Bit of a ramble!

With our latest cold snap and the arrival of some luscious new yarn
from a lovely package from Pennsylvania, the knittin' bug has
me...again. What can I say, it's good. It's SO good!

What am I knitting right now? Headbands. With inspiration from a
former vollie as well as encouragement from current vollies, headbands
are the thing. Talk about simple, and fast(er) to knit. I'm enjoying
watching the colorways wave before my eyes and allowing my creativity
to run wild on what feels like a blank slate. It's good to be creative
again. And...tonight is the first arts and craft night at Chenrezig!
There are so many creative vollies here at the moment, I figured I'd
take advantage of all that creative energy and start something - share
it around, create, express.

The days here are distinctly winterlike - crisp mornings and evenings,
days that darken by 5:30, and an urge within myself to be in bed by 8
pm. Fortunately, the actual days warm up reasonably well and in
between the occasional thunderstorm, it's sunny! I have to think about
sunburn when I sit outside at lunch time.

Things are balancing out for me here - I feel like I'm finding my
center more and more easily, and am better able to work from that, to
be in touch with my heart rather than my mind. People still ask me if
it's difficult to eat as healthily as I do, and I ask myself the same
thing every time I'm offered chocolate or a cake or we have crepe
night at the Family Center. More and more I'm realizing it's not the
food I want, it's the feeling I associate with having the food.
Chocolate means friends and family, togetherness, community. It's like
trying to find good Mexican food in France - more of a good idea than
good food. In fact, food is just food. Community is community, love is
love, friends are friends. None of these can replace the other. I ask
myself what it is I'm lacking every time I overeat. I've gotten to the
point of being aware I'm overeating while I'm doing it, not hating
myself for it, but just feeling compassion for myself and trying to
give myself the space and permission to look for what's really behind
it. I know I won't stop until I'm ready to face whatever this is -
probably fear of rejection - but I've stopped chastising myself for
it. How about that for compassion!

Taking a turn for the?

One of my new jobs is Dining Room Mistress -

What does this mean? It means I've been trained to make coffe and
thus, people happy. It also means I'm learning to keep a smile on my
face while working fast and hard. It really reminds me of bussing at
Deschutes. I hadn't planned to step into any high-energy roles while I
was on this spiritual adventure, but perhaps this means I'm ready for
it. Maintaining mindfulness while serving the public - now that's
practice!

Ah, a busy life in the middle of winter. Have I mentioned how bloody
cold it's been here? So cold I wonder how I'll stay warm from the end
of supper at 6:30 until I go to bed at 8, and I've given up meditating
in the Gompa because besides my legs going numb, so do my fingers and
toes! - brrr!

Sharing some great words of wisdom

This is an email from a friend here at Chenrezig who's off visiting
her mum in Tassie and discovering what a beautiful bubble we live in
here, and how important community is for happiness and
self-development. This uses buddhist words like 'sangha' which means
community, 'bodhichitta' which means compassion for others and
eradicating the ego, and 'dharma' which means truth. It doesn't matter
what words you use, what tradition you use, everyone is lookingto
follow their own truth, and everyone wants to live in community.

Hey guys,

I was just reading this wonderful book by Thich Nhat Hanh called
'Cultivating the Mind of Love' and wanted to share some of it with
you. Being away from CI and the wonderful community (and more so the
social community) has given me an even greater appreciation of what an
amazing place Chenrezig is and how precious the spiritual community
is. I have no doubt that many of you will experience these revelations
on departure (if you haven't already).

Anyway, I will share some key bits with you:

"Chapter 15 - The Next Buddha

Two thousand five hundred years ago, Shakamuni Buddha proclaimed that
the next Buddha will be named Maitreya, the 'Buddha of Love'. I think
Maitreya may be a community and not just an individual. A good
community is needed to help us resist the unwholesome ways of our
time. Mindful living protects us and helps us go in the direction of
peace. With the support of friends in the practice, peace has a
chance.

If you have a supportive Sangha, it's easy to nourish your bodhicitta.
If you don't have anyone who understands you, who encourages you in
the practice of living Dharma, your desire to practice may wither.
Your Sangha - family, friends and copractitioners - is the soil and
you are the seed. No matter how vigorous the seed is, if the soil does
not provide nourishment, your seed will die. A good Sangha is crucial
for the practice. Please find a good Sangha or help to create one.

Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are three precious jewels in Buddhism and
the most important of these is Sangha. The Sangha contains the Buddha
and the Dharma. A good teacher is important but sisters and brothers
in the practice are the main ingredients for success. You cannot
achieve enlightenment by locking yourself in your room. Transformation
is possible only when you are in touch...

Taking refuge in the Sangha means putting your trust in a community of
solid members who practice mindfulness together. You do not have to
practice intensively - just being in a Sangha where people are happy,
living deeply the moments of their days, is enough. Each person's way
of sitting, walking, eating, working and smiling is a source of
inspiration; and transformation takes place without effort. If someone
who is troubled is placed in a good Sangha, just being there is enough
to bring about a transformation. I hope communities of practice in the
West will organise themselves as familties....

