Coda

This is my last post on my experience at Shwe Oo Min south, I promise, unless you really want me to try and explain what it feels like to have an insight while practicing insight meditation.

When I went back to the center to check on my visa, Seattle Paul told me that somehow my Buddha Buddies had learned that Sayadaw’s birthday was coming up, and they did a very Western thing and invited him to lunch to celebrate. As part of the inner circle of yogis during the month of March, I was on the short list of invitees, and I told Paul to email me the details when they were worked out. (He could do that because Internet Hour had been reinstated upon Sayadaw’s return.)

But when I got the email—“Meet at Sharky’s on the 8^th, 10:30 or 11”—I immediately started hemming and hawing and thinking that if I hadn’t felt any spark of connection with Sayadaw by this point, then the odds of it happening in an intimate lunch setting seemed pretty low. I was prepared to blow the whole thing off when some sati kicked in, and I started looking at the situation as an excellent chance to practice doing things differently—the whole reason for being 13,000 miles from home.

Sharky’s is one of those places specifically built and interiorly decorated to attract expatriates and the top layer of Myanmar residents (“We are the 5%.”). Lots of chrome and glass. A refrigerated case holding meats and cheeses and salads like an American deli. Food is served on low tables, knee-height; the chairs are curved in such a way that after you finish eating you can just kind of collapse into them with your glass of zinfandel. If Sharky’s were on Lower Queen Anne in Seattle, I would yawn. But it’s in a suburb of Yangon, and so it seemed slick and unnerving to me because it was my first time in what I now recognize as the city’s expat ghetto, where embassy and multinational coporate employees live and eat and drink and watch rugby and soccer and basketball on satellite TV and talk about what Myanmar really needs.

And now a high-level and wealthy Sayadaw had chosen Sharky’s to celebrate his birthday in a most un-Myanmar monk manner. The tradition in this country is to give things to others on your birthday; monasteries are typical recipients of large gifts of food or cash from adults who were brought up to think this way. My guess is that Sayadaw did exactly that in a manner that I was unaware of, but he was also willing to accept our invitation to receive something. He arrived riding in the shotgun seat of an enormous crimson-colored Toyota SUV, with four Westerners in the back and jumper seats.

So much for my image of a poor monk living a life of voluntary simplicity while teaching Dhamma. So much for my image of a role model for renunciation, for my images of a forest refuge far from the trappings of material life, where everything is focused on achieving insights. I know, I know, those images should have been killed during my month at Shwe Oo Min, but please, I dearly love my delusions. Of course Sayadaw should feel completely at home at Sharky’s—he spent a decade as an executive in his family’s garment manufacturing business, and he was clearly very good at it. One day during my retreat his family came to sponsor a yogi meal and to make a large donation to the center. Most of them traveled in a private luxury bus, but a few insisted on driving their own SUVs.

Still, I had a “What’s wrong with this picture?” moment when I looked around our table and saw one young Mexican woman named Susan and four males (one Aussie and three Yanks) age 40 and older, all dressed in typical Western garb, plus one sayadaw in his crimson and saffron robes. Everything else about Sharky’s screamed “Attachment! Attachment!” Tasteful paintings for sale on the wall. Four well-dressed Burmese women enjoying a lunch date. Wait staff standing close-by, ready to pounce should we gaze their way.

Sayadaw ordered an individual pizza. So did Seattle Paul and Susan. I ordered spaghetti Bolognese, Carl lasagna, Aussie Paul a spinach salad with a broiled chicken breast. Three house salads. Baskets of warm French bread. Juices and iced coffees. Sayadaw did not hold back at dessert: a scoop of ice cream and a cappuccino. Dig it, I got to watch a respected sayadaw scarf down pizza and ice cream and an espresso on his birthday. You gotta love them attachments!

And while we waited for our order, and while we ate, and as we digested, we mostly talked about Dhamma, but as lunch progressed things got more relaxed. Someone told a tired old story about seeing a sign in a restaurant in India that showed someone squatting with both feet planted on a Western-style toilet seat, with a line drawn through it indicating “do not do this.” Sayadaw responded by pulling out his iPhone and finding a photo he took in another Asian bathroom of a sign showing someone standing in front of a urinal, again with a line drawn through it. He asked us, “What is this sign for?” None of us could figure it out. “Don’t wash your hands in the urinal!” He said some people in that country (I think it was China) thought the soap in the urinal was for washing their hands, and that the automatic flushing was for rinsing.

A toilet joke from Sayadaw! Then he showed us some funny pictures from other situations. He told some stories about unusual yogis he had met, like the yogi who was so uptight that he could not relax enough to do a simple twist-your-torso-and-swing-your-arms yoga exercise. After that story I pictured a group of sayadaws sitting in a bar, quaffing tall glasses of tamarind juice with little umbrella drink stirrers, talking shop about the retreat biz, comparing notes about strange yogis: “You think he’s weird, wait ‘til you get a load of this guy . . .”

But for the most part, the conversation centered on Dhamma, which is what you would expect from a sayadaw and five of his yogis, four of whom were still in retreat—though you sure as hell couldn’t tell that from the Sharky’s tableau. And it was through that conversation that I finally made a dent in Sayadaw’s consciousness. I surprised everyone, including myself, over how much I had to share in this informal setting, especially compared to the weekly English-language Q&A session at the monastery, where I competed with 20 or more yogis for his attention. I said some things that clearly struck a chord with everyone sitting around the table. Maybe it was my imagination getting the better of me, but I got the feeling that Sayadaw thought, “Oh, so this guy really does have an idea about what this vipassana stuff is all about, maybe I was wrong about him.”

About 90 minutes into lunch it was time to call it quits, and for Sayadaw and four of the yogis to head on back to Shwe Oo Min—perhaps in time for the 4 o’clock sitting meditation, but I couldn’t imagine any of them finding it easy to slip into sati for the rest of the day. Aussie Paul and Carl went downstairs to figure out the bill, Seattle Paul and I chatted with Susan, and Sayadaw slipped away, I thought downstairs with the others. Then nature called, and I went to the bathroom.

I don’t know about women, but for guys there can be an uncomfortable feeling when you’re in the bathroom with another guy that you don’t have a clear connection with. I did my business in one toilet stall (the bathroom was unisex, no urinals) and flushed at the same time as the guy in the stall next to me, who turned out to be Sayadaw. As we washed our hands in adjacent sinks, I figured the situation called for silent meditation—I mean, what do you say to a sayadaw in that scenario? “Hey, Susan looks nice today, doesn’t she?” “How was your pizza and espresso?” “How do you manage to not get your robe wet?”

If you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say it. Sayadaw was standing closer to the paper towel dispenser, so he got first dibs and dried his hands. He moved to the side and I did the same. After I put my towels into the wastebasket, I turned around and saw that he was standing in front of the sliding door. I stood behind him and slightly to his right. While waiting for him to leave, I stood there lightly holding my right wrist in my left hand. It took what must have seemed to him like the longest two seconds ever to realize what was expected of me: he was waiting for me to open the door for him. I let out a soft “Oh,” tried to stifle a chuckle, and then fulfilled my duty. Ice cream, good Dhamma conversation, and toilet jokes aside, in the end he was Sayadaw, I was yogi.

He was gone by the time I collected my day pack, went downstairs, and ponied up my share of the bill. He was probably waiting in the front seat of the Shwe Oo Min SUV, being equanimous. I said my goodbyes and shuffled on down Dhama Zedi Road to find a nearby coffee shop rumored to have really fast wi-fi, perhaps not walking as mindfully as Sayadaw might have encouraged.