42 Paradigm Changers #3: The Temple

 February 8, 2025

The Temple

Elly, my wife, Chrystal, our daughter, and I had just moved from Ivory Island Light Station to live with my mother on Hermitage Drive in Richmond, B.C., Canada. Elly yearned for the city lights again, and Chrystal, at four, needed other children. I loved the lightkeeper's life, but family came first. It wasn't long before I noticed the temple. Intrigued, I wondered, What the hell, why not? Turning into the temple driveway, I found a parking space. Excitement, curiosity, a touch of fear… what awaited me up the long staircase and inside the dark entrance? Nothing less than a decade of paradigm shifts and a lifetime of, more or less, following the Way.

Today, some forty-five years later, I'm an old man with a fading memory. Half an hour ago, I had to ask M'Lady to help me with a timeline of my temple experiences. Which temple? M'Lady asked. We ate at both. But I only observed the monks at the second. That's right. Chrystal was four when I first visited… after Ivory, before the Crosby. The conversation was as muddled as my mind. All I'm certain of is that it spanned the mid-80s to the mid-90s, give or take.

Wandering around the temple for the first time, my senses were assaulted. Incense filled my nostrils; larger-than-life statues of Buddhist demigods filled my eyes and mind. The well-worn carpet teased my shoeless feet. Simply by turning into the driveway and walking up the staircase, I had left behind white Anglo-Saxon Canada and entered the Far East. Few things in my life had felt so natural.

I found myself before a bulletin board. Tacked to it was a handwritten invitation to join the temple's meditation class on Wednesday nights. The following Wednesday, I was there. Class began in Oneson's cell—Chinese tea and a short teaching—then up to the grand hall. Sitting before the altar, flanking Oneson, we followed his lead through an hour or so of meditation, followed by a short teaching, and then home.

After a few months, I was the only student who showed up. We had our tea and teaching and headed up to the grand hall. After what seemed like an eternity, I faintly heard Oneson winding his pocket watch. Each turn of the winding stem was just slightly slower than the last. By the time he finished, I was in my first deep meditation. But rather than quiet contemplation, I heard the water dripping from the far corner fountain; the incense didn't retreat—it blossomed. Had my eyes been focused, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the demigods dancing.

This was neither the first nor the last paradigm shift I experienced at the temple. Over the course of this series, I'm sure I'll write about more.

Today's final thought: My world changed when I experienced a hitherto unseen world. How would your world change if your senses were empowered to see the unseen?

Brian