Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998April 9 thA calm spring day with Sandra, Perrin, their sweet pooch Puñña and JosephKappel joining us for breakfast. A major exposition on microwave aerials for carphonesgrabs our minds.T’other side of Concord, Joseph takes us for a walk around a local pond, throughthe woods and then around to his home to view Fractal Geometry: the colors of infinity,complete with classic Pink Floyd background music and Arthur C. Clarke asnarrator. Deep, deeper, deeper the patterns of the universe unfold from z = z 2 + Cand refuse to bottom out – in these guys there is the zeal of the kids who foundthe treasure. Unfolding, spiraling, rippling, multiplying in an infinity of naturalforms – we are closing in on the geometry of consciousness. Mind, matter, selfand nature all intermingle in the inexhaustible quadrilles of the Mandelbrot Set.Tales of Gödel, Feigenbaum and Hofstadter dazzle Joseph as we return, Russelland Whitehead, systems theory and the self-reflective essence of Nature’s heart –Dhamma aware of itself is the consummation of our being.As if the journeys to infinity were not enough, the afternoon finds us atthe Omni-dome going up Everest with the Imax crew of Krakauer/Hall/Fisher/Breashears infamy. The film is on in Boston and in, or under, we go. Having seenthe book and the National Geographic piece had no effect on the enormity of theimpact. Revisiting those brave, tragic, poignant episodes – seeing the people inaction there – brought the same mixed feelings again. How grand and compassionatethe human heart can be, and how blind, drunk and obsessed it can be too. Thisteam made it – its leader (David Ventours) without oxygen – perhaps they closedthe circle for the others. Perhaps, and I suspect it’s so, the wounds of family andfriends and those whose bodies froze to the mountain, will ache and suppurate forlong years to come. Without Dhamma as a healing agent, by whatever name weknow it, ragged gashes will get ripped open in the same places again and again.Farewells to Sandra, Perrin and Puñña and off to IMS with Taraniya. Rainagain in the dark. Silence and settling in.April 10 th – 12 thEarly morning finds Taraniya driving Tan Punna and I to St. Joseph’s Abbeyin Spencer, about half an hour from IMS. Father Kevin Hunt, also involved in theChristian/Buddhist event in the Bay Area next year, appears to greet us and showus around. Quite by chance we bump into the vivacious Carol, who had been onthe BCBS weekend and who has been a devotee of this Monastery for 30 years.The Monastery buildings were erected virtually all at the same time, 1951–53,and are built completely out of round, flat fieldstone. “Oh how poor, how wonderful,how poor,” said their abbot-general in Rome, hearing that the place was builtfrom rocks they had gathered; apparently he nearly had a fit when he actually sawthe finished article – it’s a very smart outfit.Corridor after corridor, chamber after chamber, cloister after cloister we aretaken around – here a Madonna, there a St. Anne done by the Master of Sienna, a40