Hanging Out With A Japanese Zen Monk In Varanasi

This is a talk about my memorable encounter long ago with a young Japanese Zen monk when I was staying in the holy city of Varanasi, India. It was such a fantastic example of down-to-earth and sincere practical spirituality, an unintended group of lessons on compassionate loving-kindness and reverence for all living things. These lessons gave me a deeper understanding of what Jesus meant when he said, "Treat others as you wish to be treated."

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Marcelo Real and I'm a meditation teacher here at Insight Timer.

I want to tell you a story that I think is quite relevant in today's world with all the madness,

All the chaos that is happening.

It happened over 10 years ago.

I was living in Varanasi in North India,

A very holy city.

I was staying in this quirky hotel near the banks of the Ganges,

A very tall,

Thin hotel.

And I would do yoga in the mornings for a couple hours.

It was just really fantastic,

The whole thing.

And monkeys would suddenly appear and I'd be surrounded by monkeys.

It was just a magical time for me.

And I remember something that stayed with me,

An encounter I had,

That stayed with me since it happened.

It was so impressive.

It was hanging out with a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk.

This is what this little talk is about.

And this is my encounter,

My meeting this young Japanese Zen Buddhist monk one morning in the reception area.

There I was,

And here was this young Japanese guy wearing these monks robes,

And we made eye contact and he did the most startling thing.

He bowed down and did a full body prostration to me.

Oh God,

It was so weird.

It was so interesting.

And then he got back up and said hello,

And we instantly became friends after that.

Not that I need people bowing down to me to become friends,

But it was such a unique thing.

So we were hanging out in Varanasi and it's a quirky old city.

It's got so much history.

I think it's one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet.

They put the number at about 3000 years.

So imagine all the history that is there in the ground.

So I remember one time that I went with this Japanese Zen Buddhist monk to a little cafe,

A little rinky dink cafe.

I remember it was green colored walls.

I think the tables were green.

I think the ceiling was green.

I think it was called the green cafe.

I'm not sure,

But anyways,

It had like a garage door opening to it.

So it had a very wide opening to it.

And what happened one time when he was drinking tea and I think I was drinking coffee was that a beggar woman came up to the door.

And in India,

It's quite a fascinating thing,

The encounter with the beggars,

Because what happens to many foreigners is it's quite a jarring experience.

And when you start giving them money,

And I've seen this happen many a time,

When you start giving them money,

Suddenly they tell their other beggar friends and suddenly you're surrounded by 10,

15,

20,

30,

50 beggars.

And what happens to the foreigners,

The Westerners especially,

Is that they start having to run for their lives.

It becomes too much of an encounter as you can imagine.

Well,

This beggar lady appeared in front of this green cafe and the Japanese monk,

He looked at her and he grabbed about 50 rupees.

It could have been a hundred rupee note also,

Which is a large amount to give to a beggar in India.

So remember this was over 10 years ago also.

So that would be the equivalent of giving a beggar like a $20 bill in India.

Don't hold me to the exchange rates.

It's a different culture as well.

So what happened was he goes up to the lady,

He bends down,

And so he's actually lower than her.

His head was lower than this petite lady and he puts his hands together,

Closed his eyes and bowed at the beggar lady.

And I remember she was covered in warts.

She was covered in warts.

And something really beautiful,

Something really magical happened.

The lady felt his sincere reverence that he had for her,

For her divine nature.

And she put her hands on his head and she looked so dignified.

Time stopped when I was watching this.

I mean,

You can tell how it was for me from how I'm recounting the story,

But time stopped and she became so dignified.

She put her hands on his head.

She bowed down,

Touched his head with her forehead.

And then he looked up when she removed her hand.

They smiled at each other and she just bowed again to him with gratitude and walked away.

He came back to the table and I was speechless.

It was so impressive.

And he just said to me,

Oh,

The money comes so easily to me so I just pass it along to people who really need it.

It was,

It was so beautiful.

It was like a Zen poetry.

But then quite quickly,

My rational mind came back and remembered the other incidents that I had seen.

And I,

I really thought that this beggar lady would tell her other beggar friends and suddenly there would be like 50 beggars in front of the cafe,

The cafe entrance,

And we'd have to sneak out or something through the back.

Because stuff like that does happen in India.

For anyone who's ever been there,

It's an incredible place.

It seems like another planet.

There are other rules there,

Even different rules of physics there,

Which I won't get into today.

