My Teachers:
Zen Master Bomun
Zen Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi
(a.k.a., George Bowman, Dharma successor of Korean zen Master Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim and long-time student of Sasaki Roshi). In my late thirties I was the mother of two small children, working as a full time clinical perinatologist at Brigham and Women’s hospital and running a small basic neuroscience research lab at Harvard Medical School. My life was intense and demanding and I was profoundly dissatisfied. One particularly unhappy day I picked up the phone book and looked for a Buddhist teacher. I felt I needed spiritual guidance, a north star that could help me find my way. That is how I found George Bowman and became his student. He spent many hours counseling me in what was to be one of the most challenging times in my life. George, would sit on the floor, slowly and methodically wipe his glasses, and then look up at me. I distinctly remember hearing the sound of the heating system, the dogs barking in the street, of a wider life around me for the first time in years. I felt the depths of peace, I glimpsed at the immense generosity of nature, of the inherent safety of life for the first time sitting opposite him. I also discovered a very strong inner compass, that while seriously confused by the professional and social goals I had set for myself, was strongly operational in my day to day life. I could always find what was right for me despite what the external expectations or opinions were. George made it possible for me to learn to trust that. His final gift to me was a friendship that lasted many years and a deep passion for Zazen. He was a meditation warrior, the more the better. It was for the love of George that I joined him in Zen training at Mt Baldy with Joshu Sasaki Roshi. I just wanted to understand what it was George was so in love with. George gave me my lay ordination and my dharma name, Myoko in 2003
In 2002 when I first went to spend a 21 day period at Mount Baldy Zen center, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I literally ran out of my first intensive practice period in the morning of day 5. I was totally unprepared to spend 18 hours a day trying to meditate. I could not even find a reasonably comfortable position to sit still in. The entire exercise became a physical endurance test with mental dramas. Leonard Cohen once wrote a piece about his first Sesshin that captured perfectly both my physical state and mental state. By day 5 like Leonard I too felt I was in a camp that kept flipping between a Japanese prisoner of war camp and a German concentration camp. It was an intense experience that finally resulted in my literally running away from the monastery. It was a diagnosis of malignant melanoma a year later and Roshi appearing in my dreams that brought me back to Mt Baldy. Yoga and physical training helped me with the physical demands of the practice and all that sitting immobile, started revealing glimpses of immense beauty. I could feel physically the great strength that Roshi had, I was truly intimidated for the first time in my life. Then he started showing me some of his powers and dismantling my scientific understanding of reality. I always questioned what I saw and felt, trying to find some scientific explanation often being quite concerned about my mental stability. Roshi just smiled. Slowly my fascination with the supernatural, with miracles disappeared completely and it felt that I was possessed with a strong drive to to know the truth, to see more, to understand more. Roshi would guide me with patience, love, and deep generosity through the discovery of a universe I did not even know exist-ed. I had never met anyone with such unwavering dedication to teaching. He was old and feeble, yet he met with each one of us 4 times a day, every day during training, rain of shine, under oppressive heat in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. At 3 o’clock in the morning, there he was waiting for each one of us. I remember one event in particular that remained seared into my heart. Roshi had become very weak and needed two assistant to help him walk. During one of our big Zen ceremonies, Roshi all dressed up walked towards the altar and let go of his assistants. Very slowly he started to do a full prostration to the floor. Most of us were holding our breath not at all sure he could ever come up from the floor again. To see his little fragile body prostrated on the floor, with his joined hands in front of his head was a sight to behold. Before I understood what was happening tears were rolling down my face. I saw a total unconditional love in action. He got himself up again all by himself and then with the help of the assistants left the room. It was an immense privilege to have studied with him and to have re-ceived his teachings. I last visited him a few weeks before he died. By then many had left, he was no longer the superstar we had made him into. He was alone with his loyal few companions, barely breathing, barely alive. He was 104 and dying. I was used to Roshi reading my thoughts so I had tried hard to try not to have any when I went in. He offered me a piece of parsim-mon. He looked so weak and feable, he was surrounded by scandal and poor public opinion. I had the thought “roshi why are you not dying?” To my horror, he looked up at me and very clearly said: “ I am not going to die until you become completely one” To that, without even thinking I shouted“ Roshi, that is unfair!” The young nun, started laughing and Roshi had a puzzled look on his face and made her get a dictionary for her to translate the word unfair. Our meeting ended soon after that be-cause there was another guest coming. As I was walking down the narrow stairs of the house I crossed Leonard Cohen.
Pamela Wilson
After Roshi’s death in 2014, I roamed around a bit aimlessly, feeling lost and disappointed and suffering a deep Zen rejection. The death of my father, then my brother, the care of my mother-in law and the care of my mother were taking all my attention. I was brought to a retreat with Pamela Wilson with a deep desire to brake through all the opacity in my life. I could not understand what was possibly missing considering all the teachings and openings I had experienced over the years. I arrived to the retreat with my Zen spirit intact, ready to double in, to put all my effort. I was greeted by Pamela who said “rest”. She said it over and over every-day, to everyone. Finally on the 5th day something clicked, and I could see not only the profundity of her teaching but also the deep beauty of her spirit. I was aware immediately of the strength and power of her presence and was a bit confused by the sim-plicity of her language. In a rare moment she started talking and teaching and for the first time I felt I was in the presence of a teacher that equaled all the male teachers I had studied with. For the first time I felt this deep pride in being a woman. Here was this embodiment of loving kindness, stern, precise, beautiful. She is a great cook, understood my Italian upbringing and loves cash-mere. She offered me her friendship. I watch her sooth and liberate so many emotions in so many people, guide other teachers towards maturity and self-sufficiency while being an embodiment of gentles and modesty. I watched her go through the fires in California that burnt down her house and everything in it. I watched her slowly start over again, one object at a time, one moment at a time.
Through her I discovered the blessing of the Devine feminine., its strength and self-reliance. Her teaching is a powerful one: take a seat, invite everything in, show it gratitude and respect, reassure it and allow it to find its freedom. She continues to teach, offer individual sessions and until the coronavirus arrived she travelled the world to do so.
For mature meditators Pamela is truly a blessing.
Here are links to some of her offerings:
www.pamelasatsang.com
Here is a YouTube interview that will give you a good taste of who she is.