Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Happinesses of the Day:
No, no happiness of today. It was a good day, but my practice is getting to be a struggle. It may be an offshoot of getting overwhelmed by the retreat. Yesterday’s Lazy Day, I was on cooking detail (meals are the only things scheduled for Lazy Day, and it’s just unluck of the draw if you end up on cooking detail), so I didn’t get any recharge from yesterday.

All day today I was trying to refocus myself on my practice. Even having fun with J*ost and Robin I notice is a distraction. After four weeks here and getting a little comfortable with the day to day, I need to recommit myself to the practice and be careful not to fall into mindlessly living here in this peace.

Today I may have also been preoccupied by the news I heard yesterday that Thich Nhat Hanh’s trip to Vietnam is back on! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from his homeland in 1966 because of his peace efforts during the war. Working for peace meant that both sides considered him an enemy – you know, if you’re not for us, you’re against us (where have I heard that before?). But in the past year, there have been steps and gestures for his return and finally a plan. Then I think there was a groundswell of interest by the Vietnamese people and the government started getting scared, so they tried limiting where he could go, how many people he could speak to (audience-wise), and what he could talk about, and Thich Nhat Hanh declined and the trip was cancelled. Then the government conceded and I don’t know what the terms are, but now the trip is back on and they’re (supposedly) going from January 9, 2005 to the middle of April.

Most of the Deer Park monastics are going, about 75% of the monks and half the nuns. I’m patiently waiting to hear what my options are, but it’s something that’s looming. The monastics I’m sure haven’t discussed what my options will be, and I can’t even project what they might be. I do know that my money will fall below a critical level during the period they’re away, and this is me being practical, not neurotic. So if the news is a source of distraction, I think it’s somewhat reasonable. Although as something out of my control and will manifest when it’s time, I should be able to be not distracted by it. OOOOOOMMMMM. Sorry, that OM was more sarcastic than it was meant to be.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Thanksgiving Retreat
I’m exhausted. Worn down. I’m so glad this weekend’s Thanksgiving Retreat is over. Nothing bad, nothing really negative, just that I let it all catch up with me. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, we had a community day that we call “Day of Mindfulness” when families and practitioners come up to enjoy being at the monastery, and the afternoon activity was making hundreds of eggrolls that get hand delivered to the monastery’s neighbors, who are pretty good about the traffic the monastery generates. They do it every year and the neighbors apparently appreciate it.



So I was already tired by the time retreatants started arriving steadily on Friday. The sudden influx of people made me want to withdraw, but I had to help out with hospitality, walking people to their rooms and chatting to get them in the relaxed mode of the monastery.

Saturday:
Saturday was predictably a bit of a madhouse. Morning sitting in the Meditation Hall was guided to accommodate people who were new-ish to the practice, so one of the monks would speak every five to ten minutes. It was morning sitting lite, but the change in energy with so many people was nice. Meals were minor ordeals, but things went smoothly with two Dharma talks in the morning and mass walking meditation. I chatted with some people, but you don’t get good conversations out of weekend retreatants. In fact, one one-sided conversation was damn near excruciating, but once I realized this person just wanted to talk and talk and talk, I just let him. I realized I didn’t have a pressing need to contribute to the conversation, inject ego, and if he enjoyed talking, I was happy just listening.

Saturday night, though, I finally shut down. After dinner, we had a “be in” in the dining hall, a fun community time with skits and songs. I withdrew. At first, I withdrew by joining the kitchen clean-up crew. Then I stood off on the sides, munching on ginger snaps and mint oreos. Then I finally left, having completely lost my mindfulness. Everyone was having fun, it was a party, it felt good, a respectful space to share and express. But it wasn’t home, so I left. I’m always searching for that feeling of home. I need to be more aware of that always searching for that feeling of home. The friends, the company, the music, the activity, the place, myself. Always: is this home? This monastery and monastic community feels like home. But not all the time.

Today:
Most everyone left, and I’m relieved. All the energy that built up from having so many people up here got released.

