I’m doing two events in New York this week:
The first is a book signing at 7 pm on October 15th at the Interdependence Project in the East Village. Be there!
INFO AT: http://www.theidproject.org/events/2010/10/15/sex-sin-zen-brad-warner
The following two days, October 16th and 17th, we’re having a two-day non-residential retreat at the Interdependence Project in the East Village. This is a terrific opportunity for anyone who wants to get a real taste of what zazen is all about. The retreat is open to beginners, no experience necessary.
INFO AT: http://theidproject.org/events/2010/10/16/weekend-zazen-brad-warner
See you there!
The first is a book signing at 7 pm on October 15th at the Interdependence Project in the East Village. Be there!
INFO AT: http://www.theidproject.org/events/2010/10/15/sex-sin-zen-brad-warner
The following two days, October 16th and 17th, we’re having a two-day non-residential retreat at the Interdependence Project in the East Village. This is a terrific opportunity for anyone who wants to get a real taste of what zazen is all about. The retreat is open to beginners, no experience necessary.
INFO AT: http://theidproject.org/events/2010/10/16/weekend-zazen-brad-warner
See you there!
I'm in Montreal now. I'll be here till November 17th or so, with side trips to San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York for speaking gigs.
I love Montreal and I want to figure out how I can live here. But since immigration is an issue, I'm gonna move to Brooklyn in November and continue working on the problem.
I got a new book out now, SEX SIN AND ZEN, which started off life on SG. It's an outgrowth of the columns I used to write for the NEWSWIRE.
I'm gonna start writing for the new Newswire soon. Does anyone have any requests?
I love Montreal and I want to figure out how I can live here. But since immigration is an issue, I'm gonna move to Brooklyn in November and continue working on the problem.
I got a new book out now, SEX SIN AND ZEN, which started off life on SG. It's an outgrowth of the columns I used to write for the NEWSWIRE.
I'm gonna start writing for the new Newswire soon. Does anyone have any requests?
I just spent the past four weeks in a Zen monastery in the mountains where sex is not allowed. Now I'm in San Francisco on Friday night typing on my damned computer! This is what happens when your only friends are Zen people.
So it looks like I'll be back writing for Suicide Girls. Got a call from Nicole asking me to get on board. And I said, "sure!" Don't know what I'm getting myself into.
So it looks like I'll be back writing for Suicide Girls. Got a call from Nicole asking me to get on board. And I said, "sure!" Don't know what I'm getting myself into.
Everyone assumes I have made it with Suicide Girls. But I have never once made it with a Suicide Girl.
Your trusted reporter, reporting today from a bagel shop in Brooklyn where he has just finished a pumpernickel bagel with butter and a too expensive cup of orange juice.
The place I slept last night was not fit for human habitation. That's not a judgment call, or even my personal opinion. I was actually OK with the place. But it was inside a disused factory and definitely not up to code. Someone had carved out a living place in what had probably once been a storage room or something on the top floor. You had to go in through the industrial doors at the back by the loading dock and walk up like seven flights of wrought iron industrial stairs probably constructed around the beginning of the 20th century. Once you got up to the top it opened up into a giant room that had been divided by all kinds of plywood structures and lofts. It was actually pretty cool. The guys who lived there took me to see some interesting bands and then put on Pee Wee's Big Adventure, which I slept through most of.
When I do these tours I take pretty much whatever I can get as far as living situations go. Mostly it works out well. On this trip to New York I spent the first few days in the swank Soho apartment of Jacopo Buora, the guy who set up the retreat I did last weekend at the Brooklyn Zen Center. Then my good friend Suicide Girl Bee Jellyfish offered me a spot on her couch in Brooklyn. Sweet! I got lots of pussy there! Yep. Cuz they had not one but two cute little kitty cats! What did you think I meant, pervert?
Problem was Bee forgot that one of her other roommates had promised the couch to someone else last night. So Bee very kindly put calls out to a bunch of her friends asking if anyone would be willing to lend a sleeping space to a wandering Zen monk and writer of bad books. The rest of the story is as described above.
