So, what is it to be a woman and a zen master? What is it to be a Western woman and a zen master?
There has been discussion about this for a number of years now. Somebody I saw very much
up close and personal working with this was somebody I wanted to tell you about,
Rev. Master Myfanwy McCorry who died very suddenly July 2nd last year 2020.
She was Scottish. She had a kind of a working-class background. Her father was a miner.
She had gone to art school. She lived very creatively and had a very interesting early life;
she worked as a shepherd; she had lived in alternative communities; she explored a lot.
She was a monk for 37 years. She lived a zen life for 24 hours a day for 37 years.
Over the time I knew her, we were living in the same place for over a decade,
during that time she was never very well, she was always struggling with health issues.
Nevertheless, she very much fully engaged in the life, and very much contributed, and very much
made sure the female voice the feminist voice was really heard.
Now, for probably two or maybe two and a half years, towards the end of my time at Throssel
Hole Abbey, I was looking after some meditation groups in Cornwall, Devon, South Wales, that whole
south western corner of the UK, and so I would be down there basically on a sort of a teaching tour
for about a month at a go, maybe three or four times a year, building something up.
It was a lot of fun, it was a little bit of a challenge, always very short on money. The
person in charge of the finances at Throssel I don t think approved and so would only ever
give me my train fare down there and back, and any money I needed to get from place to place,
to get from Cardiff to Cornwall or what have you, I had to somehow work out a long the away. So,
that sort of put things in interesting situations at times, but anyway it always worked out.
Anyway, after a couple of years or so, that had built up to some degree quite well, I suppose, and
Rev. Master Myfanwy took over from me down there and eventually founded a temple - Dragon Bell
Temple, and she lived and taught down there in the West Country
for a number of years. So that was a nice kind of link and connection.
Now, I remember a particular incident when I was quite new in the monastery.
As I say she had ongoing health problems, and she had a medical appointment, and at the time I don t
think she could drive, so I had to drive her over to the doctors. It was in the middle of winter.
We had an old land rover, and the old-style land rovers, as you probably know, are extraordinarily
noisy; the vibration was enough that by the time you get out of it after a journey you
felt like your organs have been rearranged, and also, they handled really badly in wet and snow.
I don t know why they have become such an iconic vehicle;
they are actually not that easy to deal with. Anyway, I was taking her over to the doctors. We
had a fresh fairly heavy snowfall, according to what I can remember. There were two ways: there
was kind of a shorter way which involved going up and over the moors, over the fells, which are kind
of really open, quite exposed, quite wind-blown spaces, I mean, spectacular you get a view of
probably eight or ten miles in any direction when you re up there. Or there was a lower road
which had more trees. It was longer but there was a little bit more protection.
So, she was in charge, we were going to go on the upper road. So, up we go and the
road is pretty bad, there is a lot of wind, the land rover is slipping about all over the place.
What I don t want to do is get stuck up there with somebody who is not very well, it s a long
walk out. I can t remember if the road had been ploughed or gritted at that point, possibly not.
Anyway, we re slipping around, we re slipping around, and I just kind of pull it to a stop
for a bit. She turns, sitting next to me, looks at me with these blue piercing eyes, and says,
Well, are you gonna go forwards, or are you gonna go sideways? , and off we went, and we mostly went
forwards. This became a little sort of motto or mantra for me going through life, actually:
are you gonna go forwards, or are you gonna go sideways? I think that was a little perhaps even
unconscious gift that she left for me. Now, she was apparently teaching one night, down there in
Devon, about Zen Master Dogen, and literally the next morning she was found, she died.
Very very sudden, very unexpected. Although, as I say, long term health issues, but nevertheless,
bit of a surprise and she is going to be missed, I am sure, by many people. She had a
very particular and very distinctive kind of gift for the world. Despite all those health issues,
she founded a temple and caused it to grow and flourish, and that is an achievement,
that is really an achievement. So, remembering Rev. Master Myfanwy