After Cleo

Disciple

Secret nuns’ business

As the tuk-tuk gasped and sputtered to a halt below the monastery, dark sponges formed in the sky. Chanting floated across the valley – male voices, slightly more melodic than the ones that had woken me before dawn.

Lydia explained they were Muslims in the mosque on the nearby hill. I lowered my head and smiled. People in this country lived and breathed religion. If in doubt, chant.

Raindrops tapped on the steps and pattered on the trees. As the drops grew larger, they drumrolled on leaves the size of pancakes. We hurried up the steps as the clouds squeezed together and unleashed torrents, the sound of which drowned the distant chanting, and every other human and animal voice.

The senior nun smiled warmly as we removed our shoes and scurried into her quarters. I found a non-monk-designated chair and sat to catch my breath.

Suddenly, the junior nun’s eyes widened. She drew a breath and pointed to a spot on the floor near the door. A glistening scorpion the size of a large crab marched across the tiles, his tail raised in an aggressive curve.

‘Don’t move!’ the nun whispered, reaching for a broom. ‘The rain brings them inside.’

Scorpion stings kill thousands of people a year. It’s said that for every person killed by a poisonous snake, ten die from scorpion stings. James Bond was scared of scorpions. This particular Buddhist nun was not.

With her broom poised over her shoulder, she crouched low and stalked the well-armed arachnid. Her concentration and muscle tension reminded me of Jonah on a hunt. At first I assumed she was aiming for the kill, but I gradually realised the situation was more complex. Killing a creature, even a scorpion, was against her belief system. Somehow this fearless woman would have to keep all of us from danger by removing the scorpion without taking its life.

Keeping her distance as much as possible, she nudged the creature with the broom. It stopped and raised a warning claw at her. The nun then sprang into action. With one hand on the broom, she swept the scorpion vigorously forward, using her other hand to lean forward, open the door and sweep the creature safely outside.

As the younger nun slammed the door shut, the senior nun, Lydia and I clapped and cheered. It had been a remarkable performance of courage and co-ordination.

Beaming modestly, the nun bowed and put the broom away.

We laughed and drank sweet tea to celebrate. The junior nun asked if Sister Lydia and Sister Helen would like to do some chanting. When in Rome . . .

While the junior nun prepared the chanting room, I asked her superior how she’d found her vocation.

‘I was good at school,’ she said. ‘My father didn’t want me to take robes. He wanted me to get a job. But I wanted to find peace and happiness inside my head and help others.’

She was in no way dissatisfied with her choice. Much of her life was spent visiting hospitals and being an important member of her community, doing what she could for women in particular. There were just two years between us, but our lives couldn’t have been more different.

‘Lydia my daughter!’ she said, touching her heart with her hand, her smiling face pure with love.

Lydia smiled back at her. Not so long ago I’d have felt a stab of jealousy if another woman claimed my daughter as her own. Not any more. The whole point of parenthood is that at some point you have to let them go. If any of our kids found love outside our immediate family, no matter what form it took, I would rejoice for them.

I still hadn’t found the right moment to ask about Lydia’s long-term plan. If becoming a nun here was on her agenda, I realised she would be loved and well cared for.

The holy women escorted us to an alcove off the main room. A statue of Buddha smiled benignly from a nest of flowers and candles. Lydia handed me what appeared to be a prayer book written in curly script that could’ve been squeezed out of an icing bag.

I’d never been much good at sitting through church, and I wasn’t too comfortable cross-legged on floors any more, but I wanted to be part of the chanting session. A kitchen worker appeared and sat on the floor alongside us.

As the nun sat facing the altar reciting hypnotic phrases, I started nodding off. Lydia nudged me in the side and pointed at English phonetic pronunciations in the prayer book. I tried to keep up with her, but the words made no sense. It took me back to childhood Sundays in St Mary’s church when Mum would point out hymn book words that were equally indecipherable.

Religion was scary back then. The vicar had created some kind of kinky universe inside his head. What was he doing talking about Death’s Dark Vale when we had a perfectly nice park with a duck pond? According to him the entire town was overrun with sinners. I wished we could move somewhere without so many evildoers. Afterwards, when he waited at the church door to say farewell to his congregation, I’d do anything to avoid his soft paw enveloping my hand.

