More on the Grand Day Out in California

Last night we went to Val's insight meditation center, and we had a 45 minute sitting followed by the dharma talk from the above-mentioned Sri Lankan monk. He wore brown robes instead of orange, but he had a charming smile. And his voice reminded me of Mukesh--people from Sri Lanka, surprise, talk like people from India. I'm sure the language is very very similar. Anyway, he told us stories about the Buddha that I wasn't familiar with, like the one about a monk who decided to go ask for alms in the evening because that's when people take the time to make rich food. The Buddha didn't argue with him, even though this was against their vows, and when the monk got a bowl full of rich food, someone dumped dirty dish water on him, and some of the water got in the food and ruined it. The visiting monk also talked about his childhood and his dysfunctional family, during a question and answer session, since someone asked about behaving compassionately with her teenage kid. And after all this, we each went up to the monk and he tied a multicolored blessed three jewels ribbon around our right wrist. He had knotted the string by hand, rather like a crochet chain. It reminded me of Sarnath.

Oh, yes, also Val introduced me to a couple people who went on Shantum's pilgrimage previously. And they knew some of the people who I met on the Dharamsala trip--in particular Paula and Richard, Manny, and Kathy. It was one of those "it's a small world" moments. And of course Val and I talked about the pilgrimage and India quite a bit. She and her husband and the couple I met at the meditation center are all going trekking in Bhutan and Nepal, and it turns out that in Kathmandu they'll be staying at the Vaishali Hotel, the one where I stayed.

Greetings from California!

I'm visiting Val right now, in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA. She took me on a tour of a Tibetan monastic community called the Medicine Buddha, which was pretty much out in the woods (like redwoods), with winding paths and prayer wheels and a temple with a big gold Buddha and murals telling the life of the Buddha and children rehearsing for a play. And there are seven special places where there's a wooden sign in front of a bench, and the sign has dharma quotes from a book by the Dalai Lama called Lojong something something. There was also a little pond containing timid little coi.

Then we stopped at a little cafe and got snacks and beverages and took them to the beach, where the water was very blue with white waves along the sand, and we were actually on a cliff overlooking all this, and there was a concrete ship rotting away in view of us, just off a pier. Not a safe place to climb on anymore, rather like a condemned building. I rather enjoyed seeing seagulls and watching doggies playing in the waves.

We went to an idyllic place that's actually a nursery, and it's called the Bamboo Forest (I kept thinking the Bamboo Grove, because that's a place we visited in India, an early monastery of the Buddha's). It had a shop where you can buy bamboo mats and pottery and bamboo fences. There were also paths into the bamboo woods, with a wide range of bamboo--I had no idea it came in so many thicknesses and colors. There was a pond with a waterfall and a gazebo, and in the pond grew what looked remarkably like lotuses. They may have been water lilies, but they sure looked like the lotuses we saw in India.

Tonight I'm going with Val to her sangha, Vipassana Santa CruBhante Seelagawessi who's from Sri Lanka. This is so exciting!

Tomorrow I'll be driving to the Los Angeles area and visiting my cousin Teddi, before I head for Phoenix the next day.