Skip to content
Inquiring Mind
Inquiring Mind
  • Home
  • Issues
  • Contributors
    • Writers
    • Interviewees
    • Artists
  • Contents
  • Topics
  • About
    • History
    • Masthead
    • Copyright and Permissions
    • Mailing List / Privacy
    • FAQ
  • Donate
Search for:
Your Support Makes Inquiring Mind Possible
Heavenly Messengers
Fall 2008   Vol. 25 #1
Fall 2008   Vol. 25 #1

Features

A Heavenly Beach Bum

By Ajahn Amaro

 
 

I was in Java, having left Britain at the age of twenty-one on a spiritual quest, roaming around Asia. I’d been staying in a sleepy little village. It was your “average” tropical paradise—right on the sea, open beaches, few people. Life was perfect: I had interesting friends, a great place to stay, plenty of ganja to smoke, no debt or obligations, no job I had to go to. I had nothing to do all day but relax and enjoy life. I should have been a happy and free man. But I was miserable. My mind was a mess, confused and full of insecurities—and I couldn’t blame it on anything.

One day I was walking alone down the beach, wondering, Why am I so unhappy? Everything is “right,” so why do I feel so “wrong”? It was getting toward sunset. As I got closer to the cliffs at the end of the beach, I saw a figure sitting up on the rocks in front of the local shaman’s cave. I climbed up the stone steps to where he sat. Seated in full lotus and completely still, with his eyes closed but facing the setting sun, he was bearded, blond, bare-chested and wearing bright turquoise shorts. He wasn’t the textbook wandering sadhu. He was a beach bum, part of my “tribe.”

But this fellow seemed so serene in contrast to my messed-up state. Sunlight was shining on him. There was an aura of peacefulness and composure. He was like a golden statue.

That’s when it hit me: This is what you should be doing. You need to learn how to be still internally. Here was a direct expression of what I realized I needed to find in myself, and it was intuitively clear that meditation was the way.

After a while this fellow opened his eyes. They were the same turquoise blue as his shorts. There was no sense of “look at me” or “I’m a very spiritual person.” Rather, he seemed perfectly at ease and natural, like a divine being.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything; I felt so small, grubby and pathetic. I didn’t want to mess up his perfect world. I got up and walked back to the village. I hadn’t seen him arrive, neither did I see him leave; I never spoke to him or saw him again. But for me he was a clear sign pointing the way toward what I needed to do in my own life.

 

∞

 

From the Fall 2008 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 25, No. 1)
© 2008 Ajahn Amaro

 

Topics

Divine Messengers, Inspiration, SE Asia, Teachers, Youth


Author

Ajahn Amaro's spiritual searching eventually led him to Thailand, where he ordained under Thai forest master Ajahn Chah in 1979. He served as coabbot of Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, from 1996 to 2010. He is now abbot of Amaravati Monastery in England.

Author

Ajahn Amaro's spiritual searching eventually led him to Thailand, where he ordained under Thai forest master Ajahn Chah in 1979. He served as coabbot of Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, from 1996 to 2010. He is now abbot of Amaravati Monastery in England.

 
 
Your Support Makes this Archive Possible
 
 
 
© Copyright 1984-2023. All rights reserved.
Sati Center for Buddhist Studies