Anagarika

I learned a new word last weekend. Debbie told me she is thinking about taking the Anagarika vow. This was during a pause in the morning, after meditation and breakfast but before the work-meditation had started. Maybe I had better back up.

Several months ago, Debbie and I started cautiously e-mailing each other again ... short little e-mails just to keep in touch. In one of these e-mails, I mentioned that I'd like to go on another weekend retreat some time, like we'd done a couple times in the past. (For example, here.) She said she's like that too. When would be good? Let's see, ... February was booked. March? By the time March came around it was full too, for both of us. OK, how about April? We finally found there was exactly one weekend in April that worked for either of us, and by happy chance it was the same weekend. So we made a date. Thursday night I packed for the weekend; Friday morning I drove a couple hours to Debbie's place; then we piled into her car and drove another two or three hours to the Buddhist monastery where we were going to spend the weekend.

You may remember that Debbie is in school again (at age sixty), pursuing an M.Div. in Buddhist chaplaincy. She works part-time (just enough to keep her seniority at the hospital where she worked for many years) and otherwise lives on money from her ex-husband. She rented a two-bedroom apartment when she first enrolled in school, although she wasn't sure she needed the space. But she figured that way her daughter and son-in-law could come visit sometimes, and ... there were other reasons. I forget them all.

Anyway, she has a guy living there with her now. He's a fellow-student -- younger than she is (mid-forties, I think), quiet, contemplative. I don't remember his marital status. That is, I know he doesn't have a wife now, but I'm not sure whether he had one in the past. Anyway, he's someone she talked about a lot -- fondly -- back when we were still talking regularly. When I speculated about the possibility that she might get involved with somebody from school (see, e.g., here) this was primarily the guy I had in mind.

So are they fucking? I don't know, and I'm not too interested. Certainly Debbie didn't say that they were, and her general demeanor would allow one to infer that they're not. (Of course, she didn't say that they weren't, either.) If I had to guess, I would assume not. But I wouldn't bet my life savings on it.

Anyway, Debbie and I drove off for the monastery. We arrived and checked into our respective dormitories. (Gone are the days when the two of us would share a tent on the grounds.) We talked like old friends, not lovers. When we went to our respective rooms at night to go to bed, we hugged and I kissed her on the cheek. And that's more or less what the tenor of the whole weekend was like. From my perspective, it seemed like we had navigated the transition from lovers back to friends as well as could be expected.

Saturday morning we were chatting quietly about what she might do after she finishes her M.Div. program. She would like to take ordination as a nun in the tradition she belongs to now as a layperson. But they won't ordain monks or nuns over the age of fifty, and really prefer them to be thirty-five or younger: apparently the thinking is that it is more important to secure the next generation of monks than to fill the ranks with more old people. But then she mentioned a different monastery she has been thinking about, one with slightly different rules -- and she said she has considered settling near them, working with them, and taking the anagarika vow.

"The what?" I asked.

"Well," she explained, "it's a vow that gets you closer to the monastic life than I am right now, but without exactly making you a monastic. It's a very strict layperson's vow."

"Really? What does it require, above and beyond the vows you have already taken?"

"Celibacy." (That was the first word out of her mouth.) "Also it puts more restrictions on what you can own. I think I need it to control my consumption."

In the back of my head I smiled. I never thought Debbie's levels of consumption were really that heavy. Also when I checked the details on Wikipedia [links embedded above] there isn't a lot about reducing consumption. OK yes, you can only eat in the mornings; and you can't sit in luxurious chairs or sleep on luxurious beds. But really, is that her motivating factor? Or is it the one she mentioned first -- celibacy? Which she got exactly right, by the way. And has this really been on her mind, or did she just mention it for my sake? If it's been on her mind, is it something she feels she has trouble with? So many questions, but I wasn't about to pursue any of them. They just flowered in my mind ... so easily ....
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Sunday afternoon, when the weekend was over, I drove back to her place while she napped in the car. Then I moved my stuff back into my own car, and we hugged goodbye. I said I thought it had been a good weekend. She said she thought so too, even though she had felt awkward and uncomfortable though much of it. I puzzled over this as I drove home, because I really hadn't felt that at all. Why did she? There were a few times that we mis-cued, I guess, but I didn't take them that seriously. Was it, in the end, easier for me to cut the ties to her than for her to cut the ties to me ... even though the trigger for our breakup had been her idea?

I'm still not sure. I sent her another e-mail a day or two later, but I've gotten nothing back.