We left Madrid with suitcases full of collected food to take to our fellow Sangha members in Cuba. It had been less than a year since the project for a Zen temple in Cuba had become a reality. In October 2022, we had signed the deeds of sale and were now arriving with kilos of food and items that could not be found on the Caribbean Island. By Spring 2023, we were hearing that people were starving and queuing for up to three days to get petrol.
It was mid-June, the start of summer, and our flight was full of Cubans bringing their families all sorts of products from the free world, or rather the free world's orgy of consumption.
There were huge queues at Barajas airport. Cubans make small bundles of clothes and belongings to take to their compatriots, wrap them in cling film and then plastic packaging so they can take more without weighing down the suitcase. In addition to hand luggage, each passenger was allowed two pieces of luggage, each weighing twenty-five kilos, plus another ten kilos in the cabin.We flew with 2WFLY, an Iberostar charter company.
When we arrived at Havana airport, Maestro Michel Tei Hei, a tall, thinCuban with a broad smile, was waiting for us. Amid the airport bustle, he mingled with the travelers and locals and soon found us. He had found a 1950s taxi, the old American junkers abandoned by their owners, which they call “almendrones”. He picked us up in a big Almendron, repainted theater green, and we put our big suitcases in the cabin and boot.
On the road to the new temple, we passed several carts pulled by horses that were jumping, an alternative to the shortage of oil. Some people walked along the edge of a bumpy road or waited patiently at dingy bus stops. It was like going back in time to my childhood in Spain in the seventies when there was still animal traction, and people walked along the roads and highways in the villages and countryside.
The "Kosen Shin-ji" temple is twenty kilometers from Havana, in a rural area that reminded me of Tamaulipas, in the Mexican Cancer Tropic, where I lived for a few years. Everything was green, with lush vegetation and huge trees full of mangoes, avocados, pineapples, plums, coconuts, pomegranates, custard apples, bananas, oranges, and lime trees. Tall green trees, round and stunted, in palm or shrub form, all vegetation that provided coolness in the high temperatures of the day.
The name of the temple, Kosen-shin-ji, is a tribute to the Kosen Sangha, Masters Stefan and Barbara, and means 'the wisdom of the hermit' in Japanese.
The temple is located in an area known as "La lechuga", which is lined with small houses, ranches with vegetable gardens, chickens, cows, and pigs. When you walk through this colony, the dogs are free, they're not tied up, they're not on leashes, and they're not wearing ridiculous clothes. They lie quietly on the road or path, watching you, wagging their tails and swatting away the flies. The children are playing in the street and smiling, their attention is not on a mobile phone or a tablet, but on the little dog, the puppy called "Nube". Everything is like a leap into the void, time has stopped. A time full of life.
The property bought by Michel Tei Hei's Zen Sangha belonged to a bricklayer who emigrated to the United States to improve his life and prospects. A few months after selling it, the man returned to buy it back; he regretted having sold it, it was his “paradise” and he had come to a life that was his “hell”.
Many leave, especially the young, thinking of a future with more opportunities in other countries, in the “free” world of consumption. Michel laments that some Sangha people who commit themselves and are ordained as monks or bodhisattvas end up leaving for Europe or Canada, the United States andMexico searching for more opportunities, a future.
For those who remain, the dojo, the practice of zazen and the Way, are a refuge, a support in difficult times; a community of mutual help where interdependence becomes more valuable to survive from day to day. At least they will eat well during the sesshins, says Michel as he opens the suitcases and discovers their contents.
The land is an orchard, and in addition to the original trees, they have planted a vegetable garden with carrots, pumpkins, onions, chilies, sweet potatoes… they are practically self-sufficient. We have brought them many packets of seeds and foods that do not spoil and are rich in vegetable proteins such as beans, lentils, chickpeas and soy, olive oil and tomato concentrate.
Little by little, more and more members of the Sangha began to arrive.The journey is long and complicated, even though they are only 20 km fromHavana. My travelling companion, Gustavo, a Spanish-Argentinean monk, has hired a minibus, and they all arrive in droves, young and old, because the two daughters of Andrés, the monk, and his wife are also coming. They were young men and women, the oldest about 40 years old. They were all thrilled to meet the members of the Spanish Sangha, although Gustavo was an old acquaintance and the promoter of this new temple in Cuba. Those coming from Matanzas (only 120km away) or other parts of the island arrive the next day, after a 15-hour journey combining several buses and dead hours.
