Buddha in a Habit

Sister Cyril preparing to send her students out to do the work of the Buddha

Many things overwhelm me when I walk into the home where Mother Theresa took her last breathe.  I sit silently at the tomb that houses her body, the headstone bearing Christ’s greatest message. One that human beings find it sadly difficult to follow: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  I am just as silent when I walk through the exhibition celebrating her life of compassion and sacrifice.  It is in this exhibit where I learn that she not only nursed and fed the families living in Calcutta’s most uninhabitable slums, but she lived there with them.  This diminutive woman begged for food alongside the destitute, allowing them first dibs on the spoils and only eating what was left once the women and children had had their fill.

I am merely humbled by these powerful images of Mother Theresa.  What leaves me speechless, unable to comprehend this one woman’s commitment to mission is presented as a cursory biographical fact.  When Mother Theresa was 18 years old, she left her home country to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (The “Loreto Sisters”).  This teenager got on a plane headed to Ireland (and shortly thereafter, India) having no reference point for the culture in either country.  She did not speak English or Hindi or Bengali.  She had never been outside of her family’s neighborhood, much less on foreign soil. Mother Theresa was fully aware that once she began her missionary work, she would never see her own mother again.  Would never return home.  And she STILL got on the plane.

When I read this, I am unable to move on to the next panel of artifacts.  I don’t know why, but this detail is even more powerful to me than the images of her opening up the orphanage and bandaging up the diseased and dying.  She was just a girl.  Not even out of adolescence.  She would not be the first young person to devote her life to the arduous task of ending human suffering.  But, how many of those who came before her and who came after her gave up their FAMILIES? Their mothers?  Their homelands?  Their native tongues?

Days after having toured Mother’s House, I am still thinking about little 18 year old Gonxha Agnes saying goodbye to all that she knew and 60 years later never once mentioning how sad she was to leave her family behind in order to devote herself to such important work. It is against this backdrop that I find myself sobbing in the presence of Sister Cyril, a lesser known missionary than Mother Theresa, but a woman who is as equally dedicated to ending human suffering.

Like Mother Theresa, Sister Cyril left her native land of Ireland when she was little more than a girl.  Although she does visit her family back in Ireland, since joining the Loreto Sisters in Calcutta five decades ago, Sister Cyril has never gone back permanently.  For the last 30 years, Sister Cyril has been the principal of Loreto Sealdah School.  She has spent most of those years turning it into not only a school of high academic caliber, but a shelter for Calcutta’s parentless street children, an opportunity to learn for the children of the prostitutes who work in the infamous “Red Light District” and a training ground for her successors.  Sister Cyril has spearheaded numerous training programs for people who want to teach the poor.  She has inspired the “school in a trunk” movement that brings even the most basic education to children who live in remote villages and children of migrant workers whose parents put them to work making bricks in order to help support the family.

During our visit to Loreto Sealdah School, we are shown a documentary on Sister Cyril’s work.  She speaks frankly about the great need that exists in India and does not mince words about how more people should fulfill their duty to address that need.  When Sister Cyril began admitting street children into her school, her middle class parents balked.  Sister Cyril enlisted the hearts of their daughters to teach them compassion. “One of the girls told me her mother turned up her nose and called the kids dirty.  She was proud to correct her mother. ‘Sister, I told her she was the one who was dirty because she had a dirty heart.’  I was proud of her,too, for standing up to her mother for the right reason.”

And she trains her girls to stand up for justice even if it means manipulating the unjust.  When Sister Cyril discovered another “invisible” group of children in Calcutta, she called upon Loreto Sealdah students to bring them out of the shadows.  In far too many middle class homes, Sister discovered, school aged children are “hired” to work as domestic help.  They are paid little to no wages, given one paltry meal a day and are not allowed to leave the premises.  They are modern day slaves.  Sister found out about these children because her students leaked their wealthy neighbors’ secrets.  “That girl who is in that flat, she is not a little cousin visiting from the village.  She is the family’s fulltime maid.”  Sister has trained these students in their own form of rescue.  She tells them to use their middle class manners and their familiarity with the families to sweetly coax the women of the houses to allow their young maids out for a few hours a day.  “Just to play and come down to my school,” the girls tell the housewives.  And it is during these one or two hours a day, that these same girls teach their enslaved peers how to read and write.