The chanting nun extended a white cotton thread to the kitchen worker, who passed the end of the thread to Lydia, who handed it on to me. Holding the one long cord zigzagging across the room like a spider’s web, we continued chanting. When it was felt enough chanting had been done, the thread was gently recoiled and returned to the nun.

Yet again, I was taken back to childhood where mysterious rituals occurred during my short, unsuccessful stint at Brownies. Smart in our brown uniforms and polished badges, we had to line up and take turns jumping over a toadstool. I obliged of course, but had no idea what it meant. Chanting with the cotton thread left me equally mystified. It meant Special Blessings, according to Lydia.

The nun then chanted and tied a bracelet of plaited cotton around my wrist for Very Special Blessings and Protection. Bowing and thanking all concerned, I headed back to my room.

Instead of showering ‘Western style’ under the tepid dribble with the cockroach downstairs, I decided to go local. Pouring a bucket of cold water over myself inside the ‘French-style’ bathroom was much simpler and more refreshing.

I hadn’t realised how busy monastery life was for Lydia. Apart from the hours she spent meditating and teaching the young monks, she guided her teacher through the intricacies of the internet. She also wrote emails and helped fill out forms for anyone eager to communicate with the English-speaking world.

When the van driver for the monastery had to make travel arrangements to import a van from Malaysia, Lydia helped him out. She was assisting the nuns with an application to attend a conference in Thailand for women in Buddhism. These and other undertakings involved much discussion and negotiation interspersed with occasional emotional outbursts. She handled them all with good humour.

Talking to Lydia about the demands on her, she said some of her earlier stints at the monastery had been physically demanding. Carrying bricks up the slope for a new building, renovating an old cottage and sweeping had been a hard slog that was part of her service.

I would have happily stayed on at the monastery; well, at least another couple of nights. It had been so important to see why it occupied such a special place in Lydia’s life and a delight to share the nuns’ world. I loved the way their solemn expressions could melt in girlish giggles. The discipline of their lives was interwoven with light-heartedness. Their commitment to religion and their teacher was enriched by their love of family and the village around them. Though familiar with suffering, they savoured the joyful aspects of being alive.

Fond as she was of the monastery, Lydia surprised me by confessing she was looking forward to a few nights in the hotel on the outskirts of Kandy. I figured the drive to get there would take about an hour. But Lydia’s teacher, who had finally disentangled himself from his other commitments, was determined to show us the tea plantations.

‘You mean they’re on the way to the hotel?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly,’ he replied in a voice both melodic and authoritative.

Once our bags were packed, I finally had a chance to meet some of the monks – smooth-skinned youths, each with a single bare shoulder showing. One had a crutch from a hernia operation. While he claimed not to be in pain, he was pale and could barely shuffle up the steps.

I wondered how their mothers felt. Were they relieved their sons were being fed and educated – or did they simply yearn for their boys?

The young monks listened attentively while Lydia gave them a Neuroscience lesson using PowerPoint on her laptop. As she explained how brain cells cannot be replaced after being damaged, but sometimes reroute themselves, it was hard to judge her audience’s response. While some boys were more engaged than others, they were all immensely polite and showed no obvious signs of boredom.

Farewells and gifts were exchanged and photos taken. I returned to my room to collect my suitcase but it had disappeared – miraculously transported down the slope into the boot of a waiting car.

As we followed Lydia’s teacher down the slope, he warned us the steps were slippery after last night’s rain. Though the lure of a flushing toilet and jet-stream shower was strong, I was sad to be going. My stay at the monastery had been short, but I was leaving it a more open-hearted, less fearful woman than the one who had arrived.

Settling into the back seat of the car, I told the monk we’d be more than happy to go straight to the hotel.

‘But you really must see the tea plantations,’ he insisted. ‘It’ll only take an hour or two and it’s very beautiful. Also, it’s nice and cool up there in the high country.’

Considering how close to the heavens the monastery was already, it was hard to imagine there was much more of an ‘up there’ above us.

The monk made it clear there was no room for argument. Maybe he wanted to use the time to discuss serious matters concerning his ‘disciple’ Lydia.