Happinesses of the day:
- clear, cool, crisp dawn, walking to morning sitting, after a night of pouring rain
- walking up some steps to the dining hall, I paused when I heard a bell because that’s what we do at this monastery. An older nun behind me, not hearing the bell, not knowing why I stopped, and thinking I was a nun, put her hands on my butt because I was blocking her way. A senior monk was right behind her. I like that nun, she’s funny, and we had a good laugh about it.
- Thinking about the song “Secret World” from the “Secret World Live” DVD during walking meditation.
- Horsing around with Brother H*i and (flirting with?) Natalie, a “regular”.
- Hearing that guest Jennifer will be trying to come up for a week long visit within the next few weeks. Good conversations usually happen with week-long guests.
- J*ost (pronounced ‘Yoast’) and Robin, a couple from Holland who frequent Plum Village and Deer Park. They’re here for a couple more weeks, and I have feeling they might be listed as a happiness every day until they leave.
- Running the Engellman Oak trail bathed in orange sunset light.
- avocados, omelet eggs, and rice

Older Vietnamese women telling me what to do also makes me lose my mindfulness. There's one here that has a penchant for ordering people, including me, around. And her English is a quarter decent, so I can't pretend like I can't understand her. Finally, when she told me to do something, I mindfully told her I would bring it up as a work item for working meditation. She's laying off for now.

Funny, though, that I have no problem with younger Vietnamese women telling me what to do. Meow *reconsidering monasticism*.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The key word in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition is “mindfulness”. We practice mindfulness and live mindfully. That means everything we do is done consciously and with appreciation. Some people go through entire days mindlessly and without a thought to what a gift this life is. When a pain in our legs hampers our walking, then we pay attention to our legs and our walking, but when our legs are healthy, we don’t pay any attention to them. They just work for us like they were our slaves. When our lungs are healthy, we don’t pay attention to our breathing, but if you have had asthma, you know what it’s like not being able to take breathing for granted. The starting point of the training here is that not even walking and breathing are taken for granted, and mindful walking and mindful breathing are the very start of the training.

But the training here is practice, not perfection, and I’ve seen what some monks are working on. One monk from England had a six members of his family visit, and he got so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right for them that he was flustered and distracted. Jokes were completely lost on him because his mind was somewhere other than the present moment, obsessing about things he had no control over. You can’t really fault him, family will do that to you, but it was interesting watching it.

Another monk who used to be a Roman Catholic priest is aware of what he’s working on, that he needs to “let it go!” He’s a control freak when there’s a job to get done, and I saw him in action on community work day. All that week prior, I had been working pleasantly in mindfulness side by side with him, sanding and sealing the new wood of the Meditation Hall. But when a lot of people were there and control was necessary and directions had to be given, I had to shut him out and do my own thing, or else I would have been caught in his habit energy. It was like he was a completely different person.

For me, it’s money issues that make me lose my mindfulness, so I know what it’s like. I probably put too much concern into whether or not Earthlink didn’t charge me after I cancelled internet service. And I noticed my thoughts going wiggy when I found out I had to pay the full guest price at the monastery until I was officially accepted as an aspirant. The rest of my afternoon was filled with thoughts about my bank account getting low and figuring out at what point I’d have to leave and still have a comfortable margin to figure out what to do next. It became an assumption that I’d be leaving. It was the end of any thoughts of being an aspirant. The money was going to run out and I had to leave well before that happened.

The train of thought itself was damage done. The thoughts were like dominoes falling, and even though I recognized what was going on and started countering it right away, I know I’m still repairing thought damage. I think the guy who runs the office (not a monastic) was uncomfortable bringing the topic of payment up with me, and there may be reasons why he might have thought it would be a touchy subject. But the first thing I started doing was making him comfortable, our acquaintance wasn’t going to be compromised, if I have to pay, I’ll pay.

So I have my sights on the issue, but there are a lot of feelings associated with money issues that I can’t control. Part of me is doing a mantra like “let it go!”, but mine is “let the money run out”. Let go of the money. Go ahead, hit rock bottom. Screw fiscal responsibility! And once I do that, I can be more comfortable with the calculations, knowing some decision will be made before I do actually hit rock bottom. Either I’ll leave here with just barely enough buffer to get started in secular life again, or I’ll stay and it won’t matter if I run out of money. Of course, at some unknown point, I’m supposed to be declared an aspirant, at which point I wouldn’t have to pay further. But all of this is theory, and I know money is still a hard issue for me.

