November 26, 2003

it’s also about the music

It’s not all Buddhism — all the time down here. I’ve noticed that maybe I’ve given that impression and maybe it’s not 100% accurate. Although, it must be said that while not every conversation revolves around Buddhism, I can count on one hand the people I’ve talked to (in any great detail) in the last three months that weren’t Buddhists. The store clerks and so on don’t count., but a few retreaters have called or shown up which aren’t practicing Buddhists.

Anyway, the point is that we do other stuff too. Many of us are huge music fans and spend a good portion of our day talking about bands, singing songs and talking about shows. On December 12th, Christina and I are going to go to San Francisco to check out the Not So Silent Night... Jane’s Addiction, Rancid, etc. (those are the two bands were looking forward to — more are playing). Should be a good time.

posted @ 9:55 AM

November 11, 2003

punk rock day pics

As promised, here are two pictures from “punk rock day” — where I dressed up like I used to in the old days to try and win a computer.

Pointing out the ID badge I painted on the leather.

Yeah, that doesn’t really scare me... but “A” for effort.

posted @ 10:36 AM

November 3, 2003

samsara of a dharma center

Before working at a Dharma center I thought, “people that work in a Dharma center must have such a blissful life. They must really have wonderful thoughts all the time and have the ‘Midas touch’ with everyone in their life. They must be keeping pure ethics, practice for hours everyday on their own and have big group gatherings where the community comes together and rejoices and practices together.”

Well, that’s totally a distorted view of reality. Dharma centers aren’t that much different than other places I’ve worked. It’s funny, but prior to this job the Dharma was my own private thing. Now it’s integrated into the job, which is both wonderful and horrible. Wonderful because nearly everyone I see during the day is a practitioner. They are trying to watch their thoughts and change themselves. You know this and it’s nice, but if they do something that isn’t in accord with what you think a practitioner should do then it can really wreck your whole day. It can also be horrible because you live and work with the same eight people. If their is a puja and it’s on your day off or after your scheduled to be off then you don’t want to go “back to work” (i.e. into the building where you spend all day) to do practice with people you spent all day with. It’s really interesting, but I am practicing less now than when I had my own little daily practice that nobody knew about.

posted @ 10:25 AM