What is a Buddhist Monk Really Like?

When people generally think of Buddhist monks, they often envision a solitary soul sitting upon a mountain top in blissful eternal nirvana.

So what is a Buddhist monk from Burma (now called Myanmar) really like? I caught a glimpse when I interviewed U Sacca Vamsa, a Buddhist monk practicing in Nashville, TN., right in the middle of the Bible Belt.

"Very good," said U Sacca Vamsa, when I informed him over the phone that I would be a few minutes late for our interview. On that note, I proceeded to the Cambodian International Buddhist Temple.

The Temple is a modest house in East Nashville. As I entered the Temple, I put my shoes outside the door. After being properly introduced, we sat down together at a table.

U Sacca Vamsa had on an ochre-colored robe with a pink sweatshirt underneath. His head was completely shaved. He wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses behind which shone two bright intelligent inquisitive eyes.

I asked the monk about Burma, his birthplace. There at the age of six he entered the monastery and studied his mother language, Burmese, and Pali, the closest surviving language around the time of the Buddha. At the age of 20, he became an ordained monk.

"Why did you want to practice in America? I inquired.

"To teach right method," referring to meditation. "either here in Nashville or there in Burma, make no difference. Nashville very religious city. Either here or there."
Meditation has much appeal to some Westerners. It is a way to handle stress. It can offer an understanding of suffering. It is a religious discipline 25 centuries old that can connect one with the natural mind or Big Mind.

U Sacca Vamsa is sometimes called Bhante, meaning "monk" in Pali. He has a good handle on the English language, but I had to listen carefully to his words and then comprehend their rich content. Conversing with him was like trying to catch a bouncing ball.

"Was coming to America difficult for you?" I tried to ask simply.

"Easy for me, " he said. "Finding truth: not really difficult. Not really easy."

"I gotcha'," I said exuberantly. I had caught the ball.

"When you have difficulties, does your meditation practice help you?"

"I am really happy. No attachments. What do I have to worry about when am just a poor monk?" He laughed out loud and his eyes began to twinkle.

"What about feelings?"

"Depression? Bad feelings throw away. Not useful. Keep good thoughts and deeds. Four Things: Loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity."

Equanimity. In Path With Heart, Jack Kornfield writes, "When we can finally look at the horrors and joys, our birth and our death, the gain and loss of all things, with an equal heart and open mind, there arises the state of the most beautiful and profound equanimity."

In the meditation room, there is a shrine and a small authentic gong that was given to Bhante by a friend. The first time it was rung here, a neighboring dog bellowed out a long howl. Bhante said dogs howl in Burma too when gongs are rung. A connection to nature perhaps.

As I walked outside, Bhante chuckled at me, I did not have my shoes on. An example of forgotten mindfulness.

Bhante has devoted a lifetime to his religious practice. He is the embodiment of his practice. May we at least learn from him to be tolerant of all religions.

Perhaps modern man has become so involved in the tangible that we cannot begin to feel or know the intangible. There is something of the sacred in the mundane. In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg writes, "We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close."

As I walked away from my encounter with Bhante, I felt good inside as if I had brushed up against one who knows. Very Good. Very Good.