woman who shares the Buddhist teachings with a different audience at Rites, albeit translating it into their vernacular. Her series of workshops meditating on the four Brahmaviharas and mindfulness of the body gave me something familiar, trusted, and interesting to work with. It was really cool seeing Whispering Deer teaching the dhamma on her own, and I was delighted that Inna chose to join me in attending.
Of course, I also found time for about seven hours of solitary meditation practice, usually on a granite rock or dock on the shore of the pond. I spent those hours enjoying the opportunity to observe and integrate with the sun, woods, and lake around me, and contemplating why the veneration of nature is something I find so difficult to share with others.
But another important aspect of the trip was the opportunity to connect more deeply with my partner. The trip took Inna and I out of our daily routine, and we had a couple long, quiet conversations that brought us closer together. And that was way more valuable to me than all the silly neo-pagan hoopla.
