The Traveling Nunk: Sister Clear Grace and The Great Aspiration
As a kid, I loved libraries, but what I loved even more was the bookmobile. During middle school, I lived in Austin, and that unexpected love child of the library and the lumbering recreational vehicle, the bookmobile, would visit my suburban neighborhood each week during the summer. To my 12-year-old mind, it was inspired, this four-wheeled shop of curiosities with its rather ordinary-looking motorhome exterior and its transfigured interior of warm wooden shelves book-musty smells. Stepping inside upended my expectations as though I’d walked straight through the wardrobe or fallen down a rabbit hole.
The idea was audacious – If you can’t get to the library, we’ll bring the library to you! I don’t recall what I was reading at the time, but I do know that I never walked away empty-handed, and I’m certain that the bookmobile made similar stops all over the city, bringing books to untold numbers of kids who, like me, couldn’t get to the library.
Fast forward 19 years, and I’m living and working in Denver where Joe Miller, who had gotten me the job, was similarly inspired; however, instead of books, he wished to bring art to people who were not visiting the art galleries. So, he gutted his Volkswagen Vanagon and partnered with artists to create monthly mobile art installations. His Vanagon, with the words Gallery Van Go emblazoned on the side, could be found on first Fridays of each month at varying intersections in Denver’s downtown region, and it always drew a crowd.
Just like the bookmobile and Joe’s mobile art gallery, a new four-wheeled phenomenon hit the streets late last year with a higher calling. Sister Clear Grace Dayananda, an ordained Buddhist monk, set out across the U.S. in a 2003 Chevy Van that she converted into a mobile monastery. A Black, gender-nonbinary monastic, Sister Grace’s mission is to bring dharma teachings to those who would otherwise not find them, primarily LGBTQ communities and communities of color.
I am living and traveling in “The Great Aspiration” – a mobile monastery – around the United States. I am bringing my experience of the Dharma into our inner cities, our poorest of towns, our camps, our borders, and wherever the call is heard. I serve marginalized communities offering Buddhadharma, meditation, mindfulness, consultations, and retreats. I will also share the Dharma at sanghas around the country encouraging practitioners and retreatants to embody and engage in the Dharma to help ALL living beings through compassionate action.
A DIY project that she built with the help of YouTube videos and generous friends, “The Great Aspiration” is at once a meditation hall, dharma library, altar, and four-wheeled domicile for one (two, if you count Upekkha the cat, and why wouldn’t you?).
While at Deer Park Monastery in California, where she received novice ordination in the Plum Village Vietnamese Zen tradition, Sister Grace and another monastic combined the words “nun” and “monk” to arrive at the non-binary descriptor, “nunk.”
Check out my interview with Sister Clear Grace here, and learn more at travelingnunk.org.