I'm testing out a new blog. I keep getting to a point where I feel like I've pigeon-holed a blog into a theme or concept, separate from my life, and I get bored with it. Hopefully the new concept will be flexible enough and the pigeonhole big enough for me not to get bored with it. I'll let you know if it feels like it can get off the ground.

I stopped shooting black and white film regularly because the cost, inconvenience, and time required to make prints became prohibitive. Discovering negative scanning has put the bee back in me bonnet for shooting black and white. Scanning shots directly onto my computer and being able to upload them onto the web has been an additional incentive. When I was shooting black and white regularly, I was still web illiterate. Before, I had to carefully choose which shots to print off of contact sheets, and most frames never saw the light of day. The ones that did got stuck in an album or framed and given as gifts. With negative scanning, every shot can be enlarged and given a fair chance of exposure.

I rode into New York today and finished a roll of PX125 film that I've had for maybe 10 years and has been in and out of refrigerators for just as long. I never got into pushing and pulling film and manipulating exposures and processing to get a desired shot. I'm not technical at all, so that put me kindly into the serendipity school of shooting and processing. So if bizarreness comes out of this expired and abused roll of unusual Kodak black and white film which will probably be dumped in and processed with a bunch of rolls of Tri-X, I'll be thrilled.

I learned to appreciate the serendipity of the vagaries of film when I got several rolls of Tri-X processed in Bangkok and they obviously had never processed a roll of Tri-X, but had a manual written in Shakespearean English on how to do it. At first, I was horrified and upset that they "ruined" my negatives, but upon trying to make the best of it and printing some shots, I was pleasantly surprised and duly introduced to the world of "effect" photography:


June 9, 1997 - Thailand (uncorrected scan)

Unlike most of my black and white scans, the darkroom prints of these negatives were much better, although a bitch to figure out the exposures. Still, I can live with the above, although I'd correct the contrast, maybe blur out some of the graininess.

However, although serendipitous weirdness is good, I'm still a conventional photography purist, and not so much into cheap trick effect photography without a clear artistic vision. (right, that's why I started hearing voices saying, "buy me, buy me" when I saw a lomo fisheye camera at the Museum of Modern Art gift shop).

I like the idea of photographs as memory, rather than art. I've never thought of myself as an "artist" in anything I do. But photographs I like to look at have that "memory" quality to them, rather than great subject matter or perfect artistic composition. Instead, a "this happened" quality to something that may not have been noticed otherwise. A scene for someone's memory that got captured imperfectly in black and white, in two dimensions and definite borders. I also always flip my negatives to remove the memory another step from reality, since memory shouldn't be confused with reality. Unless there are words in the shot that are integral or would be distracting to the shot if left backwards (yes, the shot above is flipped - it's not what I saw).

I want to go shoot again tomorrow, but I need to find a place that sells the film that I want. Shops are open on Labor Day, aren't they? I can't believe I let myself run out of film!

September 30, 2003 - Sequoia National Park

Blog comes to use! I found a mystery roll of black and white film in my room at my parents' house and got it processed. I don't supposin' anyone's noticed from my flickr and fotolog accounts that I'm particularly anal meticulous about recording when photos are taken. Digital is easy since date and time is recorded automatically, but even when I used to shoot black and white film, I used to keep track of camera activity. So I got this roll of film processed and it turned out to be from a day trip to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park and then some shots around Battery Park in Manhattan (go fig). No idea when these shots were taken. But a quick search through blog archives and I've been able to locate some dates. I am so fucking anal it's not even funny.


Battery Park - December 2003

February 25, 1995 - Seacliffs, San Francisco

Englewood Cliffs, NJ
My brother's back from honeymoon, so I'm no longer spending hours and hours at his place scanning negatives. I'm still not doing anything in furtherance of a future, still no motivation to return to the monastery, quite the opposite. The Sangha is on Thich Nhat Hanh's speaking tour now on the East Coast, and I have no desire to be a part of that. Weird what a turnaround that was, but it doesn't mean inspiration won't strike in the next couple months and have me booking a flight to France.

At this point, no Nagasaki plans, no Taipei plans, no job plans. Although revisiting all those black and white negatives has gotten me to pull out my SLR again, which has film in it from I don't know when. The last roll of film I remember developing was from foto-strolls with the SF fotolog gang, so this roll can't be that old. It's at the end of the roll, so I'll try finishing it off tomorrow, get it developed, and scan in the negatives. I feel so tech. But if I was really techy, I'd have a digital SLR. The current heatwave is apparently over, so once it stops raining, I want to ride into New York. I have a hankering to go to the Village and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Practice-wise, I've been more immersed in Tibetan stuff, which makes the Zen stuff look like kid stuff. I still stand by the Zen stuff, as that was my initial attraction and initiation to these teachings and philosophies, and I think that my current fascination with Tibetan teachings is because that's where Zen had been taking me anyway. Zen got me to a place where Tibetan teachings are comfortable and familiar, so for me there's not much of a disjuncture between the two paths. But as far as Tibetan Buddhists look down on Zen Buddhists, that's just unfortunate, and Zen Buddhists who don't go beyond Zen are experts at hammering nails into boards, but never learn to build anything.

To the extent that they're not the same thing, I think I would rather follow Tibetan teachings, but might not be ready for that, ergo Zen. I'm kinda in between. There were a lot of good things about the practice at Deer Park, very enriching, very challenging, but it was also easy to get complacent and cocky. It also focused on the manifest world around us and practicing in daily life and living. I've never been to a Tibetan place, but I'm attracted to how the teachings delve into the mind and consciousness and psychology. It treats the teachings as a science, verifiable by one's own experience.

I don't think I'm practicing Tibetan style these days - I mean, how could I? I think I'm basically following the Zen regimen in form, but mentally and cognitively, my ideas and thoughts are mostly spun by Tibetan teachings. And it's a trip the way it fits in with my pre-existing psychology and tendencies.

It turns out my brother and his wife have a top line printer/copier/scanner. *Negative* scanner! I've spent the last week and a half at my brother's place while they're on their honeymoon scanning my old black and white negatives from circa 1995-1999.

I used to do this thing where I'd go to San Francisco tourist spots and take pictures of tourists getting their pictures taken.







That's what I used to do for fun. I'm starting to understand why people used to refer to me as "weird kid". All photos February 23, 1997. Copyrighted.

I left the monastery to come to my brother's wedding, but then instead of going to Plum Village, I proposed to the monks that I stay out for 3-5 months to get clear on my path before going to Plum Village. But I got no feedback or guidance from the monks until too late, and by the time I left Deer Park, I felt I was leaving for good, and would only return under dire circumstances. The set up for me to leave under those conditions is my karma.

Two weeks away from Deer Park, I have still have no desire to return. I track my days thinking what would be going on at Deer Park, and I'm actually glad I'm not there. I don't feel that it was any loss that I interpreted the signs to indicate that I was to leave. This isn't the end of the story, of course, as I'm staying at my parents house and have yet to engage the tedium and meaningless responsibilities of material life that was part of why I ended up at the monastery in the first place. But whether I end up at Plum Village or not, I recognize that I'm looking for my true path, and I made no obligation to the monks that I would ordain in the Plum Village system.

The prevailing feeling these days has been that maybe I'm not ready to stop. Stop. That's what it was at Deer Park. We were able to stop. Wonderfully stop. It was freedom to stop. Stop and be happy, to cultivate peace, compassion, and understanding in our minds. Demons aside, I'm feeling I'm not ready for that environment because I'm still finding a lot in not stopping. In moving. There's still so much to learn. Earlier this week I went in to New York to the American Museum of Natural History and any exhibit could have been a meditation. I used to think those dioramas of the African Savannah were so cheesy, but with a little imagination and visualization, there's a whole world to scratch right there. Another time, another place, another lifetime, another set of genetics, evolution, the life cycle. Visualize the diorama extending beyond the walls and glass case until I'm in the setting, imagine the sounds, the temperature, the air, be there, be the animal, predator or prey, this is our natural history, this is our planet, and my spiritual yearnings embrace and engage it. There is a place for the mountaintop or the desert, it is a definite part of spiritual evolution. But maybe I'm not done suffering yet. Wonderful suffering. To cycle through a thousand lifetimes as predator or prey, hunt or hunted, kill and eat meat, taste blood. A hundred thousand lifetimes as an ant, the significance of my life being wasted on snotty-nosed kids whose first impulse upon seeing me is to squash me - which is fine, helps me get through the hundred thousand lifetimes quicker. On and on, and the Earth hurdles around the sun. Don't even get me started on dinosaurs. Wow!

Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Wedding weekend is over. My brother is married, and the physical reason why I left the monastery is done. The vaguer reasons why I'm not returning immediately need to play out now.

I am currently immersed in a culture and surrounded by people who think monasticism is some far off fairy tale, some mystic alternate reality which inexplicably is not concerned with making money and being entertained and accumulating material possessions with that money. They have absolutely no conception that from my point of view, they are the bizarro alternate reality. I suppose engaging this is part of my path, part of what I need to confront as the path of my karma, even if it becomes a death match.

