Hi everyone,
Lask week I had a very lovely conversation with . We talked about all sorts of things including my name. Amanda very kindly checked how it’s pronounced, and then asked what it means. I told her, and I told her it was given to me by a teacher that I’m now estranged from. She asked if I’d ever written about that. About keeping my name despite where it came from. I hadn’t, but now I have…
I was kneeling on a polished wooden floor in front of my Buddhist teacher, and in front of the big golden Buddha on the main shrine. It was December 2007 and I was ordaining as a Buddhist monk. I had spent over an hour affirming each of the precepts I had taken. I had had the last strands of my hair shaved off, and I had received my robe. Now it was time for my new name.
My teacher took a plain white envelope out of his pocket, and pulled out a slip of paper. I had no idea what was written there. This ceremony, in public, would be the first time I would hear my new name. I was nervous about the whole ceremony, which marked the threshold of something important: a commitment to training in the religious life, a commitment to this teacher and this community. I was especially nervous about the name. It would completely replace my old one. I hoped that I liked it.
In the summer of 2007 I had been on retreat in central France. The retreat was at my teacher’s place, an old single story farm-house with no central heating and an outside toilet surrounded by 30 acres of beautiful meadows and woodland. Some days were spent in silence, some were spent working on the land, and some studying. On the hottest days we would go and swim in the nearby lakes.
One morning, waking up, I emerged from a vivid dream. I could hear one word being repeated over and over, “Kassapa”. Kassapa was one of the Buddha’s most senior disciples. After the Buddha died Kasspa led the Sangha, and he is seen as the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism. I was struck by the power of the dream, and couldn’t help wondering about its significance. Perhaps it was a sign of some connection with this figure? Perhaps it was pointing me to study Kassapa’s life? But the duties of the long summer retreat called and my attention went elsewhere.
In the ordination ceremony my teacher looked at the slip of paper. Sometime before the ceremony he had chosen the name and written it there. “Kaspalita” he read out, “‘Kas’ meaning light, as in the name Kassapa, and ‘palita’ meaning protected by. Protected by the light.”
“In everyday life” he said, “you will be known as Kaspa.”
I was pleased. I liked the name, and I couldn’t help remembering that dream from the summer. I took it as a confirmation that I was in the right place in life.
In November 2020, coming up to the thirteenth anniversary of my ordination I became disillusioned with my teacher and left that Buddhist community. Several others (including Satya) left at the same time. Eventually that teacher also left that community and went off to set up something new.
I felt such immense clarity and rightness making that decision, and I felt such immense sadness. It broke my heart.
Satya and I wanted to keep serving the community that had built up around the temple here in Malvern. We asked the Trustees of the charity that own the temple if we could remain here and run it as an independent centre. They said yes.
In lots of ways I felt completely untethered. I was unsure what I could trust of what had been passed down to me by this teacher. If they could make the series of mistakes that I had recently seen, was anything at all they had said trustworthy?
And yet, I kept my name.
It was so strongly associated with that teacher and his community that I thought about letting it go. But that association wasn’t the whole story.
The light the name refers to is the light of Amida Buddha. The infinite light of compassion that is available in every moment. The light that is deep within our own hearts and also surrounding us. The universe is shot through with it. Perhaps the light is the universe itself, not the limited version of the universe that we see with our human eyes, when we focus on our personal lives and the small worlds around us, but something vast and spacious.
My rational mind makes sense of ‘light’ in different ways at different times but on a deep intuitive level I know that the light is completely trustworthy and always present.
I don’t know what process my then teacher went through to arrive at my name in 2007. I do know that the word he chose reflected something that I already knew to be true within my heart. I am protected by the light. We all are.
The name came from a specific individual, but I experienced it as a gift that came from beyond that one person and I very quickly felt like ‘Kaspa’.
You may have heard that Buddhists are supposed to hold lightly to their identities. There is a lot of wisdom in this. We are not fixed beings. We are constantly shifting in both subtle and gross ways. Recognising this can help with all sorts of things, like weathering the impermanence of human life. And it’s also true that some identities are more helpful than others. They express more truth, or help us to carry more kindness. If we aren’t enlightened and able to let go of everything, better to hold on identities that get us closer to the truth.
In the months that followed breaking up with my teacher I questioned many things. I sifted through what I had been taught, testing it against my own experience and against the words of other teachers. Some things I kept, some things I threw away. Some of those choices were easy, others were more difficult. Keeping my name was easy.
Despite all of the anger and pain that I felt over the months following the break-up, I always felt grateful for the name. There were many times throughout that process where I felt completely powerless, powerless over other people’s reactions to our choices, and powerfless over my own feelings and reactions. In the midst of that powerlessness the name reminded me of my faith. I am protected by the light.
This reminds me of the lines in Romeo and a Juliet…
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
In our tradition I have known quite a few people who have become ordained. It can be challenging to pronounce and remember their new names! Often though, the name given does just suit them somehow and it sticks easier than expected. There is however one person, who after nearly 20 years still forget his ordained name for some reason 🤷🏼♀️
I’m glad you have been able to see the bigger picture and keep what is meaningful for you.
Beautiful. Thank you, Kaspa!