PLEASE LET ME GET MOONSTONE WISDOM LAKE!

Receiving a Dharma name, keeping the faith, and other (mis)adventures along the path.

A warm welcome to all the new Resilience readers! Thank you for being here, however it works for you. (Click here for more about me and, as promised, here’s where to find my current coaching opportunities for writers and how to book a call if this is of interest.) I hope this week’s essay provides an opportunity to catch your breath and serves as a reminder of how human we are — in our fumbling, our wanting, and our hope. (PS. I’ve ordered a mic thingy for future audio, sorry for the crackles, pretend it’s a fireside chat!) After the essay, consider giving to the Pandemic of Love Asheville Relief Fund if you can. Take deep care, more soon xx Alexa

New name, new pic. Thank you for my portrait, Tim Hout, and thank you Apiece Apart for such an Alexa dress.

I officially became a Buddhist this spring. It doesn’t feel very Buddhist to announce this—again and again!—but one of the funny things about becoming a Buddhist is constantly wondering if you’re being a good Buddhist. You think about it a lot. Or at least I do. Big thoughts, like: Was I compassionate enough in that conversation? And silly ones like: If I wear a mala bracelet and hang up those prayer flags, will people think I’m a show-off?

Look at me, I’m a Buddhist!

No one will think that, Alexa because… no one is thinking about you! But, welcome to my mind. It’s a vibe, and yes, I’m working with it.

As I’ve written before, this spring I decided to make this Buddhism thing official. So, in June, I attended a silent meditation retreat led by my teacher, Ethan Nichtern, where I took the refuge vow and received a Dharma name.

The promise of getting a new name kept me amused when sitting for hours felt like torture. What would my new name be? From reading about this ceremony and the names of others in the lineage, I knew that my Dharma name would be something meaningful, even beautiful. In fact, I knew someone whose Dharma name translated from Tibetan to something like Moonstone Wisdom Lake.

Can you imagine?

'Please God, or Buddha, Tara, whoever is up there!' I prayed on the cushion with the gusto of a six-year-old wishing for her birthday present. 'Please let me get Moonstone Wisdom Lake!'

Halfway through the retreat, I started to worry. What if I got a really depressing name, something that translated to Old Pond? Or She Who Never Does Anything Right?

Wait. Maybe I’d get Pema Chödrön!

Already taken, and besides, you’re not a nun.

I mean, I could become a nun?

Now you're going to become a fucking nun?

Luckily, thoughts like these — and there were lots of them — were intercepted and saved, quite literally, by the bell.

I’ll take Moonstone Wisdom Lake please.

I knew being a Buddhist meant not clinging, grasping, or wanting—at least not too much. So I tried to disentangle myself from the desire of a six-year-old at a birthday party. I wanted a new name, and I wanted it to be something I didn’t already have. I wanted it to be something I could jump into, like a moonstone wisdom lake, or a magical cave in which I could, dare I say, even achieve enlightenment.

The ego!

You’re totally getting Old Pond.

When the moment came, I sat on my cushion with the other members of the sangha also taking refuge. The great hall, a former monastery, was quiet. I felt tender. There was something about having spent days with these people, in silence, breathing, trying to settle our minds, our hearts, and become better humans, that really moved me.

One by one, they went up to Ethan, to receive their name. Ooooh, they were getting really good names, lots of shimmering lakes and gemstones.

I want a lake or a gemstone! I’m going to leap into my new life with a name like Diamond Moonlight Thunderbolt Lady!

This isn’t a Marvel comic, Alexa.

When it was time, I walked up to the stage. I bowed, then looked up at Ethan. I almost said, “Please don’t give me Old Pond!” but he beat me to it.

“Tepa Paden,” he said.

I cocked my head, waiting for the translation.

“Faith Banner.”

The words felt familiar, as though I’d heard them before. I felt a fluttering in my heart, and I returned to my seat.

Faith Banner? What’s a Faith Banner? A banner of faith? Faith on a flag? She who holds the banner of faith?

No lake?

Just then, a ray of light danced across the stage. In the span of seconds, I watched it fall across the golden carpet and rest for a moment, only to disappear into the bouquet of flowers, whose petals I had watched slowly wither as the days passed.

I thought about all the rays of light I’d witnessed over the years, each one leading me to this moment. The golden sunrise over Ohio cornfields streaming through the tour van window as we drove to Chicago for a radio session, at the height of my singer-songwriter days.

Years later, after I’d left all that behind, I watched the cold, silver light refract off the East River, glinting on my son Lou’s translucent chemo cords.

And just a couple of years ago, a small rainbow danced across my bedroom wall before disappearing into the sheets and the bandages on my chest, just above my heart, where my breast used to be.

I started to cry.

Not because I didn’t get Moonstone Wisdom Lake. Not because Pema Chödrön was taken.

But because my Dharma name rang true, truer than anything I’d ever heard. And it had been with me this whole time.

I was Tepa Paden!

There was nothing to want.

Inhaling, I hoped I would always keep the faith. Exhaling, I vowed to never stop chasing the light.

A MEDITATION

May I keep the faith. May I always catch the light.

Feel free to share your own musings on keeping the faith or a light show from your past. Stay safe, help each other. Take deep care so we can best show up for this world.

xx Alexa

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