Maybe my brother who just got married feels a similar way. He has proclaimed himself Catholic, he got married in a Catholic church and according to Catholic rules, I gather, but forewent having mass because too few attending could participate in the, what is it?, the sacrament? The cracker thing.

When reading Thich Nhat Hanh's writings on inter-faith dialogue, it feels so clear that such a dialogue is possible and can be harmonious. We're all striving for basically the same things for ourselves: happiness, to live our lives without fear or threat, to live freely. But when not reading his books, it's so hard to conceive. Faiths and religions are like Trivial Pursuit pies, each pie slice clearly blocked off and delineated from all other slices. Occassionally with interfaith dialogue, some feel-good connection can be made with other pies, a line can be thrown, but ultimately the barriers are there. We have our beliefs and they have their beliefs, and at the core of that attitude, that understanding, is that our belief is right, and something about theirs is wrong.

That's a hard one, because in my belief system, and any belief system which claims to respect the belief systems of others, we don't want to say that other belief systems have got it wrong. It offends us to think that other truly spiritual paths are in error, because once you do that to them, they can do that to you, and what are beliefs but intangible, fragile concepts which are wounded if they are disrespected or non-believed. If someone told me my belief system was shite for reasons I think are based on ignorance or intolerance, it doesn't destroy my beliefs since they are a part of my identity, but it hurts. It shakes them. It wounds them because these are world beliefs, and they are making it clear that they aren't. Or I can be indignant and ignore them, proudly maintaining righteousness in my belief. But I neither want to be shaken and wounded, or proud and indignant. I want to respect their beliefs, and I want my beliefs respected.

But that's impossible as long as I have my beliefs and they have their beliefs, because once we have those, it's almost automatic that we think our beliefs are right, and something about theirs is wrong, no matter how hard we try to respect theirs. We can only respect their beliefs on a superficial level of promising non-harm, not threatening them for their beliefs.

I don't think any of this is necessarily right, I think a paradigm shift is possible that negates all of this; one that melts down the borders of the Trivial Pursuit pie slices. One that melts down the concept of being right or wrong. One that doesn't recognize the possibility of respecting or disrespecting other beliefs. One that doesn't recognize a separation between beliefs. It's not a religious question, it's a human behavioral issue.

Religion is a mental concept and its sacredness is something we assign, and it has become so ingrained that we now call it tradition. Two thousand years of worship, and we can have tribes of people fighting and killing each other over Britney Spears and Madonna; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; Modest Mouse and Built to Spill; John Lennon and Paul McCartney (ugh, why am I even dignifying Paul McCartney by putting him up with John Lennon?).

Not to analogize faiths and religions with pop stars. But there is a paradigm possible where the righteousness or wrongeousness of a belief system is not even an issue. All those concepts melt away. It's not easy. I can't do it. Once you start thinking it through analytically, you quickly hit concepts that we ourselves have created that necessitate deciding that this or that is right or makes sense, and this or that is wrong and doesn't make sense.

My brother just got married. One of the things he needs to work on and get rid of is the idea that he can be right. He argues and bickers with his wife. The engine that drives the arguing and bickering is impatience and anger, and the motivations or goal is the idea of being right. I try to tell him that when you're married, there can be no more concept of being right. It doesn't matter and it's not going to get them anywhere productive - lose it. Stop striving to prove you're right, and learn to listen deeply and patiently, and act wisely and unselfishly.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ
It's been almost a week since leaving Deer Park, and it's not like I'm resisting getting back into a "disciplined" practice. It's not like I would be pushing myself back into it, so I can't say that I'm just not pushing myself back into it. I shouldn't say that I'm just doing what feels natural, because that sort of letting go is a slippery slope that I'm not about to go down.

I'm still processing.

I guess I didn't want to leave Deer Park, get back to New Jersey, and immediately get back into the disciplined practice thing like normal, pretending that everything is normal and there's nothing to process. Disciplined practice would entail at least two 45 minute sittings a day, and much more disciplined reading, studying, and general engaged mindfulness during the day. I'm not vegetarian, and it would be hard to be vegetarian in my circumstances, but my ideal was to only order vegetarian when it was in my control, but not avoid meat if that is what got placed in front of me - which is actually a Theravadin ethic. In the Theravadin school, all of their food is donated, and if meat is donated, they will eat meat, even though they are vegetarian. Vegetarian, but not attached to vegetarianism.

I'm processing Deer Park. I'm processing monasticism. I'm processing my path, what little I think I know about my karma, and what I might do and where I might go in the next few months. Yep, it's a lot. And most of the processing is on a sub-conscious level, so I'm not all maudlin and depressed every day thinking about it. On the contrary, I keep winning shit off eBay. I need to stop. Paypal is a very dangerous thing.

One thing I'm processing is that Deer Park, saying nothing about Plum Village, did not have a good practice for me as a non-monastic. For the monks and nuns, fine, they've already gotten their training in Plum Village and they're so enlightened they can roller blade mindfully and let children turn the monastery into a playground, screaming and playing, every Sunday, blah, blah, blah. But if Deer Park was the root monastery, I wouldn't go there. Not enough discipline, not enough contemplation, too much assumption of perfection of mindfulness. No doubt this will change as the monastery matures (it's only five years old), but I tried to envision the environment I would want to be in to practice, and I saw something more austere, even if it meant letting go of some of the "joy" of Deer Park. Not actually losing any of the joy, but a different kind of joy. There is a joy, a quieter joy, in an austere practice with respect, open communications, and a tighter authority structure which maintained the ideals of why the monastics would be there.

And joy is one of the monastic ideals. A monastery without joy seems to miss the point for me, too, even though when I first went to Deer Park, joy was the farthest thing from my mind. As for a tighter authority structure, nothing oppressive, just a sharper focus on the ideals of compassion, wisdom, equanimity, and loving-kindness, and open communications so that everyone is always thinking of those four things in their mindfulness practice. Indeed, "mindfulness" got thrown around so much at Deer Park, that there were times I was wondering what the hell mindfulness was. There was one guy who confused "mindfulness" with "idiotically slow". And one mindfulness practice I engaged in prior to Deer Park which helped me understand it easily once I got there was urban bike riding. It's not what you're doing, but what your mind is doing. And right now, what my mind is doing is not much different from what it was doing at Deer Park. Processing.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ
So I follow my path. I'm not one of those people who believes that everything happens for a reason, but there is a reason why I left the monastery. It might be to find my true path. It might be psychological, I might have unconsciously engineered it to be this way. It might be to find out that Plum Village really is the best community for me to pursue this practice. But it does seem fitting that I'm no longer there, it feels comfortable, it seems right.

I returned to New Jersey with little fanfare. I've been here so much in the last year, that it's no big deal. My parents are even giving a vibe of being a little fed up with this directionlessness and they're going totally hands-off. Good for them. They're getting old and all they can think of is keep making money. Any deeper wisdom about life eludes them.

I didn't come back here with the idea of immediately maintaining a practice, on the contrary, I've been thinking of pushing it a way a little to see how I react, to see if it's something I can push away, or if it's really something that's sinking in. Pushing away the Deer Park practice is no big deal. Even some of the monks there would comment that the practice there, currently, is too loose, weak. For me, the mental shift of being there and being out here is not that great, which could mean my practice is particularly weak, or particularly strong, it doesn't matter.

I have been feeling a pull to keep it up, but it feels like it needs re-tooling. And to the rescue, I received an Amazon order I placed just before leaving Deer Park. I chose the free shipping and didn't expect the shipment to come until the end of next week, but it arrived on the same day that I got back here. The shipment included The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism, The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva, Meaningful to Behold, which is a commentary by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso on the Shantideva book, and I also received a 2-CD set that I won off eBay, The Monastery of Gyuto: The Voice of the Tantra for half the price. Never mind that the Amazon shipment also included a Peter Gabriel DVD, I think the hint I'm giving myself is to get some Tibetan knowledge under my belt.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Last Day:
The past week has been pretty routine, and I've been mentally checking off the last time doing things. Last Wednesday was my last cooking day, but I was relieved of both lunch and dinner duty because I was slightly sick. Last work meditation was on Saturday, sanding and sealing the exterior wood on the meditation barn. Last evening sitting/chanting on Saturday I missed because, well, just because. Last night was my last kitchen wash up day.

I don't know if this means anything, but with departure imminent, all of the things that were otherwise normal seemed like such a drag. When I was relieved of my last cooking day, I was really relieved! It felt like a reprieve. It seems my mindset is adjusting in anticipation of not being here anymore and being here doesn't seem so great anymore. I've been taking showers and really enjoying being clean afterwards. It's interesting. I'm looking forward to leaving. Most people want to stay longer.

Breaking the routine this morning, one of the lay guests had an accident. I don't have all the details yet, but he was on a trail in the small valley down from the monastery, and something about bees and he ended up spraining or breaking his ankle or leg. It was pretty bad. I happened to be wandering around when the news came up of him being injured, so I ended up on the "rescue team". It looked pretty bad and he was in a lot of pain. He's a big guy, too, so getting him on a stretcher and carrying him to the pick-up truck took a lot of care, and off he went to the hospital. Strange, right after I arrived here in October, one of the brothers slipped while jogging on the western ridge and broke his hip. And the first time I visited in October 2003, there was that firestorm!

