Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

My last day at the monastery. The monastics leave for Vietnam in the late afternoon. I'm hoping to catch a ride with one of the laypeople into Escondido town where I'm staying at a motel tonight so that I can get to the bus station on time to catch a bus to San Diego airport in time to catch my early flight to New Jersey.

Looking back, I don't think this weblog has been all that successful in describing my experience at the monastery. Specifically, I think of all the things that I've left out. I think positive stuff has largely been left out and almost all specifics. Everything is in terms of generalities. If I were a better writer, I could have included more description, but that's a talent I don't have. If I were a writer, I think I'd be better at writing technical manuals :p

Look! When I wrote "specifically", I still generalized in broad strokes.

Boy, do I hope laypeople come up to bid the monastics farewell so I can bum a ride into town. It is raining as it has been raining nonstop for the last two days, and if I don't get a ride into town, I have to walk for almost an hour to get to the nearest (unsheltered) bus stop to get to town.

I admit now that one of the things I have to deal with in this community is living in close quarters with other people. Bleah! Too general!

I had a problem when other guests were placed in my room. That's better. But strangely, it was better when more than one other guest was placed in my room. Go fig. I won't go into detail (bleah, avoiding the specifics again), but it's something I will want to face and deal with when I come back in April. I had the luxury these past two months of frequently not having guests placed in my room, but when I come back, I will tell Norman to put short-term guests in with me on a more regular basis. Challenge this attachment to privacy and see how I deal with it, because breaking the attachment would be requisite for joining this community and will be good for me anyway even if I don't.

I don't know if that was the least of my problems or the most. I hope it was the most. I'll have several months of hiatus now to work things out.