Rōnin
“The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” - Henri Nouwen
The other visitors called him “Brother Herb”. Herb wasn’t his name, it was his inclination. While pleasant and generally useful, his marijuana habit would cause him to slip into metaphysical wonder with a suddenness that could be inconvenient, say when he was holding the opposite end of a sheet of T1-11 that I was attaching to the side of the monastic enclosure that was under construction.
He would stop, gaze at the pagoda, and ask a question such as, “Why is it so white?”, and then wait for the cosmos to answer.
Usually, I’d just point out to Herb that it was difficult to keep my end of the 4x8 plywood in position when he appeared to be departing on an astral journey. That would bring him back to planet Earth. At least temporarily.
Such was life at the peace pagoda, a Buddhist community in upstate New York where I had taken refuge after the end of a school year. It was my custom in those days, once classes and commencement were over and my final grades delivered to the office, to go fishing in Vermont, or search for an obscure historic site in New England, or run my kayak up and down a river and camp for a night or two. More often, I would go surfing.
Anything to get the smell of musty classrooms and chalk out of my system and be able to move and explore without my life being regulated by school bells, exams, term papers, and officious faculty deans.
This break had begun when I visited, out of curiosity, the new construction of a Buddhist community in the middle of the least likely place. When I revealed in conversation with a senior nun and monk that I had experience in carpentry, that brief visit turned into four days and three nights of framing a new monastic enclosure [the monks and nuns were living in a collection of small, heavily oxidized travel trailers at the time], joining in quiet meditative prayer while seated together on the chapel floor, enhanced with bouts of group drumming.
Yeah, it wasn’t a clergy conference.
There were a few Buddhist monastics present, men and women from the mother house in Japan, but most of the other residents were, like myself, transient pilgrims. While it was a colorful collection, not everyone was like Brother Herb. There was a certain soberness to their quest and, while they were patient with the weed casualty in our midst, they were focused on their own search for….
Well, that was the tricky bit.
There was an older retired couple from Massachusetts living in their RV who volunteered to design and plant the landscape features, a twenty-something woman, taking a break from following The Grateful Dead and/or Phish around the country in her van, who was good at painting; a couple of college guys from Texas who tended to over-intellectualize everything and could not figure out which end of a hammer to use; a quiet German student who did push-ups every morning, a fit young couple kitted out with backpacks and technical clothing who were taking a break from hiking the Taconic Crest Trail, and a handful of others.
As will happen when one labors with others, you get to know people better than you do during “sharing time” at an Episcopal Church team-building event. As the only electricity came from a diesel generator that would be shut down after our vegetarian dinner, we would gather for maté around a fire in the evenings and talk about Buddha-nature, the spiritual quest, the German student’s interest in Jack Kerouac, and the significance of Bodhidharma coming from the West.
Naturally, I presented the Christian perspective to our conversations. However, as they knew me as an itinerant carpenter, rather than a priest, the conversations weren’t awkward, constrained, or narrow.
What was very clear was that, while we represented a crazy quilt of spiritual experience, my fellow guests yearned for meaning and some answer or collection of answers to the inevitable questions of existence.
They were looking to satisfy, through gardening, the Deadhead life, travel, esoteric studies, any other means (Herb), a way to fill what has been described as a “God-shaped hole”.
It has lingered in my memory because of what I noted then about the unrefined spirituality that seems natural to all people. Each was searching for answers to the perpetual, trans-cultural, trans-historical questions of, “Where am I from?; Why am I here?; Where am I going?” As specific as those questions may seem, the path to the answers are as varied as are the personalities in search of them.
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Brother Herb, in one of his “metaphysical moments” [i.e. Gonzo-ed], said to us, “It’s like we’re all rōnin.” He paused to let that marinate with us a moment, then added, “We are spiritual samurai, but without a master. We wander; we fight the spiritual fight; we explore whatever we want without some pastor telling us what to do. Or what to smoke.”
There was some general nodding. I almost cautioned that the historical rōnin tended to fall into criminal activity and provided the foundation for organized crime, the Yakuza, in modern Japan, but decided to remain silent and not wreck the moment.
Certainly, Herb had noted the un-anchored quality of the gathering. We ranged in age from early 20’s to late ‘60’s [I was 36 at the time], came from various places and were at different points in our lives. As was becoming increasingly common in those days, and now marks the majority of spiritual experiences in our culture, save for myself the gathering was one of “nones”; those who will check the “None” box if asked about their religious affiliation.
It was during those four days that I noted an organic asceticism taking place. Despite the specifically religious setting, it was more post-religious than it was Buddhist. However, one could also discern ties to the original Antonian form of Christian ascetic practice. The peace pagoda did not recruit nor, in those days before web pages, invite visitors. Yet, they came, they participated, and they volunteered.
Contemporary Christianity, lost as it is in Christendom, rarely offers any similar attraction, especially as it has squandered its appeal to seekers and, instead, become devoted to process and program.
[An aside: A glance at my pre-retirement calendar lists monthly items such as mandatory misconduct training, a general meeting of the diocesan membership, the mandatory diocesan retreat, and the mandatory anti-racism training. This is not a church for pilgrims or other spiritual rōnin, but for corporatists in constant training to serve fewer and fewer parishes and parishioners.]
Creating a compelling spiritual experience, one that satisfies a portion of the yearning that we share, accepts anyone who approaches, presents us with something to do that is practical and blends the body, mind, and spirit, is what permits the Gospel to be realized.
I left the pagoda when my framing work had finished, glad for the experience but also a bit desirous for some cooked animal flesh on a bun and a scotch. Little did I realize that, while I was absent from the world, I had been promoted to assistant headmaster at my school and my casual summers would now disappear until retirement 31 years later.
I suppose that’s another reason I look back fondly on that time.
A few months into the new school year, when talking to one of the Japanese students about the pagoda and the image of spiritual rōnin, he noted something.
“Do you know this word rōnin [浪人], Dr. Clements?”
“It means ‘wanderer’ or ‘vagabond’ or something like that in modern Japanese, doesn’t it?”
“It means ‘man of the waves’. The one who rides where nature decides he should go.” He nodded towards the surfing calendar on my office wall and smiled a shy Japanese smile.
Yes, that’s more what it’s about. We go where God takes us, and pray for the discernment to fill at least a part of the God-shaped hole. Perhaps God is issuing that invitation now to the entire church, so that it may once again be a place where solitaries find community and those with questions find a response.
A place of Christianity, in other words.
Was his name really Herb? Cause that's hilariously fitting. :P
Lately I haven’t kept up with my reading but when I do I’m glad I did!
Thanks