Thank god these brothers aren't superstitious, or else I could forget any thoughts of coming back.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Stepping Out of Freedom
Thich Nhat Hahn has a book entitled Stepping Into Freedom. It’s a handbook for novice monastic living. When I realized that my letter of aspirancy had been rejected and I stopped wearing the monastic robes several weeks ago, a brother asked me, “Are you stepping out of freedom?”. Clever. But point taken. How many times have I been lying in a hammock in the late afternoon, reading a book or watching the trees and the sky and the clouds, sun bright, breeze warm, and think how if I were working, I’d be sitting in some office under fluorescent light, pushing paper and taking orders to do something I would only do if someone gave me a heaping check every two weeks?

So I leave in a week, no plans for what I’m going to do next. I’ll look more into going to Nagasaki for three months after I get back to New Jersey. I have vague ideas about teaching English in Taipei after that, but what really do I know about teaching English? I’ve done it before and it was kind of a drag. But by then I will have assessed my monastic aspirancy further and might end up in Plum Village after all. I figure I’ll be in New Jersey through August and probably into September since I tend to move slowly on life decisions.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Family Retreat
Yesterday was registration day. I survived, I think. I didn't really participate. I should clarify. After I arrived here last October, I somehow got involved in the registration office and before I knew it, I was doing hospitality for retreats. I would hang out in the back room, surfing the internet, and guests would arrive to register and then I would walk them to their rooms and unlock the door for them. New guests often had a habit energy of rushing and walking fast, and I would, by example, make them walk slowly, if not mindfully, and chat with them to help them relax. Soon I got associated with anything involving guests and guestrooms and I was given a master key. Is this odd? Yes, it is. I should have been wearing one of those t-shirts that say, "Do I LOOK like a people person?" I'm probably one of the most avoidant people here. I don't like crowds, I shrink and shy away and eventually disappear. November and December were heavy retreat months, and doing hospitality took its toll on me and stoked the fires of my negativity and exacerbated my avoidant tendencies. It was also too much work for one person, as the responsibilities I ended up volunteering for kinda snowballed, one leading to another, all under the guise of "guest master", which I was not. Or didn't think I was. Actually, considering the way a monastery works, yes, I was guest master.

When I got back here in April, I continued in the registration office, but hospitality efforts had gotten much more efficient and I started getting more support on retreat registration days, and it has been really good. I've been really good. I've been able to keep positive and stay happy doing hospitality. I don't know what happened yesterday. Some negative energy was around and with the largest retreat crowd I've been involved in (about 160 people), the registration office got so much support that I didn't have to do anything for most of the day. I ducked out right before dinner and did 45 minutes of sitting in the small hall amidst people arriving and registering right outside. With so much support, my role was more of a fallback, and as the evening wore on and there were less people arriving, I still hung out with the office manager waiting for people to show. Basically, I missed registration and ended up walking only one person to his room.

The monastics are aware of my crowd aversion, and some help me with it without making me uncomfortable. They're OK with me half-joking about disappearing for retreats (the half joking is the listening half, the half not joking is the speaking half). Although I am fully joking about booking nights at the Motel 6 downtown. I've always ended up making an effort to participate in activities during retreats. But 160 people? I'll take tomorrow as it comes.

Some monastic dining hall humor:

Guest: I love this spread, what is it?
Monk: Almond butter.
Guest: Almond butter? What's in it?
Monk: Almonds.
Monk #2: and butter.

Guest: This vegetarian ham sandwich is so good.
Monk: Don't you feel sorry for the vegetarian pigs?

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Between Weekend Retreats: Community Work Day
I’m handling retreats better than in the Winter. I don’t know why they started getting to me back then, maybe I’m adjusting better to the crowds now. Next weekend is a “Family Retreat”, and is a day longer because of the holiday weekend. Oy. It’ll be fine, I tell myself, it’ll be fine. On non-retreat weekends, we often have community work days on Saturdays when lay practitioners are invited up to help out with work projects and we feed them and house them for a night for free if they want to stay on until Sunday’s public Day of Mindfulness.

Yesterday I was on a team to clear out two guestrooms that were being used for storage because we’re going to need every room we have for next week’s retreat. I was glad that I wasn’t on the campsite clearing team that I was on all last week since I ended up getting a pretty extensive case of poison oak on my arms and legs. Just a lot of itching and scratching, no severe blistering like someone else got. The wisdom of clearing out poison oak for campsites is an interesting one. I’m not sure what the logic is. One lay person last week made the keen observation that we were just making it easier for people to get poison oak. On Friday morning walking meditation, the community walked down to the area we had worked on, and right into the area we cleared. It looked very nice, but I knew better, I knew what was in there, I wasn’t going in there. Several other people were also holding back, and I noticed it was all of us who had worked on the site. We knew better, we knew what was in there, we weren’t going in there.

Poison Oak Grove:













During work meditation, quite a few people are good on the “work”, but not so clear on the “meditation”. With one of the monks, it’s even a problem because his old habit energies come up, and work is all about getting things done, and he completely loses the meditation part and it affects other people. He’s working on it and encourages people to keep pointing it out to him by telling him to breathe. I’ve started bringing a mindfulness bell to worksites and I sound it every 45-60 minutes to get everyone to stop, breathe, and come back to mindfulness in case they’ve gotten too caught up in ‘work’. During the day, whenever we hear a bell sounded, we stop what we’re doing and bring our minds back to our breathing and the present moment. It’s habit. Except during working meditation, and the first time I did it, people didn’t respond automatically and kept working for several seconds until it dawned on them. I was told this is a practice used during Plum Village work meditation, but it seems to have been discarded at Deer Park, the frontier monastery.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The Five Contemplations
Before each meal at the monastery, we recite the Five Contemplations either silently to ourselves with our palms together in what looks like prayer, or as a community with one person reciting out loud. They are intended to nourish awareness, gratitude, and appreciation for the food that we have to eat, and the community we have with whom to eat the food. We also eat in silence to be fully aware of our meal without being distracted by conversation, and to contemplate where this food came from and the possible suffering people endured to bring us this food, including the acts of corporations in polluting the environment and exploiting workers all in the name of profit. It’s not as big of a downer as it is when I write about it. I’m talented that way :p

The Five Contemplations are written out and are on the dining hall tables for guests who haven’t memorized them. After people memorize them, they tend to put in their own permutations so that they resonate for them personally, and when they are asked to recite them out loud for the community, they keep in their permutations. Sometimes a permutation resonates with someone else, and that person adopts the permutation. That happened to me once in a feel-good moment. One contemplation mentions the food brought to us by “hard work”, and I put in “hard, loving work”, and not long after that, a brother used that permutation. No one has taken my permutation of “We vow to eat in mindfulness…” into “We vow to eat in mindfulness and with good posture…”. No one even laughed, which leads me to believe that no one was even listening. Or they take them too seriously :p

When reciting them silently to ourselves, a lot of guests spend a lot of time with their palms joined and eyes closed, reciting through each contemplation. They don’t realize there’s a short version where you join your palms, close your eyes and silently recite, “Thhheeeee Fiiiiiiiive Contemplaaaaatiiiiooooons”. Bow, and eat.

I did get validation on the eating with good posture when I was visiting a monastery in Taiwan, and the monk instructing us on eating mindfully mentioned the importance of being aware of keeping good posture. I’m not totally random, you know.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

After spotting Mercury, Venus, and Saturn yesterday, I went with some people up the western ridge after sunset today to see them. I think experience and contemplation of the physical solar system is a good supplement to the practice here, the Dharma. Too bad I can’t force people to appreciate it. But I think it is useful to see these things in the sky and attach them to the abstract knowledge they have that these planets exist. They’ve all seen pictures of the planets, and although these tiny points of light in the sky are less impressive, there is a visceral impact looking at them, knowing that is them. That is really Mercury, Venus, and Saturn going around the sun, all in different and in similar ways.

It was enjoyable, and they did have a sense of ‘wow’, looking at those planets and Jupiter higher up in the sky. It was pleasant looking up at the night sky, and as a bonus, we watched the full moon rise over the eastern ridge. Happy Summer Solstice. Someone noted that he was up at dawn, and then there on the ridge at dusk for the longest day of the year. The weather has been nice and clear. The past two weeks have been like San Francisco with fog making days overcast, pulling back to the ocean to give a few hours of sun in the afternoon, but always chilly. Not very Summer-like. Not very satisfying.

We haven’t been having Dharma talks on Tuesday mornings since the nuns have been eating up in Solidity Hamlet, so instead we’ve had work meditation. Kind of a bummer, or can be a bummer but doesn’t have to be. If not in the mood, it’s a bummer. In the mood, the work is very nourishing. Today, a good sized team of us worked on clearing out the camping area for the retreat when Thich Nhat Hanh comes in September. They’re expecting a lot of people camping. The poison oak is pretty treacherous. Two of the laypeople already got it really bad. I got a small rub on my foot, but not from working, from skulking around Clarity Hamlet yesterday. It doesn’t itch, though, just a quarter-sized area of nasty blistering. Weird.

