THE COLOR ORANGE

It is rainy season here in Mendocino County—the weather is not at all what I think of as "California Weather." But as an Indian reminds me whenever I complain, "The rain is good for growing." I forget that this area depends upon the rain as much as it does on the sun.

The sky is filled with a milky gray fog covering the sky from the ground up. Sitting outside on the deck I feel more closed in even than I used to feel beneath the trees in Connecticut. In a green plastic pot in the middle of the deck is a two-foot Mandarin Orange tree with its wonderful bright orange fruit. The color makes me think of the monks I saw in Thailand when I was there on R&R in the Army in 1969. I am reminded of their bright orange robes.

I wondered who these silent monks were—what they did with their days until Pensi, a girl of eighteen, took me to a temple where we saw a sea of monks keeling on the floor in the dark space. The temple was a magical place filled with the smell of sandalwood smoke from burning incense sticks.

Maybe it was that experience that first awakened in me my love of Buddhist places. The feeling still easily comes back to me more than 30 years later—the palpable feeling of the spiritual world I had never experienced before. The feeling in the temple was very different from going to Catholic church on Sunday morning—I’m not sure why—perhaps because attending mass at the Church of the Assumption was so familiar. There I recognized many of the people, like the Italian men of the Knights of Columbus, who moved down the aisles holding the wicker baskets collecting money.

For some reason, I cannot explain, the Buddhist temple seemed to have a more real link with God. It could be that at that time in my life, since I’d already experienced six months of a war, I was ready to feel make a connection with my spirituality.

What I can explain is that walking into the temple at that time of my life gave me some sort of hope—belief—that has never left me.

Seeing the Mandarin Oranges instantly brings back the sight of the monk’s robes. I have always been in awe of the sight of the monks—some much younger at the time than me—who followed such a selfless path. How did they know to seek the Truth at such a young age, I wondered? It was later that I learned of the cycle of birth and death, of reincarnation, which explains it all: The young boys were highly evolved beings already, from past lifetimes.

What I’ve learned even later still is that following the path of a householder has a honor all its own. To follow the householder path well, I find, takes selflessness, persistence and courage—the same qualities a monk must possess.