The irony is that my parents worked constantly, neglecting me and my brothers’ upbringing to some extent so that we would never have to worry about money. They centralized money as the number one priority and the only important thing from which any happiness could flow. Now, the only thing that really makes me neurotic is money. One thing is clear. All these years that I’ve visited them and they’ve given me money and I’ve accepted it, I was never in any dire financial straits. But if I hit rock bottom, zero in the bank account, I would absolutely not go to them for financial help. The thought of going to them for financial help when I really need it just screams against every fiber of my being, even though a decent percentage of whatever has ever been in my bank account at any given moment was thanks to them. Now that’s money in the bank for some psychotherapist!

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Rotation of the Earth Sutra:
I love living under relatively clear skies. Light pollution from the city of Escondido obscures the night sky in the southwest, but the rest of the sky is quite satisfactory compared to both San Francisco, where either fog or light pollution ruined the entire sky, and New Jersey, where light pollution from New York City rendered all but the brightest stars invisible. But every clear night so far, I’ve been watching constellations rising over the eastern ridge, others making their way across the sky, sometimes staying out long enough to notice the stars move.

This sometimes translates into daytime activities if I’m working outside, and I can notice the shadows change as the sun moves across the sky. That’s what I call the rotation of the earth sutra. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, this incredibly large rock is rotating actually quite quickly on its axis. We usually don’t notice this because we usually only notice the position of the sun and stars in split second moments. Look up, there it is, go back to what we were doing. But look long enough and have something to mark their relative position, you can notice them move. I don’t think of the sun or the stars moving, but I consciously think of the earth rotating like it’s breathing and living. Perhaps each day as one large inhalation, and each night as one large exhalation. Breathe in, breathe out, that’s one day. And that’s the sutra. Breathe in, breathe out, and that’s a day of our lives. What did we do with it? What will we do with the next?

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Marketplace Meditation:
I wandered into town again today for the second “lazy day” (Mondays) in a row. I don’t think I want to make it a habit, but I had a reason to go today – to try to find a replacement part for a camera tripod that I brought for star-gazing through binoculars. Alas, no luck.

I still don’t know if my leaving the monastery grounds is frowned upon. So far no one has said anything. And today, while walking the three miles to the nearest bus stop, I got a lift part of the way from two of the monks who were driving to get avocado trees for the monastery! And right behind them were a group of nuns in a minivan! Aren’t they in the middle of Winter Retreat? No monastics are supposed to leave the monastery grounds during retreat unless for necessary errands. *shrug*

But I did treat my excursion as practice, maintaining mindfulness while back in the secular world. It’s really interesting doing that, comparing it with how I used to be in secular life and feeling the difference from monastic life. Check my feelings about being in the secular world. I sped up my walking pace in order to not seem too strange. I went to a mall to look for the tripod part, and that’s really the fun part of practice because if there’s a polar opposite to the monastery, I think a mall would come pretty close. Bastion of unchecked, rampant, uncritical consumerism and capitalism. Greed and desire, materialism. What’s the purpose? What’s the point? What’s getting all of this stuff really going to get us? I did, however, check out a Meade telescope in the Discovery Channel Store :). Walking through the mall, the images flowed. I didn’t let anything distract me, just let them come and let them go, maybe muse on what they were doing, analyzing the advertisement ploy to make people buy; wondering about the lives of all these people.

I was in the “marketplace” for seven hours, and most of it was spent walking and waiting for buses. An hour and 15 minutes was spent in an internet café, and all the bus rides were pretty short – easily less than an hour total. The final walk back up to the monastery was about an hour, so roughly three miles, maybe a little more.

When I got back, a group of monks were digging holes to plant the five avocado trees they bought. Yay avocados!! I joined in and we worked until it was too dark. So much for lazy day! And this is after a weekend of work.

On Saturday we had a community work day when laypeople are invited to the monastery to contribute their labor on ongoing projects. A good amount of people came up to sand and seal the new meditation hall, work on the vegetable garden, and plant ice plants on a hillside to prevent erosion. The people who come are usually “regulars”, and this is their way of giving back. And in return, we feed them and offer a sense of community and gratitude. We also offered to house them for the night if they wanted to participate in Sunday’s Day of Mindfulness. People come up and listen to a Dharma talk, and participate in walking meditation and a “formal” lunch, and just vibe with the community.

Needless to say, I’m pooped.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Suppose someone standing alongside a river throws a pebble in the air and it falls down into the river. The pebble allows itself to sink slowly and reach the riverbed without any effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom, it continues to rest, allowing the water to pass by. When we practice sitting meditation, we can allow ourselves to rest just like that pebble. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh, p. 26.

