Today's blog is a continuation of my experience at the Thich Nhat Hanh retreat at the YMCA camp in Estes Park, CO from August 19th - 24th, 2011. The following is from Saturday, August 20th, Day 2 of the incredible retreat as I wrote about my experiences in my personal journal. At the start of all my journal entries I write 5 items that make me grateful. So I will begin with my gratitude list that day.
I am grateful for a wonderful night's sleep, for a new friendship, for the clear, awesome mountain air, for all these peaceful people, for love in my heart. For these and all my spectacular bounty I thank you Creator.
I had a wonderful night's sleep, early morning rise and meditation, then yoga. Now I head to breakfast and "COFFEE." I'm not used to this early morning stuff but hey, it's good for me. Without my Internet I didn't stay up so late so I received plenty of sleep.
It's interesting how I get this sense of Catholicism in the Zen practice. I wonder if this is how the early Christians practiced and the dogma just slowly got out of hand with the church's power and greed. I have to admit I'm not overly fond of the ceremony side of all this but then I've never been a big "ceremony" type person. I didn't even go to my 3 college graduations because I dislike ceremony. I must admit that I do love the silence though. I'm off now to mindfully eat. More later.
Here's a mind dump from Thay's talk. No being and being - Suffering & Happiness - Father, Son & Holy Spirit is the same as Buddha, Dharma, & Sangha, and the same as Body, Mind, & Environment. Here's an exercise Thay stepped us through: Breath In - Breath Out, Follow Your breath In & Out, Be mindful of your body while breathing in and out, Touch the sorrow inside you, Bring yourself to Joy, Bring yourself to Happiness. (I'm missing one step: oh well, I'll get it later).
Observations during walking meditation with Thay. I wished that my husband, Gary, were there with me. I felt the sadness that he was not here. I felt the gratitude to him for if I had not met and married him I would probably not be at a Buddhist retreat. Not that he was Buddhist but he did open my perspective to eastern spirituality. I loved being in the middle of a group of people who are mindfully walking. The nonconformist in me had to step outside the crowd for awhile and follow my own path. Following Thay felt uncomfortable from this recovering Catholic. I don't follow any One person as I am eclectic in my spiritual pursuits. There are lots of people taking pictures. I have to wonder: If Jesus were alive today would lots of people be taking his picture?
When Thay stopped, sat on the ground and mindfully meditated with the children I got the sense of what it must have felt like when all the people came to listen to Jesus. Thay certainly has touched the Buddha (Christ Spirit) within him. After the thought crossed my mind I became uncomfortable because he is a human like ALL the rest of us. He's just better practiced at touching the Universal Spirit inside him. I watched how the other monks & nuns protect Thay and it reminded me of what I have read about the disciples protecting Jesus. Those humans who have touched the Christ/Buddha Spirit so deeply are vulnerable to those who would take advantage of them.
I am sitting in a wonderful moment as I watch this extremely fat chipmunk on the patio below my room's balcony. I hope it doesn't starve this winter when the tourists are gone because obviously it has become a junk food junky. Oh wait, there are tourists here all year round. That's good news for that very fat chipmunk.
I am off to mindfully eat lunch in silence, then I will go make joyful music to the Lord, or Source in my vocabulary. Tonight I want to write about the belief concepts concerning non being and well being. It intrigues me and I want to consider it further. Dying and Birth two sides of the same coin. Oops the chipmunk is back. Starving and Fat - Hungry and Full. The flower is made up of non-flower parts. I am made up of nonhuman parts. The mind boggles and all is well. (The mindfulness bell on my phone just rang. Before the retreat I would have stopped for a moment and thought about the moment. Now today (Sept. 2nd) I stop and breath in and breath out 3 times, following my breath all the way through: Now back to the journal entry).
This afternoon I attended a touch the earth meditation with Sister Chan Khong. Here are my notes, taken before the meditation actually began. Be still and Know, Be Sumatra and see clearly. Qualities of Touching the Earth meditation: Understanding deeply - remember that people are the fruit of their environment. Great Compassion - looking and feeling and seeing beyond the unkindness. Love Greatly - The earth can absorb greatly all that we give it. Treasures of the Earth
How to Transform the fear of death. Use the 3 ancestors: Blood ancestors, Environmental ancestors, Spiritual ancestors. (The meditation was powerful. With each ancestor group we meditated on them, then touched the earth to get rid of any emotional baggage from them.)
