At the Edge of Ireland Page 9

  “Baaa…humbug!”

  “You’ve heard that old sayin’ ‘Your mistress knows you’re a feckin’ lyin’ creep but your wife can only wonder…endlessly!’”

  “Life’s far too damned short and far too much fun to waste time accumulating trinkets and toys…especially toys for boys who should know better!”

  “Y’see, I never really noticed him until he was gone and then I forgot all about him until he came back—and punched me out!”

  “I was jus’ getting’ worried that there was something a bit wrong wi’ me by feelin’ this happy and then I got some bad news like I always do, and then I felt lousy, and then I knew everything was okay again…so I felt a bit better…”

  “Don’t know what the hell’s happening to the real Irish music—now it’s all these overproduced musical blunderbusses with boilerplate plots if any at all, and full of little tweener pop-tarts and snarky little snits all wrapped up in sparkly garishness and lip-synching gnarly nouveau-bog country tunes…”

  “Oh…I rather liked the show…”

  “Poor lad—all he wanted was to be labeled an ‘Artist’ with a capital A so then he’d have all the excuses he needed to behave very badly, drink himself daft every night in Dublin, whore it up whenever he wanted, and die young, penniless and prematurely senile.”

  “You call him a ‘poor lad’—I’d call him pretty damned smart!”

  “Oh boy—the way that man lived! ‘Beaten paths are for beaten men!’ he said. I tell you—it was like an ode to the randoming life—a joy-obsessed odyssey of discovery and zany inspiration that made those who met him wonder if they were living as fully as they should—and why they spent so much time and effort stifling all their wonderful reckless impulses!”

  “So why the heck did he jump off those cliffs?”

  “Ah well, yes—you have a point there…”

  “Original sin!? A bloody myth! There’s never been anything original in Catholic sin. It’s all boringly predictable, repetitious, and as old and hackneyed as a senile cart horse!”

  “Y’see, it’s all very simple. We humans are essentially the visible tail ends of karmic sequences that stretch back eons of time—even before time existed.”

  “Ah well, so that explains this bleedin’ eternal backache of mine then…”

  “There’s no choice s’far as I’m concerned. You’ve got to live all out for today because you and/or the whole feckin’ world could end tomorrow.”

  “So what the hell am I doin’ wastin’ my time talkin’ to you!?”

  “I thought I was seein’ one of those beautiful ‘love at first sight’ romances openin’ up t’me…”

  “Yeah—so…”

  “Turns out I was wearin’ the wrong specs!”

  “Be honest now—do you ever mean what you say, or say what you mean?”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  “Both.”

  “In that case I truly mean and believe that ‘Guinness is good for you’ and I’ve been meaning to say that my glass is empty and I’d love a refill. Is that honest enough for you?”

  “You know, it must be the Irish in me, but I’d much rather fail gloriously in what I do than succeed in a mediocre manner.”

  “Ah well—in that case—congratulations to you on both counts!”

  And so it goes—grins and gleanings of insights and little wisdoms at “the best pub in the world”!

  6

  An Introduction to Dzogchen Beara

  WINKS, NODS, AND WHISPERS TINGED WITH wonder and awe. These often seem to characterize Beara and the people here who celebrate its diverse layers of realities, perceptions, and meanings. Nothing is what it appears to be in this wild and beautiful place, particularly from the point of view of neophyte blow-ins. Either you accept this and learn or you don’t—and thus invariably learn very little and ultimately leave.

  This was particularly the case with a very hidden place way off the main road to Allihies. We heard about it initially from one of our very first historian-informants, Jim O’Sullivan. He appeared at the door of our newly rented cottage a couple of days after our arrival and very kindly and unexpectedly offered to help us “get adjusted” to Beara and its oddities. We invited him in for tea, and he sat by the window, neatly dressed, hair combed to perfection, and politely professorial in demeanor. For the next hour or so he presented us with a remarkable array of information and insights on “this unique little finger of land.” Also over the next few days he introduced us to a number of individuals such as Gerard (“Gerdie”) Harrington and Connie Murphy, who became invaluable informants on Beara history and traditions.