The retreat in Brooklyn was very cool. But I mentioned that earlier. I also did an interesting gig at an animation studio called Asterisk in Manhattan. That was fun. I'd read about authors doing talks in unusual venues, like people's apartments and stuff. So I asked my friend Marc Catapano if he knew of any place I could do something like that in New York while I was there. He set up the thing at Asterisk and it was a lot of fun. Just a little room full of people interested in Zen. Nice. Anyone else who wants to suggest some kind of similar gigs, please feel free to get in touch.
There has been some talk in the comments section of my Google blog about Dogen Sangha. So I said: "I feel that Dogen Sangha should not be an institution of any kind. It should be a loose affiliation of like-minded people. Like an association of artists.
Maybe it could be like an association of painters who had the same art professor. These painters would not have to share the same style. Nor would they need to compare notes and align their techniques with each other. In fact, it would make them lesser artists if they did. They wouldn't necessarily have to even like each other or each others' work.
But they could acknowledge their common roots by being part of the association and benefit from the existence of that association. They could do gallery openings as a group or something.
It's not a perfect analogy. But it's a far better analogy than thinking of Dogen Sangha as a not very good (lazy) version of the Catholic church or the Soto-shu."
I think there are already far too many religious institutions in the world. If people want a Zen version of the Catholic church they can join Soto-shu. The existing associations in the US sort of scare me the way they seem to want to imitate the Soto-shu and foster standardization among the Buddhists of America.
It worries me to see them trying to set up standards of accreditation for Buddhist teachers. I understand the reason for this. It's too easy to just call yourself a Roshi without any real training, look at Zen Master Rama and a few others.
But trying to standardize what steps one must have completed before one calls oneself a Zen teacher would eliminate a lot of very good Zen teachers whose own teachers did not require them to jump through these hoops. And most of the hoops we're talking about here are pretty arbitrary and ridiculous institutional games that have nothing to do with anything. It may indicate a certain level of commitment if, for example, you've spent a whole truckload of money and time to go to Eiheiji and serve as abbot for a day -- paying the requisite hefty fees to Soto-shu, of course. But in the end, does stuff like that really make much difference in day-to-day practice?
I don't want Dogen Sangha to turn into an institution because institutions always have to justify their existence by being busybodies and getting up in people's faces about nonsense like this.
I've got some more thoughts on this that I'll eventually put together in some coherent form. In case anyone hasn't noticed, this blog is mainly just for off-the-cuff commentary from the road rather than well-reasoned position statements. So that is decidedly not what I'm offering here.
So, OK. Next stop is Baltimore on April 10, 2010 at 7-9 pm at the Baltimore Zen Center 913 Reece Road Severn, MD 21144 for info contact contact@BaltimoreZen.org. Then I got 2 gigs on the same day in Richmond, Virginia as follows:
• April 12, 2010 1 pm Barnes & Noble VCU store 1111 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23284
• April 12, 2010 7-9pm, Ekoji Buddhist Sangha 3411 Grove Avenue Richmond, Virginia 23221
Full info and links are at this link. So click it and be there!!!
After that I'll see all y'all in Europe!
The place I slept last night was not fit for human habitation. That's not a judgment call, or even my personal opinion. I was actually OK with the place. But it was inside a disused factory and definitely not up to code. Someone had carved out a living place in what had probably once been a storage room or something on the top floor. You had to go in through the industrial doors at the back by the loading dock and walk up like seven flights of wrought iron industrial stairs probably constructed around the beginning of the 20th century. Once you got up to the top it opened up into a giant room that had been divided by all kinds of plywood structures and lofts. It was actually pretty cool. The guys who lived there took me to see some interesting bands and then put on Pee Wee's Big Adventure, which I slept through most of.
