There aren't enough hours in the day...

There aren't enough hours in the day. That's been my theme for the past month or so. I've been quite busy. I always struggle to find a way to talk about that without sounding like I'm complaining about it. Cause I know my life isn't particularly hard or bad, but I am busy. Despite the popular image of "monastic life" being about spacious solitude and contemplation, with little or no "worldly" troubles beyond making a cup of tea, the reality is a little different. Now, I could go on about all the various things that I do in a day, but I don't know how to do that without sounding like I'm whining. So... I'll just shut up, except to say that I'm probably as busy as somebody who has a full-time job and owns their own home with a descent sized yard that they keep well-maintained. I'm up early, go to bed late, and when I close my eyes at night I know there's a bunch of things I intended to do that I just didn't quite get to. Yet.

In other news... there is still no final word on my attendance to the California Ango but it does seem likely that I will be leaving here mid-December for Yokoji. I made a mistake before, I'll actually be there until mid-March, not February. That would actually put it at 90 days. Then I will most likely head straight to Japan without returning to Oregon. I'm really looking forward to being in Japan again. I miss it a lot.

I'm also a little torn because there are things brewing here in America, both at my teacher's temple and in the larger Soto Zen scene, that I feel like I want and should be part of. I don't have doubts about leaving though. I think that my training in Japan will put me in a much better position to be of some benefit to the development of Buddhism in America. But, there's a definite question about "oh! what's going to happen next" that's a little hard to just walk away from.

Well, it's dinner time and then Term Student Meeting. Jaa... mata!

Quote

That's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.

-- Beckett, Waiting for Godot

The More Things Change...

So, I'm not feeling as heavy as I was a little while ago. That's how these things go, I guess.

Still no final word on when I will go to Japan. It depends on if I get accepted to the Soto-shu Ango in California. *IF* that happens, this is how my life will possibly look for the next few months: 90 Study Term at the Eugene Zendo, Sit Rohatsu Sesshin Dec. 6 - 13 at Great Vow, December 14 fly to L.A. and enter California Ango, February 15 Leave for Japan and enter Hokyoji. Or I could do all of those things except for the California Ango and just leave earlier for Japan. Stay tuned.

I've been reading Kenneth Chen's "Buddhism in China". It starts off a little slow but gets going quickly. I find the parallels between what China was experiencing 1800 or so years ago with the "foreign" religion of Buddhism and what the West is currently undertaking to be fascinating. It's really amazing. The one difference that I can see is that in China, Chinese Buddhists seemed to revere their predecessors a great deal more than (at least in America) Westerners do our own.

Here are a few pictures I scanned of the Japanese monastery I'm headed towards. Apologies to whoever has the copyrights on them. I'm poor and not worth suing. I was going to post some links to other photos available on the net, but don't feel like tracking them down now.

Jaa... mata ne.

Seven months

In a few days it will be seven months since my ordination. It feels like it has been a much longer period of time. While the actual date of my ceremony was certainly important, it's seems like a small node with tendrils stretching back many years. These tendrils are tangled around my life in my teacher and his temple which even when I wasn't actually living there, still dominated my inner world. I have spent the bulk of my adult life there and I feel the weight of that in every corner.

Last week, we painted the inside of our zendo. It had been painted just a little over 5 years previously. I could see so vividly how much of my life has been woven into that place. I couldn't help but start telling stories about the first round of construction we did there. (It was when I first began drinking black tea. My first bento lunch. Where I learned to hate drywall. etc. etc. etc.) Even the simple act of cutting in a corner, showed the passage of time. My hand moving with more precision and skill than I could have mustered before, no matter how much I wanted it. At the same time, I realize that my heart isn't as simple as it used to be. It doesn't leap into this training as readily as it used to. I am tired and I need to go on to other things.

While it's bad "Zen", mostly these days I think about Japan and the monastery there with all the other things I want to learn. I'm counting off the weeks until I get to leave. I don't know if that means I'm ungrateful for what I've been (and continue to receive) here. I hope not.

It seems to me that my unwillingness to be straightforward about my intentions is why it took me 7 years to get ordained. It seemed antithetical to the aspiration to pursue it too intently, or at least too openly. To loudly declare, "I want to be a monk." and then to go after it the way a person would a career seemed too rough. Just make it known, and then wait patiently. Surely someone will notice how good your being about it and soon you'll be rewarded for your patience.

I want to believe that my being so open about wanting to go is not because I'm ungrateful or don't care, but because I've gotten a little smarter. Maybe more honest. I guess time will tell. I'm sure in the final accounting of it all, there will not a be a single, unanimous opinion on the matter.

My teacher is back from Japan today. My future is unfolding. Slowly.

On a different topic: I finally surrendered to popular demand and am now on Facebook. In spite of my best efforts to believe otherwise, it really is a great tool for keeping in touch with my scattered friends and family. But Twitter can rot in hell.

Children are smelly.

That's the message I return from Buddhist summer camp with. They're noisy too. Plus, a whole lot of fun.

Within two hours of arriving, I sprained my thumb and got smacked in the face with a "joisting" sword. (PVC wrapped in padding.) The next day I took an elbow to the ear, which still hurts, during an intense game of Ultimate Frizbee. We had skits, campfire songs, a water fight, swimming, fidgety morning zazen and some poorly spelled graffiti (genitilia, anyone?). There was also "Hunt-a-Monk" which consisted of 45 hyped up campers running around the woods full-tilt trying to find hiding counselors while other counselors attacked them with socks filled with flour. The food was as bad as I remember school lunch being and after two days I was crying out for something green and leafy.

I also got to take care of a man with Downs Syndrome which I had never done. I think many of the newer counselors were nervous about that, but it worked out well. Sean was very easy to be around and mostly I felt like my presence was necessary because he enjoyed being around people.

I made a few new friends, including several early twenty somethings. It was interesting to spend time with them and it made me realize how old I'm getting.

That's my first hit after coming back. I'll write up something else about Dharma Camp for the newsletter and post it here. Ta Ta