The Buddhist Temple Across the Street
The Buddhist Temple Across the Street
A storytime post.
Taking my cue from my bestie
, this post will be a little different. Instead of my usual opinionated essay, I’ll be sharing some highlights from my teen years, all involving a Buddhist temple that stood like a diamond in the rough across the street from my high school.I grew up in Mount Vernon NY, a city 30 minutes from Manhattan proper, and notoriously awful in every way. Nicknames for Mount Vernon included “Murdaville” and “Mount Virus” — though my high school bus driver, who enjoyed a past career as a rapper, was kind enough to balance these out with the nickname “Money Earnin’ Mount Vernon.”
When I say Mount Vernon was “awful,” I mean it was a classic case of a predominantly black city being purposefully disenfranchised by the local government.
Our high school didn’t have any arts programs to speak of (until recently — thanks, Denzel Washington!) — just a blatantly racist over-emphasis on basketball. I took performing arts classes in the neighboring (super white, super wealthy) city of Bronxville, and this was how I learned that the rich-white kids were getting a wayyyy better public school education than we were. They were assigned more challenging books to read, they had every language and sport you could think of, and they were learning calculus while we were still on algebra. Just to name a few things.
The block I lived on, “3rd and 3rd” (which my grade school bullies sneeringly referred to as “Dirty Dirty”) was pockmarked with abandoned and condemned houses, a broken-down playground, and out-of-control gang activity that sometimes resulted in shootings. I was informed, later in life, that sometimes cities strategically allow the degradation of certain blocks, as this can be used to make the case for higher “developmental funding” grants and such — though that “development” remains to be seen. No doubt, the broken windows, cracked staircases and flickering lights in my childhood apartment building were making somebody money.
Though Mount Vernon was “ghetto” (I’m allowed to use a politically incorrect word if I grew up in it, right? Is that how privilege works?), there was an undeniably powerful undercurrent of psychic energy there. I had so many psychic friends in high school. Playing with psi balls and experimenting with lucid dreaming was normal stuff to us.
Maybe it was our collective Caribbean heritage (Jamaican, Trinidadian, Dominican, etc.), decorated with various folk magick traditions, that made us inclined to embrace the supernatural. Or maybe it was something about the land itself, mysteriously charged with a will to connect directly and passionately with God that I’ve never seen anywhere else (every block had at least one church, usually of the “slain in the spirit” varieties like Pentecostal and Baptist).
Whatever it was, Mount Vernon was something like a training ground for the soul. Despite every odd stacked against us as young brown and black kids (poor housing, shitty education, lack of resources and opportunities…), the cosmic promise of spiritual prosperity was there for us, too — if only we would seek, in order to find.
It was precisely this seeking that led me and my friends to a Buddhist Temple, somewhat hidden from street view by low-hanging tree branches. Its serene, peaceful aura stood in stark contrast to the hostile vibes of my notoriously violent high school… which was right across the street.
Talk about parallel realities!
I don’t remember my first time visiting “My Temple” (which is what our meditation teacher, Ajahn, told us it was called). I simply remember feeling very, very welcome there — unlike the judged, criticized way I felt when going to church.
I immediately became acquainted with Ajahn, a straight-out-of-Thailand monk who seemed quite happy to share his culture and meditation knowledge with sincerely curious high school students, as well as practice his English with us. (We were especially delighted to learn that Ajahn was very aware of pop culture current events — and had an adorable fascination with “Rady Gaga.”)
Though my friends and I weren’t Buddhists, we were spiritual seekers. So learning how to meditate seemed like the right thing to do. Once we discovered this place, we would visit whenever we felt like it, popping over spontaneously to see if Ajahn was there. When he was, we would be warmly welcomed in for meditation lessons. When he wasn’t, we were still welcome to meditate alone, or else hang out in the garden, which seemed to glow with an otherworldly serenity.
I think so fondly of my time at My Temple, with all its little “happenings” that infused my life with greater wonder and appreciation. Here are some of those stories:
Meditation sessions would go like this: We’d sit cross-legged on the floor, close our eyes, and “focus on the breath — in, out, in, out.” In elementary English, he explained the concept of “monkey mind” and encouraged us to simply refocus on our breath whenever we felt our thoughts going wild.
Meditation was always 30 minutes long (which feels like an eternity when you’re a beginner). But one time, I could have sworn that meditation was taking far longer than usual. My legs reached a level of “pins and needles” that bordered on numbness, and my spine begged for the relief of a slouch. When Ajahn finally told us to open our eyes, I looked at the clock — and an hour had gone by!
Normally, Ajahn would have told us when 30 minutes was up. But this time, he wanted to push us out of our comfort zones — harmlessly, of course. He smiled a sweetly mischievous smile and said, “See? You did it!”
A simple but powerful lesson in endurance — yes, I can do it (especially if I don’t know that I’m doing it, LOL).
After meditation, our hosts always insisted on feeding us — for free! The kitchen shelving rack was always stacked with platters of freshly cooked food. We would serve ourselves buffet-style, then gather around the dining table and talk about whatever. Ajahn mostly listened to our juvenile chatter, but sometimes joined in with opinions and stories of his own.
