From Bagels to Buddha. Judi Hollis
what I don’t eat that’s brought me to this.
When I pass through this chicken-wire gate, I, who make my living talking, will join others who are committed to total silence. I have been auditioning to enter this place for months.
Surrounded by pine-scented woods facing a large volcanic mountain, I listen to the stark alpine quiet that will be my home and wonder why I’m here.
At age ten I weighed exactly what I do now as a mature, premenopausal woman. Just before my tenth birthday, after dieting away thirty pounds, I went to a local malt shop to flirt. I wore a tight maroon skirt with wide black belt, bobby socks, and saddle oxfords. I was allowed to sip a milk shake, sucking the glass dry, as long as I didn’t have sex. In those days, sex was forbidden but chocolate indulged. Today it’s the other way around.
From then on, despite TOFU (The Occasional Foul-Up), I white-knuckled it most of the time, and then repeatedly picked myself up from those slips and got back on the horse. Though now seventy pounds lighter than my top weight, with approaching menopause, I am slowly regaining some weight.
That’s how I ended up in a small plane headed toward the Oregon border and Shasta Abbey with Yves, my lover and business partner, flying us in his beloved Bellanca Viking, a single–engine, wooden-winged aircraft named Lucy.
I’m always scared flying in Lucy as she takes us halfway across the country to my various lecture gigs and TV appearances. Sometimes we fly above 12,000 feet, requiring oxygen masks. One time, as we waited on the ground in Texas, Yves turned to me, white-faced, and said, “The wind shears and thunderstorms are too heavy. You go on ahead with a commercial jet while Lucy and I wait out the storm.” Another time while in Denver, we had to do numerous fly-bys to ascertain from the tower, “Yes, your landing gear is locked in the down position. Over.” Quite honestly, I figured that since we have to land again anyway, we should keep the gear down for the duration. Instead, we stayed over to get it fixed. What do I know about planes?
Anticipating more such surprises to delay my flight to Shasta Abbey, I bury myself in magazines and pistachio nuts. After a rather uneventful trip, Yves settles into a motel and we sit down to share a late supper. Consequently, I arrive at the abbey behind schedule.
While awaiting admittance through the chicken-wire gate, I ponder all it took to get me here.
I try to remember why or how I’ve come to this place. I know I fought really hard to get here. But why?
I didn’t even have a clue how I’d received the summer workshop brochure from the abbey.
Even though I am thin and successful, I am increasingly restless and bored. I know I need deeper connections. I’m in that state of perpetual longing, like when I leave that last bite of chocolate cake.
How often does that happen?
Despite decades of professional accolades, thousands applauding my message, asking for my autograph or photo, I never felt deserving of what came my way. I felt like an imposter, a rotten, bad seed. That fueled my hurried, workaholic overscheduling. It had everything to do with my overeating as well.
I never relaxed enough to enjoy the journey. I never surrendered to a spiritual way of life. I didn’t look or act like any of the people who appeared to be spiritual. They seemed calmer. They believed in God or believed in some kind of a universal oneness: “We’re all connected.” I didn’t get any of it. I didn’t buy into the God concept and relished being in charge of my life and the lives of others, even if I was a bad apple. I’m sure that rotten-to-the-core feeling caused my periodic returns to bouts of compulsive eating; my self-destruct button was still intact.
So, anticipating a chance to get away from the daily emergencies at my HOPE House treatment center, I’d called Shasta Abbey. I’d learned I enjoyed brief forays into the spiritual life, but I really didn’t crave total transformation. I wanted to lose weight, change a little maybe, but keep my winning personality.
Half a year earlier, on my first inquiry over the phone, I listen while on hold, trying to organize a monastery stay, when my reverie is broken with “How did you hear about us?”
Reverend Kincaid questions me softly as I plot my course from spiritual neophyte to awakened Zen master. This monk has a noticeable New York accent. I sense his hesitancy.
“What brings you to call us? What is your experience with Buddhism or meditation?”
“Well, Reverend Kincaid, sir, I became a therapist to figure out why I ate. Some of the things I learned were so depressing that I ate over them. Though I believe I am a gifted therapist, I find my relationship with food is best when I stop trying to figure it out and instead consult my stillness within. I eventually found that spiritual principles helped me more than intellect.
“So I found your brochure and I am drawn to this ‘Life of the Buddha’ retreat. It says here in your brochure, ‘The Buddha lived a daily life facing unjust criticism, envy, mistakes in judgment, and exhaustion.’ Well, both the Buddha and I have similar struggles,” I pompously state.
“But why Buddhism?” “Well, I’ve been following Baba Ram Dass since the 1960s.”
I wonder if Reverend Kincaid knows that Ram Dass is a spiritual leader who dropped acid with Timothy Leary, gave up his name of Richard Alpert along with the status of Harvard professor, and dedicated himself to traveling to and from India while transforming America’s youth.
“Ram Dass taught us to let go and consult our own souls for direction, but he also advised us to live spiritual principles in everyday life. Just because we commune with the Gods and Goddesses is no reason not to know our postal zip code.”
Pleading into the receiver, I beg Reverend Kincaid to let me sign up. “I know it’s a three-week workshop, but I can only get away for the last week. I’m sure I can catch up.”
As usual, I wanted special permission, offering, “My case is different. I deserve special consideration.”
Reverend Kincaid responds kindly, “I appreciate your interest, but I suggest you first attend an introductory workshop. Or perhaps you would benefit more from the beginner’s week-long retreat that focuses on basic teachings and practice.”
Doesn’t he understand? I can’t get away so easily. I’m booked!
“It will be too much for you to plop into the third week of training with no background. Others already there will be way ahead of you and it will be difficult for you to catch up.”
He concludes with “Let me send you our informational packet for you to consider what’s in store.”
When the “Guest Information” packet arrives, I read it over hurriedly along with the “Introduction to Soto Zen” and immediately call again. In my zeal, I dismiss the brochure’s caution that in the beginning attendees “experience some difficulty with specific aspects of training.”
Not applicable to me.
As he answers my call, Reverend Kincaid returns once again to his initial query about how I’d received the brochure. “We just don’t have an extensive mailing list,” he sniffs.
I know he senses the absence of incense in my voice.
“Have you ever meditated before?” he grills.
Knowing my answer may now disqualify me, I quickly lie, “I have meditated intermittently, and have a deep spiritual consciousness.” I hope he won’t ask me what that means. I can’t honestly say.
My quick lie sounds good to me. My “meditations” are often brief interludes when I space out watching cars pass by my window or while I’m looking out at waves breaking on the shore.
More often, however, I spend meditation time in “monkey mind,” busy with planning, manipulating, decorating, investigating, arguing, justifying, or daydreaming. No matter how brief or unfocused these episodes, I am sure they qualify me to be on some imagined meditation checklist. Determined as I am to get accepted, my further entreaties to Reverend Kincaid mimic the best college