I was never really a huge Thich Nhat Hanh fan before because his writing is very practical and grounded, where I like ideas and concepts and developing theory. But I’ve been reading a lot of his books since there are so many of them here, and they are really quite good. I think of writings I like by great teachers from centuries ago. Centuries from now, I think Thich Nhat Hanh will be read in such a way, with reverence and authority. He will probably go down in history as one of the great “patriarchs”, so it’s kinda cool living at the same time as him.

But I’m not into adulation, and I’m not chomping at the bit to get to Plum Village to meet him. If anything, I’d rather avoid it, as I tend to shy away from “authority figures”. When I do meet him, I’m gonna try to make a point to cross my eyes at him. Maybe I’ll recite one of his mindfulness verses back at him as a rap.

I really liked the above passage by him in two contexts. I love the image, a Summer day in a sun-speckled forest with a river or a brook running through. I put myself into the point of view of the pebble. Someone comes along and picks me up. I feel the rush of acceleration as I’m launched into the air - *whhooaaaaaaaa!* The earth falls away and I catch a wonderful panoramic view from higher than I’ve ever seen before. Then gravity slows me down and I accelerate downward, plunging towards the water. I hit the water with a splash, impact, sudden deceleration, ripples, and then float to the bottom, and there I am in the Meditation Hall, sitting.

But the fall is like an image I have from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in the “emergent existence” between during the period before being reborn. Our amorphous, disembodied, substance-less selves float through a mystical space that corresponds with physical reality, “searching” for a womb in which to be reborn. It is said that beings advanced in the way can actually navigate this between with some proto-consciousness, choosing where to be reborn. Ideally in a place with a historical mystic nexus, such as the Himalayas or the Middle East, although that one has been historically battered by humans and their religions. So the fall of the pebble is like the fall to earth to be reborn, not unlike the imagery of the haibane in the anime Haibane Renmei. Then the splash of being born, into the stream of life where one can struggle, swim, or just float calmly to the bottom.

Yeehaw, I've negotiated an hour of internet access per week at the monastery! Strictly for communications, which any rank lawyer could interpret to include blogging :) This might mean more frequent entries, but posted on a weekly basis on Fridays.

So first some back-blogging.

at breakfast:
Dear Thay, dear Sangha, I would like to express my most profound and most mindful gratitude to the Sangha. A few days ago, I was informed that my request to stay for a longer period of time at Deer Park was approved, so that I could find out if my spiritual path will become a monastic path. I truly believe in this practice, and I trust the wisdom and insight of the Sangha implicitly. So even if my request was turned down, I could accept that decision mindfully and with gratitude...although perhaps not quite as much. *laughter*, Brother H*i, now my mentor, gives me a big "loser" sign. I bow deeply.

I found out from Brother H*i on Wednesday afternoon that my request for an extended stay had been approved. I actually got a big hint that morning, when after morning sitting (6:00-6:45), I looked down by the side of my cushion and saw that there was a name marker with my name on it! Lay friends and guests don't have name markers and they sit wherever. I just happened to have sat down at the right place.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes, The practice of mindfulness is the key to enlightenment. When you become aware of something, you begin to have enlightenment. When you drink a cup of water and are aware that you are drinking a cup of water deeply with your whole being, enlightenment in its initial form is there. To be enlightened is to be enlightened on something. I am enlightened on the fact that I am drinking a cup of water. (For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, p. 176.

Fully aware, not just peripherally aware that you're drinking a cup of water. It's important that he wrote that this is an 'initial form' of enlightenment. The higher, abstract manifestations of enlightenment that I've ruminated about before is for thinkers. Intellectual exercises that without a sound foundation in practice ultimately manifest in superficial, tenuous ways.

I don't mean that as a put-down, it's a good starting point and theoretical foundation. You start up with high-falutin' concepts of enlightenment, but once you really start engaging it, you drop down to the most simplest, basic practice that Thich Nhat Hanh describes.

I'm pretty comfortable stating that all of the monastics here are enlightened. They have attained that 'initial form' of enlightenment. That enlightenment is just the lifestyle here, and it's not merely form. Living this lifestyle has given them a deep look into life and profound insights into being. You don't need to be a monastic to attain this level of enlightenment, but it's much harder maintainging something like this lifestyle in secular life.