When you are animate by bodhicitta, the strong desire to devote
yourself to the practice of the Dharma for the well-being of many
beings, that is all you need. Bodhicitta is a source of power within
you. The best thing you can do for others is to help them touch the
bodhicitta in themselves. The seed of bodhicitta is there; it's a
matter of watering the seed and bringing it to life. One of the most
important ways to nourish and protect bodhicitta is to find a good
Sangha. If you have a Sangha that is joyful, animated by the desire to
practice and help, you will mature as a bodhisattva. I always tell the
monks, nuns and lay practitioners at Plum Village that if they want to
succeed in the practice, they have to find ways to live in harmony
with one another, even with those who are difficult. If they can't
succeed in the Sangha, how can they succeed outside of it?..."

Well, anyway, I odn't know if this has sown any ideas in your
mindstreams but it has in mine. I think what we have together is
special and we should keep in contact. It's easy to take for granted
the nourishing environment that the CI community provides but harsh
realities await the unweary traveller! Live in gratitude for we are
blessed.

Lots and lots and lots of love,

Anna

How great is she? Lots and lot of love as well,

Annie

Purification? Who needs it?

"Annie, I'm so proud of you for doing this. You have changed so much."

It's noon and I'm talking to Annie at the computer. I feel like it's
been an eon since I've talked to her, but it's only been about 24
hours. I decided to participate in a Buddhist practice called the
Nyung Na, which is a powerful purification practice. I wanted to
experience it - how can I know what it is until I do it? Each Nyung Na
is two days, and they're going for 16 days total in a row, and a
number of people are doing all 16 days. The first day you have four
sessions of about 2 hours each, starting at 5 am, and doing a lot of
chanting, mantras and three progressively longer sessions of
prostrating, all dedicated to purifying yourself and your past lives.
You can dedicate your session to people you know who are suffering or
for the benefit of all sentient beings. You wouldn't think it would be
difficult, but it adds up. I noticed a tender spot on my forehead from
where I was laying my head on the ground at each prostration. I put a
pad there. Then my elbows started hurting, and my ribs, so on the
second day (today) I put a full-length pad down instead of the
half-length one that padded my knees. That was better. I'm evenly sore
all over now, none of this spot-soreness.

The other thing: day one you have one meal at midday, and can drink
liquids until 5 am the next morning. Day two you eat and drink nothing
starting from 5 am until the following morning at 6 or so when they
serve chai and applejuice. That's about 36 hours without food and 25
without water.

Yep, these buddhists like to suffer. I thought I'd get in on it.

The first day was interesting - I realized I wanted to know what they
were doing in the gompa (meditation hall) that we're not allowed in
unless we're part of the Nyung Na. I participated in the chanting,
learned how to pronounce some tibetan chants, some sanscrit chants, om
mani padme hum'd for many malas (108 beads on a mala, which is a
rosary) and bowed down innumerable times, reflecting on the suffering
of other countless beings and how small my own intentionally inflicted
suffering was.

If I got nothing else out of this retreat, I got compassion for the
people who are going all the way through. 16 days, eating every other
day, doing prostrations for about 2 hours a day, singing and chanting
and repeating verses without water.

The second day, I did the first session at 5 and stayed in the gompa
for the second session at 9. The whole time, I'm not really sure why
I'm doing a nyung Na in the first place, and today I really tried not
to pass judgement on the practice or why I was there or what I was
trying to get out of it. Sure, I was hungry and getting thirsty, and
my voice hurt from all the chanting, and my arms and ribs and legs
hurt from the prostrations, but I've handled physical pain in the
past. I lot more, to be honest. And I just finished this Vipassana,
which was among other things, painful. it's not the pain.

Sometime during the second session, I didn't want to do it any more.

Normally, my ego would strut in and say, "if you don't finish this,
you're a wuss and everyone will think you're weak. They won't look at
you the same way, and you won't have the same status as before."

My ego still said that, but I decided not to listen.

It also said, "If you don't want to be here, you're probably purifying
something and want to run away from the practice."

That was a more compelling argument, but I didn't feel like I was
repressing anything, or had anything to come out.

Hence Annie's comment when I told her I'd stopped doing the Nyung Na.

Three months ago I still would've been pushing myself to finish.

This feels so good! And I get to return and hang with my friends,
especially Annie, since she and Jorrit (another long-term vollie) are
leaving on Thursday. Anniccha, as Goenka would say. Impermanence, as
Anna's tattoo says in Japanese. I just sniff away my tears and smile.
It's the end of an era here at Chenrezig, and people are moving on,
out of the Family Center Sphere, bringing our special relationship out
to their encounters with new community.

I don't want things to change. I know they have to, and it's easy to
take for granted how easy it's been living with these amazing and
compassionate people. Perhaps change will help me appreciate whoever
comes in next, and the transformative last three months we've all had.

Another three vollies signed up for Vipassana. We've started a trend!