The neighbors look after some cows, the cows of the revolution, well, of the government. Yoni knows all about cows, but they only eat grass and don't feed them because it's too expensive now (it comes from Ukraine). The cows are flaccid, and starving, and almost all of them are anemic. In Cuba, as in other parts of the world, there has been a prolonged drought. Although it rains in the afternoons now, there have been months without a drop.
There is no hunger in the countryside; there are people with chickens and pigs nearby, although everything is very much under the control of the community because everywhere there are “political commissars” who report on their animals and all activities in the countryside (and in the city). Cubans are not used to or have no tradition of gardening, as fertile as their island was, few people cultivate a vegetable garden, we are the exception. The orchard is life, insects, birds, flowers, and lots of fruit at any time of day, delicious mangoes in midsummer, juicy and sweet, and guavas or plums. To eat fruit from the trees is to reconnect with everything, with nature and the primitive being we still carry within us; a great pleasure and privilege.
Sleep is deep. Each room has a powerful fan to cool you down at night.The rooms are simple, but we sleep in beds, with clean sheets or mats, and we have a full bathroom for washing up, with running water, showers, and toilets.Of course, here, as in almost all houses, we wash ourselves with the Cuban shower: with ladles of water (warm or hot) from the bucket we have filled. It is a simple way of life, without excesses, back to basics, without desires beyond what is strictly necessary, a good practice for Europeans and NorthAmericans who come from countries of opulence.
In the morning, during zazen, you can hear the kikiriki of the roosters.Nature is fully present. At dawn, while you are sitting zazen, you hear the sounds of this community: the roosters and all kinds of birds and the croaking of frogs. Sitting quietly in zazen, all these sounds arise, the conversations of people on the street, fading as they move away.
Today we had a new practitioner: the little frog who jumped out of a water pipe, came to the dojo and then to the altar. It stayed under the Buddha statue for more than two hours, so calm, then it sat next to Master Deshimaru's photo and stayed there until the end of the day.
The Sangha was founded in 1997 during a trip by Master Stefan Kosen. He came several times a year. And in 2005, at Stefan's request, Master Barbara Kosen took over. Since then, she has been visiting the Sangha, although other Masters have also come: Pierre,Ingrid, Vincent. Michel Tei Hei knew the liturgy of all of them, without rigidity, without orthodoxy, each with different forms, but always in the spirit of the Way.
In the early 21st century, they tried to give the Sangha a legal form, an association. They went to register it with the relevant authority. They were given the runaround, they wouldn't let them. There is a lot of suspicion of any kind of religious or cultural organization because they think they might be enemies of the revolution or agents of imperialism and so on and so forth. There is a constant paranoia, a suspicion of any form of organization outside the Communist Party.
Here, in the colony of La Lechuga, where they had arrived a few months earlier, Michel introduced himself to the “political commissar”, a local party representative, people who belong to a community but who also report all developments to the government.
Even when they started doing zazen in Havana in 1997, spies or informers would sneak into the dojo to do zazen and find out who they were. Once, at asesshin in Guanabo, even the military came, always to do zazen, of course, because the dojo is open to everyone.
I've been left without a mobile phone, which means that my charger is broken, and I have to save the little battery I have left to try to fix it whenI get to Spain; then I don't use it at all. I am completely disconnected, which is absolutely necessary. Furthermore, I realize that this sesshin and this trip to Cuba will allow me to take a digital cure, a disconnection from computers, mobile phones, websites and search engines, applications and all the digital paraphernalia in which we have been immersed for more than twenty years. Furthermore, television, radio, soap operas and politics. Something very hygienic, very healthy for everyone. I am very happy without technology, I have found pen and paper again and my ideas slip between the lines in a natural and easy way. I sew, listen, read and write. Although technology is essential, it is very healthy to do this kind of digital cleansing, which, together with a simple life without desires or purchases, makes me feel that I am doing a complete cure, body and soul.
