Coming Back to CTTB

All Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Venerable Master, Dharma Masters, wise teachers, and Dharma friends: good evening. My name is Thao Amanda Phi. I’ve grown up being a part of Dharma Realm Buddhist Association (DRBA) and have attended Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (BBM) weekly since it opened in 1995. My journey in Buddhism has evolved and progressed over these twenty years from being a child to a working adult in the community. From a young age and growing up attending the monastery, I always knew I wanted to come back and help the temple, but I did not know in what capacity.

Buddhism has always been a huge and important part of my life that I really would be missing a piece of myself without it. It is the foundation of my principles and morals; it has affected the way I approach life and how I make decisions. 

When I was asked to give this talk, I was unsure where to begin. There were so many things I could talk about, but what I’m choosing to speak about tonight ties together the past, present, and future. I will share how my experience has changed since the last time I spoke in the Buddha hall to speaking in the Buddha hall again tonight.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

The last time I spoke in the Buddha hall was January 2004 when I was in 7th grade attending the girl’s school. It was quite a painful time in my life.

A month before speaking in the Buddha hall, my parents came to pick me up for winter break. As we were driving toward the gate to leave, my mom told me she was going stay for the Amitabha session for a couple days, all packed and ready to go. I wanted to spend time with her, so I pleaded her not to stay and to come back home. Like any mother would do to make her child happy, she obliged. It was raining on our drive back, and we got into a car accident. I woke up in the hospital and learned that my mom passed away immediately upon impact of the crash. In an instant my whole life changed, and when I got back home I no longer had a mom. 

For years – even until recently – I felt immense self-blame. I would sometimes catch myself thinking about why I had been so selfish to ask her to come home or demand to go home on that exact day. Buddhism helped me understand that my mom’s passing was exactly just that – her passing – it was nothing more and nothing less. It would’ve happened regardless because it was her time, but the conditions in this particular instance tied me to the incident.

I told everyone I understood these things, how fragile life is, how impermanent things are, and that it was her time to go.  However, I was too young at the time to understand the guilt I would carry, feeling like I was somehow inherently bad for being connected to such a tragic incident, and then how long afterward it would affect my life.

After my mom passed away, I was given the option of returning back home for school. I chose to stay at the girl’s school, largely because I was not ready to deal with the new and shocking reality of a home without my mom. A month after speaking in the Buddha hall, the choice was made for me to return home when I was dismissed from the girl’s school for writing notes to a boy. While I understood it was against the rules, it was the only outlet I had for dealing with such a painful time in my life. I knew my actions would have consequences, and I had to accept them.  

Even though I was dismissed from the school, I had been attending the summer Guan Yin session since 2001. I was not going to let being dismissed take away from my own cultivation, and I still came back to attend the Guan Yin session that following summer. It was a struggle to distinguish that I was dismissed from the school and not the temple.

I felt uncomfortable at the session and decided I needed to make amends: I apologized to two nuns who were my former teacher and principal, and when I came back to Berkeley, I also apologized to DM Sure for my actions. They saw right past the petty situation of note-passing and understood my actions came from a place of deep pain.

More than a decade later, I am back here and speaking in the Buddha hall again. It’s quite amazing how my experiences have shifted. I am no longer a child in the girl’s school but working with the university as an adult and a professional.

While I have always been a part of the DRBA and BBM communities, I never pictured myself working for DRBU. The thought didn’t even cross my mind until one afternoon while I was at BBM, several different people suggested I work with DRBU. Finally, DM Sure also suggested it, and I seriously considered what it would be like to work with the university. 

I was extremely reluctant about the idea of working with DRBU, because I was unsure if I wanted to be so closely involved with the temple in this way. Yet it was a chance for me to work in an area I am interested in to help an organization I care about, and working with DRBU was an opportunity I could not say no to. 

Last fall, I decided to move closer to CTTB to continue my work with DRBU. Moving back up north was an even bigger step for me beyond working with DRBU. I hadn’t lived this close since I lost my mom and was dismissed from the girl’s school. It was hard to imagine what living up here would be like, and I feared it would bring back my childhood traumas.