I saw four planets in the sky tonight. Jupiter is high in the sky when the sun goes down, it's the brightest thing up there, you can't miss it. If you have a clear view of the western horizon when the sun goes down after 8:30 P.M., Venus will soon become visible at the same brightness as Jupiter. And by 9:00, diagonally up and to the left of Venus is Saturn, and diagonally down and to the right is Mercury.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Teen Retreat
If I were abbot of this monastery, the first thing I would do is get rid of the "Teen Retreat". You get a bunch of teens up here to expose them to the practice, expose them to the Dharma, and you basically end up with a bunch of teens up here. And a bunch of monks in a tizzy from hormone exposure. You know you’re an adult when teenagers make you cranky.

Roomate update
I’m sharing a room with 3 other people for the week. I have a feeling this came down as a "suggestion" from one of the monks, and it’s fine with me. It’s part of the practice. It’s "fine with me", but let’s see how well I fare. I’m surprised they didn’t do this earlier. I’m glad they didn’t do this earlier, but I’m glad they’re doing this, and I hope they stick someone with me until I leave on July 12. Let’s see how supremely annoyed I can get. I must get in touch with my annoyance, must embrace my annoyance and cradle it and stroke it, and love it and hug it and squeeze it and call it 'George'.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Roommate:
I think there is a perception among some of the brothers that I have issues about having roommates. That's fair, but they don't realize it's not that simple. They noticed that I have a guest room all to my own, and rarely have they heard of other guests being placed in with me. They know I successfully resisted having that aspirant who just left for Plum Village roomed with me, but I did specifically engineer that one. And since I "work" in the registration office, maybe they think I have something to do with it in general. And I do. But not directly. I never said to the office manager not to put anyone in with me.

The truth of the matter is that I do like having roommates. Living with other people is a very deep part of this practice, and I won't go into the details how, but I've experienced it. Most of the times I've had guests in my room, I've enjoyed it and felt a tinge of loneliness when they left - not all, of course, there will always be people you don't jibe with. So although there is a basis to the brothers' perception, it's not completely accurate. I do put out vibes to the office manager not to put anyone with me, but when he does, it's fine. And then there was the time that he put two people in with me and I promptly got a raging migraine. And then the person who came for two weeks and was placed with me who ended up leaving after four days. Alright, I am pretty solitary in the room and I'm not that chummy, and the people placed in with me are totally unaware of the wonderful transformative process in me that they are contributing to, but it's not a big of an issue as they might think it is. It's not a barrier to joining the community.

Hm, writing this all out, on a 100% scale of whether it's an issue or not, I'd say it's probably greater than 50% that it is an issue.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The Nuns' Kitchen
The nuns have been eating all their meals up here at Solidity Hamlet because they’re making their dining area larger and putting in de-sanitizing equipment for dishes. Quite honestly, I like it, but not all the brothers are thrilled about them eating up here all the time. Sometimes it feels to me that there’s a competitiveness between the hamlets, what’s ours and what’s theirs. They think they cook better, we think our food is better. It feels like they’re careful about asking the brothers for help because they don’t want us to think they aren’t self-reliant, and the brothers are guarded about doing things for the sisters because we have our own work to do. If this perception is at all accurate, though, it’s friendly. There’s still a lot of love between the monks and the nuns, and that is the predominant feeling.

Normally, we share meals several times a week, either in our hamlet or down in their hamlet, but never three meals a day for an extended period of time. I don’t know why any of the brothers would object, it might just be an “our hamlet, their hamlet” thing. Their cooking teams have been joining our cooking teams, and their clean-up teams have likewise been joining our clean-up teams. Finances for food are separate between the hamlets, but they’ve been bringing up food from their kitchen to cook, and the feeling has been very cooperative and nourishing as a whole community. It seems that a lot of the monastics enjoy the co-ed looseness, but that may be one of the issues. Maybe they’re having too much fun. Maybe there is too much closeness going on, and the precepts are very explicit regarding the monastics’ interactions with the opposite sex.

I guess it is a nice feeling, and it’s OK to enjoy it knowing that it will end once their dining hall is finished. If it was a permanent arrangement, though, I can understand where problems would arise. I suppose once the work is finished, they will invite us down for a special inaugural meal. Even better if it involves pizza and beer.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

No Coming, No Going
There’s a lay friend here at the monastery who is a bona fide Plum Village aspirant, and he leaves tomorrow to go to Plum Village to continue his aspirant training. I’m not an aspirant because I couldn’t put the request to be an aspirant down in words for them to decide whether to accept me as an aspirant or not. I instigated and facilitated a “tea meditation” for him this evening which people thought was sweet and weren’t a little bit surprised about because the general perception among the community is that I can’t stand him. And I can’t, but that’s not the whole story. It might not even be a glimmer of the whole story between me and him. I don’t understand it, but things come up and out at the monastery, and even though the outward perception that I can’t stand him is correct, the reality is not so straightforward.

I don’t volunteer to facilitate things very often, but when I do, voluntarily or not, I like to be a little focused, give a little suggestion of a direction, an idea, a thought, a topic, maybe a quote. That’s not the usual style here for discussions. Usually discussions during gatherings are pretty free-form with people saying whatever comes to mind whenever they’re ready, and that works fine, I’m just a renegade. But I “hosted” the tea meditation, and opened with a spiel inviting the gathering to send him off with positive energy, solidity, and confidence. I invited people to reflect on what they’ve observed about him during his time here and to let him know from the heart whatever they wanted to tell him. I was trying to avoid general, banal farewell platitudes, so I suggested that specifics were better. I invited the monastics who came (more than I thought would come) to reflect on their experience right before going to Plum Village and share what they might have wished to have heard.

It turned out to be a pretty successful, feel-good tea meditation, I think. Not because of anything I did, aside from instigating it. It was just the nature of the gathering and the atmosphere. Almost 20 people showed, more than twice what I expected, and it went pretty easily to more than an hour and a half. Even I shared, and I turned my months of coldness and callousness towards him into a lesson not to judge things by their appearance. Clever, eh? I’m a clever bad guy who can make himself look like the good guy in the end. He did look a little blown away at what I was saying, he was looking me straight in the eye like he couldn’t believe I was saying those things and was trying to discern whether I meant them. I did. It was a good act. But all of this is a good act.

Afterwards, I ended up in the tea room with two monks and we chatted and goofed for almost an hour, way into Noble Silence. It’s been a long while since I’ve gotten into a good, quality tea room discourse, and we mixed between goofing off and joking and being serious. We touched on my decision to leave the community for 3-5 months to get clear on my aspirancy, and that felt good to finally discuss it with someone, and even better for them to express doubts about my doing it. But the more I see myself reflected in conversations with other people, the more of an enigma I become to myself. It’s like I can’t give a straight answer to anything. Any way they try to understand my situation comes back to me as inaccurate and incomplete, and any way I try to explain it ends up with raging, opposing dichotomies. And everything ends up pointing to me leaving, except Sister Susan sitting me down and telling me plainly not to leave, go directly to Plum Village after the wedding. Guess you had to be there.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The Novice
There’s one novice brother that I have a hit-or-miss time with. Sometimes we get along great and we’re really on, other times we just get on each other’s nerves. We’re on each other’s nerves currently. He keeps trying to lecture me about Cosmology and Astrophysics because he’s reading Brian Greene’s “Fabric of the Cosmos”, and admittedly I have an interest in those areas, but he gets unmindfully obsessive. He does have a background in sciences and he also loves to teach, but when I’m not interested in listening to someone at a certain time, subject matter notwithstanding, I don’t hide it well. I like to learn, but I’m particular about how I’m taught. If I don’t get something, it’s their fault. So when I don’t get something, he gets frustrated and disappointed. I make it look like I’m smart enough, but he failed to transmit the lesson. Not very compassionate of me, especially since I do hide it well that I'm not all that smarts. He did recently explain an aspect of Special Relativity I had missed before, and I tried to be encouraging and tell him he was successful, but then when he started going off on entropy for five minutes, I practically walked away from him. I did walk away from him, practically mid-sentence.

I’m being hands-off these days in order to not bug him anymore than I already have. So when I saw him alone in a room with a 13 year old girl I had seen him hanging around with a little too noticeably, I didn’t hound him about having a second body in the presence of a member of the opposite sex. Although I did try to hint at it before wordlessly walking off. For Buddha’s sake, she’s 13 years old!! I don’t care how well you’re connecting with another human being, show a little discretion, monk.

I wanted to lecture him earlier about teaching and keeping relevant and being aware of your audience. The problem with his physics lecturing was that he was just explaining these concepts in a vacuum, pure theoretics. I’ve been trying to implore him to connect it to real life, with the practice. Explain to me why I should be as fascinated as him. Like when I go off on the Rotation of the Earth Sutra, I’m trying to make a point of connecting the world turning to our practice. It is something we can notice and appreciate every day in our practice. I also wanted to stress gauging whether your audience is interested in what you’re saying. I ended up not giving him this lecture, because I gauged that my audience, him, would not be interested in what I was saying – i.e., telling him why his teachings weren’t working on me.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Lazy Day. It’s been a while since I rode into town with my computer to use the wireless connection at the public library. First of all, repeated trips with a laptop on my back and it starts getting heavy, and my back isn’t all that strong. Second of all, even with weather still unseasonably cool, riding in the afternoon heat is a near workout. The six miles into town is easy, all downhill and I’m in the heart of Escondido in less than a half hour. Riding back, though, usually happens when the sun is hot in the afternoon, and the 500-600 foot climb up the mountain the last mile has some pretty steep pitches. Today I was dripping by the time I got back up to Solidity Hamlet.

