Cape Breton Island - Cheticamp & Gampo Abbey

By Maryanna Gabriel

“Great is the matter of life and death

Awake, awake

Don’t waste time.”

Zen saying on the dining room bell at Gampo Abbey

Dramatic Cape Breton Landscape

I rested a time on a really nice beach where the Northumberland Ferry came in from Prince Edward Island and then drove to Cape Breton noticing that the English words were translated into Gaelic. By the time I got to Cheticamp I could see I was in the heart of Cape Breton. Here French replaced the Scottish Gaelic. I stopped to buy some handicrafts made with hooking and I was shown the photos of the elderly women who made them, in their eighties, doing 144 stitches per square inch. It made me feel comforted somehow to see their work, kind of like a group of benevolent grandmothers practicing so much patience with the wool. That night a fierce wind came up with lashing rain. It gave me a sense of how dire the weather can be. The houses reminded me of the photos of Newfoundland, kind of placed like blocks without a lot of form or colour on a treeless landscape. I had it in my mind to go to Gampo Abbey which is the home of Pema Chodren because before I came on this journey I had had a psychic reading and I was told to come to the place, that I would love it. Pema Chodrem is somebody who I have a great deal of admiration for and I have read a few of her books. If you don’t know, she thought she was happily married and came home one day to be told by her husband that he was leaving her for his secretary or some such thing. The hurt and pain that came up was so intense that she sought refuge in Bhuddist teachings and now, as her life has turned out, she is a tremendous tour de force in translating tenets to the western psyche. She is apparently shortly to appear on Oprah which would be interesting to watch.

Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton Island

I thought of her as I drove the dramatic Cape Breton landscape feeling a tremendous peace as I summoned all that I had learned from her. She is very good about self-acceptance and also about sitting in ones kind of muck or pain and amplifying it to try and bring it up and out much as one does with homeopathy. She taught me the practice of Tonglen which is a way to deal with one’s own pain by thinking of all of the people who have ever experienced this emotion and then using the breath to wish compassion and freedom from suffering for all sentient creatures. I deeply respect this ancient system of wisdom. The drive to the abbey was dramatic and sweeping, certainly an amazing location for contemplation. When I arrived I was intentionally early, I wanted to study the place. It was immersed in silence. I was comfortable with that. I found the Stupa Of Enlightenment where relics of the famous Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche rests. It said if I walked around the stupa three times I would be blessed. I did so reading the 59 slogans such as “Don’t transfer the ox’s load to the cow.” Feeling like I was doing a bit of alright, the very second I was finished I was stung by a wasp. I burst into laughter. Next time, say it with flowers.          

A Monk Gives Us A Tour - The Sanctuary Of Gampo Abbey