  Somewhere in the middle of this preliminary initiation Jim mentioned the existence of a place—a center of meditation and learning—visited by a wide array of seekers, thinkers, and Buddhist practitioners including some very notable Tibetan rinpoche monks (who are believed to be reincarnations of important Buddhist figures) who offered occasional retreats and courses.

  “But is there enough interest in Buddhism here on Beara? Where do the people come from?!” asked Anne.

  Jim laughed. “Oh, you’d be amazed. People travel in from all over Ireland, all over the world for that matter. Especially when Sogyal Rinpoche comes here. He was born in eastern Tibet and he’s said to be the incarnation of a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama. He wrote that very famous book—The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It’s said to be a condensation of over twenty-five hundred years of Buddhist teachings. You’ve heard of it?”

  A bit of an embarrassed silence here, followed by a grunty “Er…no…”

  Apparently Sogyal Rinpoche is one of the most renowned Buddhist teachers of our time and is the spiritual director of this Beara center—known as Dzogchen Beara—in addition to an international network of over a hundred meditation centers around the globe.

  “His network is called Rigpa—the Tibetan word for ‘informed awareness’—or so I’m told,” said Jim.

  “You’re kidding!” gasped Anne.

  “No—that’s what he calls it, I think…”

  “Sorry, Jim. What I meant was…I’m sensing some fascinating synchronicities here on Beara. AWARE is the name of the nonprofit organization I founded just over ten years ago. Its main purpose is to increase the independence and quality of life of people with vision loss. Check it out on our Web site—www.visionaware.org—and let me know what you think…”

  Jim nodded and smiled. It was one of those smiles that reinforce the old adage “there are no coincidences.”

  APPARENTLY THE DZOGCHEN BEARA Center was actually the dream, and eventually a reality, of Peter and Harriet Cornish, who bought a run-down farm of 150 acres here in 1973 on one of the most spectacular cliff-ramparted headlands on the peninsula. Their intent was to create a spiritual home with hostel-like accommodations and even a series of small cottages for people of all spiritual traditions and denominations. Having succeeded, they gifted the center to a charitable trust under the guidance of Sogyal Rinpoche.

  “Do they still live there—the Cornishes?” I asked Jim. “I’d like to meet them.”

  Jim paused. Wrinkles appeared across his forehead. He coughed quietly and then said, “Well, that’s a little difficult. Peter still lives there and doesn’t see many people now since Harriet’s death in 1993. But apparently, the way he arranged her last few days in a hospice in Cork in a room decorated with Tibetan tankas and with her favorite ngondro chants playing—it inspired an idea to build a unique ‘spiritual care’ center on the cliff top here near the dormitories and the main meditation center…Just a minute, I think I may have…”

  Jim delved into a small briefcase he was carrying. He’d already given us a few brochures, but now he pulled out a small booklet. “It’s the only one I have at the moment—I’ll get you a copy. But I like this bit. ‘When we find we have chronic illness, or we are told we have only a few months to live, our lives can change dramatically. There is usually a need to find meaning, resolution, peace,
and hope. This search for meaning can be a transformative experience for both the person who is sick or dying or for those they will leave behind. This process may or may not be rooted in a spiritual tradition…but the process can unfold itself to ultimately rewarding stages.’”

  The room was very quiet for a few moments and then Anne spoke softly: “Beautiful. And that’s what they’re creating up at the center?”

  “Yes,” said Jim, “slowly. Like everything they do there. They seem to allow things to develop at their own rhythm and pace. Someone once described it to me as ‘spiritual farming’—planting idea-seeds, fertilizing them a little, and then letting them grow according to their own timetables. He also said something I’ll never forget: ‘Always be generous. Give yourself away because what else are you here for anyway?’…But listen. I’m not really the person you should be talking to. I find the place magical—a magnificent place to go, if only to sit quietly on the cliff tops or in the meditation room when it’s empty with all those huge vistas of the sky and ocean. But I’m hardly a Buddhist—although there’s no proselytizing and that kind of thing there. You can attend workshops and whatnot if you want to—or you can just go there to be quiet. Matt Padwick—he’s the one you should talk to. He’s kind of in charge of most things there.”

