TOTALLY forgot to post about this...
On April 20, a couple friends from my pagan group and I drove to Memphis to attend the Sunday service at the Dragon Seat Meditation Center in Memphis. This center hosts a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has been assigned there to teach in English; services are in English also. I'd visited there before, but it was after a service had ended, so I wanted to go back for the whole thing. Dragon Seat is situated beside Pho Da Temple, which is Vietnamese Buddhist. They, too, have services, but in Vietnamese though there is a translator available. My friends David and Clay had been only to the Temple before to visit on a night when they had a tea meditation and a sitting meditation session.
We got there and as we approached the temple in the car, we were surprised to see waving banners and a flock of yellow-robed monks outside! Moreover, the drive up to the temple was blocked with cones, so we couldn't even drive up there. Going further down, we saw a small drive that went directly up to the Dragon Seat Meditation Center, so we took that and parked next to the building.
We went to the center and spoke to a lady who said the Pho Da Temple next door was having a memorial celebration for a monk. So we went and walked around the meditation garden for a bit, then came back and by that time Candia was outside and she explained that the monk was (I think) the founder of their lineage (Vietnamese Buddhist - not sure when he had died, but this was an anniversary of his death).
We came inside the center for the service at about 10:45 where the Tibetan monk in residence, Khenpo Gawang Rimpoche, was already meditating. Candia said on my previous visit that Khenpo begins meditation at 10:30 and people trickle in there after and just join in, so we did. It ended up being a full house with the addition of we three (and there might have been other new people, too).
After the sitting meditation, all joined in chanting from the books provided, led by Candia. These were in English! I'm sure I've never chanted in English like that, heh. She let me have a book, so I've got lots to look up. The only Sanskrit mantra in the book was one I was familiar with, though.
Then Khenpo gave a talk about meditation basics, prompted, I believe by the fact that there were new people there (us and possibly some others). It was interesting and he had some good analogies that were helpful, like the idea of the mind being a glass of dirty water - you have to sit still for the dirt to settle so you can see clearly through the water! I was intrigued with his use of the word "wind" for what I've been taught is called prana in Sanskrit, chi in Chinese, and ki in Japanese - the universal life force. He spoke of the wind (breath) blowing through the (kundalini) channels. His English was pretty good, though he had to pause to think of words occasionally.
Afterwards, we got to meet others and also got to meet Khenpo and talk with him for a bit (Clay and Khenpo chatted about travels in Holland and Germany).
We were told that everyone was invited to go over to the temple (by then they were done with their service, too) for the feast afterwards. We went and got there just as hordes of people and monks and nuns were coming out and retrieving shoes. I might mention that there were big tents set up - one smaller one before the Temple entrance with a shrine set up and tables on which had been placed food dishes that were from the feast - offerings. And a huge tent behind the yellow house where the feast was served.
As we were standing there, a tall (Causasian) man with short grey hair dressed in a plain gray robe (that most others were wearing) came up to us - he was a visiting monk from Florida. We chatted with him and he provided an explanation of the foods placed as offerings on the shrine tables, which was fascinating! He especially explained about the rice cakes steamed in banana leaves, which take days to make!
Then a little old Vietnamese man with a big grin (everyone smiles!) drew us over to the tent and made sure we got a (carryout style) box of food and a packet of the banana-leaf wrapped rice cake, then ushered us over to a small table with CDs and books, clearing space so we could put our boxes down.
The monks all sat at a long table with the feast already set out in dishes - at the head was Thich Tri Chon, who is the current lineage leader for the collective of Vietnamese Buddhist Temples to which Pho Da belongs (he's stationed in California, I believe). The lay people (and us, though we were the only ones who had a table to eat on) all had the lunch boxes. We were also given a covered plastic cup with what looked like custard (and was, but not made from eggs, but probably soy milk and silken tofu). Yummy!
The food!!! There was a mound of nicely sticky white rice (we ate with chopsticks), a mixture of "fake" meat, broccoli, and mushrooms and other vegetables, another mixture of tofu and veggies sweetened probably with sweet rice vinegar - the veggies might have been marinated, and a noodle dish with more fake meat and veggies. Nothing very spicy - I'd been wary of that because I know some Vietnamese cuisine is fiery - but all flavorful and delicious. Oh, and a spring roll on top of everything in the box. A lot of food!!! (I later found out that North Vietnamese food isn't spicy like the South Vietnamese food is. I grew up near a Dutch family that had lived in Vietnam and liked the spicy stuff which I couldn't eat, lol.)
The rice cake, when we unfolded the banana leaf, had black beans sprinkled in it and was green from the long steaming in the leaf. It had almost no flavor, but very subtle - I think it had green tea in it as well, as that's what the flavor reminded me of. Interesting! Watching the other people, we learned to fold back the leaf and use the leaf as a holder while we ate the cake.
David and Clay had met an interpreter named Tom on their visit before; Tom came over and chatted with us a bit, and then our Florida monk (damn, never got his name!) came back and sat and talked with us a lot more. He explained about Thich Tri Chon (as of course we had no idea who the little old man at the head of the table was!) and explained that the books on the table - bilingual! - were written by him. One was a book on Buddhist basics that he let Clay and I take. The other books were Buddhist stories that reminded me of the Native American legends, all with a little lesson to teach.
After leaving there, we went to the Great China Market on Summer Ave. and spent a lot of time there, heh. David and I tried a cold drink from there with American Ginseng and honey in it... and we both agreed that it tastes completely... like dirt. Oy!
Then we made a stop at World Market off Germantown Parkway before heading on home. I think we got back to my house around 4:30 or something! Whew, a long day, but so interesting!
Candia had explained to us that rain on a day of festival like that was auspicious, a good omen. David also asked her about possible retreats that the Center might offer, and she explained that they had one on the Heart Sutra last year and might have another later this summer. Khenpo is apparently concentrating a lot right now on his English studies. She said he's frustrated because he has a lot to share and not enough words to get it out to everyone! It's why they currently only have two things going on there weekly, the Friday Night open meditation from 7-9pm and the Sunday morning service.
Namaste, y'all!