PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF DIALOGUE - 2006
Visit to A Buddhist monastery by A Christian nun

Sr M Laurence, SPB, Burnham Abbey, Kent.

This summer I spent a little time at Cittaviveka Monastery, Chithurst, on the Hampshire/Sussex border. Cittaviveka means “the heart without attachment”. The Sisters have the house next door to a cottage, where it was a joy to relax among other guests. It is a ten-minutes’ walk to the monk’s monastery and the very fine Meditation Hall/Shrine Room, where you can join in morning and even puja (chanting) and meditation, and where we ate our midday meal. The house was restored and made habitable in 1979 and the nuns began their life in the little cottage a few years later. The adjoining property has recently been acquired for the nuns and now the Rocana Vihara marks a new stage in the growth of the nuns’ community.

 The Cittaviveka communities, monks and nuns, belong to the Theravada tradition of Thailand, the “Forest Tradition”. This kind of austere ‘primitive observance’ is practised here, and all around are 120 acres of woodland which the Sangha (the community of Buddhist monks, nuns and lay practitioners) maintains, full of wildlife, with special areas for quiet contemplation. Many forest huts (“kuti”) deep within the forest are used by the monks and nuns for silent retreat periods ranging from days to months. There is a flourishing Thai population nearby and it was impressive to see their devotion and affection for the monastery and their generous food offerings. Many folk would be there faithfully at the appointed time for the chanting and the rituals.

 It was such a privilege to share in these. The chants were in Pali, which was an experience in itself. It was a joy to be able to chat informally to the Sisters and share in something of their life-style.

 I often ponder the meaning of our experience of the ‘Awakened Heart’, the enlightened heart, as our true Buddha nature. The ‘eastern’ greeting that you meet everywhere, of hands joined at the heart, directed in reverence and blessing to others (and to the Buddha image) seemed to me a wonderful symbol of this and of the desire to extend oneself within the true of our essential interdependence and connectedness. When I left, I did miss this beautiful gesture.

 All these things bring beauty and gentleness into our lives, as a Sisters says, reminding us of our common humanity – not of course as qualities to be grasped; rather there is a sense of

“Letting things be
sipping eternity.”