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: