THREE DOORS. THE SAME EMPTY ROOM.
- Rentai Caroline MABY
- Jun 2
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 3
CLOUDINESS
In the Zen lineage in which I studied — that of Kobun Chino Roshi — we receive two names. Meiun is my public, formal Dharma name, the dōgo : received on January 5, 2018, the date of my lay ordination — called Jukai.
The other is "private", intimate — reserved a priori for the teacher's use, during private interviews, the dokusan.
My American Sangha friends affectionately used to call me Meow (a nod to my passion for felines).
In reality, Mei-Un combines 明, light — whose kanji unites 日 (the sun) with 月 (the moon), the two celestial bodies that illuminate the world — and 雲, the cloud: confusion, mental patterns? Luminous Cloud.
This name received in the middle of Michigan during the Jukaï, I neither loved nor rejected. Or rather, yes — both.
Inveterate nubivagant, I found it resonating with my nephophilia. And yet also, I found it bland, slow, characterless, obscured by cloud.
In reality, it is first and foremost an upāya — a “skillful means” — for working on identification, the ego, the “Caroline persona,” and its relationship to one’s own identity. It is also about dancing with the incomprehension of friends and family, projected discomfort, and eloquent silences…
Back in France, I returned to my little fisherman's house in Saint-Cast and on the bedroom wall — I had forgotten — hung a luminous cloud.
My teacher had no knowledge of it.
These things cannot be invented.
This synchronicity illustrates precisely that dharma names are not chosen by those who transmit them — they are revealed to them.
There is something transcendent in this ritual of re-naming: the names carry the primordial essence of the student, or that of his journey along the path in this incarnation.
RUPTURE
My rakusu is beautifully painted on the reverse by my teacher — also an artist — with my Buddhist names.
This small rectangular garment worn around the neck, resting on the chest, is in the Zen tradition a miniature, portable version of the kesa (袈裟), the great monastic robe that traces back to the Buddha's own garment.
As is practiced in the Sōtō Zen tradition, I sewed it myself, stitch by stitch. A ritual object, a testimony to the teacher-student bond and a daily reminder of vows taken, I carried it everywhere : to Japan, the USA, the depths of the Himalayas. I even wore it during Dzogchen retreats with Tsoknyi Rinpoche in Switzerland… It traveled, it breathed the open air every day, and above all on the zafu in Saint-Malo.
However, a few springs ago, I discovered a moth hole right in the middle, at heart level!
Even though I have an exaggerated tendency to read symbolism into everything, this sign struck me like lightning: at that very moment I was leaving my Zen teacher*.
Devo-ra-tion — red alert devotion.
The contradictions that drove this break made it very difficult. The rejection of dogma and injunction was deeply interwoven with a wild gratitude for everything my teacher had transmitted to me, and in particular a new understanding of the relationship between Art and Meditation which completely overturned my relationship to painting — as a viewer as much as a painter.
This gratitude and love for the man will always endure, beyond the anger and rejection of his teaching stance. However, I have never again been able to put on my rakusu, and have chosen to no longer use this Dharma name publicly ~ Meiun, especially as an artist name, as a sign of crossing a threshold.
* Before him, I had left my Tibetan-lineage teacher (in France) years earlier. Each time, faced with the same reality: cult-like practices — psychological abuse, power grabs… In both communities where I studied, the sanghas suffered far more than I did from the teacher's toxic and manipulative behavior. Each time, I left years before the scandals became public. Stories of abuse in Buddhism are legion. I don't think I have a particular gift for choosing dysfunctional communities, and they are certainly not all that way. I am convinced that the training of Buddhist teachers — very serious and structured in the East (Japan and Tibet in particular) — has been insufficient since its introduction in the West, which leaves the door open to abuse of all kinds.
PRISM
Ren 虹 means Rainbow, and Tai 体 means body. The Rainbow Body* — or “the Rainbow Girl,” as my teacher liked to call me.
This is my private name. Still made of water and light :
In the Dzogchen that I am exploring with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, the "Rainbow Body" refers to something vertiginous: the dissolution of the body into light at the death of a fully realized practitioner.
I don't believe it has an equivalent in Zen and this name was mainly passed down to me in connection with my relationship to art, the creative process, and colors.
Rentai is the girl who paints.
Even if the teacher-student relationship is broken, the path of Zen remains mine.
It is with this name — finally revealed, out in the open — that I now work, freely, in the studio and in the field, fully committed to the Zen Peacemakers** and their dedication to social action.
In Meiun Rentai, I see a beautiful coherence: 明雲 (Meiun, "luminous cloud") carries manifest clarity — the public name, the worldly name. Rentai (虹体, "rainbow body") points to the most intimate dimension of practice, the most secret.
Rentai includes Meiun… and vice versa.
These names, I play with them — seriously, but lightly. They serve as supports : for work, for attention, for distancing from the ego. I don't identify with Rentai or Meiun any more than I do with Caroline.
Who is writing these lines, really?
The boundary wavers. That is precisely the point.
Before any name, there is something that cannot be named.
Three doors. The same empty room.
* The dissolution of the physical body into its primordial luminous nature is the ultimate sign that the duality between matter and spirit has been enterily traversed.
** Zen Peacemakers: https://zenpeacemakers.org
