6:00 AM: WAKE UP
The sound of the bell in the stillness of the morning. Up at dawn. Five o'clock
in the summer, six in winter. Warmth from a wood stove. Frost on the ground
outside, snow on the hills in the distance.
 
6:30 AM: MOVEMENT
The day begins with yoga and movement. One of the teachers leads us. Moving and
breathing. Outside in the clear air. The body warms. Sometimes the teacher is
playful, and there is laughter; or focused, as we turn to the four directions to
dance to each in turn. To the east, south west, and north; then to the ground
under our feet, and to the sky above. For what sustains us and for what holds
us, we dance; for the world itself we move. Some of us with reserve, slowly and
inwardly; some with abandon. Each to their own.
 
6:45: AM MORNING MEDITATION
The first meditation period in the adobe meditation hall. There is a feeling of
ancient caves. We have been here before. Candles burning on the low table that
serves for an altar. A statue of the Buddha; serene, smiling. On the wall above
the altar there is a hand-painted image of Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of
compassion. Elsewhere in the room are statues and paintings: female Buddhas,
dancing Buddhas, standing Buddhas.
Three sounds of a large bell resound. A resonance that lasts for an age. Then
silence, except for the wood burning in the stove; a raven outside; a coyote in
the distance. After forty minutes we stand for walking meditation and walk
slowly around the outside of the room. Step by step. The sun is shining through
the window now, onto the rough adobe walls. We sit again to chant, and then
listen to a short reading: "You never enjoy the world aright, 'til the sea
itself floweth in your veins . . . " or "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."
Words that echo for a lifetime, words beyond singular interpretation. I walk
outside on my way up to the building where breakfast is served. We are
surrounded by hills; miles and miles of chaparral forest; and an aura of deep
restfulness.
 
8:00 AM: BREAKFAST
We stand in a circle around the table. The cook tells us what we will eat, names
the food so that we might eat with greater awareness and appreciation. There is
a chant that begins: "This food is the gift of the whole universe . . . " By the
end of the retreat we will know it by heart.
 
9:00 AM: SAMU
Samu means that we practice work as meditation, in mindfulness. There is no
staff here. The retreat is co-created by everyone participating. The teachers
and everyone else helps in the kitchen. We learn about each, we give and take,
in silences, day by day we create a natural sense of community. It is safe. The
mind might be full of fear and judgment, but little by little we let go of them.
Taking time to wash pots, or rake leaves-not to get it done, but to simply be
doing what it is we do. Cutting firewood, planting olive trees, sweeping the
floor, cutting vegetables for the next meal.
 
10:00 AM: THE ELM DANCE
We dance the "Elm Dance" (LINK) which come here through Joanna Macy's visits to
Novozybkov in the Ukraine, several years ago, to bear witness to the aftermath
of Chernobyl. It is simple circle dance. We begin by dancing in silence. Then we
dance a second time, and call out the names of places, people, species,
populations. We call out names to bear witness to the suffering of the world, to
the Elm forests of the Ukraine now so contaminated, to the growing list of
endangered and extinct species, to the oppressed and oppressor, to the
disenfranchised . . . We put our practice of Mindfulness out into the body of
the world, and the body of the society we are part of. We are widening the
circle of our retreat, expanding the context of this work of Attention, by the
dance. Like Avalokiteshvara, we bear witness to the suffering of the whole wide
world, to whatever degree we are able, as well as to our own sense of fear,
grief, rage. And we learn to trust these feelings, rather than engage in the old
habits of shaming ourselves by them.
 