Just before the sesshin began, during the days of preparation, MasterMichel had to make several arrangements; he went to the bank and, as the ATM was open and working, there was a three-hour queue. For some years now, allCubans have been required to have a sort of bank account in MLC or freely convertible currency, a card to handle Cuban money and to be able to buy goods or food outside the ration card, which provides less and less food.
A three-hour queue is life, it is life in a queue, they are all queues.
Cuba is an economic disaster. When Fidel came to power, he dismantled all the sugar mills. The trade that had been handed down from father to son, the training, was lost. They were the first sugar producers in the world. When they were gone, the price of sugar went up again because beet sugar is infinitely worse. Fidel let this industry die, arguing that there were no spare parts. When the world's leading producer left, the price of sugar went up again, but they were already out of the market. The same thing has happened with agricultural products; children no longer know what an orange is, they say that the ones they grow are exported; there are no oranges to consume. When I first travelled to Cuba in 1995, oranges were everywhere. Almost thirty years have passed and they are nowhere to be seen.
The salaries are absolutely ridiculous: a pensioner, people who made the revolution, earns 1,500 pesos, about 56.5 euros a month, and professionals such as architects or lawyers earn between 4,000 and 6,000 pesos (150–225 euros).
About religions and different beliefs in the 21st century, Cuba ends up being a lesser evil for the government. The main cultural association of African syncretism, Abakuá, known as the ñaños and very widespread on the island, was clandestine until recently.
Revolutionaries were not allowed to have religion. If you were in the Communist Party, it was forbidden to profess any religion. In November 1991, the Cuban Communist Party allowed believers to join its ranks, and from then on, it began to relax controls and allow supposed freedom of religion.
The Catholic Church is now the most widespread religion, followed by the thriving and increasingly powerful Evangelical Church. Evangelicals have spread. Some people have prospered, and their homes have been greatly improved by becoming evangelical pastors. For evangelists, anyone who is not a Christian is the devil.
At the end of the sesshin we enjoyed a few days in Havana. I visited several temples of the Evangelists, which were immaculate, and the church of the Cristóbal Colon cemetery in Vedado. I wandered through the twists and turns of the streets and stalls. Old Havana is magnificent, it is a very beautiful city. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982, it has been gradually restored. But in these hot months, there is hardly any tourism, and the merchants of the San José Street market are desperate to get a few tourists into their shops.
We stayed in Vedado, an upper-middle-class neighborhood that flourished at the end of the 19th century and after independence, with a succession of single-family houses that used to be authentic palaces and now yawn at the idleness and lack of resources of their current owners. Some houses are being restored. Cuba lives on the foreign exchange sent by emigrants, and some of them, in a very good situation, have been able to buy houses in good condition for their relatives who live there.
Life in the city is complicated. If several Cubans are queuing at the bank or a government office, all you hear are complaints and anecdotes from the previous day about what so-and-so had to do to buy chicken or lentils, or some other matter of daily survival.
Our dojo is also in Vedado, in a beautiful ArtDeco building. On the third floor, with a multidirectional layout, the breeze circulates and caresses your back as you sit in zazen. Our Cuban colleagues for the sesshin are arriving one by one, some of them coming from very distant neighborhoods and making the effort to arrive after several hours of walking or waiting for public transport. Quite a daily feat.
For us Europeans, the practice of zazen in Cuba is an example of dignity and determination. Despite all the difficulties, people are practicing the Way and all that it entails. Michel Tei Hei's Sangha organizes a monthly sesshin in the new temple, allowing foreign visitors to stay longer and organizing an extended sesshin during the Christmas holidays. The spring temperatures then attract many visitors from other latitudes. For those of us who live in the “free”world of consumerism, visiting Cuba and practicing zazen with the Cuban Sangha was rewarding and a unique experience that I'd like to recommend to everyone.
Master Michel's phone and WhatsApp in Cuba is +5353496254 and the email of the Cuban dojo is zazencuba@gmail.com. They are listed on Instagram as temple_zen_kosenshinji.
Belén Boville is a journalist and writer. She is a Soto Zen Buddhist nun ordained by Master Barbara Kosen.