When I do these tours I take pretty much whatever I can get as far as living situations go. Mostly it works out well. On this trip to New York I spent the first few days in the swank Soho apartment of Jacopo Buora, the guy who set up the retreat I did last weekend at the Brooklyn Zen Center. Then my good friend Suicide Girl Bee Jellyfish offered me a spot on her couch in Brooklyn. Sweet! I got lots of pussy there! Yep. Cuz they had not one but two cute little kitty cats! What did you think I meant, pervert?
Problem was Bee forgot that one of her other roommates had promised the couch to someone else last night. So Bee very kindly put calls out to a bunch of her friends asking if anyone would be willing to lend a sleeping space to a wandering Zen monk and writer of bad books. The rest of the story is as described above.
The retreat in Brooklyn was very cool. But I mentioned that earlier. I also did an interesting gig at an animation studio called Asterisk in Manhattan. That was fun. I'd read about authors doing talks in unusual venues, like people's apartments and stuff. So I asked my friend Marc Catapano if he knew of any place I could do something like that in New York while I was there. He set up the thing at Asterisk and it was a lot of fun. Just a little room full of people interested in Zen. Nice. Anyone else who wants to suggest some kind of similar gigs, please feel free to get in touch.
There has been some talk in the comments section of my Google blog about Dogen Sangha. So I said: "I feel that Dogen Sangha should not be an institution of any kind. It should be a loose affiliation of like-minded people. Like an association of artists.
Maybe it could be like an association of painters who had the same art professor. These painters would not have to share the same style. Nor would they need to compare notes and align their techniques with each other. In fact, it would make them lesser artists if they did. They wouldn't necessarily have to even like each other or each others' work.
But they could acknowledge their common roots by being part of the association and benefit from the existence of that association. They could do gallery openings as a group or something.
It's not a perfect analogy. But it's a far better analogy than thinking of Dogen Sangha as a not very good (lazy) version of the Catholic church or the Soto-shu."
I think there are already far too many religious institutions in the world. If people want a Zen version of the Catholic church they can join Soto-shu. The existing associations in the US sort of scare me the way they seem to want to imitate the Soto-shu and foster standardization among the Buddhists of America.
It worries me to see them trying to set up standards of accreditation for Buddhist teachers. I understand the reason for this. It's too easy to just call yourself a Roshi without any real training, look at Zen Master Rama and a few others.
But trying to standardize what steps one must have completed before one calls oneself a Zen teacher would eliminate a lot of very good Zen teachers whose own teachers did not require them to jump through these hoops. And most of the hoops we're talking about here are pretty arbitrary and ridiculous institutional games that have nothing to do with anything. It may indicate a certain level of commitment if, for example, you've spent a whole truckload of money and time to go to Eiheiji and serve as abbot for a day -- paying the requisite hefty fees to Soto-shu, of course. But in the end, does stuff like that really make much difference in day-to-day practice?
I don't want Dogen Sangha to turn into an institution because institutions always have to justify their existence by being busybodies and getting up in people's faces about nonsense like this.
I've got some more thoughts on this that I'll eventually put together in some coherent form. In case anyone hasn't noticed, this blog is mainly just for off-the-cuff commentary from the road rather than well-reasoned position statements. So that is decidedly not what I'm offering here.
So, OK. Next stop is Baltimore on April 10, 2010 at 7-9 pm at the Baltimore Zen Center 913 Reece Road Severn, MD 21144 for info contact contact@BaltimoreZen.org. Then I got 2 gigs on the same day in Richmond, Virginia as follows:
• April 12, 2010 1 pm Barnes & Noble VCU store 1111 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23284
• April 12, 2010 7-9pm, Ekoji Buddhist Sangha 3411 Grove Avenue Richmond, Virginia 23221
Full info and links are at this link. So click it and be there!!!
After that I'll see all y'all in Europe!
This just in:
Tonight (Tuesday April 6, 2010) I will be speaking at the following location at 7:30 pm
Asterisk
134 W26th St #603
NY, NY 10001
This is an animation company. I just found out that anyone who wants to can attend. I had thought it was an "invitation only" type deal. So if you're in NY and want to attend, please stop by.