But I really wanted to get on the internet without being self-conscious, as I have to be when I’m at the monastery. Even when I’m using the wireless hotspot Hanna found in Clarity Hamlet during the Winter, I’m self-conscious because guys shouldn’t get too comfortable in the nun’s hamlet. I only use that hotspot on the days when the whole community goes down to practice in the nun’s hamlet, and between activities I sneak into one of the public rooms where I can use my laptop. I don’t really hide, though. I leave my shoes outside the door so people know I'm there, and anyway, I think it’s alright. No one is going to admonish me for using my computer in a public room. People have poked their heads in the door and have seen me. Although there was the time I missed formal lunch because I was on the internet wasn't hungry, and for some reason they noticed I was absent.

I went to research the Nagasaki option for the 3-5 months that I’m not going to Plum Village, but I ended up scouring the library’s CD section and ripping them onto my computer to put onto my iPod. Pretty un-monk-like behavior. I found Ani DiFranco’s “To The Teeth” and “Evolve”, but “Evolve” didn’t rip successfully, David Bowie’s “Reality” and “Heathen”, both of which got good reviews, but his 20 year refusal to record good music has put me off from buying anything until I’ve heard it, an Aimee Mann CD, a Neil Young CD, a Britney Spears CD, a Stevie Ray Vaughn CD, and Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures”, “Passion”, and “Bounce”.

And, of course, as long as I was downtown, I did my obligatory stop for Mexican food and Jamba Juice.

Submitted:
Final Draft Letter for the Purpose of Presentation to the Community

Dear Thay, dear respected Sangha,

I am writing this letter because the community is still unclear about whether I am an aspirant or not. I felt that I was, and I expressed it as clear as I was able to in my previous letter. However, it was brought to my attention that I did not specifically request aspirancy, and therefore I led myself to believe that I am not considered an aspirant.

I have been meditating on the issue, and I considered the possibility of simply writing a letter requesting aspirancy, but realized there is a deeper issue why I did not directly and specifically request aspirancy in the first letter. To write a letter requesting aspirancy simply to fulfill the technical requirement would not address the issue.

It is now my highest aspiration here to be able to unequivocally request monastic aspirancy, however, the inspiration is not coming to me. My heart is not telling me that is what it wants me to do, even though I enjoy being with this community more than any I have experienced before in my life, and believe in what this community is doing.

I also have not had any inspiration to feel that I can attain that clarity of aspiration by continuing on with the status quo here at Deer Park or at Plum Village (nor has the community indicated that it is willing to support my going to Plum Village under these circumstances).

I am therefore requesting that I be allowed to stay at Deer Park until I leave for my brother’s wedding in July. After the wedding, however, I am considering not going immediately to Plum Village, but to spend 3-5 months in the material world with a focus on looking at what is there in order to clarify my monastic aspiration.

Of course, I have experienced the material world already, and that is partially what has brought me to the monastery in the first place, but I feel taking a good look at it once more might help sharpen my focus and clarify for me what I really want to do. When I arrived at Deer Park in October 2004, I had already been unemployed for about 20 months. So for almost two years, I had not been engaged in material life to directly experience the futility of it, and that has obscured my appreciation of the fulfillment of monastic life.

I welcome and request the community’s feedback and advice in regard to delaying going to Plum Village for 3-5 months. I realize that the final decision is my own, but I would like to know where the community’s support and blessing would lie either way, and what the consequences might be.

With deep gratitude and respect,
Koji Li
June 5, 2005, Deer Park Monastery

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
So now I'm thinking of not going directly to Plum Village after my brother's wedding; taking time off to clear up my monastic aspirancy. I rejected my first letter after one brother started asking a lot of questions that were intended to help, but just frustrated me. I wrote in my natural style which is rife with subtext that no one else knows, and is admittedly unnecesarily flowery. So then I wrote a second letter drawing on my legal training - plain language, straight-forward, and direct, getting to the point and leaving no room for ambiguity or interpretation. The simplest of monastic minds can grasp it! Just kidding. It's a far less interesting letter to me, but it does what I want it to do. Besides, I'm not writing it for myself.

Ostensibly, I'm taking leave from the monastic lifestyle to go back into material life for a few months with a focus on reminding myself why I wanted to enter a monastery in the first place. Get that direct experience to realize clearly that I don't want to live that way anymore. Once I focus the camera lens, I'll be able to go to Plum Village and declare unequivocably that I want to be an aspirant and I want to be a monk.

Unless, of course, I find a truer path while I'm out there, not to be confused with an attractive distracting path. The top three candidates for places to go are, in order: San Francisco, Nagasaki, and Taiwan.

I'm starting to enjoy chopping in the kitchen. I have no skills in the kitchen and am learning from the ground up, so basically I chop vegetables and wash knives and cutting boards. Out of the corner of my eye, I try to keep an eye on what my work partner is doing and hope something is sinking in. But chopping is great, and sometimes when I get to the last vegetable, I wish there were more, but then I move on, get another vegetable to chop and get to enjoy that, too. I'm perfectly happy getting a pile of vegetables in front of me, getting into a groove chopping them, and I can do the same thing for two hours straight. Basically, I'm still a bass player, even in the kitchen.

Geek, I bet no one even got that.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
We had a successful Young Adults Retreat last weekend. *YAWN* The last thing I want to write about is last weekend's retreat.

The retreat ended on Memorial Day, Monday, which is our Lazy Day (not all monasteries have or agree with having Lazy Days - what are we doing that is so hard that we need a break day?), so we decided to have our Lazy Day on Tuesday. Really, what a lax bunch. I ended up talking with one of the monks during the morning, and the idea came up for me not to go to Plum Village right away after my brother's wedding. Mind you, this monk is not my mentor, doesn't know a whole lot about me or my situation, and just recently fully ordained. I did most of the talking.

I don't know what happened that morning, maybe a light shone down on me, finally realizing what my mentor has been trying to tell me about being clear in my aspiration. I've been flaky about it, although to be fair to myself, I was probably keeping myself from freaking out. I've been saying I'm practicing in the here and now, and that's the only thing that's important. I can't tell what's going to happen in the future, so I can't project on it. Right now, I'm practicing as an aspirant. When it is time to ordain, I will know then whether or not I will ordain or not.

Now I'm starting to appreciate that aspirancy is a definite feeling and there should be a clarity about it. Fog up a bathroom mirror, take a cloth and wipe it clear. That's the feeling. That's the feeling I need to get to if I want to ordain.

I don't know how the realization or the idea of leaving came to me during that conversation, but it occurred to me that leaving is what I might need to do to get that clarity. There are people who are drawn to monasticism because of the ideals of helping all sentient beings. It is a proactive drive to become a monk, and a belief that they can help people by becoming a monk. Other people are more pushed to monasticism because of disillusionment of the material life, they want to renunciate and live peacefully and simply. Most people, I shouldn't wonder, are a combination of the two. I'm more of the latter. John Lennon was talking to me when he wrote, "You want to save humanity/But it's people that you just can't stand". OK, so there is a little bit of the former in me. In any case, I need to be clear about it and pursue it without hesitation, doubt, or flakiness.

I have to look at why I'm not clear on it right now. What is the quality of my being here, my current aspiration that makes it not clear and is causing me to be flaky about it? In what ways am I not clear? In what ways does it manifest that I'm not clear?

to be continued...

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Shining Light:
There is a practice that the monastics do in this system called "Shining Light". I think it happens once a year, and they did it in December. It's kind of a peer review thing, where the monastics get together over the course of several weeks, and one by one, each monastic is put under the metaphoric shining light. All the brothers share their impressions and observations of each of the other monks, both positive and negative, but a lot of thought goes into the language so that anything said comes out supportive and with suggestions for improvement. No whining. The tricky thing is that in Shining Light, even though one monastic (the nuns do it separately) might be the focus, often what comes out of mouth of the monastic who is shining the light, says just as much about him or her. So the community watches and listens deeply and picks up things about the shinee and the shiner, and by extension the entire community as a whole. Apparently it's a refreshing time for the monastics and helps nurture the brotherhood and sisterhood.

In an unprecedented move, made possible probably only because of Deer Park's distance from Plum Village and ability to do things as deemed to fit a situation, the monks here decided to perform Shining Lights on me and the other aspirant here. Part of the reason is practical. Deer Park hasn't had too many aspirants here who have stayed here for such a long time before going to Plum Village. Part of the reason for the Shining Light is so that when we do go to Plum Village, the monks here can send the Shining Light record to the monks there so they have an idea who we are, what we've been doing, and where we are on our paths. Clever. Very, very clever.