Anyways,

I was waiting for the hoard of beggars that were going to show up,

Obviously,

And something incredible happened.

They didn't show up.

They did not show up.

About 10 minutes later,

Another beggar showed up.

A guy and my monk friend,

My Japanese Zen Buddhist monk friend,

Grabbed another big bill and went over to the guy and did the same thing.

Got on his knees.

He put his hands together,

Put the money in his hands and leaned forward,

Bowing to the beggar guy.

And the beggar guy,

I mean,

This was a magical thing.

It was so beautiful.

The same thing happened as what happened with the beggar lady a long 10 minutes prior.

He put his hands together.

He bowed to the monk.

He put his hand on the monk's head.

If you've ever been in Asia,

There's a thing about,

There's like a no-no of putting your hands on other people's heads,

But he did it out of respect.

And he also had a reverent look on his face.

It was so beautiful.

He was glowing like the glow that happens when someone looks at you and treats you with utter respect,

Sincere respect,

Let me say,

And with compassionate loving kindness.

So I saw the whole thing.

I was amazed again,

So moved.

And the young Japanese Zen Buddhist monk comes back to the table and we just smiled at each other.

And this time I wondered if this other monk would say anything to his beggar friends and suddenly we'd be swamped.

But that was a much smaller thought than before.

Needless to say,

No hordes of beggars came to swamp the store,

The little cafe.

And yeah,

Then another 15 minutes passed,

Another beggar came past.

He did the same thing and it was really so beautiful.

It was really,

Really beautiful.

It was so moving.

I learned a lot from that.

Well,

The story doesn't end there.

The next incident happened when I was on the roof.

I just finished doing some yoga.

It must've been like 830 in the morning because I couldn't do yoga after that.

It was just the sun would get up and it would be like suddenly a hundred degrees,

You know,

Like you're being burned alive by the hot Indian sun,

The beautiful hot Indian sun.

And then the monk appeared,

The young Japanese Zen Buddhist monkey appeared.

And of course he came over.

We were talking and chat,

Happy to see each other,

Of course.

And the monkeys were still there.

And suddenly one of the big male monkeys,

Like an aggressive,

Young,

Almost alpha male,

He came up to the monk and he grabbed the monk's robe really forcefully,

Really forcefully.

He came from behind from the side or behind and the monk,

He didn't see the monkey coming.

So I was watching this and I saw the monkey just grabbing.

And it's like one of those big brown aggressive monkeys,

The Indians in India,

They're very,

Many of them are,

To be honest,

They're terrified of these monkeys because they can be quite aggressive and wreak havoc.

So this big,

Strong,

Aggressive,

Young male monkey was pulling the robes aggressively,

Strongly of the young Japanese Zen Buddhist monk.

And I was just observing this and wondering how long it was going to take him to notice this,

But he finally noticed it,

The monk,

And he did something incredible.

He said,

Oh,

Hey,

What's wrong to the monkey.

And then he went ahead and did a full body prostration to the monkey.

It was incredible.

That young aggressive male monkey,

Whom many Indians in India would be quite terrified with,

That male monkey just looked at the monk and with this quizzical look on his face,

He was like,

He'd never experienced anything like that.

I was waiting for the monkey to put his hands on the Japanese monk's head,

But he didn't.

He didn't.

It would have been an even better story had he done that,

But no,

He didn't do that.

And the young aggressive male monkey let go of the monk's robes and he just calmly walked away with the monkey tribe following him.

So yeah,

That left such an impression on me for the rest of my life of that whole idea that comes from the ancient teachings,

Be it Buddhism,

Hinduism,

Christianity,

Jesus,

He said,

Treat others how you want to be treated yourself.

Well taking that a little bit deeper,

It also means how you treat others is a reflection of how you treat yourself.

So during these turbulent times,

During these crazy times,

All this incredible stuff that's happening and doing these meditations,

Doing our practices,

Whatever they are,

Whatever you're into,

Whatever's helping you to stay centered,

Whatever's helping you to feel your inner bliss,

Your true inner beauty that goes far beyond,

Far beyond the mind of our human family that we live in.

Yeah,

I hope you remember this story,

I hope you continue with your precious spiritual practice,

Whatever it is,

And be kind to others,

Be kind to yourself.

Namaste,

Namaste.

Reviews

Beautiful lesson. Thank you.

I really enjoyed listening to your Monk experience so beautiful thank you for sharing. Thank you Namaste 🙏🏻

What a beautiful story thank you for sharing! 🙏 namaste