I am already near tears before Sister Cyril begins to explain why she has worked tirelessly over the years to institute these programs into the fabric of Loreto Sealdah School.  “It is not my job to just teach my students so they can pass their Board exams,” Sister Cyril speaks plainly.  “It is not the goal of their education to go off to Europe or America and become doctors.  Their goal is to continue to change their country.  To allow others to live with the same dignity we have allowed them.”

And it is here when I feel something get stuck in my throat.  Water gathers in my pupils and my eyes begin to blur when I hear this woman continue to explain that morality can not be seperated from education.  That she and her staff have worked to develop a curriculum on Human Rights, which is compulsory for all students who attend her school.  “They must go out and propagate what they learn here,” Sister finishes. “If they don’t, then we have failed.”

By the time the film has ended and Sister Cyril strolls into the room as if she has been cued by her staff, my mind is in overdrive and so are my emotions.  I think back to 18 year old Gonxha Agnes on the road to becoming Mother Theresa.  I look at this sturdy Irish nun standing before me.  An outspoken firecracker to whom police officers bring raped and half starved children because they know Sister will take them.  Feed them. House them.  And teach them.  The woman who puts 100 of her students on a hot bus every Saturday and sends them out to villages with lesson plans so they can teach their rural counterparts.

“I hope you enjoyed the video,” Sister smiles as she sits down.  “So, do you have any questions for me?”

Questions?

Will you take statements, I want to say.

I want to say a lot.  I want to express my inability to fully understand how a Buddha has ended up walking this earth as a Catholic nun.  How I have been practicing Buddhism for just two short years and I am therefore unprepared to meet her.  This living, breathing embodiment of the most basic of Buddhist concepts: We ordinary human beings possess the Buddha nature; it is up to us to continually access and act on it.  

Yes, Sister Cyril, I have some questions for you.  I am forming these words in my head, but each time I try to say them, my throat gets tight and more tears trickle down my cheeks. 

How long did it take you to grow these fearless Buddha legs?   When will mine become as strong as yours?  Tell me what prayer to recite when I grow frustrated with my baby Buddha legs.  My wobbly walk of compassion that sometimes ends with my butt crashing to the floor, having to get up and try all over again.

The others in the group are able to ask Sister thoughtful, intelligent questions while I struggle to find the right thing to say.  And the 5 or 10 tear-free seconds needed to say it. 

It takes me two hours.  We have visited classrooms at Loreto Sealdah School.  Had lunch.  Taken countless pictures with the curious students who love to practice their conversational English with foreign visitors.

Before we leave, we are back in Sister’s office and she asks us again. “Is there anything else you would like to know about our work here?”

I can feel my throat tightening and my eyes welling up.  I take my 10 seconds while I still have them.

“Thank you for the work you do here.”  I can hear my voice cracking.  “It takes so much courage to devote your life to this work.”  The tears come back and I feel the other eyes in the room on me.  Wondering why I can not stop weeping.  I rush so quickly through the rest of my statement, I don’t even know if Sister understands me.

“I wish more of us had the courage to do it.”

I am not a Naughty Girl, Ma’am

No Fun for the Naughty

A kid is a kid is a kid…

It is nice to be reminded of this when I walk into one of the 8th grade classes yesterday afternoon.  The last time I saw this particular class was exactly one week ago and I had taken great care to explain to them that their homework to write one paragraph was due that next time they saw me.  I had the class recite the day I would return to their classroom.  “We will see Keturah Ma’am again on Tuesday,” they all chimed in unison.

