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.