Also, the first DIMENTIA 13 album is now available for downloading. Everything you need to know to get it is at this link right here. Or you can just look it up on iTunes and get it from them. You can download a PDF file all about the album at this link.
The Brooklyn retreat was great. Not a big attendance, that's for sure. There's a tremendous difference between how many people will come hear a talk about Zen and how many will actually do Zazen. But those who attended had the energy and sincerity to make up for it. It was one of the best retreats I've ever led.
I'm here in the Big Apple, NYC, for a few more days. Then it's on to Baltimore and Richmond, VA. Everything you need to know about those gigs is at this link right here. So check it out and show up!
Tonight (Tuesday April 6, 2010) I will be speaking at the following location at 7:30 pm
Asterisk
134 W26th St #603
NY, NY 10001
This is an animation company. I just found out that anyone who wants to can attend. I had thought it was an "invitation only" type deal. So if you're in NY and want to attend, please stop by.
Also, the first DIMENTIA 13 album is now available for downloading. Everything you need to know to get it is at this link right here. Or you can just look it up on iTunes and get it from them. You can download a PDF file all about the album at this link.
The Brooklyn retreat was great. Not a big attendance, that's for sure. There's a tremendous difference between how many people will come hear a talk about Zen and how many will actually do Zazen. But those who attended had the energy and sincerity to make up for it. It was one of the best retreats I've ever led.
I'm here in the Big Apple, NYC, for a few more days. Then it's on to Baltimore and Richmond, VA. Everything you need to know about those gigs is at this link right here. So check it out and show up!
There have been a slew of news reports lately that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., the combo responsible for the current remake of Clash Of The Titans, will be producing a new Godzilla movie for release in 2012.It's kind of funny to see this. It's part of a story I've been following for the past few years. A guy named Yoshimitsu Banno -- named in the story linked above as one of the film's producers -- has been making the rounds in the US entertainment industry trying to get a new Godzilla project off the ground since at least the late 90s. Banno is an intriguing character. He is the only person to have directed just one Godzilla movie (not including the last US-made catastrophe in 1998). Most Godzilla movie directors get asked back after they do one movie. Banno apparently made the execs at Toho so mad they never asked him back.
Banno's Godzilla movie was 1971's Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, one of my personal all-time favorites of the series. It turns out that Banno didn't just pick a pollution-based monster as Godzilla's enemy because it was a trendy topic at the time. He was and is a big environmentalist. It has long been his dream to remake Godzilla vs The Smog Monster with a big budget as a way of calling attention to the serious environmental issues facing humanity today.
Apparently, Banno managed to purchase the rights to remake Smog Monster from Toho. But his efforts to get it going haven't been all that successful until now. Last I'd heard before this news came about was that he was trying to get a 15 minute Imax version made somewhere in South America. Or something like that...
ANYWAY, this all got me thinking that one of the FAQ's I get fairly often when I'm on tour from people who've read Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate is, "What the heck ever happened with your job at the Godzilla company?" (which was not the company that made Godzilla, but was a company founded by the guy who invented Godzilla)
I left that unresolved at the end of the book because at the time I finished writing the book it was unresolved. What ended up happening is that I got fired. That's in the book, I think.
But then in September of 2008 I went to Japan to lead the annual Dogen Sangha retreat and scheduled a meeting with the company while I was there. It was at this meeting that they proposed for me to come back to Japan and work for them again at the Tokyo office.
I really hemmed and hawed on this one. I desperately wanted to return to Japan. I feel more at home there than I do anywhere else. And yet returning to my old job sounded unappealing. Besides that, Zen Wrapped in Karma was set to be released in the Spring of the following year and I wouldn't be in America to promote it if I took the job in Japan.
At the end of 2008 I had to make my official decision. So I moved in to the San Francisco Zen Center for three weeks, finished off the book, then called up Tokyo and told them I was staying in America. I officially quit.
