Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998music bashes. As it transpired I gave the two of them a lesson on how to handleparents who are in another world – comparing them (the kids) to how they were inthe 1950s in Thailand – and tried to encourage mama to be more tolerant of fashionand eccentricity. I pointed out that my mother reacted to my becoming a bhikkhuin the same way that she reacts to Tania’s boyfriend and weekend activities.In point of fact these young people are bright, lively and creative and – ifMr. and Mrs. persist in browbeating them – they will split at the first opportunityand never be seen again. Tania was vociferously delighted to be going off toSwarthmore in the late summer, giving her mother as clear a signal as possible ofher feeling of imprisonment. Derek was very quiet but you could see he was veryself-possessed also.June 18 thThe heat and moisture of the Detroit summer draws familiar fragrances fromRichard’s wild garden – its overhanging hedges and unpruned trees, squirrelsdancing along their boughs in search of sycamore seeds to gorge on, and unnamedscents bring back childhood years at Farthing Green in Kent and the poignancyof a departed youth. As the mind strides through the final chapters of the Story ofthe Stone (also known as The Dream of Red Mansions) – a classical Chinese spiritualromance on a par with The Pilgrim Kāmanīta – towards the hero Bao-yu’s departureinto monastic life amidst the wreckage of the Jia family, the aura of lost summersand the pains of adolescent life mingle and merge with the sounds of chickadeesand buntings and the bright flash of cardinals. Woodchucks and ground squirrels,hunting cats and hidden rodents wander freely through the nooks and crannies ofthe garden. Standing on their haunches, nibbling on buds of lower branches, thelocal fauna spends a life of ease.In the distance lawn mowers hum amid the murmur of Motown’s passing cars.All is well.•Once again the hours were passed in Richard’s basement poring over the drawingboard, consuming cups of tea and finding the balances between form and space,line and limit; by the evening (at 6:00) all was done and the pen could finally belaid down. The evening Dhamma session was another crowded one (it has beenabout 40 people per night) and centered around the subject of Winning – it was acoincidence that that very day 1,000,000 people turned out for the victory paradeof the Detroit Red Wings, the local ice-hockey team that had just won the StanleyCup for the second year running.The talk addressed the pure gratification that comes with winning, the abundantjoy and sense of power, as well as the quiet arrival of fear of failure that comeswith the package. We don’t realize that when we relish the peaks of delight we areusually setting ourselves up for trouble. One of our monks, who had twice been theEastern States wrestling champion, once said: “The happiness of being the winner94