Upasika Day

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm going to a Theravada Buddhist monastery in White Salmon, Washington (https://sites.google.com/a/abhayagiri.org/hermitage/Blog/upasikadayteachings-december3rd) to participate in a meditation retreat. It's about an hour and a half away, but it'll be worth it. I haven't been in a sangha since before grad school, and now that I've got my degree I've sluggishly gotten back into sitting meditation and reading dharma books. I think the retreat will inspire me to "strive diligently," as the Buddha said on his deathbed.

I just made a pot of kheer (Indian rice pudding) to share; it's something I often take to potlucks, but for this occasion it's particularly appropriate because kheer is what the girl Sudatta gave the historic Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, when he took his ascetism so far that he nearly starved to death. The kheer revived him, and he came up with the Middle Way: a practice that involves neither extreme hedonistic luxury nor ascetism that's so extreme you die.

The theme of the retreat will be the Four Noble Truths. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/4nobltru.pdf