And that's the story!
Remember that this weekend I'll be in Brooklyn at the Zen Center there running a retreat. There's still space available. All info is on this link here.
Then it's on to Baltimore and following that, Richmond, Virginia. All info is on the link referenced above.
Here are some "Buddhists" who don't have a fucking clue what Buddhism is all about.
This story just disgusts me to no end. I have no idea what the fuck is up with these so-called "Buddhists" in Sri Lanka. But I do not represent them and I want nothing at all to do with jack-offs like this. I hope they ban my books over there too. This kind of nonsense makes me embarrassed to call myself a "Buddhist."
The Jathika Hela Urumaya (the hardline "Buddhist" ruling party in Sri Lanka) can bite me! More power to you Sarah Malini Perera. This shit makes me want to convert to Islam too!
How's that for a typical Brad Warner style reasoned argument?
ANYWAY, the 2010 Southern Dharma Retreat Center Zen retreat with Brad is now done. So let me tell you about it.
I counted 18 or 19 brave souls up there in the mountains of North Carolina. As always this was a very interesting group. People come to Zen retreats for all kinds of reasons. One woman was a born-again Christian and missionary to Africa who wanted to check out this Zen stuff. One other woman was drafted in by her friend when her friend's daughter who'd originally signed up came down with strep throat. One guy went to Woodstock. One guy was a Rinzai priest (the enemy!).
Someone asked about doing zazen retreats for the "wrong reasons" or something like that. But I don't think there are wrong reasons. If you just come along to experience three days of peace and quiet away from the job and the kids, that's just as valid as someone who's all gung-ho about The Great Way of the Buddha. Maybe more so.
It was a bit of a hard retreat for me because I caught a cold on the first day. It was all I could do to just get through all the talks and stuff without keeling over. I felt a little bad about that. To make up for my lack of energy I read the group the intro to my new book, which takes place at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center.
See, last year, just before that retreat I'd been dumped by a woman I was truly crazy about (perhaps literally so). And I was feeling pretty broke up the entire time. I figured that story would be a good intro to a book about sex and zen. The rest of the book is less personal than that. I guess that's kinda sad for all the anonymous commenters who got all worked up that the book was gonna be a big catalog of my sex life. Maybe next time.
Did I mention I got recognized by random people while I was in Austin -- twice? No? It's true. The first one was a college student on Spring Break who turned around as we waited for a light to change and asked my name. I thought he was gonna try to sell me something! Turns out he's an avid reader of this blog! I'm sorry I've forgotten your name if you're reading this. But I forget names as fast as I learn them. The next was a guy at a CVS. This is getting spooky! (Hence the photo below)(It's a joke)(The star is for H.B. Warner, a popular star of the 30s now sadly forgotten)
This weekend I'll be in Brooklyn at the Zen Center there running a retreat. There's still space available. All info is on this link here.
Then I'll be at Sheppard College in West Virginia. The date is April 8th, but I don't have the other specifics yet. Then it's on to Baltimore and following that, Richmond, Virginia. So be there or be a Sri Lankan hardline "Buddhist!"
This story just disgusts me to no end. I have no idea what the fuck is up with these so-called "Buddhists" in Sri Lanka. But I do not represent them and I want nothing at all to do with jack-offs like this. I hope they ban my books over there too. This kind of nonsense makes me embarrassed to call myself a "Buddhist."
The Jathika Hela Urumaya (the hardline "Buddhist" ruling party in Sri Lanka) can bite me! More power to you Sarah Malini Perera. This shit makes me want to convert to Islam too!
How's that for a typical Brad Warner style reasoned argument?
ANYWAY, the 2010 Southern Dharma Retreat Center Zen retreat with Brad is now done. So let me tell you about it.
