Daily Presence

When the monks and nuns at Gilroy’s Kim-Son Monastery interact
with others in the community, they do so with simplicity and
grace
A young man with a clean-shaven head wearing a long, grey robe emerges from a Sunday morning meditation service at the Kim-Son Monastery in Gilroy. He is pausing during the course of the deep prayer and meditation practices that he participates in each morning, usually beginning at 5:30am. The young man carefully closes the door behind him, stepping out into the hall in stockinged feet.

A cell phone is pressed firmly against his ear.

Far from being a cloistered setting that isolates monks and nuns from the rest of the community, Mount Madonna’s Kim-Son Monastery is home to Buddhist monks and nuns who interact with others in the community on a regular basis.

Gilroy residents are sometimes startled when they see a group of men or women around town with bald heads, dressed in identical grey or saffron robes that cover them completely from neck to toe. They don’t wear makeup or jewelry. They walk slowly, never in a hurry, and they speak quietly and graciously. They always let others go ahead of them. They carry themselves with straight backs. Their bearing emanates solidity, yet also seems relaxed. They greet each other by placing their palms together and briefly bowing.

Some of the monks and nuns attend classes at Gavilan College in subjects such as English and piano. On Mondays, they go into town to run errands. Although much of the food at the monastery is donated, residents sometimes eat at Fresh Choice or shop at Nob Hill Foods for vegetables, bread and – curiously – Fruit Loops. They also come into town at least once a week to use local Laundromats.

“We don’t have enough water for laundry,” Master Thich Tinh Tu explained. “We need ours for showers, cooking and cleaning.”

Improving the grounds

Water is also necessary for the new plants and trees being added to the monastery grounds. The nuns and monks are busy preparing lush vegetation to be incorporated around the grounds, along with additional Buddha statues that are being delivered from Vietnam. One of the statues waiting near the entrance for future placement is a 30-foot-long image of Buddha lying down, reclining on a large bed of lotus blossoms. 

Master Tu said he plans continued improvement of the grounds, and his vision for the future of the monastery includes building a new meditation complex made up of a meditation center, activity room and temple area modeled after the temple he grew up near in Vietnam. The new temple area will modernize and replace the small, converted living room in an old house on the grounds that is currently used for meditation. 

It’s unclear when the changes will be complete. Master Tu said he expected to be further along in the development of the new complex by now, but the bureaucracy involved in obtaining the necessary permits has slowed things down.

The facility will be bigger and better equipped for serving both the year-round residents and the many people who visit the monastery on weekends and for Buddhist holidays, Master Tu said. There are about 100 visitors on any given weekend, but ceremonies such as the Tet Festival, which marks the Vietnamese New Year in early February, can draw as many as 10,000 to Mount Madonna.

Spreading the message

Master Tu reaches thousands more in communities throughout northern California via broadcasts of his local weekly Sunday afternoon radio program of teachings in Vietnamese, and countless more when it is broadcast in southern California on Mondays. Kim-Son’s monks and nuns also make CDs of various teachings and meditations to share with English-speakers. The recordings are available to the public for free at the monastery.

One of the basic purposes of the broadcasts – and any outreach from the monastery – is to teach others how to become enlightened beings, like Buddha, which literally means “awakened.” The goal of enlightenment is to free ourselves from the negative effects of mistakes made out of ignorance, anger and hatred.  

“In the Western world, there is a belief in destiny, that our fate cannot be changed. But we Buddhists believe that by changing your response to what happens to you, you can change the outcome,” said Monk Linh Nham, a monk from France who has been at Kim-Son for nearly two years. “This is the law of karma, of cause and effect. Karma means action. If you do something wrong, but then don’t do anything in response, the outcome won’t change. But if you understand what you’ve done wrong, you can correct it. 

“Even a murderer is not without hope. There is a spiritual price to pay, even when the justice system lets him go free. But what if he is heartedly sorry and does everything he can to help the family of his victim? What if he sacrifices his life in order to save someone else?  Everybody can change their own response, no matter what happens to them.”

Just as a murderer has the choice to change his or her life, each of us has the opportunity every day to influence others in a positive way, said Chan Khong, a well-known Vietnamese social activist and Buddhist nun who regularly travels to retreat centers in many different countries.

“My secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon,” she said. “That’s enough. When you see you can do that, you continue, and you give two little joys, and you remove two little sufferings, then three, and then four. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret.”

Just as followers of Buddhism delve deep into the experience of awakening to all that is around them, the people of Kim-Son ask us to look deeper into our own experiences. 

Life at Kim-Son challenges us by asking: How can our own awakening in everyday life help those around us?

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”  –Buddha (563-483 B.C.)

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