A Faithful Son of Dharma in a Tiger Skin
09 months ago
By Hannah Kreitzer
In many sacred texts and religious histories, the boundaries of what is human and what is—well, not—often overlap. Genghis Kahn was said to be descended from a deer and a wolf; Greek gods took animal forms to suit their aims and whims; Jonah spent some solitary time in the belly of a deep-sea mammal. There is always a lesson at that point of intersection, between the natural and human realms of reality, and a good amount of time and thought has been put into this topic by people far more qualified than me. But even if I’m a fair distance from being able to analyze these tales from a scholarly standpoint, I still find a whole lot of fascination in learning them. I’d like to share one I came across recently, which concerns the great Tibetan yogi and poet, Milarepa.
Milarepa’s path to enlightenment was long, tangled, and rich with spiritual resonance, but it is far too deep a journey to synopsize in a single blog post. Instead I want to retell a short story that is embedded in the later part of Milarepa’s plotline—a story that, like many of his teachings, can be found in The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. This text, wound deeply in the history of Buddhist culture, recounts the lessons of the yogi in prose and also in the dohas—songs of devotion and realization—that he sang to bring the lessons of the Dharma to whoever he met.
The tale I am retelling can be found in the Song of the Snow Ranges. At this point in his life, Milarepa had taken to meditating in caves, a period of spiritual growth that was marked by great feats of discipline and wisdom. It was also a time of wandering, and in the course of those journeys he came to the village of Nya Non, where he became greatly loved by the people and gathered several disciples. But the petty grievances of village life did not suit that part of Milarepa’s journey, and so he decided to head for the Lashi Snow Mountain, despite his devotees’ protests. He gathered scant provisions and set out for the Great Cave of Conquering Demons, and soon after a great blizzard raged over the land, casting down snow and wind for eighteen days and nights without pause. Milarepa’s followers in Nya Non took him for dead, and mourned him with a sacramental feast. It was a full six months before the Lashi Snow Mountain was clear enough to travel, and when that finally came to pass Milarepa’s disciples set off to recover his body.
As they finally approached the Great Cave of Conquering Demons, they saw a snow leopard on a distant rock. At first they were sure that the great cat must have killed and consumed their master, but as they drew nearer, the leopard vanished and they could see human footprints alongside the cat-tracks in the snow. Coming to the Great Cave at last, they found Milarepa—alive, well, and singing.
The yogi brushed aside their questions and confusion with a simple summary of facts: he had survived by remaining in a deeply focused meditative state, and by a dream of nourishment that occurred on the same day the villagers had offered a feast to his memory. And, he added, he had not been eaten by the leopard because he had in fact been the leopard. The cat on the rock was a manifestation of his own self.
In the greater context of Milarepa’s life, becoming a snow leopard was not his most dramatic feat. By the time of his death, he had summoned great storms and sought redemption, sung the lessons of the Dharma, found enlightenment and become a cave-dwelling hermit—and let’s not forget that time he lived on nothing but nettles to the point that his skin turned green. But I like the story of Milarepa’s manifesting as a leopard because it weaves his enlightenment into a sense of place. His transformation shows a kinship to an animal born to live among the elements that his faith allowed him to endure. Moreover, the story of the snow leopard resonates in Tibetan culture because it is far more than a simple plotline and moral. Though it is framed in symbols and faith, what we call myth is taken by Tibetans to be a true account of sacred history. Thus, in a historical sense, the gouged rock outside the Great Cave of Conquering Demons is a testament to what truly happened in the months that Milarepa spent alone on the mountain—the stone bearing evidence of where the yogi lay as a leopard and flexed his claws.
Milarepa didn’t really want to leave the Lashi Snow Mountain, but he was eventually persuaded. Upon coming back to Nya Non, he sang The Song of the Snow Ranges, which includes this verse:
A faithful son of Dharma in a tiger skin
I have never worn a coat of fox-fur.
Son of a giant, I have never
from the wrathful run.
Son of a lion—of all beasts the king—
I have ever lived in the snow mountains.
To make a task of life is but a joke to me.
Though the lines are a bit cryptic at first glance, they carry a strong message for the sacred nature of all life. Milarepa habitually wore clothes made of cotton, despite his dwelling in places of harsh weather and hardship. Even in the snow-choked mountain caves, he found warmth and sustenance in his faith, rather than the fur of another living thing. In his manifestation as the leopard (or tiger, as it is sung in that verse), Milarepa drew strength from a fur that he donned at no cost of life. Through his deep appreciation for the sanctity of all beings, the yogi was able to survive as one that was born to live among the snow and solitude of his mountain retreat.
Milarepa long ago left the mountain and mortal life, but he lives on in the songs that are still remembered, in the caves where he survived snow and demons, and in the rock where his claws left the mark of the cat—of all beasts the king—that ever lives in the snow mountains.