I counted 18 or 19 brave souls up there in the mountains of North Carolina. As always this was a very interesting group. People come to Zen retreats for all kinds of reasons. One woman was a born-again Christian and missionary to Africa who wanted to check out this Zen stuff. One other woman was drafted in by her friend when her friend's daughter who'd originally signed up came down with strep throat. One guy went to Woodstock. One guy was a Rinzai priest (the enemy!).
Someone asked about doing zazen retreats for the "wrong reasons" or something like that. But I don't think there are wrong reasons. If you just come along to experience three days of peace and quiet away from the job and the kids, that's just as valid as someone who's all gung-ho about The Great Way of the Buddha. Maybe more so.
It was a bit of a hard retreat for me because I caught a cold on the first day. It was all I could do to just get through all the talks and stuff without keeling over. I felt a little bad about that. To make up for my lack of energy I read the group the intro to my new book, which takes place at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center.
See, last year, just before that retreat I'd been dumped by a woman I was truly crazy about (perhaps literally so). And I was feeling pretty broke up the entire time. I figured that story would be a good intro to a book about sex and zen. The rest of the book is less personal than that. I guess that's kinda sad for all the anonymous commenters who got all worked up that the book was gonna be a big catalog of my sex life. Maybe next time.
Did I mention I got recognized by random people while I was in Austin -- twice? No? It's true. The first one was a college student on Spring Break who turned around as we waited for a light to change and asked my name. I thought he was gonna try to sell me something! Turns out he's an avid reader of this blog! I'm sorry I've forgotten your name if you're reading this. But I forget names as fast as I learn them. The next was a guy at a CVS. This is getting spooky! (Hence the photo below)(It's a joke)(The star is for H.B. Warner, a popular star of the 30s now sadly forgotten)
This weekend I'll be in Brooklyn at the Zen Center there running a retreat. There's still space available. All info is on this link here.
Then I'll be at Sheppard College in West Virginia. The date is April 8th, but I don't have the other specifics yet. Then it's on to Baltimore and following that, Richmond, Virginia. So be there or be a Sri Lankan hardline "Buddhist!"
Here's a photo (scroll down) of the survivors of the Austin Dharma Punx Zen Retreat 2010. We all made it through alive, but just barely!
The retreat was held March 18-21 at the Recreation Plantation campsite a little ways outside of Austin, Texas. My first teacher routinely runs retreats at campsites in Ohio so I figured this would work out OK. But I was too busy with moving across the country to attend to the specifics of the event and did not realize what I'd gotten myself into until I got there.
The zendo was to be a covered pavilion. I had imagined an enclosed space. I should have looked up the word "pavilion." It turned out to be basically a roof over some picnic tables. This obviously wasn't gonna work. So we decided to use the nearby covered stage for a zendo. This at least had a floor. It was a raised stage, about three feet tall with a roof but with no walls.
The weather was good on day one, and I was starting to become hopeful that the retreat might work out. It certainly wasn't an ideal situation to sit zazen in the open air. But it was do-able. The ten of us made it through, a little chilly but OK.
That night I spent my first ever night in a tent. It was freezing cold, which kept me wide awake until close to midnight. I finally slept. But at about three in the morning I woke up to a rustling noise outside. It sounded like either a person or an animal as large as a human being walking around in the grass just outside my tent. Since the nearest other tent was about fifty feet away and down a hill there was no good reason any of the retreat people might have been hanging out in front of my tent at that hour.
I switched on my flashlight and tried to sound threatening as I squeaked out, "Wh-who-who's there?" I unzipped the tent flap and saw nothing but grass and trees. It was then that I realized the wind had kicked up during the night and that what I was hearing was just the rain fly of the tent rubbing against the tent itself.
After a while I settled down enough to sleep, although the cold was even more intense now, which made sleeping even harder. But I'm a light sleeper so every time the rain fly rubbed against the tent I was up again. I wasn't scared anymore, but I couldn't sleep through it.
The next morning the wind was a lot harder than it had been on the first day. We'd set up a tarp on one side of the "zendo" to provide some kind of a wall so that participants weren't staring out at the pavilion. But the wind started whipping the tarp around like crazy. We'd weighted it down with heavy rocks and a cinder block. But the wind was strong enough that these were sliding all over the place. I cut the morning zazen short so we could fix the problem.