I am exhausted. I took my bathing suit with me thinking I would swim but then I participated in the deep relaxation and touch the earth meditations I came close to falling asleep. I realized then that I did not want to exhaust myself with swimming. Maybe I'll try tomorrow. MAYBE is the operative word.
It is a gorgeous day and I feel very refreshed, yet exhausted so I'm just going to enjoy the rest of the evening in whatever way I can and come back to the room and crash. I went to the music group after lunch and enjoyed singing. I played my native flute when they were playing in the key of C. If I had known about the music sessions I would have brought one of my drums. Tomorrow I will possibly lead a song with my flute. We'll see. I know me, I play something different every time I play the flute.
It is time for dinner. A few minutes ago I wasn't hungry yet now I am. I'm not overly fond of being vegan, but what the hey, it's only for a few days. Let's see what dinner has to offer.
Now dinner is over. I didn't mind the tofu fajitas and I loved the guacamole. As I was walking around I was feeling very lonely and I started to go with the pity party of why I don't have someone in my life, why I don't allow people to touch me deeply. But that is such an untrue statement, it almost makes me gag. (smiley face). I have some wonderfully dear friends who I have opened up to and bore my soul with, especially when it came to Gary's death. So how I could say that I don't open up to others is ridiculous. As I walk and am mindful I'm thrilled to realize that I don't have to fall for that drivel in my head.
I like how I've gotten so caught up in this wonderful Buddhist retreat that I want to buy a meditation pillow. NOT! I do not want to convert to Buddhism. I like being a Unitic/Metaphysicist/believer in the Universal One. That does not mean I don't believe in the Buddha Spirit, I do...as much as I believe in the Christ Spirit. I think where I am is just perfect for where I am. I love how I get so passionately wrapped up in whatever it is I am experiencing. I do know though, that I will probably never eat the same again, yet I have a long way to go to eat mindfully like some of the people I have watched here. More on that later...
While I wait for my so called Dharma group to arrive I will talk a little more about the eating. Portion control, that is one of the major things I'm learning and one of the major issues in my life. I ate three square meals today. No meat and no cheese and yet I am stuffed. Crazy stuffed. One reason I'm stuffed is because I am bloated by all the veggies and beans. But the other reason is because I was thinking that I would have to eat more in order to stay full. WRONG!!
Well I just went to my Dharma discussion a half hour early and was sitting there wondering why no one was showing up. Oh well, it's a beautiful evening to sit at the picnic table and write. So back to the food discussion: My portion size is the mindfulness I want to work on. By this evening's meal I ate much less than I would have 2 days ago. Mind you I'm still not overly fond of all the vegan stuff but it definitely is filling. (Right at this moment I have pine sap on my arm because the picnic table where I'm sitting has pine sap on it. My first thought was that it was marshmallow left over by some previous campers....until I smelled it. I guess I have food on my brain.)
So back into Mindfulness. The air has grown chilly. I'll have to put my jacket on soon. My Dharma Group is in the Arkansas Room and it is for people from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. I don't remember signing up for the geographic group....although I sort of remember.
There are some serious Buddhists here. To bad I'm not a Buddhist or I'd join a Sangha. Maybe I will anyway so I can meet some like-minded people. I don't have to become Buddhist to practice Zen meditation. More about that later.
It is interesting that I made the above comment as the entire discussion in the Dharma discussion group had to do with the comments Thay made about the Kingdom of God, which was confusing to those who practice Buddhism. Yet it was very exciting for me to hear the parallelism of Jesus and Buddha's teachings'. I still believe that during those unrecorded years of Jesus's life he may have visited the wise men from the east and picked up some of the eastern spiritualism.
This has been a very exciting day and I'm looking forward to more tomorrow. Oh yeah, in my Dharma group there is a lady from Fort Myers who belongs to a Mindfulness Group in Naples. I'm going to definitely talk to her about it tomorrow. Thank you Source for this magnificent day of love and peace and sharing. I look with joy and happiness to more of the same tomorrow. Thank you for bringing Thich Nhat Hanh into my life. He is truly A MASTER! AHO!
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