So I had my Shining Light last night, and it was interesting. Very, very interesting. Admittedly, it wasn't a real Shining Light, and they put on the kid gloves for us, really fudging everything towards the more positive, and that's reasonable. Hey, I'm still surprised that they even performed it in the first place, I certainly don't expect that they treat us with the same brotherhood and outrightness that they do each other. It's difference in realities.

It was interesting hearing my experience here coming back at me from the perspective of various monks. Of note, all the Western brothers spoke, including one who doesn't know me that well, and only one of the Vietnamese brothers spoke, one of the most senior ones. Even one Vietnamese brother who spoke English and I knew had something positive to say about me declined. I'm letting it go for now, but it's an observation.

There were a lot of keen observations, nothing new to me, of course, and nothing that they picked up on surprised me, just impressed me as being keen. There was a lot they didn't pick up on, of course, since I'm not a brother, I'm not living with them, and my role here is separate from the brotherhood. They praised my assets, my participation, my energy, my contributions, my sense of humor, believe it or not but I do have a sense of humor, but they also honed in on my loner, avoidant tendencies and independent spirit, which is a concern in a system where community is central. It was interesting hearing brothers interpreting the same thing in me in different ways. One brother commented about what looked like "shyness", but then another brother came right out and re-iterated that as "loner". I feel fine with this Shining Light going with me to Plum Village as a foundation for the brothers there getting to know me.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Vesak:
We celebrated Vesak yesterday, the Buddha's birthday. As I mentioned, I had no idea what to expect and decided to participate in all scheduled activities. Also to train myself not to just go do my own thing when something is scheduled that I don't want to do. I won't necessarily be able to do that if I become a monk. But there wasn't much to it. As one monk later commented about it, "It's a cute little ceremony".

Indeed, a cute little ceremony that involved not a negligible amount of preparation and monastics donning their formal sangati robes. After a Dharma Talk in the Meditation Barn, we walked up to the Solidity Hamlet garden that was prepared for the ceremony. The monastics chanted for a while, and then the main part of the ceremony was people walking up on a bridge constructed over the pond, and pouring flowered water over a baby doll Buddha, set up on plastic lotus-looking leaves. First, the Venerable (the resident teacher) went, followed by the abbess of the nun's hamlet. Then some children went up, and then the monks and nuns went in pairs, all the while with very nice chanting in the background. After the monastics, lay people lined up to pour water on the plastic doll baby Buddha.

Note the "cool" nun:


Nuns pouring water on the plastic doll baby Buddha (hey look, there's the "cool" nun again (I think she needs to wear the shades for medical reasons)):


I wasn't sure what to think of using a plastic doll for the baby Buddha. Apparently, baby Buddha statues are available for purchase. I believe the doll actually purchased was a potty-training doll, and came with plastic toilet and all ("all"?). However, it was with horror that I learned that the first place a brother went to get the doll was evil Walmart. Groan. Oh, but that's not the end of it. He ended up not getting the doll at Walmart. Why? Because all the baby dolls in Walmart were black!! The Western brothers I've talked to about it had basically the same reaction, "what's wrong with having a black baby Buddha?". Next year they may insist on it. Not to be politically correct or anything, but we are a pretty progressive organization, and there is nothing wrong with having a black baby Buddha. There is something wrong with avoiding having a black baby Buddha. But to lighten things up, the roommate of the Vietnamese monk who didn't buy the black baby Buddha is African American (speaks fluent Vietnamese, too), and his deadpan reaction was, "My roommate is a bigot".

But, no, we aren't being politically correct. No lectures on cultural sensitivity will be given to the Vietnamese monks. That monk was delegated the task to get a doll to be the baby Buddha, and he did what he did, and no one is going to dictate or lecture him on how he should have done it, he being a senior monk notwithstanding. But that's one of the strengths of this community.

It's been slow around here, rolling into Summer heat finally. Mellow hot days. However, this weekend, we're celebrating the Buddha's birthday with some ceremony tomorrow. We didn't announce it, but anyone who is coming up to the monastery today and wants to stay the night can do so for free.

I don't know much about the Buddha nativity, but I put as much credit on it as I do the Jesus nativity. I swear, it takes minimal logic to think about the Jesus nativity and be confounded how people think that was historical fact. I remember a skit on Saturday Night Live with Joseph confiding to a neighbor, dressed in period clothing, but set in a modern, American suburban kitchen, about his suspicions about Mary's pregnancy, that she was cheating on him and got pregnant and is saying God did it. 'Cause he sure didn't. Funny stuff. But that's the least of what's wrong about it.

As for the Buddha nativity, the myth is along the lines that the Buddha was born out of Queen Maya's side, proceeded to take however many steps in each of the directions, and proclaimed that between heaven and earth, there was none who can compare to he. Aren't all kids are like that once they learn to walk and talk?

Apparently the baby Buddha statue being used for the ceremony has one finger up to the sky like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". We were joking about a disco theme and changing it to "between heaven and earth, there is none who can dance like me". Irreverence is a sign of a healthy spiritual community.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
These days just go by at the monastery, a good sign probably. No anxiety, no stress, lot of playfulness, work meditation, visitors arriving and leaving. I've forgotten what I've posted already, too lazy to read over what I've written before.

I did submit a letter to the community. Some of them may have expected it to be my "Letter of Aspirancy" in which I declare my deepest, heart-felt aspiration to shave my head, wear robes to sleep, and use the same toothpaste and soap (brands, not actual items) as 20 other people. Actually, I don't know if they wear robes to sleep, nor if they get to choose their own underwear. I've been meaning to ask, but haven't gotten around to it.

But in short, I did not "ask" to become an aspirant. I described my situation, feelings, attitude, perspective, background, etc., etc., and from that information if it sounds to them that I'm an aspirant, like I want to be an aspirant, they can go ahead and consider me an aspirant. Or not. But I played the "am I an aspirant?" game and I'm done with it. If I don't feel like "requesting aspirancy" because it feels like official admission into some exclusive club, they can deal with it. And they will, they're a very compassionate community, and I don't believe they get stuck on trivial technicalities like whether I've asked for aspirancy or not. I just don't like the idea of putting a stamp on my forehead which might supposedly determine how I'm supposed to be treated. I'm here, I'm practicing, I'm planning to go to Plum Village, I might get ordained. They all know that, and a letter shouldn't make any difference between how I'm treated today and how I was treated yesterday.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Finally, we're hitting 80 degree weather! 80 degrees and I start to get happy. Days are lolling by with lots of work meditation scheduled in preparation for Thich Nhat Hanh's visit in September for the West Coast leg of his North American speaking tour. A huge crowd is expected, including retreatants and a good chunk of monastics coming from Plum Village and Maple Forest Monastery in Vermont. Work has included patching potholes on the mile-long road leading up the mountain to the monastery, and clearing out junk to make space for trailers to house the huge influx of people. The trailers are mostly for retreatants. Apparently, the monks will all double and triple and quadruple up in the two existing monks buildings. Apparently it worked out during last year's massive three-month Winter retreat, but I'm not sure I would want to go anywhere near monks' quarters with four in a room in San Diego Summer heat! Geez, I can almost smell it from here.

I'm working for the preparations, but I'm not sure I'll be here when the tour gets here. The monks have begun discussions about what to do with me and the other guy claiming to be an aspirant here, and they decided to send him to the root monastery at Plum Village straight off to continue his aspirant training in earnest. If the monks at Plum Village agree to it, he should be off by the end of this month. They also want me to go as soon as possible, but I'm putting in a request to stay here until my brother's wedding in July. I'm hoping they will let me stay until July, at which time I will fly to New Jersey for between a week and a half to three weeks, and then I'm proposing flying to Plum Village directly from there. I would be there for just a few weeks before their monks, including Thich Nhat Hanh, left for the tour. How's that for timing? I'm not into teacher-worship, but it looks like I'm being downright avoidant. I can just see it now if I get ordained: rows of smiling aspirants prepared to get their hair lopped off in front of Thich Nhat Hanh, when he looks at me and says, "who's he?". Perfect.

But quite honestly, I'm not looking that far ahead. I'm not looking towards ordination. I'm not looking towards not ordaining, either. I just don't know what I'll end up doing, so I'm not thinking about it. I'm just here practicing now, and as time goes by and as doorways I go through, I'll find if I will ordain or not. The only important thing right now is that I'm here right now, and that's all anyone needs to know. Very Zen, eh?

The question asked in regard to ordination is, are you sure? In dramatic fashion of tradition, I imagine it being asked three times. The way I see it is if I'm asked are you sure? three times, and I answer yes three times, then it's time to ordain. The determination for not going through with this is: if I'm not there anymore, I'm not ordaining. Pretty straight-forward, I think.

Scenes from Last Week:
May 3, 2005; 7:56 A.M. - Oak Grove down by Clarity Hamlet.


May 5, 2005; 1:21 P.M. - Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, Pasadena, CA. Poseur Posing monks.


May 5, 2005; 4:50 P.M. - A brother sporting the new Plum Village logo (no, not really).

