For someone who had only studied with ‘traditional’ Buddhist teachers, meeting Abe Burnstick was traumatic and eye-opening.
I first met Abe through a course in ‘Indian Wisdom’ that was offered at Grant McEwan Community College. It was an eight week course organized by a young native man.
Alberta, in Canada, still had a number of traditional Native Elders in residence on provincial reserves. Wilson, the young man who organized the course, was studying with one of them. He felt that it would be useful to expose the non-native community to the Native Wisdom tradition. He organized the course around the Elders themselves. At each course meeting a different Elder came into the class and taught for two hours. For me, it was a unique experience – an opportunity to expose myself to a method of learning, and to a system of teaching that would, otherwise, have been completely unavailable to me.
About the sixth week into the course, Abe Burnstick was the guest Elder.
It is said that when Confucius met Lao Tzu he said, “I have met the dragon.” There was much of that quality to Abe. He was physically imposing. He was in his mid 80s and looked like one of those photos of Native Americans taken in the 1870s. He had broad, strong features and his face seemed permanently set in a serious, almost disapproving, visage. He was physically imposing. He was over six feet tall and had broad, strong shoulders. He carried a lot of weight, especially his large gut, but the over-all sense was of tremendous strength and vitality.
When he lectured, he spoke slowly and softly, but it seemed that he spoke to each student directly. His directness was almost brutal in its intensity and focus. When he answered student questions at the end of the lecture, he had no patience for foolishness and always turned the responsibility for understanding back on the questioner. It is impossible to relate here how powerful, imposing, and knowledgeable he appeared during that class. I was so taken by him that I approached Wilson when the class was over and asked him if there was any way I could arrange to study with Abe.
Wilson told me that Abe was a ‘healer’ and the head of the alcohol and drug program at Poundmaker Lodge on the Cree reserve just outside of Edmonton. He said that all Elders were open to taking students, but there was a strict, formal process that had to be followed when asking for a teaching. The potential student had to give the Elder tobacco and a gift. When that was done, the request for teaching could be made.
I was so taken with Abe that I decided to meet with him at Poundmaker and request that he take me as a student. I was an academic, so I carefully researched the traditional process and decided that I would impress Abe with the quality and appropriateness of my gifts.
Wilson had said that simply giving him a pack of cigarettes would satisfy the need to present him with tobacco, but my research indicated that in the past the tobacco was presented loose in a hand-beaded leather pouch. I bought some leather and made a pouch with leather draw strings. Then, I found a book with pictures of a variety of traditional Cree designs. I picked one that was intricate and, in my mind, pleasing and I hand-beaded it into the front of the pouch. I then stripped the tobacco from a package of cigarettes and put it in the pouch. When I finished it was lovely and looked exactly like the pictures of antique tobacco pouches that I had modeled it from.
The gift was a more difficult project. I wanted to give him something special and relevant to both him personally and to the Cree wisdom tradition that he represented. Through a number of inquiries, I found that Abe had recently been given a bow and was learning to shoot it with the intention of using it to hunt. At that time, I was training for the Canadian Olympic Archery Team so I had access to a variety of archery supplies.
I decided to make him a set of arrows. I had all the equipment that I needed to build and fletch them. I purchased a dozen, plain, wooden arrow shafts. I found that within the native tradition, colors had very specific meanings. I painted the shafts white because that color represented wisdom and peace. I also used white for the two hen feathers. For the cock feather, I choose blue. Blue represented the sky and protection. Finally, I discovered that Abe’s healing sign was the rainbow. I painted the crest (the colored rings at the top of the arrow just below the feathers) to represent the colors of the rainbow. When the arrows were finished, they were beautiful to look at, perfectly balanced and properly fletched. I was sure that they would impress Abe with the seriousness of my request for teaching and my superior potential as a student.
When everything was done, I called Abe at Poundmaker, introduced myself as one of the students in Wilson’s course and asked him if I could visit him. He told me that he had a room at Poundmaker and he would be happy to meet with me. We set a time for a week later. I spent that week reading everything I could find on the North American native wisdom tradition. By the end of the week I felt pretty confident that I was coming to the meeting well informed and ready to talk seriously with Abe.
When the day arrived, I made the 20 minute drive to Poundmaker, found Abe’s room and knocked on the door. He was not there. I waited for more than two hours and, finally, giving up, I drove back to Edmonton. I called him the next day and he apologized to me explaining that he had an emergency with one of his clients and forgot completely about our meeting. We set another time, and, once again I drove out to Poundmaker and knocked on Abe’s door. Once again, he was not there. I waited again for over an hour before giving up and returning home. Again, when I phoned him, he apologized and, again, we made a new date for me to meet with him . . . and, again, he didn’t show up. This happened three or four times before I finally managed to find him at home in his room.
When he opened the door to let me in, I found that he lived in a tiny single room. There was a metal bed, a night-stand, and two chairs. The room smelled of old man, tobacco smoke and sweet-grass. He offered me a chair and I sat down with the arrow box and tobacco pouch on my lap. I started to say something, but he shushed me. He lit a braid of sweet-grass and fanned the smoke over me with a large feather while he said words in Cree. The purifying ceremony took a few minutes and when it was over, he sat down and asked me what I wanted.
I gave him the tobacco pouch which he put on the night-stand without even looking at it. I then handed him the box with my magnificent, hand-made arrows in it. He opened the box, took a quick look into it and closing it, slid it under his bed. Then he sat back and waited for me to say something.
I told him how much he had impressed me at the college and that I would like to study with him. He sat for a few moments and then told me that I was not ready to learn from him. He said that he would be glad to recommend someone I could learn from, but that he could not work with me. Then he stood up and opened the door for me to leave.
Later, my wife Diane, became his apprentice. I continued to have an informal relationship with Abe, and he taught me on a number of occasions. However, most of the instruction that I received from him came through the experiences of my wife who maintained an intimate connection with him until his death.
It took me years to understand how compassionate and important that first teaching was that he gave me at our first meeting.
He told me once that he would like me to write up his teaching stories. He died before we were able to start. Perhaps this document will serve as the beginning of that project.
THE TRICKSTER
One of the major influences in my 'spiritual' process was a Cree Native Elder by the name of Abe Burnstick. I studied with him, on an informal basis, for a number of years. My first meeting with him was my initial introduction to the 'trickster' teacher. I have written up that event here.
A Cup of Tea
"Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912) received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. ‘It is overfull. No more will go in!’
‘Like this cup,’ Nan-in said. ‘You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones - Paul Reps