Blue Cliff Monastery

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

It was as if nearly four years hadn't passed. I went up to Blue Cliff this past weekend. Didn't jump off of it, either. Three of the monks I knew from Deer Park were there; two of them I was particularly close to, and the third also recognized me right away.

I was actually worried about going, even on the drive up. I hit a lot of traffic and then ran into a thundering hailstorm that reduced visibility to a few feet and slowed traffic to a crawl, and my first reaction was this was a sure sign for me to turn around and head back.

But then I realized, no, this was about right. There always has to be at least a symbolic ordeal on any journey, and I figured once I got to my destination, the skies would clear and it would be all rainbows and bunnies, and it turned out that was pretty close. No rainbow.

Such a short visit, but by Saturday afternoon, I was already in the rhythm. It felt like I had never left Deer Park, only it was Blue Cliff – a much smaller landscape and monastery. Time was spanning, and my departure on Sunday and then eventual return to Taipei seemed a fairyland away.

Those two monks I knew from before certainly helped, and our chemistry, for better or worse, was exactly the same as before. It may have prevented me from getting to know the other monks better. At Deer Park, I eventually gravitated to certain monks, but I was initially exposed to them all equally, so I knew who all of them were.

Anyway, I told them, and the community in less detail, about the troubles I've been encountering in my practice recently. Being with the community was wonderful – it did wonders – but certainly not enough, I shouldn't wonder.

During Saturday work meditation, I was aware of the chatter in my head, but I realized that in that setting, it was softer, not oppressive – happy chatter. In the outside world, the chatter had taken an aggressively negative character and would amplify just by being in the outside world. Negative karmic seeds would be fed and grow, and that's the advantage of being in a monastic setting.

It, of course, came up whether I was still considering ordaining, and I told them it was never out of the question. And they reminded me that the cut off age was 50, which to my ears sounded like I have plenty of time to decide – which was good. The Plum Village system has one of the oldest cut-off ages for ordaining.

Needless to say it was great hooking up with them and they did give my batteries some charge. I took exactly two weeks break from sitting, and they jump started that. I'm still unsure where things are going or how things will turn out, but I'm glad for the positive spin they gave me.

FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 5:57 p.m. - From the guesthouse balcony shortly after arriving and registering; main meditation hall across the street in the distance. That's a public road that splits the monastery grounds. 

8:26 p.m. - Registration and administrative building at the left. The guesthouse is off-screen left. Straight ahead leads to the monastics' quarters. Off-screen right is a little house that I don't know what it was, but that little stone fountain-like thing will locate it in other pics.

8:30 p.m. - Main meditation hall across the street.

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 7:08 a.m. - Main meditation hall photostitch.

7:17 a.m. - Entrance hall. Thich Nhat Hanh's calligraphy above the door says, "Look deeply" and "Listen with compassion".

7:19 a.m. - The sitting rows are separated by gender. The main bell moves back and forth depending on whether a monk or nun leads the session. The main altar is by the window to the left with a teeny-tiny Buddha statue.

7:21 a.m. - Yea, so I don't know how I feel about this. Such a grand hall, but a puny Buddha that's not much bigger than the one on my modest home altar. Deer Park also had issues with Buddha statues. They had ordered an appropriate statue for their meditation hall, but then it was too big to fit through the doors. They put it up on a plateau overlooking the monastery and an arrangement of orchids was used in the meditation hall.

Reverse angle. Actually I think they based the architecture on Deer Park's meditation hall; they're very similar. It was designed by the current abbot of Deer Park who was an architect prior to becoming a monk.

7:37 a.m. - Macro photography, vaguely recalling the diamond net of Indra.

9:12 a.m. - Guesthouse, where I took the first pic, at the left, admin building center. Main meditation hall is off-screen right across the street.

11:50 a.m. - Another view of the meditation hall with other structures. I think that's "Thay's hut" on the left. "Thay" is what Thich Nhat Hanh is called in the respectful but familiar. I think it just means "teacher" and can be used generally. I think all of the satellite monasteries in the Plum Village system have a "Thay's hut" for when he visits. I've never referred to him as "Thay".

1:38 p.m. - Clouds start to loom, thus quote the raven crow.

3:15 p.m. - The much smaller landscape of Blue Cliff. Deer Park's surroundings accommodate weeks or months of exploration, but Blue Cliff can be covered in an hour. But 43 minutes later:

3:58 p.m. - Thus quote the crow: "I told you so".

4:23 p.m. - Listening to a dharma talk.

5:43 p.m.

7:45 p.m. - And there's the little house with the stone fountain-like thing marking it, making a pretty little picture.

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera. Kodak BW400CN. There's that stone fountain-like thing again. Earlier in the day.

Site of the day's work meditation.

SUNDAY, JUNE 28 - From the main meditation hall road, looking at the other monastery facilities across the street.

2:09 p.m. - A group of Koreans visiting for a few hours to experience the monastery and a sitting session.

2:36 p.m. - Preparing to leave. However, I delayed leaving because I was told there would be a visiting contingent from a newly-created Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM) facility just down the road. DDM from Taiwan, with whom I'd been attending sitting sessions with their Int'l Meditation Group. I knew the guy! I kinda stopped going after he left to return to the U.S. to establish the facility. His successors were Taiwanese and too "Chinese Buddhism" for my taste. Unfortunately he didn't recognize me, no doubt in part because he had absolutely zero expectations of running into me in the U.S., much less at Blue Cliff. I could see him trying very hard to place me.

2:53 p.m. - With Brother Phap Lai, who I knew from Deer Park. He's originally from England.

3:31 p.m. - Phap Khoi, also from Deer Park. He's been on the monastic path for many lifetimes and becoming a monk early was the easiest decision he made in his life. He's from Seattle and is one of Thich Nhat Hanh's Vietnamese-English translators when he's traveling to places where he'd speak in Vietnamese.