One time, there were no vegetarian options that day (and I was hella vegan). Without complaint, I doubled my serving of plain rice and went on about our table talk as normal. The chef came in to chat with us, and noticed my plate. When I explained to him that I’m vegetarian, he lit up with an idea, and said he’d be right back. He went out to the garden to cut fresh leaves and herbs from various plants, the most outstanding of which was Thai basil that he’d actually just brought home from a recent trip to Thailand. I’d never had Thai basil before, let alone straight from the motherland.
He sautéed these greens together in some oil, and proudly served me a plate.
I took one bite, and I kid you not — I cried.
It tasted so good. So good. It was fresh. It was fragrant, floral. And most of all, it was made with care by a chef who clearly loved to feed others.
The simplicity of the dish was no hindrance to its profound impact on my memory.
That simplicity is its own kind of multiplexity, is one of the many beautiful lessons I learned from practicing meditation at My Temple.
And as you might have guessed, I’ve never tasted Thai basil as good as that, since.
Despite Buddhism’s emphasis on detaching from sensory stimulation, ironically, some of my most sensual memories happened at My Temple.
One time, we hung out in the garden with one of the teenagers who lived there. He handed us styrofoam cups of what he called “needle tea,” and said “This will feel like needles in your mouth.”
He wasn’t kidding! I’ll never forget it. I took a sip and let it stay in my mouth for a few moments. And somehow, this liquid felt like gentle needle-pokes on my tongue. As a tea enthusiast, I felt my mind opening with the realization that good tea wasn’t just about flavor — it was also about sensation, texture.
I’ve since tried, in vain, to track down this curious needle tea. Alas, all I can find is “silver needle” tea which is called such for its needle-like shape. Maybe one day, I’ll have that intriguing experience again!
Another time, at the dinner table, we were joined by a “Thai dancer.” His fingernails were remarkably long, and sharpened to points. His eyes were large, intense, as if penetrating everything he looked at.
He explained that Thai dancing was about using extremely controlled but subtle movements to make energy move. As a demonstration, he framed his hands around the top corner of the back of the empty chair next to him — one hand parallel to the top of the chair, and one hand parallel to its side. Then he began to vibrate his hands, in a way that looked shaky at first. Faster and faster, his hands vibrated.
But as the moments went on, his hands looked less shaky and more still — and that’s when we realized NOW THE CHAIR WAS VIBRATING.
I can’t even begin to explain to you, the shock we were in. My friends and I audibly gasped “No way!” and “Oh my God!” as we watched the chair (appear to?) shake more and more intensely, becoming blurry with rapid motion… while his hands looked impossibly still.
And now that I’m a staunch believer in psionics, I wonder if he wasn’t “dancing” but was actually performing psychokinesis right in front of us, and using “dancing” as a cover story for this transmission of psionic power.
The way his eyes could see things… I wouldn’t be surprised.
There are so many other stories I have from the years I spent visiting My Temple. Some cute, some profound. Too many to share in one post, that’s for sure.
So I’ll sign off with this one:
On one visit, I invited my friend Mike, and he invited his friend Lonny — who I’d gone to elementary school, but since fallen out of touch, with.
This is to say that I didn’t really know Lonny. I didn’t know how open he’d be to Buddhist meditation. But we rolled with it anyway.
All went well (per usual), but then at the end, when we all sat around chatting, Lonny began unloading about his recent breakup with a girl. He was clearly very hurt about it, and didn’t know what to do with that pain.
As he ranted, Ajahn offered different perspectives, hoping something would stick. But Lonny continued ranting, clearly too wrapped up in the pain to hear what was being said to him. Feeling protective of Ajahn, I felt myself losing patience for Lonny. I thought it was quite rude of him to endlessly rant and rant, without listening in return — or without considering whether any of us even wanted to hear about his problems.
But when I looked at Ajahn, I was humbled. In contrast to my huffy impatience, Ajahn was listening with genuine compassion. His expression was kind and gentle, taking in every word Lonny said.
When it became obvious that none of his advice or insight was “working,” Ajahn switched into fully listening. After a few minutes, Lonny finally exhausted himself and ended on an, “I don’t know.”
That’s when Ajahn spoke again, once and for all.
He simply said, “Time. You need time.”
Boom. It was if a revelation from God had landed on us all. The way he said it — in all its glorious simplicity — was so powerful.
I have carried that lesson with me throughout my adult life. Whenever I feel like I’ve “tried everything,” I remember Ajahn’s simple statement: “Time. You need time.”
Like the time he “tricked” us into meditating for an hour, I know that when I simply endure from moment to moment, long stretches of time seems to fly by… until suddenly, I’m on the other side of the problem.
I will forever be grateful to My Temple for the lessons it taught me — both explicitly and subtly.
P.S. As of our last conversation, Ajahn is no longer a monk. He has “disrobed” and now lives civilian life. To the best of my knowledge, he is still a practicing Buddhist.
Time sure has a way of changing things.
“Time. You need time.”
Thanks for your gifts lovely.
That was such a good post to read. Loved it.