Needless to say, when I walked in on Tuesday and asked to see their homework, 15 girls proudly held up their notebooks while the other 30 or so looked around the room or at the floor.  “What?  How is it possible that only 15 of you were responsible enough to do your homework?” I started the standard teacher lecture, only I made this version of it more intense. Although I feigned confusion at why most of the class had not done their homework, I was completely clear on why they hadn’t.  I was the guest teacher who they would only see twice a week for a month so in their little minds it was okay not to take any work I assigned (especially HOMEwork) too seriously.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” I continued my lecture.  “You still have to work on the days I teach you.  Although you are having fun when I am teaching you, this IS NOT a free period.”

Every American teacher gives this lecture to a room full of students at least once a month.  Every American student sits silently and pretends to pay attention to this lecture.  Occasionally, the goal of the teacher lecture is achieved and the offending slacker(s) is visibly ashamed and might shyly slip the teacher a repentant letter full of empty promises to do better.  Although a kid IS a kid, these Indian kids are…something different altogether. 

Before I  have even reached the pinnacle of my beautifully guilt-ridden speech about how deeply disappointed I am in the class I was beginning to think of as my favorite, a dozen of the students basically begin begging for my forgiveness.

“I am so sorry, Ma’am,” one of them shouts out randomly.  Several girls bellow out their own apologies as well.

“I did do the assignment,” another stands up and pleads for me to listen. “It is just that I forgot my notebook at home.”  When I tell her that this excuse is even worse than if she had not actually done the homework, she looks crestfallen and sinks back into her desk. 

I seperate the girls who have their assignments from the girls who do not.  “I want all of you on this side of the room to get up with your things,” I instruct them with a frown on my face.  “I would like the 15 girls who actually did what they were supposed to do to sit in these vacant seats.  You will have a fun assignment to do while your classmates take up our valuable time by doing their homework.”

This. freaks. the class. out.  I have been teaching for six years.  In a good American school.  I have NEVER seen anything like what I am about to describe to you. 

One girl begins to ferociously scribble in her notebook.  Her little pencil is biting violently into her paper as she calls to me, “Look, Ma’am, I am writing my paragraph.  I am doing it.  See, Ma’am.  I can go to that side of the room now?”  I tell her she can not.  That she must stop scribbling down random words and take her time. “Look back at your graphic organizer,” I respond to her plea with an expressionless face. “I expect to see each idea on that web explained in complete sentences that flow logically together.” 

While I am rebuking this child’s attempt to win my favor, one girl thinks she can “sneak” to the side of the room where the kids who are not in trouble are sitting.  From the corner of my eye, I see her inch her way two seats to the left, all the while keeping an eye on me at the front of the room.

“Where do you think you are going?”  The little sneak freezes and stares blankly at me, as if her brain can not formulate an excuse quick enough.  I swear, this kid reacts as if I were border patrol standing on that tiny bridge that seperates Tijuana from San Diego. 

“Ma’am,” she pleads.  “Please let me sit here on this side. I do not want to be on the side with the naughty girls.  I am not a naughty girl.”

It takes everything in me not to burst into laughter at this point.  This child is willing to sneak to the other side of the room eventhough she will not be allowed to do the fun assignment just to physically disassociate herself with having done something wrong. 

“Get back to your seat.”

“Ma’am, please.  I am so sorry.  Please, Ma’am.”

When I say nothing to her, only point to the Mexico side of the room, she bows her head and slowly slinks back to Tijuana.

 In the two weeks I have taught at Shri Shikshayatan, I have gotten in the habit of carrying with me pencils and pens with the name of my U.S. school written on them.  When someone has made a really good comment or has had the courage to read her work out loud, I have handed her a pencil or pen as a gift.  Today, 15 students get a pencil as they work in small groups on a funny story that incorporates all of the new words I have taught them in these two weeks.

The naughty side of the room shoots their classmates looks that suggest they would hurl themselves across the room, beat these 15 girls down and take their pencils were I not standing in front of them.   For me, this little episode is over.  I have made my point and feel no need to further my chastisement. For some reason, though, I do not think the class feels the same as I do.  A day later when I pass several of the “naughty” girls in the hall, they can not look me in the eye.

These kids are kids.  Just a little bit extra!