One of the brothers asked me if I wanted to go to San Diego this weekend for Earth Day. Apparently, the monastery scored a booth several years back, and once you have a booth, you get first dibs on it the next year, and they've been maintaining it. I wasn't so sure. I got a migraine on Saturday, and by Sunday morning my head was still pretty fragile, like I had huge marbles in my head and every time they touched, shocks of pain would sear through my cranium. I also wasn't sure if I was done vomiting anything I put down my gullet, and I had eaten some cereal and soymilk. But I also felt I needed to get down off the mountain, so with just a little convincing, I hopped in the van with two monks and two nuns.

It was a good call getting off the mountain, and I had a relaxing day in Balboa Park in San Diego, right near the zoo where I had went with my uncle and cousin. The booth sold Deer Park and Thich Nhat Hanh merch, and in the back we set up cushions and held 15-minute sittings every hour or so. I must say, though, that one of the best parts was the Christian-based group across the street doing folk dances on the lawn all day long. They were mesmerizing! One of the brothers made contact with them and found they had a place not far from our monastery. I want to go just to learn the folk dances - the wave of the future, I say - but the brother said that the literature he read of theirs looked a little sketchy. I still want to go. If someone organized a field trip on a lazy day, I'd sign up. Those dances were just so cool!

Our merch booth:


Sitting session behind the merch booth:


If you were there, you couldn't miss us:

monastic living:
Someone left a 10lb. Ghiradelli milk chocolate bar in one of the monastery kitchen pantries. Did you get that? It’s a ten pound bar of chocolate! We’re about halfway done with it, chipping at it after meals. I’ve been avoiding it because gnawing on slabs and chunks of chocolate doesn’t really appeal to me. Today, one of the monks asked me to do the honors of chipping away at it, so I got the thing out, chipped a few slabs off, nibbled a bit, he nibbled a bit, and then I put it away. He asked, “Where’s the bowl of chocolate nuggets?”. I didn’t know that was in my job description, but in any case I went back to the pantry to get the chocolate and put the chunks and slivers into a bowl. As I picked up the chocolate, a light shone down on me from the heavens as I realized, there in the pantry, that right in front of me was about fifteen jars of peanut butter!

Fast forward to image of me leaving the dining hall a little hyper and listening to my own racing heartbeat.

I love peanut butter, I can’t begin to tell you. I love peanut butter! Mix chocolate and peanut butter and don’t talk to me, leave me alone, “Can’t talk, eating”. I probably mentioned this before, but one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard was about Amina when she was young. She, too, loved peanut butter and one day ended up eating a whole jar of peanut butter. She got so nauseatingly sick afterwards that she hasn’t had a bite of peanut butter since. *sniff* Brings a tear to my eye.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
The monks are still hashing out a new daily/weekly schedule, so things haven’t quite gotten back to normal yet. Morning sitting, meals, and work teams have been established, but that’s all. The monks are also in the midst of room changing which they do every six months or so, so that might be slowing things down. I think it’s a practice in impermanence that requires them to regularly change rooms and roommates. I don’t think that would be a problem for me if I became a monk, but the way I am now, I’m not even liking sharing my guestroom with long term guests. A revolving door of short term guests is fine, though. I’m not sure what the difference would be, but I think if I became a monk, I would just accept it. I don’t think any transformation is necessary on this matter.

It’s been really cold here. You’d think we were in San Francisco. Ah, the irony is just killing me. And it rained all morning. In April. It's not supposed to rain in San Diego in April! There was so much rain this Winter that all the paths in the mountains around the monastery are overgrown with plant life. I went for a jog wearing shorts, and I came back with my legs stinging from all the brush I waded through. Not to mention the anxiety of possibly stepping on a rattlesnake. One close encounter was enough for me, and I had two already. The longer the rains last, the more growth there will be. The more growth there will be means a lot more dying when it gets hot, and it will get hot. The more dying plant life there is, the greater fire danger there will be. Something definitely to be mindful of.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
I want to immerse myself into this practice to find my sincerity in being an aspirant here. I can’t try to be sincere, I just need to focus on maintaining my practice and find out if I’m sincere or not. I need to make an effort to not let negative feelings and thoughts factor into this.

This morning I woke up to the 5:00 morning bell, which I’m glad somebody sounded or else I might not have gotten up (not sure if my alarm clock is working). Made a quick cup of contraband coffee with a hot pot and a plastic cone filter, and got down to morning sitting by 5:50. After sitting I did solo walking meditation up a nearby hill and did some morning martial arts exercises (more about the exercise than the martial art) until breakfast, at which I maintained Noble Silence though others didn’t.

Noble Silence is a deep part of practice which I don’t think is emphasized enough here. I admit that I haven’t been very good at holding to it, either. I imagine that it is better maintained in Plum Village. At 9:30 in the evening a bell is sounded to signal the beginning of Noble Silence, a time of silence and silent reflection that lasts for the rest of the evening until after breakfast the next morning. No frivolous or extraneous conversation is the hallmark of Noble Silence, and beyond that, it is up to the individual how far to take it. On the light end, you can do anything you want as long as you don’t talk and try to maintain a meditative mind in whatever you do. More seriously, one can do nothing that distracts from active silent reflection and meditation.

Escondido Public Library, Escondido, CA
Strange, a week after I arrived at the monastery in October, we had a College Students Retreat. Now, a week after I arrived at the monastery this time, we had a College Students Retreat. Both retreats felt great and were energizing. The first one was not indicative of what was to come, and I suppose that this one isn't, too.

So I'm supposedly an aspirant now. You'd think that as an aspirant, the community would have a vested interest in me. It sure doesn't feel like it. Maybe it's a test, but after what I perceive as the last test they put me to in becoming an aspirant, a rather costly test financially I might add, mind you, I'm really not in the mood. I'm not in the mood for games and I'm thinking what I see is what I'm getting. And what I'm getting is a cold shoulder from the Vietnamese monks. I don't feel welcome by the community in a Sangha that emphasizes community. I feel welcome by a clique composed of the Western monks. At worst, they completely and simply blow me off. At best, they'll answer a direct question. It bothered me for a few days, but now I don't care. What I see is what I get, but I'm putting it all down and not letting it bother me. I'm here for a purpose, and I'm going to follow through with that purpose without their help or not.

So for ordination, I came up with two criteria I mentioned: 1) Full heart into it, and 2) joyfully. On the immediate aspirant path now, my only question is whether I'm sincerely on it. Am I sincerely here in exploration and pursuit of monastic ordination? I don't have the answer right now, but that's the immediate question I'm working on, giving 'yes' the benefit of doubt. If the answer becomes clearly no, I'm not sincere about it, I have to leave immediately and not waste the monks' time and resources.

The College Students Retreat was great because of the young, fresh energy. The feedback they gave us was wildly positive, and it was refreshing hearing that they were getting so much out of being at Deer Park for a weekend and joining the practice. They were glowing by Sunday from leaving the rush and tumult of their student lives behind for a weekend, from the clean, crisp mountain air and beautiful surroundings, from the positive energy and easy smiles of the monastics, from the slow, easy pace of monastic practice.

Group walking meditation during the College Students Retreat, Sunday morning.


We don't have another retreat until late May, which is great. One stressful memory I have from my earlier stay at the monastery was something like three retreat weekends practically in a row. I think I'm better equiped to handle something like that now, though.

This week, I think the monastics will be coming up with a new daily schedule, so things will get back to normal pretty soon. My cousin returned to Taiwan, so now I can focus on getting disciplined and practicing diligently. I'm already back on a strict sitting regimen that I intend to maintain, alone if not with the community. I'm also planning on giving learning Japanese one last shot, self-study just for myself, to do what I've been blocked from doing for over 20 years. I also hope to spend at least one shift in the kitchen every day whenever there is a Western monk on the cooking team for the day. I'm going to try to break down the block I have about cooking, too, even if it's just by chopping for the next however many months. I'm also going to try to be less obsessive about getting on the internet and cutting back on coffee, which already looks to be a woeful failure.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Someone cleverly declared a week of “lazy days” from the monastics’ return to the coming College Students Retreat this weekend. It has made it hard to fall back into the monastery routine, but has been good since my cousin is still in the country and sometimes we end up talking late at night, after her brother-in-law and daughter have gone to sleep. She’s staying at her brother-in-law’s house in the Bay Area until she leaves for Taiwan on Friday. We still have a lot to talk about, and my being on the monastic path has been encouragement for her in her practice, which has been instrumental in her working through her issues. Her practicing has been inspiring for me and has helped keep me clear and fresh walking down this path.

It was weird that I got back here at the same time as the monks, and then the remnants of a head cold that I didn’t know I had flared up, making me feel like I was getting over jetlag in sympathy with them. But it made it so I couldn’t even sit for 45 minutes until yesterday when I was finally able to complete two sessions. It felt really good, sitting is the bomb. Imperceptible things happen during sitting, and if you know how to meditate, I guess they come quicker than they have for me. If you don’t know how to meditate, they start to happen organically, but it may take years and years for the mind to get it. Like me. For me, I’ve noticed the length of time I sit affects the quality of the sitting. 45 minutes is better than 30 minutes, although harder. 45 minutes now is still really long.

Otherwise, these lazy days just mean unscheduled practice for the monks. For aspirants, like me and one other person who has been here for the past three months while most of the monks were away, it’s like we’ve been put out to pasture.

