"Faith is, above all, openness--an act of trust in the unknown."--Alan Watts
"Cessation of suffering is not the same thing as happiness."--Doris (a priest here)
Flower of the Week:
 |
| Fox Glove. This one in particular might be my favorite one in the garden. |
Buddhist Lesson of the Week:
The Eightfold Path
 |
| Lady's Mantle--good for small arrangements |
Wisdom
1. Right View/Understanding
2. Right Intention/Thought
Ethics
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
Concentration
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness/Awareness
8. Right Meditation/Contemplation
Life at the Center
I am continually grateful for my time here. Yesterday officially marked our first month living here, and so now we're allowed to leave the valley and venture into the "real world," if we so choose...which I haven't particularly felt like doing yet. I have everything I need here: good food, a wonderful place to sleep, a healthy occupation, clean air, wonderful company, sunlight, and fog.
 |
| A mama Buddha, dressed up for Mother's Day, watching over the baby lettuces |
Practice
If I'm being 100% honest here, and I don't really feel any need to not be 100% honest, I am basically asleep during both periods of morning zazen. The fact that this place is essentially a summer camp for adults lends itself to a plethora of non-stop awesome activities and very little free time. I usually sleep about 7 hours a night, and then during my days I'm just going non-stop from 4:15 am to 9:00 pm. I definitely want to be awake during the periods of zazen, but my body and brain are tired. I of course have considered drinking some caffeine on top of my daily stretches before sitting, but that doesn't seem right to me. Also, I'm pretty sure consuming caffeine on an empty stomach, especially super early in the morning, will just make me anxious more than anything. As we aren't supposed to have any specific goals while we sit, and we are supposed to just accept whatever comes while sitting, that's all I'm doing so far. I'm hoping that through sitting more I'll be able to eventually reach a point where my mind is just quietly awake during morning zazen without actually nodding off every 10 seconds (without making it a goal...I don't know, zen can be hard.)
 |
| A quilt of baby lettuces |
Our Sunday class is still going great; Doris, the instructor, has a way of teaching and approaching a subject that is very easy for me to absorb. She also talks about Stephen Bachelor quite a lot, who is a man who was a Buddhist for many years but is now Atheist, and he writes books about that whole experience and what he learned from it all. Obviously, that is right on up my alley. I have not read any Stephen Bachelor yet, but I definitely have keen interest in reading some of his stuff (when I have time to read again, which might not be for quite some time, unfortunately.)
In my Monday class with Catherine the Tenzo we did another very interesting writing exercise. She had us write 7 lines of description of a place, 7 lines of dialogue, and 7 lines of a short story. The three sets of 7 were to be unrelated to one another. Once we were done writing, she had us combine the three groups into one cohesive piece of writing. It was very interesting, and most stuff turned out to be almost like poetry. It was another fascinating sampling of how the brains of the people in the group worked. Although all of the initial three parts were to be unrelated, most people had some sort of inherent theme across all of their parts that came together in a rather poignant way. I can post mine below.
**Disclaimer: It doesn't make any sense. Just approach it as poetic or interpretive or whatnot and make of it what you will.
**Disclaimer: It doesn't make any sense. Just approach it as poetic or interpretive or whatnot and make of it what you will.
On Tuesdays Fu gives a class on the 4 Bodhisattva vows (which I'll probably talk about some other time); I initially did not sign up for the class because I didn't want to overwhelm myself. However, upon hearing from everybody who took the class the previous week that it was incredible, I decided to attend. It was indeed very good, and of course, because it was Fu's class, very funny and entertaining. She actually ended up talking far more about the Six Perfections/Paramitas (which I'll probably talk about some other time) for most of the class, but it was still very interesting.
Work
We have essentially just been getting the garden ready for the plant sale that is happening this weekend, which basically just entailed our normal work of making sure the garden looked as beautiful as possible...but also involved baking cookies.
Claudia is giving us space on Monday afternoons to work on a project in the garden. I chose making teas from what we have in the garden, which we eventually will sell. There isn't too much growing in the garden right now that can be made into a tea, but right now we're sporadically harvesting anise hyssop, lemon verbena, and blackmint to be dried. I'm excited to become really well versed in tea making (although, I suppose it's technically tisane making, because we aren't actually harvesting any tea plants.)
