The thing about my first Buddhist teacher was that she was really not much of a teacher. Her name was Meechai Suddhama, Sister Suddhama. But her given American name was Pauline Offner and she grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, as a typical middle-class girl.

So here she was in Bangkok, where she had gathered together about 10 farangs (non-Asians), including me and my wife, and held practice sessions at local temples and on some weekends at Suddhama’s monastery, where we slept on the floor in the shadow of a two-story tall statue of the Buddha. This was in the 1970s, following the appearance of the Buddha and The Beatles on the cover of Time magazine.

Right from the beginning I felt there was something beyond Suddhama’s teaching method, which consisted of a half hour or so of her reading to us from Buddhist Sutras. Very dull. The rest of the time was allotted to the actual practice of formal meditation, which grabbed me and hasn’t let go yet. She was always trying to wake us up to the present moment.

One of her tricks was suddenly standing in front of you during walking meditation, blocking your way and throwing your mind into orbit. (Can I push a teacher out of the way? Go around her?) She would stand there for a minute or so, then turn away and go bother others.

There was one strange quirk, a small stain on the robe, and that was her obsession with diet and nutrition. She was a strong advocate of fasting and eating only raw, uncooked food. When on retreat, at mealtime she would sit with us and peck at her food like a bird.

To be fair, she didn’t let her Buddhist teachings interfere in her teaching us meditation.

In most of Asia, Buddhist monks and nuns spend most of their time traveling, so there were periods when Suddhama was gone. During her absences she would send postcards written in script so tiny we needed a magnifying glass to read them. The messages on the cards were always the same: Be mindful, action after action. Or just BMAAA.

When we were leaving Thailand for good after four years, Suddhama met us at the airport. We hung out with her, not speaking much but sitting with our teacher and being mindful of all that was going on both inside and outside.

“We may never see each other again,” she said. “That’s why we practice meditation. Also, we forgive each other for any suffering we have caused.” She placed her palms together and there in the airport, she said our names and “if I have offended you, I beg your forgiveness.”

We put our hands together and bowed and that was it. Over the next couple of years we received a postcard once in a great while and then one day we got an aerogramme from Singapore from a member of our Bangkok meditation group – an architect who had a fear of dogs and so was challenged every time we came together at Suddhama’s wat. In the letter she said Suddhama weighed less than 60 pounds and looked like a stiff wind could blow her away. Officially, she died from “natural causes.”

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