A Year of Silence by Kiranada Sterling Benjamin
A woman's year alone, on solitary retreat on a remote precipice in New Zealand. Isolation, cold, hunger, elemental winds from Antarctic, screams in the night; she survived with deep reflections, observations and insights.
This is a soft-cover 384 page book with glossary/ references, 14 black and white photographs and map. Inner reflections on loneliness, isolation, fear, patience, confidence, joy, and positivity fill the pages of the daily journal Kiranada kept. She dealt with limited food, cold, elemental storms bubbling up from Antarctica, visits by local possums and screams in the night, all while in deep silence. Following the Tibetan retreat dictum “If you’re sick, you’re sick. If you die, you die” Kiranada promised herself to not come out, and, in the end, discovered a blossoming of deep open-heartedness, compassion and wisdom .
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Kiranada came over for some tea earlier this week. My friend Frank Simmons who runs a meditation hall in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico sent her our way. She got to know early Shunryu Suzuki student Mary Quagliata there too. She spent 17 years in Japan, mainly in Kyoto, teaching at a prestigious university there. While there she studied Zen there with Daitsu Tom Wright, dharma heir of Uchiyama of Antaiji. So we found we had some mutual friends there as well as Mexico. She is a really serious practitioner who's life is now centered around solitary retreats. Just did a three year one at a Catholic nunnery in Missouri in the US. She was ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2009 and Renunciation vows in 2016. She's been the coordinator of Contemplative Arts at Aryaloka Buddhist Center, Newmarket NH. When in Kingston NH, she teaches meditation at the village library. She has done twelve solitary retreats ( Java, Bali, Thailand, Mexico, Wales, New Zealand and USA.).