None of this is to ignore the belief or suggestion that we all already are enlightened.

I think that there are enlightenment seekers who upon seeing what enlightenment is would decide that they'd rather not have it. When it comes right down to it, many people would decide that strong desires and attachments are a good thing, that's what life's about, that's why we have so many things to enjoy and take pleasure in and tempt us. And that's true, it's just not enlightenment.

After staying two weeks as a paying, registered guest, monastic aspirants need to submit a letter to the monastic community to stay longer. I was told my letter was quite good:

Dear Deer Park Sangha,

I have been visiting Deer Park Monastery since October 29, 2004, and I am now writing to request permission for an extended stay at Deer Park Monastery for the purpose of further investigating a possible monastic aspiration.

I have been interested in the monastic path for many years, and having tried many options in secular life, my mind has always returned to the idea of pursuing the monastic path. During the course of secular life, I have maintained a consistent, solitary home practice, supplemented by reading and personal study and reflection, which has encouraged me to view many things in the secular world, if not most (if not all!), in a spiritual light.

Prior to visiting Deer Park, my practice has involved sitting, either alone or with a Sangha where available, and has influenced my life through maintaining harmonious interpersonal/family relationships, and maintaining meditative/critical mindfulness while pursuing hobbies and activities such as cycling, photography, astronomy, watching movies, and playing music.

To that extent, I have been able to manifest the spiritual theory in engaged practice, but my time at Deer Park has encouraged me to look more deeply at my practice at its very foundation; in the very simple and practical application of life, living, and existing. Perhaps this might be the “next level” beyond theory that I need, and to decide whether the monastic path is the right path for me. Already, I have taken the opportunity to receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and I immediately looked into them further through Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on them (available through the Deer Park Monastery Tea Room). Reading on them further has, indeed, greatly expanded my understanding and appreciation for them.

I have already engaged many of the monastics at Deer Park and they are aware of my aspirations/investigation and my level of participation with the community. I am, of course, prepared and willing to continue contributing and participating to the full extent of my ability, including work meditation, grounds preparation for retreats, Tea Room maintenance (guests being the primary users of the Tea Room, I think it proper, as a guest, for me to contribute to its maintenance), and sharing my music background. Other work skills include office related work and law and writing related work.

Over the course of the time that I am allowed to stay, I would be searching in my heart whether the monastic path is where my life has been leading, while learning as much as I can about what it takes and what it means to be a monastic on both a spiritual and practical level. Just being here and being involved has been my greatest education, and any feedback, observations, criticisms, encouragements, etc., would be appreciated. Access to the monastic library would be nice, but so would internet access to maintain a “monastic aspirant weblog” (online journal) – but I understand if those are against policy.

I am committed to live harmoniously and responsibly with the community as long as I am here.

Sincerely,
Koji Li

Like any application, it is prettied up.

The monastery was very peaceful during the week after all the folks from last weekend’s retreat left. This weekend was another retreat for college students, but there were about half the amount of people, and I wasn’t walking right into it, so it was OK. When did college students get so cute and fuzzy? When I went to college, everyone looked so mature, you know, adult like. Anyway, I feel like I haven’t matured much from college, so I was able to relate to these kids more than the adults from last week. I had some great conversations.

I met a woman whose company and conversation made such an impression on me that by the end of the weekend, I adopted her as my first “Dharma sister”. We may never see each other again, but that’s OK, it was that connection, at that time that counts. She’s on her own spiritual path, and her background is more Tibetan Buddhism.

We both took the Five Mindfulness Trainings this morning in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition (I think she had already taken similar ones in a Tibetan tradition). It’s like receiving precepts or taking vows, but not. They’re not prohibitions or commandments. They are things to keep in mind to guide us and strive for, even if we end up “breaking” them. That’s one of the beauties of Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition. They’re not there to restrain or suppress us or to make us feel guilty if we fail to maintain them, but to strive for wisdom in both our successes and failures.

I had my reservations about taking all of them. In particular, the fifth one, which is a mindfulness training against ingesting physical or mental toxins, and an express mindfulness not to drink alcohol. First of all, as long as I’m here at the monastery or if I follow the monastic path, that’s no problem. But if I return to secular life, I’m not going to lie to myself, I will drink alcohol. Second of all, I understand the social problems associated with alcohol, however, I’m not convinced of any arguments for the explicit prohibition against alcohol. It just seems arbitrary and my drinking patterns withstand all the arguments I’ve read and heard.