Every other Tuesday we do crew meetings in the afternoon. Crew meetings primarily involve announcements/other things Claudia wants to talk to us about, and then check-ins. Check-ins are when we go around popcorn style and talk about ourselves. We talk for about 5-10 minutes each, and nobody interrupts or even really reacts while you're talking. It's nice, to be able to freely (and completely honestly) reveal to a group of people how you're truly feeling on the inside. It is also incredibly conducive to group bonding, and building trust and camaraderie in our crew. The last crew meeting I just talked about how refreshing it is for me to just be truly happy for the longest period I can remember, since childhood probably. There's a part of me still waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for me to get depressed again, but for now that is not the case. I have been talking to several people about this around here, but something I realized is that I'm so unbridled in my happiness right now only because of the fact that I am not depressed; I am, essentially, immensely enjoying the fact that I can enjoy things. I keep getting spontaneously super excited about random things (which I've always done, but it's way more frequently now.) I love it.
This past week's crew meeting Fu came to join us. She participated in the check-in, and as it always is, it was interesting to see the more human side of her. Not that she's not apparently human, but it's easy to idealize the priests around here, especially the ones who have been here for a long time--it's heartening for my practice and for my self to realize that even people who are enlightened (or close to it) still struggle with human foibles such as loneliness and stress. I was also struck by the realization that it is her job to be wise, and that's pretty much it. Most of her days are spent listening to people, and then being expected to deliver to them wisdom. How wonderful that that role is still available for people in society, even if it is diminishing. It is also very odd, but then that oddness is magical.
A few days ago there were some people camping in the garden (which is something people aren't supposed to do.) The next day a whole lot of stuff was missing from the garden's cob shed, including some tools, all of our matches and incense for our little altar, and Claudia's Thich Nhat Hanh book that we had been reading from every morning. Nobody here wants to assume that people stole them, or that it was the people camping in the garden who did so. Everybody just keeps saying "well, they probably needed to use them, and hopefully they'll return them soon." I guess we'll see.
Three of us from the garden got trained last week to be docents for school tour groups here, which we'll do for the first time on this upcoming Tuesday. I'm pretty excited about this, because I like teaching and I like kids and I think it will be an interesting challenge. We will be taking the kids on a 6-stop tour around the farm and garden, teaching them about compost, the seeding shed, the kitchen garden, the cob shed, bees, and the orchard. I like all of these things very much, and I am interested to see what kind of things I end up wanting to talk to them about.
Claudia is giving us space on Monday afternoons to work on a project in the garden. I chose making teas from what we have in the garden, which we eventually will sell. There isn't too much growing in the garden right now that can be made into a tea, but right now we're sporadically harvesting anise hyssop, lemon verbena, and blackmint to be dried. I'm excited to become really well versed in tea making (although, I suppose it's technically tisane making, because we aren't actually harvesting any tea plants.)
 |
| Some more fox gloves--they're very abundant everywhere right now |
This past week's crew meeting Fu came to join us. She participated in the check-in, and as it always is, it was interesting to see the more human side of her. Not that she's not apparently human, but it's easy to idealize the priests around here, especially the ones who have been here for a long time--it's heartening for my practice and for my self to realize that even people who are enlightened (or close to it) still struggle with human foibles such as loneliness and stress. I was also struck by the realization that it is her job to be wise, and that's pretty much it. Most of her days are spent listening to people, and then being expected to deliver to them wisdom. How wonderful that that role is still available for people in society, even if it is diminishing. It is also very odd, but then that oddness is magical.
A few days ago there were some people camping in the garden (which is something people aren't supposed to do.) The next day a whole lot of stuff was missing from the garden's cob shed, including some tools, all of our matches and incense for our little altar, and Claudia's Thich Nhat Hanh book that we had been reading from every morning. Nobody here wants to assume that people stole them, or that it was the people camping in the garden who did so. Everybody just keeps saying "well, they probably needed to use them, and hopefully they'll return them soon." I guess we'll see.
Three of us from the garden got trained last week to be docents for school tour groups here, which we'll do for the first time on this upcoming Tuesday. I'm pretty excited about this, because I like teaching and I like kids and I think it will be an interesting challenge. We will be taking the kids on a 6-stop tour around the farm and garden, teaching them about compost, the seeding shed, the kitchen garden, the cob shed, bees, and the orchard. I like all of these things very much, and I am interested to see what kind of things I end up wanting to talk to them about.
 |
| The nursery all ready for the plant sale! |
Community
I think for this I kind of want to talk about what my week looks for each day, typically. I don't know if I'm doing this because I think people will find it interesting or because I kind of want to show-off how busy I am, but either way, here it is.
