Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Over 50 years of constant travel I’ve been lucky enough to visit Antarctica and Tibet, to feel shaken by the pilgrims of Ethiopia and spooked by the stone faces of Easter Island. But nowhere has so transformed me as the Catholic hermitage, New Camaldoli, to which I keep returning, more than 100 times over the past 33 years. I’m not a Christian and I don’t attend any of the services on offer. But simply taking long walks, sitting in my little garden watching the sun scintillate on the water and chatting with other retreatants feels like the greatest adventure of all. A true trip is one that sends you home a different person from the one who left – more directed, more joyful, more calm – and nowhere has this effect on me as does this simple monastery.

The first time I visited – February 1991 – the world was much less noisy and distracted than today. There were no smartphones, no social media, no constant updates; email was in its infancy. Even so, a few days in silence felt like radiant liberation. All the chatter in my head dissolved and I could remember what I truly love. And all my little plans and hopes and frustrations disappeared, so I could remember what I ought to be. The monks call this “recollection”, the recovery of a truth, a self, that’s always at hand but too often forgotten…

I sometimes worry that we’re so anxious to stay up-to-the-moment these days that we lose sight of the essential. We’re in such a rush that we can’t stand back far enough to put the world – and ourselves – in perspective. We’re so caught up in that tweet that just came in, that update from Ukraine, that we can’t hear ourselves think – let alone what’s deeper than our thoughts….

The radiant sense of calm and joy I find when spending three days without words doesn’t last long. Within two days I’m back in the roar of traffic and fretting over that tax form I have to complete, that invoice that just got bounced back. But simply knowing that there’s medicine available makes everything a little less unsettling. As I write this in Japan, I’m looking at a postcard of the silence above the sea that reminds me of where I could be and who I could be at my best. The memory, the prospect – the image alone – remind me that I’m never far from home.’ (from the Guardian)