10:15AM: MEDITATION AND INSTRUCTION
The silence of the meditation hall. Instructions from the teacher.
"Know that the patience you cultivate by simply bringing your attention back to
be with this body, this breath, is more than all your expectations about what
you might gain or attain through meditation. Just that. Breathing in, breathing
out. Your thoughts are filled with thoughts and judgments, memories and
fantasies. It's okay. Stay with an awareness of your body breathing, and when
you become lost entirely, come back again. Breathing in, breathing out."
". . . This breath was yours before you were born. Given to you by you mother as
it was given to her by her mother. Down through the generations. For a moment
you hold this breath, this life, in awareness. You hold all the generations of
you ancestors and all the generations to come"
" . . . Focusing on the breathing body. All sorts of impulses and thoughts come
and go. Neither grasping for, nor rejecting, any of them. A tightrope walker,
neither tense nor so relaxed that you fall: and if you fall, you simply start
again . . . "
 
11:30 AM: DHARMA TALK
on one of countless possible subjects
 
* The Four Noble Truths.
* The Eightfold Path. The possibility of freedom and happiness Here and Now.
* Buddhism in West.
* Obstructions on the Path of Liberation
* Sustaining awareness in everyday life
* Sustaining the gaze of the Bodhisattva in the face of the Industrial Growth Society and global devastation.
* Surrendering to grief without going under. Faith.
* Integrating Mindfulness in the workplace
* Socially and Politically engaged Spiritual Practice
* Creativity and Intuition
* The Christian/Jewish/Moslem parallels-The death of God, Resurrection and Redemption
* The Brahma-viharas, the 4 limitless states
* Models of the Mind based on Buddhist understanding and their practical application.
* General Systems Theory
 
12:30 PM: WALKING MEDITATION
Walking outside in the warm sun. Going nowhere. At ease in the body. Present to
the body's movement, to the movement of the olive trees in the breeze, or to the
Western Goldfinches flocking to the water fountain. Present to this precious
life, this mind, this gift. Simply that.
 
1:00 PM: LUNCH
When you eat slowly you taste food, you taste your own appetite. Compulsion
falls away. The subtlety of simple food. Taste, and the recollection of the many
hands it took to cultivate and prepare the food, provide nourishment of a new
kind. How many human generations have harvested and husbanded these generations
of seeds and vegetables?
 
2:00 PM: A WALK, A NAP, HAMOCK MEDITATION
Nothing in particular. To be simply in this place, not even the pressure of a
retreat schedule-meditation without form.
 
3:30 PM: WALKING MEDITATION
Outside. Along the banks of an arroyo. After a while the teacher stops and we
sit under a large, and unbelievably ancient, Manzanita tree. "What do you
notice?" she asks. The quiet. The amount of life of all sorts that shows itself
when you sit still. The cold, wet winters; the hot dry summers. How plants here
adapt in all sorts of ways; small leaves, deep roots. How fire is part of the
possible cycle of life for many plants. She speaks of the history of the land,
the mountains, how people lived here, a century and a half ago, twenty centuries
ago. What they ate. She speaks of the way the land hereabouts has changed since
then. She speaks of the movement of the land itself, rising like waves from
within the earth under the Pacific Ocean. Of the movement of forests, a
pilgrimage of many millions of years, as the continent became forested. "Our
practice can only be understood, " she says, "in the context of the practice of
all things-including mountains and forests." She quotes Dogen, the great teacher
who revived the practice of Buddhism in Japan in the 12th century. "You cannot
understand your own walking until you understand the walking of mountains and
rivers . . "
 
4:00 PM: MOVEMENT, or INTERACTIVE EXCERICES, or MINDFUL "PERFORMANCE" WORK
Playfully. Seriously. Calmly; or . . . disturbing the equilibrium and
tranquility of the day so that it can be reclaimed. Resilience of practice.
Mindfulness without attachment.
 
5:00 PM: MEDITATION
 
6:00 PM: SUPPER
 
7:00 PM: COUNCIL, MEDITATION
We pass the Talking Stick, speaking what truth is in the heart,. Silence.
Listening. No hurry, no pressure to speak. Contained within the adobe walls of
the meditation hall.
 
9:30 PM: SLEEP
after a walk under the storm of stars in the sky perhaps; or continued sitting
in meditation.