It was clear we weren't going to be able to continue this way. So we reconvened and decided to pay an extra fee to rent a tiny cabin on the site. This was basically a two-room shack, about the size of a large bedroom. We managed to squeeze all thirteen participants (three more had arrived on the second day) set up our Elvis Buddha on a book shelf to make a kind of altar, took off our shoes and got down to some zazen.
This went all right in spite of the cramped quarters. In fact the small space made for a nice sense of camaraderie among those involved.
For the second night I and one of the other participants elected to move into the shack rather than sleep in tents. The others bravely stayed outside. Which was fine until 6 A.M. when a huge thunderstorm hit. The temperature dropped by something like 20 degrees in an hour or so. Lightning was flashing on all sides and the rain was as hard as I've ever seen. Oddly enough 6 A.M. was the time we were to begin the day's zazen.
We decided to follow the schedule at least until lunchtime. We'd be OK in the cabin. At lunch we had a mass meeting and decided we were going to finish out the day. But there was no way we were going to spend the night in the mud and rain.
I'd promised to do dokusan in the afternoon. One of the participants offered her tent. So I bundled up with two jackets, two hats and a big black thermal blanket and started doing one-on-one interviews with the members of the group who'd asked to speak with me.
This actually went better than I'd have imagined. But I was surely glad when the final interview was done and I could go into the cabin where it was a couple degrees warmer.
We tore up stakes then and went to one of the participant's houses for dinner. Several of us were from out of town. Space was donated by kind local folks and we all went back to sleep in warm beds or at least couches.
The Austin Zen Center was nice enough to let us use their space to do the last couple of sittings the following morning. That's where the group photo below was taken.
As you can see we all made it through. It was hardly a disaster -- in fact it was kind of nice all things considered. Even so, that's the last time I agree to do a retreat in a campground without an enclosed space for zazen.
Phew.
Tomorrow begins the 2010 Southern Dharma Retreat in Hot Springs, N. Carolina. At least they have a fully enclosed sitting space and nice, heated living spaces for everyone involved! Then it's on to Brooklyn and Baltimore. For full info on where I'll be check out this link. See ya there!
The retreat was held March 18-21 at the Recreation Plantation campsite a little ways outside of Austin, Texas. My first teacher routinely runs retreats at campsites in Ohio so I figured this would work out OK. But I was too busy with moving across the country to attend to the specifics of the event and did not realize what I'd gotten myself into until I got there.
The zendo was to be a covered pavilion. I had imagined an enclosed space. I should have looked up the word "pavilion." It turned out to be basically a roof over some picnic tables. This obviously wasn't gonna work. So we decided to use the nearby covered stage for a zendo. This at least had a floor. It was a raised stage, about three feet tall with a roof but with no walls.
The weather was good on day one, and I was starting to become hopeful that the retreat might work out. It certainly wasn't an ideal situation to sit zazen in the open air. But it was do-able. The ten of us made it through, a little chilly but OK.
That night I spent my first ever night in a tent. It was freezing cold, which kept me wide awake until close to midnight. I finally slept. But at about three in the morning I woke up to a rustling noise outside. It sounded like either a person or an animal as large as a human being walking around in the grass just outside my tent. Since the nearest other tent was about fifty feet away and down a hill there was no good reason any of the retreat people might have been hanging out in front of my tent at that hour.
I switched on my flashlight and tried to sound threatening as I squeaked out, "Wh-who-who's there?" I unzipped the tent flap and saw nothing but grass and trees. It was then that I realized the wind had kicked up during the night and that what I was hearing was just the rain fly of the tent rubbing against the tent itself.
After a while I settled down enough to sleep, although the cold was even more intense now, which made sleeping even harder. But I'm a light sleeper so every time the rain fly rubbed against the tent I was up again. I wasn't scared anymore, but I couldn't sleep through it.