  “Where is this Dzogchen? And how do we get there?” I said.

  “With great difficulty,” Jim said, chuckling, “particularly if you’ve never been there before. There’s a sign about the size of a small menu and it’s on a bend, so if you blink or get distracted by the view, which at that point is fabulous, then you’ll miss it…And even when you’ve found it, you’ll wish you hadn’t. The track up into the hills is a real shock-smasher.”

  JIM WAS RIGHT ON both counts. First try—we missed the sign. By a good mile. We were almost down at the rocky beaches near Caher-more before we realized we’d overshot. So—back up the hill between burly boulders and twisted strata to the sign, which was actually smaller than a menu. More like a Reader’s Digest magazine. And the track—well, at least it was a rental car we were driving, and quite frankly, considering those rip-off rates and obligatory “extra insurance fees”—we didn’t feel too guilty about the shock-smashing. After a mile or two of grinding metal and creaking rivets as we switch backed higher and higher across the moors and between scrub-covered rock humps, we arrived in a small parking area surrounded by a thick profusion of trees and bushes. Suddenly and serenely there was silence. Utter silence.

  “So where is everything—and everybody?” asked Anne.

  “There’s a small sign over there,” I said, wondering if we’d arrived at the correct destination. Apparently we had. The sign confirmed that this was the Dzogchen Beara. But where was it?

  We followed a winding pebbly path and then coyly, little by little, the complex revealed itself. First a tiny store selling an enticing mix of Buddhist trinkets, music CDs, and books on meditation, mantras, and “spiritual medicine.” Then came a small administration building, followed by the bright white stucco walls of the meditation space and the shrine room. Beyond that were dormitories and other meeting spaces, and lower down, where the land ended in jagged two-hundred-foot-high cliffs, was a series of small rental cottages. And that was about it. We’d been told there were sacred sites hidden away on the hilltops and in the dense scrub, but we saw none of these. What we did see, though, was almost enough to make us instant converts—at least in terms of the aesthetics of the site. A great green curl of pyramidal hills spun southward, chiseled by deeply eroded black cliffs. Even on this relatively calm day, surf crashed against their bases, spuming fifty or more feet into the air. Farther south, in a blue haze, were the long graceful fingers of the Sheep’s Head and Mizen Head peninsulas. And then, as we slowly turned ourselves westward, there was the Atlantic Ocean, striated with purple and turquoise, edging out toward North America in a sheen of burnished silver under a delicate scrim of puffball clouds.

  “Next stop, Newfoundland and Labrador! Three thousand miles of uninterrupted brine…” I said.

  “Beautiful—just beautiful!” said Anne.

  Here indeed was a place serenely wrapped in peace and solitude.

  Against such terrestrial purity one experiences a sense of cerebral self-erasure, a vanishing into an atmosphere of mirage and mist as you’re being gently demoted to the status of a fading shadow…

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it—really!” said somebody else. Behind us.

  We turned. A young man with a lean, open face and unusually bright eyes stood smiling at us. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt…Matt Padwick. Very pleased you could both make it.”

  We all shook hands in a welter of grins and “so are we”s.

  “You okay out here for a while? My office is a real mess—and it’s a great day to be outside anyway.”

  We strolled slowly down to a low stone wall set unnervingly close to the cliff edge and sat together on the warm grass. Layer upon layer of cliffs shimmered in the soft amber tones of a late-afternoon sun, gradually fading into a purple haze to the south. Matt was immediately honest with us. In fact he seemed to be one of those individuals for whom dishonesty would be impossible. “Thanks for calling, but listen, if you’ve come to hear a long lecture on Buddhism, I’m not the right chap. I organize things—keep things flowing—reasonably efficiently! I’m not officially qualif—”

  Dzogchen Beara

  “That’s fine with us,” I said. “We prefer to do without the indoctrination anyway.”

