“We don’t teach meditation to the young monks. They are not ready until they stop slamming doors.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton in 1966.

Fr. AMA Samy opened the doors of Little flower Zendo on 21 Dec 2022 and I entered the Zendo for the first sesshin in Jan 2023, thanks to my boss Robert Meier.  Due to some urgent tasks at work, I was about to cancel my trip to Perumalmalai; Robert very compassionately told me he will cover for me and not to miss my meditation sesshin.

   Ever since, I have come to Zendo, almost every month. Some months I stayed for 8- 9 days and some months almost 15 days.  Robert had only one condition. Work should not suffer.  And Fr. AMA too was very particular about me attending all meditation sessions and being on time for it.  He is a stickler for punctuality.  Often, he will enter the zendo a few minutes before the session starts, and the Zendo doors will get closed.

Mainly we have two important Zazen sittings. 530 am to 7 am and 530 pm to 6:30pm. Morning was easy.  But sometimes, evening time was kind of touch and go.  Often, the tcon meetings used to end at 530pm or just a few minutes later, and I found myself facing a closed door of the Zendo. I tried to open the door and sneak in without making any noise and tried to tiptoe to my meditation seat.  And I used to be quite happy to have made it many a times, without getting noticed. Except for once or twice, when the door did make that creaking noise to my bewilderment, I did make it like thin air and tiptoed to my meditation seat. After a few such forays into Zendo, once during teatime, AMA gave me a dressing down for being late to meditation sessions.  I did try to apologize and bring to his attention my work pressures. 

Later during that day’s Teisho, he shared with us what Thomas Merton had written about Thich Nhat Hanh. Fr. Ama also  said he happened to remember that, due to Vishy’s  struggles with the doors of the Zendo.

Thomas Merton is a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky.  Fr. AMA said, Merton is a very good writer in spirituality and a must read.  After that I did download his book on Chuang Tzu. One of the books in Q to be read .:( Merton is said to have written about Thay that that he could tell Thich Nhat Hanh was an authentic monk by the way he opened and closed doors. Merton observed that Thich Nhat Hanh closed doors quietly and with full attention, which was a result of his monastic training. 

To quote form Thay’s article on Plum village “ Memories from the Root Temple: Closing the Doors”.

Thay as a novice monk 16 years old.  ( Photo courtesy: Plum Village website.)

“One day, when I was a novice monk, my teacher asked me to do something for him. I was very excited to do it for him, because I loved my teacher very much. So I rushed out to do it. But because I was so excited, I wasn’t mindful enough, and I slammed the door on my way out. My teacher called me back and said: “My child. Please go out and close the door again. But this time, do better than you did before.” Hearing his words, I knew that my practice had been lacking. So I bowed to my teacher and walked to the door with all of my being, every step with mindfulness. I went out and, very mindfully, closed the door after me. My teacher did not have to tell me a second time. Now every time I open and close a door, I do so with mindfulness, remembering my teacher.

Many years later I was in Kentucky with Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, and I told him that story. He said: “Well, I noticed that without you telling me; I have seen the way you close the door.” A month after I left his monastery in Kentucky, he gave a talk to his students and told them the story of me closing the door.

One day, many years later, a Catholic woman from Germany came on retreat to our Plum Village practice center in France. On her last day, she told us that she had come only out of curiosity. She had listened to a recording of Thomas Merton’s talk, and she had come to see how I closed the door.”

[This story is an excerpt from At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk’s Life by Thich Nhat Hanh, published in 2016. ]

As I was reflecting on my two years of stay at Little Flower Zendo, what came to my mind was the doors of my heart, I had slammed on the face a few people. They are not many in numbers, not that a few as well.  Some dear and near, some friends, some neighbors, some Bosses, some organizations, some people known to me not in person but through news.. the list goes on.  While I don’t have any compunction about the ones not known to me personally, others I wonder whether I could have closed the doors of my heart with some compassion, quite slowly and with awareness, instead of slamming it on their face.

One of the things I have learnt from AMA over the last two years is: Self-realization has no meaning without compassion.  The key step to self-realization is being compassionate. I can tell you that he lives that to the dot in ‘i’ and cross in ‘t’.  Ama speaks about the people who have let down him, with compassion and care.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a model for understanding our motivation and behavior.   Physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization.   By Self-actualization Maslow means that one realizing one’s full potential.  I interpret is realizing oneself or finding answer to one’s spiritual quest.   Maslow also states that we cannot reach the top of the pyramid unless we take care of the bottom layers.  He also seems to have stated that Humans can truly thrive only after meeting all five needs.  I am not sure about it.  Many of those who take a dive to the spiritual void, need not necessarily do that after ensuring safety needs etc.  It need not be hierarchical. How does one explain someone like Ramana getting his enlightenment at such a young age.

Another point of contention for me is though he does mention about love and belonging, he does miss out about Compassion.  Many may argue that love does include being compassionate. But I feel it is not the same thing.  Love and belonging is focused on the need of the self and does include a range of emotions such as affection and intimacy etc.  But compassion is all about alleviating another’s suffering. Without any doubt, love is indeed a positive emotion towards another person or sentient being.  But compassion, empathy with a desire to alleviate suffering and other’s pain is in higher plane altogether.

Unlike other spiritual paths, Zen practice starts with the realization that eternal self in all sentient beings.  Zen in practice is a great attempt to realize the truth itself without letting the hypothesis created by words, images, language and symbols , be the wall between the knower and the known. Unity of all living things means we each one of us are more than our own being. We are all connected in eternal self, though phenomenally we all have taken different forms. This formless selflessness is root of compassion. It is like we all part of spheres of infinite diameter, with each one of as centers.

In his phenomenal world, for each one of us, without any doubt, our most valuable and sacred possession is ourselves.  And when that sacred self includes everyone else, why would we slam the doors of our heart on ourselves.  Even if we do that once in a while, can’t we do that gently with care and compassion.  And even better, we could open those slammed doors in our heart, one by one.

 May be who knows, the ones  i have closed the doors on, may be right there on other side of the door, with their smiling hearts…

May be then i am really ready for ZaZen, Shikantaza, Kinhin, Samu, Dokusan, Teisho and life.