"Until you heal the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with [other distractions]. But eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them." 

It was from living up here that I realized I had been carrying around the weight of these fears and guilt all this time and didn’t even know it. It manifested in ways I wasn’t aware of, and it was brought to light when I came back to live here again.

I was put right back in the face of all the things I tried to leave behind me. Although I chose to be here with the intention of helping the university, I was also forced to deal with things from the past that were still hurting me.

The peak of my trauma came when the anniversary of my mom’s death fell on the exact same day it happened 11 years ago. When December 12 came, it was yet again a Friday and raining. I normally drive back home to the Bay Area on Fridays, but I was too scared to drive back that day.

My co-workers knew how sensitive I was to this event and were extremely supportive. They were present with me and kept me company when I was sad; they also gave me the space I needed to experience and work through my grief.

“Sometimes pain becomes such a huge part of your life that you expect it to always be there, because you can’t remember a time in your life when it wasn’t. But then one day you feel something else, something that feels wrong, only because it’s so unfamiliar. And in that moment you realize you’re happy.”

By the end of the day, it was the best December 12 I have had since my mom passed away.

There was nothing else to do but go through the experience – to feel my sadness and my grief, let it rise, and let it go. And that’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned from being in CTTB: that every state comes and goes. It is much harder to be shaken up by these temporary states when you realize they just come and go, ebbing and flowing. Instead, I am learning to be patient and present with these uncomfortable moments and letting things settle.

It was from moving back to CTTB to work with DRBU that I was able to work through my knots to properly and fully heal. Working here and going through these experiences enabled me to lift this invisible but heavy burden.

I speak tonight able to say that being here has helped me heal from the past, be present, and grow toward a better future. Since I have been around the monastery for most of my life, some people have seen me grow from being a child to an adult at CTTB. Someone asked me why I did not like it here when I was younger, but being a student and a child is vastly different than being a working adult in CTTB. Another person said, “Oh, I bet you didn’t expect to like it up here when you were younger.” And it’s true. I had no idea when I decided to move up here that these many wonderful things would occur, and I am grateful for each challenge and blessing.

This is my second year working with DRBU, and while any job is not without its difficulties and obstacles, it is even more rewarding. I asked a co-worker about why they are working here, and she articulated her reason perfectly: she’s found that there’s nothing else that is more worthwhile. Those simple words resonated with me and also precisely captured my own experience.

It is not something someone can just tell you and you believe it. It takes putting in the work, effort, and time to really understand the value of what we are doing. It is about being a part of something bigger than just yourself and doing something that benefits others.

I was unsure of what to expect from working with DRBU, but my experience has been a positive one. There are many different factors that contribute to that. Being in this kind of environment is one that enables me to thrive – the quietness, the stillness, and surrounded by nature.

In addition to the environment, the people in this community are amazing in their own way. Each person has their strengths and talents, and everyone works so hard. It is incredibly humbling to be surrounded by such inspiring and intellectual individuals and getting the privilege to work alongside with them as a team. 

Although I initially thought I would work for DRBU temporarily until I go to graduate school, there are too many good things happening with the university and broader community to take a leave of absence.

DRBU is currently at both a critical and exciting time. The university is progressing and with each day, we are closer to achieving the huge milestone of becoming a regionally accredited university. The more I am here, the more I want to continue - to serve the students, to build the community, and to fulfill the Venerable Master’s vision for education. 

My experience with living back in CTTB and working with DRBU has truly been transformative. I am able to help others, and in being able to help others, I am also able to help myself and further my own cultivation. It is interesting to be rediscovering myself in an old place with new settings. I am discovering the goodness inside of me that has always been there, and I am finding that there is nothing that is lacking. I have never been more happy or free. 

“No matter the deviation, all things come full circle. You begin and end your journey in the same place, but with a different set of eyes.”