  Matt explained that since his arrival here in 1998, his aim had been to encourage open access to anyone and everyone. “To me, some of the most important elements of any belief system are to avoid harming anyone, to increase our connectedness, and to find contentment and meaning within our own selves and not through the pursuit of elusive external things. I’ve known people—many—who’ve gone decades without experiencing a truly silent meditative moment. They seem to be driven by some self-created internal ‘race.’ So I suppose you could say we exist to help slow down—maybe even eliminate—that kind of rather pointless and often damaging race. And that’s really what it’s all about here. I must admit, though, to being very impressed by Sogyal Rinpoche. I’ve met him quite a few times now. He really does possess some kind of aura—very peaceful, very focused, and very perceptive. He’s not one of those hide-in-a-cave guys—he’s right out there, all the time. I love to watch him in action. At some of our workshops, we’ll always get people coming in with loaded questions—some that would stump your average theology philosopher. But he responds in such a natural, commonsense kind of way that the questions—the crafty semantics—just seem to flutter away. They don’t seem relevant. He disarms people. Totally. Not through clever rhetoric or esoteric learning, but by being completely straightforward and honest. He’s a great guy! I get great thoughts when I listen to him, but sometimes, when I try to explain them, my words can vanish into a neurological Bermuda Triangle!”

  The three of us sat chatting together for half an hour or more, wafted by cool breezes. The sun was warm, the sea haze had intensified. The land became more mystical, merging seamlessly with the sky and the ocean. It was a most enticing interlude. We felt bathed in peace and the pleasure of quiet conversation. Then, without any hint of proselytizing, Matt explained more about the center and how it had added value and depth to his own life.

  “I traveled for ages in my twenties. Around the world and whatnot. I suppose I was a kind of seeker, but I also had a great time just goofing off and adventuring. Going with the flow. I suppose living that kind of money-and-thing-free life, which is what I did for quite a while, you begin to see some of the key problems with modern-day antics—ultramaterialism, accumulation of ultimately meaningless toys, the affluenza contradiction—you know, the more you spend, the less you enjoy it! It’s fun at first, I suppose, but then you realize you’re in a spiritual cul-de-sac. Going nowhere.

  “Who was that French philosopher? Was it Descartes? He sa
id our biggest problem is that we often find it very hard to sit silently in a room by ourselves with no distractions. We’re always going after the next thing—the next immediate gratification. Stupid, really. Like rats in cages always looking for the next bit of cheese. Anyway, so eventually I wised up and got a bit more serious. Signed up here for a short retreat. I didn’t want to go through this life with a brain full of ‘if onlys’ and ‘I could haves.’ I told myself I’d give it a week or two, and if nothing happened then—shoot—I’d admit defeat and join the rat race! But then—well, I guess something did work, and I also met my wife, Andrea, here. Then my parents came to visit, fell in love with Beara, and stayed. My mum’s a reflexologist. She’s also become one of the Beara ‘healers,’ although she’d never really call herself that. The place just seems to lure in people with special gifts—and people who need them! That’s why Dzogchen Beara is so powerful, I suppose. It’s very hidden away, as you found out, and quiet, but it’s known literally around the world. I was very lucky to find a job here. I don’t get too involved with the actual teaching and meditation side of things…I’m kind of like a lubricant, just keeping the machinery of management moving along quietly and hopefully without too many glitches. And it’s a great life. I’ve met so many beautiful people here…”

  Then suddenly Matt looked up at the sky. A cloud was passing overhead, quickly darkening. The rest of the sky was virtually cloudless, but above us was this ogreish form, visibly bulging and contorting, as if possessed by some demonic force.

  “Oh, boy!” whispered Matt. “You’ve gotta watch this.”

  “What? What’s happening?” I asked.

  Anne stared upward. “Wow, this looks interesting…”

  “We’ll go inside in a minute,” said Matt, “but just see what happens. We’ve got some weird microclimate quirks here. Something to do with the cliffs and the Gulf Stream currents, they say…”