A Candle in the Cell
010 months ago
By Hannah Kreitzer, TTF Intern
Therefore, in the grace of this night, receive, holy Father, this evening sacrifice of praise, which most holy Church renders to you in this solemn offering of wax, through the hands of the ministers from the works of the bees. Now we behold the splendours of this pillar, which the glowing fire enkindles in honour of God. Which, although divided into parts, suffers no loss from its light being shared. For it is nourished by the melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth into the substance of this precious lamp.
So goes a version of the Exultet, a praise hymn sung for the celebration of Easter. It venerates the paschal candle, which stands for Christ as the Light of the World. The words may vary slightly, depending on where and by whom it is sung, but this is the rendition offered by the Benedictine monks of the Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. In their prayers and practice, the brothers of the Quarr Abbey are keeping an old alliance very much alive: the bond of monks and bees.
The monastic beekeeping tradition has a rich symbolic history, but a very practical one as well. Honey was a valued part of the brothers’ harvests, for food and medicine and the making of mead, the fermented honey alcohol that has been prized throughout history. Yet in the eyes of the monks, honey was not the true treasure of their apiaries. The prized yield of the brothers’ hives was beeswax. With wax there came candles, from the sacred paschal pillar to the humble taper. Largely thanks to the brothers and their bees, medieval churches were filled with light.
Given the vast number of candles needed for religious ceremonies and simply illuminating churches, the history of monks and beekeeping became deeply intertwined. Over the years there have been many innovative apiarists and hive-based pioneers that stemmed from the monastic tradition.
One of the most well-known contributors to worldwide beekeeping in recent years was Brother Adam, of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England. He came to the abbey from Germany when he was just a boy, and was soon assisting one of the monks who tended the abbey’s hives. During the brother’s early years of beekeeping, he was witness to the onslaught of acarine disease. This sickness, inflicted by tracheal mites, devastated the apiaries of Great Britain at the start of the 20th century. Of the forty-six bee colonies at Buckfast Abbey during the assault of acarine disease, thirty were eradicated. It was in the depths of this plague that Brother Adam began what was to be his life’s work. With the surviving bees, and specimens gathered from a global pilgrimage that would total over 100,000 miles, Brother Adam pursued one humble, hive-based holy grail: a bee to rebuild the apiaries of his abbey and country. Over many years of meticulous breeding and observation, Brother Adam reached the culmination of his quest: the Buckfast Bee, a tough but docile specimen with a tolerance for the hard English winters and an inherent resistance to acarine disease. His journey was chronicled in the BBC film “The Monk and the Honeybee,” and his legacy still hums around modern hives in the form of the Buckfast Bee.
Wax is no longer the main goal for most modern-day beekeeping monks—the lighting options have certainly expanded for most monasteries since the days of candles—but to this day, monks continue to tend hives. Like so many of their predecessors, and beekeepers worldwide, they are passing on their knowledge of their hive-dwelling charges with dedication and diligence. According to a brief biography of Brother Adam, by Paul Jungels, the Brother himself summarized the value of this work:
Everyone is familiar with the guiding principle of St. Benedict – ora et labora – (pray and work). But those who know his writings better will soon see that a further obligation derives from this teaching, namely that of passing on to others the experience gained in ones life and work.
That passing of knowledge may one day prove to be a much-needed thing, for both bees and humans. In recent years a growing trend of hardship has become evident among the world’s bees. Over the past twenty years, more than half of the managed honeybee colonies in the United States alone have been lost. The explanations are as varied as all the means of beekeeping, and the many species of bee that they address. Though the cause of this crisis is still under debate, the implications for crop pollination, wider ecosystems, and question of mere survival has brought the bees’ plight into sharp focus. No matter what lens through which you view the statistics, be it ecological, economic, or purely compassionate, it’s clear that bees could use a sanctuary. A quest like Brother Adam’s cannot grant every bee immunity to a hardship that is still being defined, but there is a lesson in his journey and the work of many others that may yet serve to keep hives buzzing with life for many years to come. The learning of bee-lore is a long and rich journey, and that learning, as it says in the Exultet:
…although divided into parts, suffers no loss from its light being shared. For it is nourished by the melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth…
Through the years many people—from monks to scientists to backyard beekeepers—have gathered what can be learned from the bees they tend, and shared the light of knowledge down through the candles of generations. It is by that kind of light that the pollinators of our planet may yet be sustained.
The Threshold
010 months ago
By Hannah Kreitzer (TTF Intern)
The Encyclopedia Britannica describes a rite of passage as a “ceremonial event, existing in all historically known societies, that marks the passage from one social or religious status to another.”
Virtually every human culture on earth has its particular means of recognizing these transitions within the lives of its people. A rite is a tool for navigating the great unknown—a way of dealing with something that seems beyond our comprehension. We can make symbols and stories and an understanding of sacred that has grown from our collective learning of living on earth. Our symbols may shift, given our landscapes and histories, but the rites that we as a species have developed and the transitions they mark have remarkably clear parallels that resonate through our ways of life.
Among the most commonly celebrated thresholds that we cross: birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. There are myriad points in between that may be recognized, depending on our origins, but these larger milestones are the ones that most of us can’t help but encounter on our roads through mortality. Some of the most recognizable rites of passage can be seen in the religious context, including baptism, bar and bat mitzvah, a formal church wedding, and last rites, to name just a few.