Sunday: Morning zazen, soji, breakfast, class, dharma talk, lunch, free time, dinner, free time
Monday: Morning zazen, soji, breakfast, work meeting, work (harvesting herbs), lunch, chidening (my zendo job where I tidy the altars), work (making teas), evening zazen, dinner, chidening, class
Tuesday: Morning zazen, soji, breakfast, work meeting, work (making compost), lunch, work/crew meeting, evening zazen, dinner, class
Wednesday: Morning zazen, soji, breakfast, work meeting, work (usually making flower arrangements,) lunch, work, evening zazen, dinner, dharma talk
Thursday: Morning zazen, soji, breakfast, work meeting, work, lunch, work (orchards), yoga class, dinner, D&D
Friday: Late breakfast, work, lunch, work, free time, dinner, game night
Saturday: Free day
 |
| Some bigger lettuce on the farm |
Some things worth noting from this schedule that I haven't noted in past weeks, or that are new for this week:
Thursday evening yoga class instead of evening zazen. There is no evening zazen on Thursdays for anybody (you of course can go in and sit in the zendo on your own if you feel so inclined;) instead of that we are offered this FABULOUS yoga class. It's primarily for the farm and garden crews, but others are welcome if they're available--we typically have a few guest students and people from other programs there as well. The instructor is named Tanya and she is incredible. Before every class she asks us where we're being bothered (it's usually hips, knees, and lower backs, from zazen and our work;) she then creates an entire class to help us with those spots that lasts an hour and a half. It is fantastic. At the end, when we do corpse pose, it feels like we're doing it for days. I feel like I'm underwater, and forget myself completely. It feels more restful than sleep. It's amazing that such a class is offered to us for free, and we are all immensely grateful for it.
This past week I was invited to play Dungeons & Dragons with some people here, which I am SUPER STOKED for. We're still just in the phase of building our characters, which takes quite a long time, but I'm excited nonetheless. A whole lot of people have interest in it too, which could potentially be an adventure. In the past I've only played with 3 people (including myself) and one Dungeon Master. There are easily 6-8 people interested in playing with us, not including the DM. Only the DM and myself have played before, and I'm the only one that's played the particular version we're doing, so that will also be interesting, having to be a guiding force with my (relatively speaking) modest experience.
This past Saturday (yesterday) Qayyum (the farm manager) took all of the new apprentices on a circumambulation around Mt. Tamalpais (usually just called Mt. Tam.) It's the biggest mountain in the area (but still very humble, compared to the mountains I'm used to---it's peak is only at 2200 feet or so.) Nonetheless, it took us 9 hours to walk all the way around. It was rainy and foggy the entire day, which limited some of our sightseeing opportunities but added a mystical and ethereal energy to the whole day.
I was actually pretty anxious about the hike the night before, and the morning of. In the past (as many of my college friends know) hiking--or really any sort of prolonged period involving physical activity--got me right anxious. I think a big part of it is feeling somehow inadequate, or that I will in some way be holding the others back. I don't like looking weak or in any way inept to others, especially those that I respect immensely. Anyways, anxiety was creeping into me for the first real time since coming here. I talked to a few of the other apprentices about it, and they were all very supportive. Dominic, one of the farm apprentices, gave me a wonderful reading on courage that actually definitely helped inspire me.
Somehow I found myself getting ready for the hike with my yurt mates, and in the car on the way to the hike. Somehow I found myself embarking on this long day with the others. I really think that the practice here helped me immensely. I was honestly not sure I would make it through the day without having an anxiety attack, and yet I did it. I kept loving and being compassionate with myself in the beginning, saying things to myself like "Don't worry, love, you are strong and keeping perfect pace with the others," or "You are fine love, everybody here supports you, you are fine." About two hours into the day Qayyum gave us all beans to carry with us (to instill in them some sort of transformative energy, I think he's genuinely curious as to whether they'll grow differently or not.) For the rest of the day, whenever I felt myself getting anxious I would pour all of my attention into the bean in my hand; in this way I was able to ground myself in my real body, as it was existing in reality (which was doing just dandy,) and not becoming attached to my mind body (that was telling me I should be freaking out.) Towards the end I didn't even need the bean, but instead was complacent and acceptant of just walking in the rain with such fabulous people. I am honestly kind of amazed that I was able to see such success within myself in regards to something that has plagued my mind state for so long.
