2021-05-14 Stories - The Monastery Within
IInsight Meditation CenterMay 14, 2021 at 3:26 pm13min
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00:02Gil Fronsdal
Today I want to tell a few stories from a little storybook I wrote called "The Monastery Within." Many of the stories have to do with the Abbess of the monastery.
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00:13Gil Fronsdal
The first one I'll tell is that the Abbess, one day, called together all the monastics of the monastery who had been there for less than six months. Maybe this was a time when they had started to get a little bit restless, wondering why they were there. Maybe they had gotten used to the routine and were starting to get bored, remembering their life before the monastery – it's allures and pleasures. She called them together and said, "Pack your bags, because I'm going to take you on a pilgrimage to the holy sites of Buddhism."
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01:02Gil Fronsdal
Now these monastics knew about the holy sites in India, the place where the Buddha was born, where he was enlightened, where he first taught, and where he died. These are considered the most holy places for Theravāda Buddhists. People do pilgrimages there and visit. So they said, "Oh. Great! We're going on a trip." They packed their bags ready for travel. They climbed onto the monastery bus and off they went.
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01:32Gil Fronsdal
First, the Abbess took them to a hospital where they visited the sick. They were surprised by all the different kinds of sicknesses that people were struggling with there. Some were pretty severe. They had a chance to go through the ICU and even the emergency room. It was almost mind boggling to see the extent of the injuries and illnesses. And then back on the bus, and they went to an old age home.
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02:06Gil Fronsdal
They saw what for them – most of the monastics were young – seemed like the ravages of old age. People who could no longer care for themselves. Some of them couldn't walk anymore. Some of them had all kinds of challenges and decreased capacities. It was pretty impressive for these young monastics to see. Then they went back on the bus.
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02:40Gil Fronsdal
The Abbess took them to a hospice where they saw people in the stages of dying. Some of them scared of dying. Some of them kind of disconnected from the whole experience. Some of them not really present anymore and semi-aware, semi-conscious. All kinds of challenging ways of dying. And some had already died. They spent time next to a bed where a corpse was lying, a recently dead person. Then the Abbess took them back to the monastery.
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