Nissaya, part three

The following is a continuation of the previous two posts.

Many others talked about my nissaya in different ways. A Khmer American, Arn Chorn-Pond, after I given a talk on the funeral chanting I was studying to a group of foreigners at a hill temple near Prum Ut’s village, said to me, “I am not Buddhist. My adoptive father is a Christian minister, and I don’t consider myself religious. But in Khmer we say that maybe you have nissaya, “destiny,” for this place. Maybe you were a monk here in times past, and that coming back here to study Buddhism and these chants is your destiny.” This incident revealed to me that the concept of nissaya is so important to Khmer culture to even non-Buddhists and those who have spent most of their lives abroad still affirm its meaing. Arn’s words also point to the possibility that nissaya can refer to places and landscapes, not only to people and relationships.

Once I actually became a monk, encounters with laypeople proved to be an especially rich ground for learning about nissaya. The delightful older generation of pious Buddhist believers in Cambodian—old men and women dressed simply in black and white who live mostly at the temple—often had strong reactions to seeing me in saffron robes. I can recall many occasions where an elderly stranger would walk up to me when I was in meditation, take me by the hand or grasp my forearms, look deeply into my eyes and say, “Oh, his nissaya is very strong,” not seeming to care whether or not I understood their language or not.

There were, of course, many more people who laughed, cursed, quietly giggled, stared, pointed or did not dare to speak with me. But my memory of those who approached me, with bright eyes and wide smiles, is much stronger. Their faith was not really about me as an individual, but rather for the robes and the religion, and their respect to me was simply part of faith rather than an explanation about my supposed spiritual progress. But in almost every case, these laypeople, and even some monks, brought up nissaya as the only explanation for my presence. I remember that when I went walking in Phnom Penh, even when I was not specifically going out to beg for food, laypeople would approach me and offer requisites, saying "there is nissaya." It was never entirely clear that they were talking about the nissaya they saw in me, or simply that they felt we had nissaya together. In a way, however, the two interpretations are not fundamentally different. To give is to build nissaya with someone we respect, and to give may also be an expression of our previous connection.

This more open interpretation of nissaya was revealed in other instances as well. My other chanting teacher, Keot Ran, was perhaps the most intimate in her treatment of nissaya. She would always call me “Venerable Child” or “Venerable Son,” and would about how my presence inspired her to develop her “bright and clear” heart for the Dharma. She also lamented, due to here blindness, that she could not see me in my robes. And she spoke with such gentleness and fervent respect that I was often moved to tears by her presence. No had ever respected me in such a way before, and even though I never it came from a sense of intimate connection rather than an attempt to put me on a pedestal, it was still very difficult to receive, because it was so sincere and rooted in a common Dharma. In a way, nissaya was the linking concept between my spiritual journey and my research in Cambodia. Yet the Cambodians around me insisted that nissaya was not the linking concept in this case; for them, it was a real and tangible link, one that connected them and their own spiritual paths to my own. Our connections burrow into the past like intertwined roots and stretch into the future like branches, and in the present, I am learning to call this whole tree nissaya, something which is alive and nourishing to all.