Episode 19: Melissa Coats
The story of Melissa Coats is a tale of finding balances. It relates to navigating her identity, being half-white and half-Korean, and her practice, going back and forth between being a lay practitioner and Buddhist nun, in both secular and religious communities. It speaks to her life, alternating between progressive enclaves in California and a more conservative Burmese Buddhist life in Myanmar, between a fusion of traditional Chinese Medicine and Buddhist meditation integrated into Western life in the United States, and seeking out their respective origins in China and Myanmar. Melissa’s journey has already been a long one for someone so young, and it is still unfolding. But this podcast checks in with where she’s at now, and there’s a lot to gain from hearing it.
Melissa was raised in Stockton, California, and attended UCLA. While visiting family in Korea, she first came into contact with Buddhism, which, she found, integrated animist and shamanistic practices. But what really set on her an earnest path of practice came as a result of what she describes as a series of “random violent traumas,” which included being mugged, robbed, stalked, and getting in a serious car accident. In this fragile state, she remembered a friend who had mentioned ten-day silent vipassana retreats in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, and so she decided to sign up for the next one at Dhamma Mahavana, a center located in North Fork, California. This provided her the grounding she had been seeking; one course led to several more there, and ultimately to Dhamma Dena, a center established by Ruth Denison in Joshua Tree. Denison was the only female teacher to have been appointed by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, S. N. Goenka’s teacher, and Melissa appreciated the individualized attention and open discussion that went along with the practice there. She went on to attend a People of Color retreat offered at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, but still felt there was something missing from the practice, and that the best way to look for answers was to seek out the source.
She had felt this way once before, that much of her education in Chinese medicine had been a filtered and watered-down version passed on to her by Western teachers, so she traveled to the source, in China. Now she was tired of the focus on secular practice in the West, and was inspired to see the place which had shaped her main spiritual teachers, such as Denison, Goenka, and Dipa Ma.
Melissa’s Burma adventure began in 2018, when she attended a two-month retreat at Panditarama in the style of Mahasi Sayadaw, and then she went on to practice under Sayalay Dipankara. She was especially keen to learn from a female teacher in Myanmar, as she subconsciously felt a sense of inferiority when learning only under male instructors. She said that because of Myanmar’s overly patriarchal society, there are many more male teachers there. Female practitioners have access to fewer resources, and there is less reverence afforded to nuns than monks. Her decision to sit with Dipankara yielded benefits beyond what she had imagined. Dipankara’s instruction were tailored to individual students, and the power of her mettā literally brought tears to Melissa’s eyes. Dipankara’s teachings instilled Melissa with a great sense of faith as to what was possible on the Path, and excitement to commit all of herself towards this work.
Another stop on her spiritual journey was at Pa Auk, where she delighted in hearing practitioners and teachers alike speak openly about attainment, karma, and past lives, topics that were rarely touched upon in the West, where meditation is taught more as a soothing balm to help manage the anxieties of the day. She also came to find immense value in chanting, another practice rarely taught or appreciated at centers back home. She thrived on the plentiful female companionship that Pa Auk offers, and especially appreciated being able to hear the daily interviews and learn how other yogis were approaching the practice. And, as she added with a smile, it doesn’t hurt that devas are known to gather in the Pa Auk Dhamma Hall while meditation sittings are in progress.
Burmese Buddhist culture itself has also provided a great inspiration for Melissa, particularly its focus on dana. Whereas in the West, she found the concept of dana understood as a thing to give at the end of a talk or a retreat, the genuine presence of generosity integrated into so many facets of life in Burmese society and culture became a lesson for her in how to skillfully act in the world.
Melissa is still working to find balance in her two worlds of East and West. Although she has been in and out of robes, she has not yet felt comfortable enough to return to her progressive community in California, where organized religion is treated with disdain, going so far as to say that showing up at home in the robes of a Buddhist nun would be akin to “coming out.” She also hopes to organize a purely dana-based retreat at Dhamma Dena, as she feels that Western yogis would benefit by putting more emphasis into dana and sīla, in helping them to come out of their ego and diminish what she refers to as the “scarcity mentality.”
Later, Zach and Joah come on to talk about how Melissa bridges East and West in her spiritual journey. Joah notes that her comments generally fall within four categories describing this East/West tension: transmission of how the Dhamma is taught, cultural influences, gender identity, and possibility of renunciation. In Zach’s reflection, he notices how Burmese monastic culture is a symbiotic system that functions within the whole of society. Dhamma practice there is not a compartmentalized unit of a private sitting practice. That said, though it may sound surprising for those unfamiliar with the Burmese Sangha, the system there does not recognize nuns. Zach feels the acute loss of this essential piece of the original structure set down by the Buddha.