I am more or less recovered from the gut-wrenching food poisoning of the night-before-last, but in its wake I feel tired and lonely, and my voice is shot, so I can’t even sing. Instead of kvetch any more, perhaps I will write a little poem, even though all I really want is my girlfriend, a hamburger, and a bathtub full of beer.
Some days are just more difficult than others. I don’t mean to complain, but I do. It just seems like some days the world is heavier, and the levity brought by the simple joys seem cruelly inaccessible. It’s been six weeks that we’ve been here, and this is the point where I am walking around all the time with a broken heart, and am having a hard time remembering to find the joy that makes the tenderness so beautiful. But there you go, just writing that I remembered! Those little moments of space can make quite a difference. I’ll take what I can get, as long as it doesn’t give me food poisoning again.
Here’s a little poem:
you know what you can do with that breakfast?
you know what you can do with that lunch?
you know what you can do with that dinner?
you can put them all in a bucket, I clearly have no use for them anymore.
just please do it quickly so I can get some sleep.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Cool Morning, Heavy Afternoon
4/20/2010
there is a whole in my chest
filled with glistening black ink:
the stain of space.
bathing in pristine capacity
I cry out
and the only sounds
are the billowing clouds at sunset
and the haze hanging over the trees
and the sadness inside that deep, secret
whole.
carefully I dissolve into the bright red breast
of that ink-black bird–
carefully so
my heart does not melt,
marking the earth
with the seed of space.
But it does, and now
this stain, this footprint in the rock,
cannot help but benefit
the lonely clouds and birds and haze hovering
about this profound, black
whole.
there is a whole in my chest
filled with glistening black ink:
the stain of space.
bathing in pristine capacity
I cry out
and the only sounds
are the billowing clouds at sunset
and the haze hanging over the trees
and the sadness inside that deep, secret
whole.
carefully I dissolve into the bright red breast
of that ink-black bird–
carefully so
my heart does not melt,
marking the earth
with the seed of space.
But it does, and now
this stain, this footprint in the rock,
cannot help but benefit
the lonely clouds and birds and haze hovering
about this profound, black
whole.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
One Month at the Monastery!
4/10/2010
The retreat is one month in. This is retreat, so there’s no big revelations, no huge events, just the day to day permeated with the same sacredness we usually fail to notice. Today I had a hit of sadness, a hint that practice is working. The service team has dwindled; Tashi is in Kathmandu and Christoph is traveling far and wide. So it feels a bit empty, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it just takes a little sadness to get through.
There is a trail for running that is truly wonderful. It is above all the main roads, so there’s no traffic, and while you run into an occasional small village, it’s as close to nature as I’ve been able to get while in Nepal. There’s no trucks or vicious stray dogs, just goats, and the occasional pig on the road. And some beautiful birds. The trail is all uphill until you turn around and go down, so going up is really hard, and going down is no problem. On my way down this morning, I looked up and saw this small black bird with a brilliant red breast, and it felt like a cool breeze; my mind opened for a moment to that sweet sadness elicited by undeniable beauty.
There is this interesting mixture of joy and frustration that comes from being here. On the one hand, it’s a pain in the ass to not have running water when you get back from a run and have to bathe with wet wipes. But all the other things seem pretty workable. Washing clothes by hand is time consuming but great; I actually have time alone to sing and sit in the shade. Not having electricity is no big deal, although I must add that the monastery’s generator goes on from 630-930pm, which definitely makes things more bearable at night. Doing dishes with a headlamp is workable, just not fun.
I’m practicing at least two hours every day, which brings me tremendous joy. Sitting here in the valley where Padmasambhava manifested as Vajrakiliya, we are all practicing the Werma Sadhana, which feels very auspicious. For those of you who might not know, Padmasambhava is the being who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century, subduing local spirits and manifesting as the second Buddha. He buried treasure, physical and otherwise, known as terma. This terma is then revealed by an accomplished master at an appropriate time for the particular teaching. The Shambhala Terma was revealed by Trungpa Rinpoche, father of my Guru (and present boss, if I may be so secular), and the Werma Sadhana is composed from the Shambhala Terma. So essentially, we are practicing the teachings Padmasambhava buried 1300 years ago to benefit beings of this particular time, and we’re doing it in his back yard. Forgive the phrase, but far out!
We are reaching the halfway point, and while I occasionally long unbearably to be with my girlfriend, and to have a hamburger (that won’t make me puke), and a hot shower, I feel truly blessed to be here enjoying the continual currents of ordinary magic.
The retreat is one month in. This is retreat, so there’s no big revelations, no huge events, just the day to day permeated with the same sacredness we usually fail to notice. Today I had a hit of sadness, a hint that practice is working. The service team has dwindled; Tashi is in Kathmandu and Christoph is traveling far and wide. So it feels a bit empty, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it just takes a little sadness to get through.
There is a trail for running that is truly wonderful. It is above all the main roads, so there’s no traffic, and while you run into an occasional small village, it’s as close to nature as I’ve been able to get while in Nepal. There’s no trucks or vicious stray dogs, just goats, and the occasional pig on the road. And some beautiful birds. The trail is all uphill until you turn around and go down, so going up is really hard, and going down is no problem. On my way down this morning, I looked up and saw this small black bird with a brilliant red breast, and it felt like a cool breeze; my mind opened for a moment to that sweet sadness elicited by undeniable beauty.
