Buddhist daily life in backwoods West Virginia
It's not all unenlightenment and cliche back in the hollers & hills | march14.2022
A walking path at the perimeter of the Bhavana Society Buddhist monastery and retreat center in Hampshire County WV. | westvirginiaville.com photo | march2022
Editor’s Note Thingie
In times of churning international turbulence like now, it helps to remind ourselves of something. It’s this: There are traditions just as ancient as warfare, cruelty, and beastliness (with apologies to perfectly decent wild beasts) which can counter the seductive havoc of hatefulness. And we have ample, tried-and-true ways to train our so-fallible selves in doing the right thing, instead of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing.
That brings me to this issue, which profiles a perhaps unanticipated, mindful destination on a rural West Virginia road. (And just a note: it is just some sort of karmic convergence two recent issues have focused on backwoods Buddhist convergences in the West Virginia hills. Here was the other. Not a trend!)
But first, if forwarded this newsletter or you didn’t receive it via e-mail, free subscribe for updates from a web magazine devoted to covering West Virginia’s culture, daily life, and politics in fresh, unexpected, enterprising ways. Read on & be well. | Douglas John Imbrogno, founding editor
A Different Kind of Mighty
Hackneyed, knee-jerk associations about West Virginia’s unenlightened hillbilly disposition belie the truth on the ground in many corners of this sometimes unpredictable state. Take, for instance, daily life at the Bhavana Society, a Theravadan Buddhist forest monastery and retreat center, located since the late 1980s on about 60 acres of forest land in the windy shade of Hampshire County’s Great North Mountain.
A kuti (pronounced ‘COO-tee’) is a residential cabin for retreatants, monks, and residents with many sprinkled across the Bhavana monastery grounds in rural West Virginia. | westvirginiaville.com photo | march2022
The monastery first came to my attention in 1989, when I was feature editor of ye olde Charleston Gazette in West Virginia’s capital city. That was in the glory days when — backed by expense-account cash and crowded with staff — we in the newsroom kept our eyes peeled and gas tanks full for any notable story in whatever nook, cranny, and corner of the state.
Um …. a traditional Buddhist forest monastery? On a back-road in the Mountain State?? Founded by one of the Western world’s leading Buddhist meditation teachers and authors, Bhante Gunaratana, known and beloved globally as “Bhante G”???
Indeed. Check out the short video (below) for some colorful, harmonic snapshots of daily life at Bhavana.
CLICK TO VIEW “MONASTERY DAYS",” an AmpMediaProject.com video
You’ll find more photos and a deeper back-story about the monastery at this link at WestVirginiaVille.com. As the story goes on to note, such unexpected places as a forest monastery and spiritual retreat center around a curve in the Appalachian hills can be a mighty resource in a world which otherwise seems to only view might as right:
It is ever more important that such places as the Bhavana Society exist and thrive in the world. In the face of the insistent, often overwhelming challenges of daily life, and horrors like the current attempted mugging of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, places that renew and strengthen the spirit are key. They help us regain our equilibrium when we inevitably lose it. We’re then able to help others in special need on the frontlines in a place such as Ukraine. We are in this together. READ ON
Update with Flowers from Ukraine
The Feb. 27.2022 issue of this newsletter shared poignant, first-hand dispatches from the bunkers and streets of Kyiv, Ukraine, courtesy of Michael Willard, a friend of mine and of many who have had West Virginia media, business, and political careers. As that issue noted, a chunk of Mike’s life (he now lives in Florida) has unfolded in Ukraine, where two of his daughters, Mia and Maria (aka Masha), live. Like their countrymen and countrywomen, they continue to bravely resist —as the newsletter put it — “Putin’s attempt to make Ukraine a vassal state to his bloody, retro-czarist ambitions.”
On March 8 on Facebook, Mike posted an update about Mia and Masha, which we share with you now. It is important to keep in clear focus the faces and the loved lives on the line in Ukraine.
White tulips illustration. | WestVirginiaVille.com
Update: Day 13 of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine | Michael Willard
MARCH 8, 2022: I reached Mia and Masha on FaceTime walking to the market on the streets of their Kyiv neighborhood this morning. They were laughing and had a handful of white tulips.
It's International Woman's Day and the flowers were given to them by the Territorial Defense soldiers protecting the city. A boom could be heard in the background.
"Don't worry," said Mia, "That's our guys shooting at a Russian missile. We've learned to tell the difference in the sounds these couple of weeks."
Many have urged that they flee, especially me. But their situation is complicated by various factors, and it is not a decision they are ready to make now.
An old friend from Danone offered to help. Others have offered money which they decline. One person said she would start a petition to get them to leave. My sister, Rev. Joy, urges daily.
They appreciate all the concerns and good thoughts. For now. they want to stay and help out where they can.
"It's Women's Day. It's a holiday," said Mia, showing her flowers.
Happy Women's Day.
I wonder if the cowardly Vlad — the murderer of innocents from his palatial bunkers in Moscow — is celebrating.
Update: Singing Out
We recently profiled one of West Virginia’s finest troubadours and storytelling songwriters: “Chris Haddox tells stories from the hills, plus unexpected ones, too.” Catch him live when he performs in a Woody Hawley Series concert on the main Clay Center stage in Charleston WV (a fabulous locale to experience a singer-songwriter show) on March 26 at 7:30 p.m., along with Johnny Staats, John Posey, Julie Adams, Steve Hill, and Ammed Solomon. He performs on “Mountain Stage” the very next day, on March 27, 2022, along with Janis Ian, Lido Pimienta, Beppe Gambetta, and Philip B. Price, at WVU’s Creative Arts Center in Morgantown WV. More information here. Below is an AmpMediaProject video of his great tune, “A Soul Can’t Rest In Peace Beside the Four Lane”:
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Leave comments below, or on stories at our site or via this contact form. For e-mails about future monthly issues, free subscribe: WestVirginiaVille.substack.com. PS: Thanks, as ever, to Jeff Seager, this publications Copy Critiquer Extraordinaire.