A main argument was that even if you drink in moderation, you affect people around you, especially your family members who might see you drinking, and they might be prone to having alcohol problems. Fair enough, but that’s not an issue with me, since for the most part no one sees me drinking. How about social drinking, where going to a bar is central to maintaining one’s social life? Drinking socially might be colluding and enabling one of your friends who might end up with a problem. Fair enough, that’s a reason to engage this mindfulness training on a deeper level. One monk was telling me how he used to be able to go out with friends to a bar before he became a monk, and he just wouldn’t drink. He didn’t need alcohol as a social lubricant. But in this case, drinking or not drinking doesn’t seem to be the main issue. The fact that you’re even at the bar is colluding and enabling because your very presence at a bar suggests alcohol consumption, even if you aren’t actually drinking alcohol.

I understand the focus on alcohol as a problem and a target for mindful consumption, but the explicit prohibition seems arbitrary to me. My personal pet peeve target for mindful consumption would be using fossil fuels. Here at the monastery, the act of turning on a car is done mindfully, presumably; there is a mindfulness verse for it. However, I don’t think the concept of turning on a car is done mindfully, because that would entail not turning on a car unless it’s really necessary. Turning on a car for me is just as bad as having a drink, even worse because we generally seem to think it’s OK without thinking of the global consequences of simply turning on a car. Turning on a car drives wars. And monastics drive fossil fuel vehicles from one hamlet to another – a quarter of a mile, a ten minute mindful walk. They have an electric golf cart, but why not have more for intra-monastery transportation? Why not have more bikes? The hill will give them strong legs and is good for their cardio-vascular system.

So I can maintain the mindful consumption of the fifth mindfulness training without abiding by the explicit prohibition on alcohol. I might even go so far as to give up any social drinking to maintain it, stop hanging out at bars, not go to events where alcohol consumption is central (I said I might). In exchange, I’ll keep riding my bike and keep talking about the toxic consumption of fossil fuels which poisons our bodies, other peoples’ bodies, and our environment.

I don’t think the fifth mindfulness training has an explicit prohibition on cigarette smoking. I’m telling you, it’s arbitrary.

Self-portrait outside the guest buildings

Last Friday was my travel day, and it went without a hitch. After over eleven years in California, I can safely declare that I’m a Californian. Walking out of San Diego Airport, I felt a rush of familiarity – the air, the sunlight – that I never felt going back to New Jersey for visits. The New Jersey part of me died a long time ago, if it even ever existed.

It was just a pain getting from San Diego Airport to the monastery by public transportation. Almost three hours, taking three buses just to get to Escondido. In Escondido, I ate my last meal on the outside at a Mexican eatery – so good after four months of crap East Coast idea of Mexican food – then I called a cab to take me to the foot of the mountain of the monastery. I admit I was trying to keep the cab fare down, I have a habit-attachment to money, but climbing the road up to the monastery was meant to be a symbolic gesture – difficult and on my own feet. It’s over a mile and several hundred feet of climbing. Of course, halfway up I was thinking how stupid that was and I should’ve just cabbed it up.

Just my luck, I arrived on the first day of a retreat and there were tons of people already at the monastery. It was a bit of an unwelcome shock, but I got through it. The first monk I recognized was Brother T*i, an older, white American monk, who I don’t think recognized me from last year. He was in a van and offered to drive me up the last uphill to the monks’ hamlet, but I waved him on, and immediately regretted it as I trudged up that last incline.

I left my pack in the tea room and headed down to the dining hall where the first monk I met who recognized me was Brother L*i, a British monk, who arrived from Plum Village last year during my visit. After dinner I found Brother H*i, an Australian monk, who has been my contact at Deer Park leading up to this visit, and he got me settled into a guestroom. The retreat ended yesterday and just about everybody left; just a few stragglers still around.

Today was the monastery’s “lazy day” with no scheduled plans. I went on a hike with Brother L*i and David, who was a long term guest last year when I was visiting. We took a path up a ravine to the ridge east of the monastery and it involved some light rock climbing. I’m hoping to get to know the surrounding area pretty well.