And since I went into it feeling a bit suspicious. I want to admit my mistake and say I was wrong to be suspicious.
The monk/nun/mendicant is Sister Clear Grace. She has been written up twice in Tricycle:
Meet the Traveling Nunk and Her Mobile Monastery - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review https://tricycle.org/article/traveling-nunk-monastery/
Her claim to notoreity/novelty is that she outfitted a van and decided to go out driving her van and doing Buddhism. I tried to do this in late 2019 and utterly failed. I was expecting she would face similar difficulties.
I also was suspicious since she has some (major?) training in both Theravada and Thich Nhat Hanh / Plum Village, and although I value a lot of what Tai/Hanh teaches, I wasn't sure how much emptiness-based approaches and more traditional Pali canon / 4 noble truths approaches would jive. Further skepticism (to further dig my own hole) was what I saw as her taking on certain elements of "engaged Buddhism" which suggests that taking on social causes is obligatory. My teachers have been cautious about engaged Buddhism, because it can distort the Buddhism.
I was very wrong.
First, her project/van, the Great Aspiration, is going to places where she feels called, which include homeless camps and other places. She is not glorifying this or trying to show off. In fact, I feel she does this respectfully and quietly. From what I heard from reading the Dear Jane letters by Ajahn Pannavaddho, one of the Zen patriarchs was very careful about engaged Buddhism and the Bodhisattva vows. That patriarch advised that one should take that vow, to alleviate all suffering in the world, but add the caveat at the end: in my mind. Therefore, the vow is to end all suffering in the world in one's own mind. Given how much the Buddha warned about the insufficiency of the world (Uno Loco, Atitto, Tanha Daso), all the attempts to clean up the world are bound to fail if it doesn't mean cleaning up the mind. And one can only start with one's own mind first. So, Sister Clear Grace made several statements suggesting that she not only understands this intellectually, but also knows it in her bones. This doesn't mean we don't strive for unlimited Metta/Goodwill or do what we can in the world. But it does mean we don't expect the world to change just because we try harder, and furthermore that we don't hang the clarity of our mind on the condition of the world.
Second, I think she skillfully merges Theravada teachings and Plum Village teachings. From what I understand of how Tai taught (I never saw him in person), he kept on keeping compassion and interbeing as central teachings, similar to how the Dalai Lama teaches, or the teachings on Tsewa (tenderness) by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. Deeply influenced by my own conditioning to be a people pleaser, I am easily caught by unhelpful ways of approaching interbeing, patterns of self sacrifice. So I really appreciated the warnings to proceed cautiously in the Pali canon and Ajahn Geoff. Most notably, item 4 of the 5 daily remembrances: you will be separated from everything you hold dear.
In contrast to the Sharon Salzberg approach to loving-kindness which kinda hides the unhelpful reality of remembrance #4, Sister Clear Grace taught in way that doesn't hide this ordinarily brutal truth/reality. Initially, when she spoke of the beauty of being in nature and Sangha, I internally rolled my eyes and thought, "not another Buddhist positivity practitioner". But later she talked about the impermanence of beauty and about how beauty can also catch us into the "stories" or cycle of clinging. I was lucky to hear her present and cover the 12 steps of dependent co-arising (which in Tai's tradition are translated as interdependent co-arising, I believe). It was refreshing to hear (in both her words and he nonverbal cues) that it seemed like she had struggled with this thorny beast and thicket of brambles.
She spoke eloquently about the pleasures of meditation that are "not of the flesh" (technical Pali phrasing), that the Buddha encouraged. In my own understanding, these relate to finding sequentially more and more wholesome pleasures to help stabilize the mind, to do the work.
After speaking of that direct experience, she then remarked, somewhat casually and without fanfare, that even that experience ends. I heard some words of hers that I hope I will remember and resonate in me for a long time coming. "The Dharma shatters at every level."
In the beginning, the Dharma shatters some very coarse Kilesas, like ill will. But in the middle it shatters pleasure seeking, and even pride from virtue (what Ajahn Geoff discusses as the 9 types of conceit). I have experienced these two. And, towards the end, it even shatters itself. I think it was Ajahn Maha Boowa who wrote about his experience of enlightenment. He thought he had achieved it; he was quite learned and quite practiced. But he put his realization to the test. And he found that the pleasure/experience/total release that he had tasted was conditional; something like on the 3rd day of testing, he found a very subtle perturbation. Tan Ajahn had already achieved stream entry and was beyond many of the lower fetters (the lower 3 at least, probably the lower 7 of ten). But he was able to see little bits of the last 3. And so he kept practicing, watching, vigilant clear.
"The Dharma shatters at every level." I am touched to have heard that.
The Buddha himself wrote about this when touching on the nature of Nirvana. It's all to easy to mistake peak experience with Nirvana. And he cautioned that conceiving oneself as being Nirvana, having it, having caused it or anything of those terms is good indication you do not have the taste of Nirvana. In the end, the Dhamma shatters itself, the flame goes out. There is cessation and the knowledge of the cessation.
So, thank you Sister Clear Grace. I was wrong. I was not wrong to be suspicious; I'm suspicious of everyone's teachings including my own. But my suspicions were wrong, unfounded. I, of course, cannot vouch off a 90 minute zoom call on your attainments. But nothing you said was out of line with the word or tone of Buddhist teachings (as I understand them), and much of what you said was deep and in concert with my own understandings (which are admittedly meager).
CODA
I still don't LOVE emptiness and interbeing as teachings, not because I disagree with them when used well, but just because they are too often not used well. And I similarly don't like the word truth; it's got to many English meanings and connotations. I use skillful and unskillful, helpful and unhelpful, or kusala and akusala. (And, if it is the paramita of sacca, I would use reality, accuracy, unveiled reality, or fidelity.) But, as they say, those quibbles are just words and teachings, not the reality of the practice or fruit of practice itself. You appear (and so few do) to speak from direct practice and experience, and Tai was certainly as attained person who spoke from direct practice and experience. It reminds me of how my teacher Ajahn Geoff enjoys skewering the teachings of modern "masters" who overstate emptiness as a complete path, but he has deep respect for Dogen, who (I speculate) used emptiness as a descriptor of the whole path (as opposed to a shortcut).
May you, SCG (teavelingnunk), continue to teach and also progress in your own path. May all the power of all the Buddha, dhamma, and samgha protect you. May you have all the Metta blessings and look after yourself with ease.
PS
The website blog and YouTube channel as of feb2023 are very outdated, with the last update in late 2021, I believe. The most up to date is Facebook.
The website IS a good place to offer donations or to contact her, or her team of supporters. FB messenger also works. Currently, she is in the middle of a 50 week weekly Zoom meetup. You can sign up for that via a pop-up on her webpage.
