Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998blessings, to invoke all the auspicious forces to support and gladden the day. Thenthe rice-pindabaht (oh how the faces are growing older!) dear friends over theyawning years, snowy hairs and sagging jowls multiply, infants grow full-breastedand fathom-long; Noy and cousin Sisalai offer the meal.With the early afternoon the ceremony begins and rain threatens; prayers tolocal nāgas (the dragon gods and administers of the weather) are rapidly voiced,the ordinations being out-of-doors in the garden of Chithurst House; Nipako andKalyano, the two noble candidates, make the leap; Mother Bee is here to see hersecond son go forth; tears and joy; the rain remains restrained; long chat with NickScott, old tudong companion, in the office; eventually replaced by Sister Jitindriyāand Ajahn Candasirī; we wind up at 9:00 as the wind winds down; back to theforest again: it was all a dream.A still evening at the Ānanda Kutī, the weir roars ever on.June 29 thA long chat unfolds with Sister Mettā after breakfast, followed by the good Maureen,whose mother and sister I had just met in Ann Arbor. Beautiful women, pure in theaspiration, dear to the heart – before we know it the bell for the meal is ringing. Postprandum I beat a retreat to the woods (too many words!) and an afternoon of rest,reading and writing – plus a moment or two of undistracted non-meditation.I came in at 5:00 for an appointment to receive offerings from the new bhikkhusbut they had spaced out in conversation with Luang Por (fair enough) so Ihad some tea and brie with Ajahn Tiradhammo (his birthday), Ajahn Munindo,(these two were abbots of the monasteries in Switzerland and Northumberlandrespectively), Ajahn Attapemo, Ajahn Samvaro and Ajahn Akiñcano and thengot word that Edward Lewis from Tiburon had just arrived. Finding him in thekitchen, I was also met by Robert Montague-Scott, so we repaired to the receptionroom and talked of Abhayagiri, Edward’s Paris, etc. etc., until the bell for theevening sitting rang.Time seemed to have contracted (and was warping through Ajahn Sucitto’schanting) and the meditation of an hour seemed extraordinarily long. So manywords – the hours so densely packed – they had seemingly shortened the perceptuallimit by at least 50%. It was good to be part of the stillness once again.After the sitting Ajahn Sucitto invited me over to his kutī at the granary andwe shared tea and conversation on poetry, and Sangha life, ‘til well past 11:00 –we could probably have gone on for much of the night if we had chosen to but thepromise of an eight-hour meeting the next day sent us bedward through the rain. Itwas bucketing by this time and, quite by chance, I found myself settling for a nightin the house rather than the trek back to the forest – albeit only a ten-minute one.Some worldly refuges are highly attractive at times.June 30 thThe whole day seemed to be swallowed by the Elders’ Council meeting, althoughthere were many little addenda to this also. The meeting spoke of a host of small102