So, how do weddings and last rites apply to ecology and conservation? After all, Earth works within a geologic timeframe; its transitions take place on a scale that makes our daily lives seem like some kind of metaphorical eyeblink.
I’m going to attempt an answer, though I give fair warning: this is going to require a little wading into philosophical waters.
First, I want to note that a rite of passage is generally divided into three stages: separation, transition, and reincorporation. The second part (transition) is also known as the liminal stage. From the Latin limen, meaning threshold, it’s a time of suspension, bridging the act of departure and the point of return.
Being human, and very conscious of the differences between our ways of life around the globe, it can be challenging to find any clear common ground for us to all stand on. But we all have our feet on the earth, in one way or another, and as our means of communication become more and more diverse, it’s becoming easier to see the changes in other environments, and find parallels to the changes in our own.
All politics and explanations aside, the global consciousness of conservation is arguably at an all-time high in human history. There may be no clear consensus as to the extent or the gravity of changes in our planet, but many of us have at least come to the agreement that we have been a part of the damage that the earth has experienced in recent history. Many of us also believe that we can be a part of its healing.
I would call that recognition the separation stage—the point of departure from a comfortable assumption that everything is as it should be in the ecological balance. Now we are in that restless suspension, seeking our direction to return.
This kind of rite can’t necessarily fit into any one tradition, but it can be enacted by all of us, no matter our religious inclinations, or lack thereof. Our planet, as a place and a concept, does not transcend our beliefs—rather, it weaves them all together from beneath: the common root from which we all have sent our branches of culture and faith.
A rite of passage, if I may add a humble footnote to the venerable Encyclopedia, is also a time of raised awareness. It’s an anchor point of recognition, with the understanding that the tide is still going to rise and turn around you while you find your direction. In my thinking, we have taken that first step off of steady ground. Now it’s time to find our way back to earth.
Wolves in the Holy Water
011 months ago
My involvement with The Tributary Fund began (as most interesting things tend to) in a roundabout way. I attend Unity College in Maine, a very small rural school with an environmental focus. My major (Environmental Writing) allows for a fair amount of electives, and one such class was International Aquaculture. I was sitting in the library at the beginning of the semester, pondering what kind of fish to research for my first short paper, when I noticed a friend of mine (who conveniently happened to be an Aquaculture and Fisheries major) at a nearby computer. He thoughtfully paused the NASCAR race he was watching to help me brainstorm, and suggested that I look up some giant Mongolian fish. I proceeded to do so, and write a report about that fish, and a couple weeks later found myself discussing the very same species with Betsy Gaines Quammen, founder of The Tributary Fund.
The fish was Hucho taimen, a unique species with deep symbolic roots. Taimen—also known as river wolves—are predatory relics of the piscine realm. Formidable carnivores, they are known to consume fish (including their own species) and whatever else ends up in the water, including ducks and small mammals. Eurasian waters were once rich with these fish, but the taimen’s massive proportions were its downfall. Overfishing pushed its numbers to the brink. Scarce numbers still ply the rivers of Russia and China, but overall, the last stable population of river wolves inhabits the Eg-Uur watershed of rural Mongolia.
The rootless Mongolian lifestyle was the taimen’s main salvation, for nomadic herdsmen rarely dipped hooks into the rivers that brindled their land. In present day, the taimen’s impressive size has made it a coveted prize of international anglers, but the passage of time has not offset the sacred weight that the fish carries in Mongolian culture. One legend recalls a taimen of titanic proportions that became stuck in the ice of a river. Over the long, hard winter herdsmen were able to chip away bits of its flesh for sustenance till the spring thaw, when the ice melted and the taimen swam away. The modern descendents of that benevolent fish may not match its legendary stature, but there are echoes of its influence even today. The death of a single taimen, according to a recently found ancient Buddhist sutra, is considered by some Mongolians to equal the suffering of 999 human beings.
Taimen are a fish with homesteading tendencies, rarely venturing more than 50 miles from their territory. This is runs counter to human history in Mongolia, where people have tended to follow nomadic currents. Yet it seems to me that this contradiction can serve as a symbolic borderline—the point where logical parallels turn inward and intersect. The environments and histories of both species fully support their opposing lifestyles; it’s the place where their histories and environments merge that becomes legend, symbol—lenses to look at the great unknown. Mystery is the wellspring of faith, after all. It nourishes a tenet that is older than text: in a word we can call it conservation or salvation. In the land of the river wolves, and across the globe, our planet is something to save, protect and believe in, whether you pray to Buddha or a big fish.
So in terms of thought-provoking coincidences, it seems that International Aquaculture may just be one of the most influential electives of my college career. When I head back to Maine for my senior year this fall, I will have to look for that Fisheries friend of mine in the library and ask him what he thinks of the symbolic implications of his chosen field. Then again, maybe I’ll just ask him if he knows about any other cool fish to research, and see what kind of revelations I can reel in.
Hannah Kreitzer, TTF Intern 2011