I feel that things are different for me this time around. When I was here from November to January, I was grappling with the monastic path and becoming an aspirant and what that means. This time, I’m considered an aspirant, but I don’t feel as focused. I’ve wandered off the path and I’m wondering how and if I’ll get back on. I’m very distracted. As an aspirant, I’m aspiring towards ordination, but I’m a little more reserved and conservative about that. I’ve heard that in some schools, there is pressure to ordain in order to increase numbers and prestige, or to gain as many adherents to the school as possible. I don’t think the Plum Village system is like that, which is part of the appeal. They wait until an aspirant is ripe before thinking about ordination. As for me, I absolutely will not ordain until I feel I’m ready, which means that I feel it deep in my heart that I’m putting my whole heart into monasticism, and that I’m going into ordination joyfully. The idea of ordination should energize me and make me happy. Right now, it doesn’t, and I believe that I will have to have some initial transformation within myself to get to that point, a transformation that can only come from steeping myself in the practice, and practicing sincerely and diligently.

I’m wading into the water to get to that point, but I’m not pushing myself to get there as long as we’re in lazy days and my cousin is still in the country. Things will change next week, after the College Students Retreat, when a new schedule will be devised by the monks and days become more regimented, although I use that term loosely. Hopefully, I’ll start getting a better sense of aspirancy from the monks, some sort of guidance, since at this point not a lot of attention is being paid to us, no nurturing, no encouragement, no heads up as to what will be expected of us as aspirants. Part of me is feeling that it isn’t within the function of Deer Park to nurture aspirants, that is something Plum Village has the facility for, and that’s why we’re feeling unguided and isolated, but, of course, it’s too early to make that assessment.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
I finally made it back. I was supposed to be back on Wednesday, April 6, in accordance with a nice, tight, clean schedule, whereby I was to leave New Jersey in the morning, land in San Diego around noon, take an express bus to Escondido in the afternoon, take a local bus halfway to the monastery, walk the rest of the way, arriving by evening and having the door to my room left unlocked since they would know exactly when I was returning. I would have a week and a half to settle into the monastic practice before the monks returned from Vietnam.

Instead, I chose a circuitous route back to the monastery that involved flying into a completely different city, over 500 miles of driving, constant family presence, constant two year old baby tending, living for free out of a Days Inn that was owned by a friend of the family, and some groundbreaking intimate space with my dear cousin who, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve known for 25 years and is probably the most important person in my life and is now important to my practice path as well. She’s been helping me through this decision to be on the monastic path, as well as exploring a series of repressed memories from the 90’s. No joke – cleanly excised from my memory, confounding and frustrating. And my steps on the monastic path have become varying degrees of uncertain.

I flew into San Francisco on Thursday, April 7, about 10 hours before my uncle, step-aunt, cousin and her two year old arrived from Taiwan. From there we rented a minivan and met up with my cousin’s brother-in-law and her two little brothers (my uncle’s youngest sons), one who lives in San Jose, the other who flew up from San Diego. The two brothers are about 10 years younger than my cousin, and after their mother died, my cousin played a large part in raising them through their adolescence, much more than my uncle did, because he just didn’t know how to do it. Actually, she played a large part in raising them even before their mother died because she was a local politician by then and didn’t spend much time raising them herself. Consequently, their loyalty and love is much more to my cousin than to their father, but everyone gets along pretty well.

We stayed one night with my cousin’s brother-in-law in Oakland, had lunch in San Francisco the next day with another branch of family who were in town because their daughter was getting married, and then drove down the coast, stopping in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and then finally reaching San Diego. My uncle has an old, old friend from Taiwan who owns a Days Inn, and they were more than kind and gracious and generous enough to put us up for however long we wanted to stay. No joke, they are a couple who I now refer to as Uncle George and Auntie Connie, and they were so wonderful and positive and went way above and beyond being hosts. By the end of the week that we stayed there, I told Uncle George that if they were my parents, I would consider their words and advice regarding the monastic path. I think they must have been really great parents to their two kids, and if I was their son, I’d be taking their happiness into consideration with any decision I made.

After arriving in San Diego, the plan was just to stay for a few days before they took me to the monastery and they would all leave for their respective destinations. Somehow, their stay kept getting extended, and I kept pushing back my return date to the monastery. First my cousin who lives in San Jose extended his stay for an extra day before flying out. My uncle and step-aunt flew out according to plan to go to New Jersey for the New Jersey portion of that other cousin’s wedding. But my cousin kept extending her stay, and I kept pushing back my return, until finally we ended up hanging out until the last possible day that I had to leave. Instead of having a week and a half to settle into the monastic practice, my cousins returned me to the monastery pretty much at the same time the monks returned from Vietnam. My cousin left the next day to return to the Bay Area to spend a few days before flying back to Taiwan.

So I’m adjusting along with the monks to being back here. I haven’t seen most of them as they’re recovering from jetlag, and I’m recovering from a head cold and lack of sleep over the past week (with a two year old crier of a baby, no one gets much sleep). It’s different. I’m different. If I just wanted to stay on the monastic path, I shouldn’t have left in January. I’ve tried sitting meditation several times on my own since I’ve been back, but it’s hard when you’re getting over a cold. I fade in and out of reality and I get bombarded with images of the past few months. I’m also wondering what will be the end result of my stay at the monastery, whether I will actually go forward and be ordained as a monk. That’s the plan, that’s the intention, but I also have nagging doubts now, and all I can do is continue to look deeply into myself and find out what my heart is telling me and what my path should be. The journey I’m taking as a monastic aspirant will already be one of transformation, but the question is whether the transformation ends up with me ordaining or leaving and continuing my path elsewhere.

San Diego, CA
Almost back to the monastery. My departure from Taiwan was a bit of a flurry with my cousin being in the hospital, and us reaching some intimate, mutual space regarding our respective practices.

My cousin and I met 25 years ago when we were kids. My parents sent me and my brothers to Taiwan for the Summer, and in my memory, we were absolute terrors, fighting all the time. For my cousin, our presence contributed to what she describes as the "worst Summer of her life". I remember (and regret) being particularly mean to her, but she reports that I was not the worst of it. Her older brother already made her life miserable, and she was a crier. She cried at everything, all the time, driving people nuts (the way her two year old does now). The presence of me and my brothers made things worse, but it's not like we were disturbing some family paradise. It was just more of what she was used to. She also reports that my oldest brother tormented her more than I did, which sort of makes me feel better.

I wouldn't have been surprised if she hated me for the rest of my life, that when we got older she would be completely cold to me, spit in my face if the chance arrived. The chance arrived only three years later when I was spending a Summer with relatives in Japan, and we decided to go to Taiwan. I was worried and anxious about seeing my cousin again, I was so sure she hated me. (reading between the lines: why was I so worried and anxious about seeing a cousin I gleefully tormented three years earlier?). But when I saw her, she smiled at me, she was very friendly towards me, she was even happy to see me. It was mutual affection and we spent a good amount of time together, not that I remember directly, but I extrapolate from the photographic evidence.

And speaking of the photographic evidence, I was a walking 80s fashion crime. I was mortified to see photos from back then. I wore Adidas shorts that ran way up high on the thigh, matching but color clashing Adidas shirts, athletic socks pulled all the way up, and sweatbands on both wrists and on my head. AAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I've been trying to figure out how much I'd be willing to pay for her to destroy all those photos. My cousin reports that after that visit, she went out and got sweatbands!

We didn't see each other again until we were in college, and our relationship over the next decade was constantly developing, constantly in flux, and constantly being re-tread, as we tended to block things out of each time we met.

Presently, our relationship is more solid than it's ever been, no more blocking things out is foreseen. Our respective practices are a focal point of our good relationship. Our good and healthy relationship now is also due to her having given birth to Pie and Gracie, which she did at home, both natural. Those experiences took her being to a new level, gave her a confidence that she didn't have before, and I can also tell that she is a different person now (I hadn't seen her since before she gave birth). My being on the monastic path is also a contributing factor, as I'm anticipating the training being for me what having Pie and Gracie was to her.

I think of her as being a part of my practice now, not attaching to her, but gleaning encouragement and support from her. When it comes to practice, she has a lot of wisdom and insight, and what we've discussed over the past two months has been invaluable. I'm anticipating a large part of my training being transforming my spiritually debilitating negativity, and her encouragement and support represents something positive from the front end.

And it's mutual, she says. She attributes my visit to Taiwan to bringing her back to her dormant practice. Raising two kids attentively under the best conditions can be a torrent in the storm, and saying that Pie is a handful is an understatement. I noticed that she didn't have a meditation bell in her practice room in her house, so when I was in Taipei, I ended up on a street with store upon store of practice/worship paraphernalia and picked up a modest-sized bell for her. I think she was really happy that I got it for her, and just a couple days before I left, after she got out of the hospital, we sat together for the first time in her practice room, and she said it was the best sitting she's ever had. Ever. That kind of embarassed me because it's not like I could think I had anything to do with it, but she said it was the calmest and most focused sitting she's had with the best energy.

So now we're walking on our respective paths, supporting and encouraging each other. I should be back at Deer Park within the next few days, and I'm a little apprehensive because of changes in the past two months, but also more confident because of those changes.