The next morning the wind was a lot harder than it had been on the first day. We'd set up a tarp on one side of the "zendo" to provide some kind of a wall so that participants weren't staring out at the pavilion. But the wind started whipping the tarp around like crazy. We'd weighted it down with heavy rocks and a cinder block. But the wind was strong enough that these were sliding all over the place. I cut the morning zazen short so we could fix the problem.
It was clear we weren't going to be able to continue this way. So we reconvened and decided to pay an extra fee to rent a tiny cabin on the site. This was basically a two-room shack, about the size of a large bedroom. We managed to squeeze all thirteen participants (three more had arrived on the second day) set up our Elvis Buddha on a book shelf to make a kind of altar, took off our shoes and got down to some zazen.
This went all right in spite of the cramped quarters. In fact the small space made for a nice sense of camaraderie among those involved.
For the second night I and one of the other participants elected to move into the shack rather than sleep in tents. The others bravely stayed outside. Which was fine until 6 A.M. when a huge thunderstorm hit. The temperature dropped by something like 20 degrees in an hour or so. Lightning was flashing on all sides and the rain was as hard as I've ever seen. Oddly enough 6 A.M. was the time we were to begin the day's zazen.
We decided to follow the schedule at least until lunchtime. We'd be OK in the cabin. At lunch we had a mass meeting and decided we were going to finish out the day. But there was no way we were going to spend the night in the mud and rain.
I'd promised to do dokusan in the afternoon. One of the participants offered her tent. So I bundled up with two jackets, two hats and a big black thermal blanket and started doing one-on-one interviews with the members of the group who'd asked to speak with me.
This actually went better than I'd have imagined. But I was surely glad when the final interview was done and I could go into the cabin where it was a couple degrees warmer.
We tore up stakes then and went to one of the participant's houses for dinner. Several of us were from out of town. Space was donated by kind local folks and we all went back to sleep in warm beds or at least couches.
The Austin Zen Center was nice enough to let us use their space to do the last couple of sittings the following morning. That's where the group photo below was taken.
As you can see we all made it through. It was hardly a disaster -- in fact it was kind of nice all things considered. Even so, that's the last time I agree to do a retreat in a campground without an enclosed space for zazen.
Phew.
Tomorrow begins the 2010 Southern Dharma Retreat in Hot Springs, N. Carolina. At least they have a fully enclosed sitting space and nice, heated living spaces for everyone involved! Then it's on to Brooklyn and Baltimore. For full info on where I'll be check out this link. See ya there!
I'm leaving Los Angeles this weekend for good and all.
I've lived in LA for a bit more than 5 years now and it's been good and bad. You can't beat the weather. You can see just about any film ever made, even when they don't play other cities. Every band plays this town.
But in the end what tipped the scales was that it's just too damned expensive. Last year I was on tour for five months, though not consecutively. I paid LA rent for all 5 of those months and my takings on tour did not add up to nearly enough to cover rent alone. Another year of doing that and I would be broke. And since it looks like this will be another year of extended touring, I'm getting out.
I'm gonna try to post more on this blog. I've got my own personal blog at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com that I keep up with more regularly. Maybe I'll figure out a way to repost that stuff here.
Thanks, Los Angeles. See ya later!
I've lived in LA for a bit more than 5 years now and it's been good and bad. You can't beat the weather. You can see just about any film ever made, even when they don't play other cities. Every band plays this town.
But in the end what tipped the scales was that it's just too damned expensive. Last year I was on tour for five months, though not consecutively. I paid LA rent for all 5 of those months and my takings on tour did not add up to nearly enough to cover rent alone. Another year of doing that and I would be broke. And since it looks like this will be another year of extended touring, I'm getting out.
I'm gonna try to post more on this blog. I've got my own personal blog at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com that I keep up with more regularly. Maybe I'll figure out a way to repost that stuff here.
Thanks, Los Angeles. See ya later!