There is this interesting mixture of joy and frustration that comes from being here. On the one hand, it’s a pain in the ass to not have running water when you get back from a run and have to bathe with wet wipes. But all the other things seem pretty workable. Washing clothes by hand is time consuming but great; I actually have time alone to sing and sit in the shade. Not having electricity is no big deal, although I must add that the monastery’s generator goes on from 630-930pm, which definitely makes things more bearable at night. Doing dishes with a headlamp is workable, just not fun.
I’m practicing at least two hours every day, which brings me tremendous joy. Sitting here in the valley where Padmasambhava manifested as Vajrakiliya, we are all practicing the Werma Sadhana, which feels very auspicious. For those of you who might not know, Padmasambhava is the being who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century, subduing local spirits and manifesting as the second Buddha. He buried treasure, physical and otherwise, known as terma. This terma is then revealed by an accomplished master at an appropriate time for the particular teaching. The Shambhala Terma was revealed by Trungpa Rinpoche, father of my Guru (and present boss, if I may be so secular), and the Werma Sadhana is composed from the Shambhala Terma. So essentially, we are practicing the teachings Padmasambhava buried 1300 years ago to benefit beings of this particular time, and we’re doing it in his back yard. Forgive the phrase, but far out!
We are reaching the halfway point, and while I occasionally long unbearably to be with my girlfriend, and to have a hamburger (that won’t make me puke), and a hot shower, I feel truly blessed to be here enjoying the continual currents of ordinary magic.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Sanitary Discrepancies
3/31/2010
Having stayed at the monastery for a while, it’s beginning to feel very nice. There is time to practice and write, and now that we’ve gotten a bit of a groove, there’s also time to run. The latter is an odd experience; most people don’t really even notice, as if you were just a goat or some other various thing on the road, and others just stare at you like a crazy person. It’s a nice reminder that I am a foreigner, no matter how much I would like to think of myself as otherwise.
It’s interesting seeing the places where the Western and Eastern cultures clash. I particularly notice it in the kitchen. In the shrineroom, things are pretty clear-cut; the Tibetans are clearly the authority in that area. In the realm of email and outer-world communication, clearly the Westerners are the authority. But the kitchen is where both groups feel that they have a wealth of experience, and resist mightily advances into their territory. Suffice it to say that, generally speaking over here, they do not posses our passion for the eradication of germs, and we do not fully appreciate their idea of cleanliness. It’s not that they are not tidy and responsible in relating to the cleaning of the kitchen space, but their methods, by Western standards, leave a lot to be desired. Most Westerners would not have any problem with putting their underwear and socks in the top drawer of their dresser. To a Tibetan, this is a clear violation of Lha, Nyen and Lu, or the principles that underlie the natural hierarchy of the world, and infuse the universe with the grounds on which to base dignity and respect. This is along the lines of ‘Don’t wear your shoes as your hat,’ or why it’s such a big no-no to point your feet at a shrine or teacher. The monks, however, seem to have no problem with sweeping the kitchen counters with the same broom used immediately before to clean the floor. Or to put clean dishes on the filthy rags used to wipe the counters after having been swept with the floor broom, etc. These sanitary discrepancies are giving me plenty of opportunities to relate directly to my desire to control things thoroughly and pervasively, and while scrambling to avoid sickness for my teacher and myself, I am ever so slightly learning to relax into the situation simply as it is.
Having stayed at the monastery for a while, it’s beginning to feel very nice. There is time to practice and write, and now that we’ve gotten a bit of a groove, there’s also time to run. The latter is an odd experience; most people don’t really even notice, as if you were just a goat or some other various thing on the road, and others just stare at you like a crazy person. It’s a nice reminder that I am a foreigner, no matter how much I would like to think of myself as otherwise.
It’s interesting seeing the places where the Western and Eastern cultures clash. I particularly notice it in the kitchen. In the shrineroom, things are pretty clear-cut; the Tibetans are clearly the authority in that area. In the realm of email and outer-world communication, clearly the Westerners are the authority. But the kitchen is where both groups feel that they have a wealth of experience, and resist mightily advances into their territory. Suffice it to say that, generally speaking over here, they do not posses our passion for the eradication of germs, and we do not fully appreciate their idea of cleanliness. It’s not that they are not tidy and responsible in relating to the cleaning of the kitchen space, but their methods, by Western standards, leave a lot to be desired. Most Westerners would not have any problem with putting their underwear and socks in the top drawer of their dresser. To a Tibetan, this is a clear violation of Lha, Nyen and Lu, or the principles that underlie the natural hierarchy of the world, and infuse the universe with the grounds on which to base dignity and respect. This is along the lines of ‘Don’t wear your shoes as your hat,’ or why it’s such a big no-no to point your feet at a shrine or teacher. The monks, however, seem to have no problem with sweeping the kitchen counters with the same broom used immediately before to clean the floor. Or to put clean dishes on the filthy rags used to wipe the counters after having been swept with the floor broom, etc. These sanitary discrepancies are giving me plenty of opportunities to relate directly to my desire to control things thoroughly and pervasively, and while scrambling to avoid sickness for my teacher and myself, I am ever so slightly learning to relax into the situation simply as it is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)