<thinking>diplomatic, diplomatic, say something diplomatic</thinking>

Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York (come on, Google hits!) bit the BIG one!!

*ahem*

That is to say, their style of practice didn't quite conform to what I'm looking for. Most of the people there rubbed me the wrong way. We may be on the same journey, but we are on different paths. When someone asked when I was leaving, I wanted to say that I never really arrived. I needed to go up there, I went up there, I'm glad I went up there, not going up there would have been inconceivable, but the actual being there was pretty useless.

I won't say it was totally lame. There's a reason for everything there, and their practice is undoubtedly effective for what it is (ie, for them). In fact, I bought a book of actual formal teacher-student exchanges that are conducted there several times a year in a public forum. Usually that sort of thing would bug the hell out of me, but I do have a lot of respect for the teacher there (he wasn't there while I was there), and even if the exchanges seem flaky and bug me, I do think there is a lot of value for me to look more closely at them.

Anyway, their schedule varies throughout the year, but it was useless for me being there, aside from the fact of going there, because the schedule was all work practice (ie, work meditation). It was all sleep, sitting, eating, and work, strict schedule, and any break between any of those was only long enough to lounge listlessly until the next thing started. So for my purposes, there was no reflection time, no extended walks through the woods, no relaxing, no peace.

And work practice is good in concept, but I found the context in which their work was performed to be no different than secular work. So to me, they call it work practice, but it was just work. Not enough "practice". Maybe that's the European influence in the conception of this monastery. There was an episode of "Northern Exposure" where Chris-in-the-Morning goes off to a Christian monastery to do just what I did - just work and get into the work.

But at this monastery, I don't know, maybe it's a Western obstruction to Buddhism that Westerners need to work on, but we have a problem with power and authority. You place people in a position where they tell other people what to do, and they get carried away, suddenly they think it's their prerogative and mandate to dictate to other people. Things have to be the way they conceive it; they do it right, you're doing it wrong. It creates the duality we're trying to eliminate, even just metaphorically.

I don't understand how telling people what to do or how to do it creates an environment of peace and cooperation. Even at the highest level, on Sunday, the public day, the teacher in charge while the head honcho was away admonished the congregation (it felt more to me like a congregation than a Sangha - a practicing community). Apparently he noticed that not everyone was participating in the chanting, and he said to the "people with their mouths closed" that it was about "full engagement" and "full engagement means participation". Again with the dictating, not only what other people who aren't him are supposed to be doing, but also the mindset. "Full engagement" means moving your lips without thinking what you're saying? What the hell? The way I see it, there are other ways to be "fully engaged" without doing the damn chanting.

Some of the work was pretty miserable, too. You'd think that some consideration would go into what was appropriate for whom. If I went to Deer Park with an eye on becoming a novice, I would expect to be at the bottom of the totem pole and to do the drudge work, but for short-term visitors, you want them on lighter duty, easily supervised, not a lot of responsibility. If the short-term visitor doesn't do something the way the monastery (not the middle management) usually does it, the supervisor does it him or herself to suggest by example. If it still doesn't get done right, it will get done right another time. No firecrackers in the ass.

Ironically, or maybe not so, considering, the most fulfilling moment I had there was scrubbing the stone dining hall floors. That job was pretty miserable, but I'm not complaining about the work. If I was a monk I would have been happy to scrub the whole damn floor day after day; it was visceral, it felt good and you could see the results pretty dramatically. But what was the mindset of the genius to put a short-term visitor on that job? That's what bugged me - it didn't make sense, and not having confidence in the management and functioning didn't make for a peaceful monastic experience, but rather a critical one.