I was actually pretty anxious about the hike the night before, and the morning of. In the past (as many of my college friends know) hiking--or really any sort of prolonged period involving physical activity--got me right anxious. I think a big part of it is feeling somehow inadequate, or that I will in some way be holding the others back. I don't like looking weak or in any way inept to others, especially those that I respect immensely. Anyways, anxiety was creeping into me for the first real time since coming here. I talked to a few of the other apprentices about it, and they were all very supportive. Dominic, one of the farm apprentices, gave me a wonderful reading on courage that actually definitely helped inspire me.
 |
| Some onions growing on the farm |
Book of the Week:
Since our Thich Nhat Hanh book has gone missing, instead we've been reading from Wendy Johnson's book Gardening at the Dragon's Gate. In case you don't remember who Wendy Johnson is, she is the one who established the farm and garden apprenticeship program here at Green Gulch, and is one of the early garden managers here. She led us on our walk through Muir Woods a few weeks ago. Anyways, it is full of zen wisdom and insights about gardening--it's also neat because all of the gardening she's talking about is actually about the garden here, the garden I work in. Anyways, she's lovely and the book is lovely.Song of the Week:
"All My Days"--Alexi Murdoch
This song is heavily featured in a lovely movie called "Away We Go," which is super cute and I highly recommend it for anybody. I have been listening to it quite a few times since I moved here, and I think it's beautiful and poignant. I think I'll post all of the lyrics to this one...I think its sentiments ring true for a lot of people, but it's especially ringing true for me here. The "you" in this song could still be referencing myself, in the sense of Borges' "The Other." I almost think it's more beautiful that way, but maybe that's because that's where I'm at with my life. I'm finding myself, it's all I've been looking for...and as it relates to yesterday, when I'm here, as I'm here, even breathing feels alright.
Well I have been searching all of my days
All of my days
Many a road, you know
I've been walking on
All of my days
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night
Well I have been quietly standing in the shade
All of my days
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made
All of this rain
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night
Well many a night I found myself with no friends standing near
All of my days
I cried aloud
I shook my hands
What am I doing here
All of these days
For I look around me
And my eyes confound me
And it's just too bright
As the days keep turning into night
Now I see clearly
It's you I'm looking for
All of my days
Soon I'll smile
I know I'll feel this loneliness no more
All of my days
For I look around me
And it seems you've found me
And it's coming into sight
As the days keep turning into night
As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Now even breathing feels all right
It's even breathing
Feels all right
The Peach Stand
The red dirt slopes downward to a rocky, dry creek bed. The brush around the great, old juniper trees are scratchy and brittle. I stand by the dusty road, watching the cars amble by under the shade of my fruit stand. Looking around, I can see the great alpine peaks hovering over the valley beyond the tree tops.
A bright blue pickup truck approaches the stand at a simmering crawl, creaking and settling loudly as it rolls to a stop. I stand and scratch my sweating scalp under my sun hat, stretching subtly as two figures come to look at my peaches. The young woman in the couple is heavily pregnant and looks to be steadily uncomfortable in the heat of the bright sun. The young man stands back a way from her, his eyes bright with adoration as he watches her gently smell the fruit. Looking down, I see the slanted foot prints of running dogs.
Looking carefully at my customers, I recognize the deep and protective look in the man's eyes. Suddenly, I remember a long lost wished-for life where I was the one heavy with child in that man's arms.
"I just want you to know that I like you"
"I like you too"
"I just want you to know that I like you like you--like if we were in the 2nd grade"
"I want to pretend we're in the 2nd grade too--I just want you to know that I don't just like you, olive juice."
"Olive juice."
"What an interesting turn this friendship has taken."
Closing my eyes, I can smell the wet dirt and the aching needles from the great trees. Closing my eyes, I can hear the far off rush of an awakened river.
"I blame the stars in your eyes."
Slowly and softly I set my body on the old and forgotten swing and push off over the shallow ravine.
Closing my eyes, I can smell the wet dirt and the aching needles from the great trees. Closing my eyes, I can hear the far off rush of an awakened river.
"I blame the stars in your eyes."
Slowly and softly I set my body on the old and forgotten swing and push off over the shallow ravine.
No comments:
Post a Comment