Act II:

There's a girl in a class I'm taking right now who always wears sandals. This is bothersome as it is, since I'm not a big foot fan, but what really affects me about this particular woman is the shade of her feet, which is that of a cadaver. While the rest of her has a normal California sun-touched hue, her feet are the off-white purple of a dead body. She has what I like to refer to as: The Deadfoot. And every time I see it, I feel like those things are just waiting to drop off. The day-glo red-orange nail polish isn't helping as much as she may think, either.

...

I'd like to share with my readers the first picture that comes up when you do a Google Image Search for the word "technology."


That just brings a smile to my face.

...

Thanks to my new system, which supports a dam holding back the entire experience of Buddha Camp inside of me, I am allowed to write a new entry and convey these new observations and considerations without first having to get through the entire story, which is a long one. Rather, they give me reason to actually sit down and get the thing down on cyberspace, which I am thankful for. That being said, this entire entry was inspired by my being grossed-out by some broad's dead-lookin' feet.

Gross. That's gross.

She's gross.

...

Update: She's now my partner in a scene we have to perform for the class. For the love of God, I hope she starts wearing close-toed shoes.

...

Shambhahalalala: Rebels of the Awakened Heart

It's impossible to say how long I could have remained in my self-induced isolation there at the Shambhala Mountain Center. I avoided much conversation in the hours I spent in the bus with pretty much everyone I was going to be spending the retreat with, but even then they were asking questions and attempting to engage me. When we finally arrived at the Center, and were told where we'd be staying, I immediately began talking with two other guys there in specific (I'm at a loss as to who broke the ice to who first) and, through them, found the springboard that would allow me to act more myself (knowing I had a strong foundation of friends) and garner the favor of others. I can be painfully shy, if I don't know anyone that I'm around, say at a party or on my own somewhere new. However, if I have even one foothold in the social situation, a friend who is the host or a group of friends who like me and are there with me, I won't have any trouble.

At least, I think that's how I work. I'm pretty sure that's how I work.


So while we unpacked, made ourselves at home and decided who would sleep where, I had two new friends to get comfortable with. People who I'd try to stick as close to as possible until I could open up a little more. The accomodations, while public (one large room for each sex) were comfortable, and not at all run-down or primitive. We had running water and everything. I had a bed with a foam mattress which was comfortable enough (I'd brought my own pillow and a blanket) and the little coat rack I had served well to harbor my jackets in between outins outside blah blah blah. It was interesting how much they served towards bringing us closer together as a community, seeing as how we couldn't really shut each other off by hiding in individual rooms. Most of my clothes stayed in my bag until they were worn, and were then relegated to my empty bag at the end of the day, which served as a makeshift hamper until we had to leave. I always meant to move my socks and dundies and things into the shelves of the coat rack... but never got around to it. I could call that a demonstration of some abstract Buddhist principle, but the fact of the matter is that I'm a lazy, lazy man.



So lazy.



The dorms were formally called Shutoku, if I remember correctly, but also bore the nickname "Tiger Lion." In Shambhala Buddhism, there are four virtues, and four animals which represent them. These animals are the tiger, the snow lion, the garruda (which is a huge bird... which I guess you can just make the fuck up if you want to) and the dragon. They represent meekness, perkiness, outrageousness, and inscrutability, respectively, and each with a healthy "but not the way you'd think of the word" definition. In the summer, when parents would bring their children with them on retreats, the kids were separated into four groups corresponding to the virtues according to their age, youngest to oldest, in the order listed above. The two youngest groups lived in the dorms we were now living in, which explained the closet full of toys, the crayola drawings posted to the wall, and the very, very small toilets.

Which my good friend and distinguished colleague Poopowski has been kind enough to elaborate upon.

The curriculum set up for us was one that took up most-if-not-all of our time on the mountain. Daily, we were treated to new classes on various forms of meditative arts, intense meditation sessions, and lectures from our lectern of delightful teachers, ranging from Joe, the stand-up comic from New York who was once an attendant of the Rinpoche himself, the Cassell, a Mississippi native fond of colors, and Nina, the professional clown.

I'll begin with her, since her lectures were the ones I had the most problems with. Nina headed up the "Dharma Arts" section of the lectures, and was the actual teacher on subjects of clown-ing, or just motion. Many of these exercises were improv-comedy actor type exercises which I am somewhat critical of, as I find them to be slightly invasive but mostly time-wasting. She'd go on about her theories of what went into the Dharma art, concepts of execution and gathering and staging and whatnot, but it was all somewhat disjointed and I found I had trouble committing to them, probably because she did too.

One notable exception was "Negative Space," which quickly took up a position as the "Exercise Most Likely to be Used As It Was Intended." This was embraced by everyone who attempted it as the one extremely fun exercise, resulting in tons of goofing around and very little taking-seriously. Basically, you partner up, and one person strikes a pose. Once you've decided on your position, your partner attempts to use their body to fill in the negative space left behind by your body (any space left open or unoccupied by your physical body. This means the hollow of a fist, squeezing between limbs, putting yourself flush next to the general shape of someone else, and led to tons of hilarity. My partner, at one point, couldn't see how she was going to position herself in my negative space without me moving (which is against the rules, of course) and, seeing the only possible course of action would be to slither into position as if crawling through a tunnel, stated, "Wait, I'mma snake this." That is the funniest thing anyone has ever said.

This game later led to the practice of holding up one's hand, all fingers except the middle raised in defiance, and screaming, "NEGATIVE SPACE" at each other from across the compound, serene and beautiful as it was. This gesture would become our private communication, one shared and repeated throughout camp and after our return home. Truly, negative space was a glorious construction.





Dharma arts held other joys, as Nina did not always teach a class (which mostly consisted of clown workshops, including one in which we actually had to, simply, be clowns. Which I RIEGNED at). Sometimes the art being demonstrated was shown by a guest speaker, such as our training in the Japanese art of Ikabana, or plant-arranging. Fascinating stuff, which had much to do with the tenets of Buddhism right off the bat, while at the same time being a medium often used by Trungpa Rinpoche himself. Apparently, he was known for his beautiful Ikabana. The basic ideas of the art are that there are three structure to consider: Heaven, Earth, and Man. Heaven is a high-reaching branch of some kind, which evokes the sky and the heavenly sphere. Earth is low and solidifying, serving as a foundation. Man is often represented as a flower (the most prominent flower, perhaps, as flowers are by no means disallowed in the other categories) and is found between Heaven and Earth, unifying them both as per the meditative concept of the Earth being below you, the sky above you, and only you yourself in the middle, dividing them.



You can create some truly beautiful art, and the school of Ikabana which our teacher came from was one which relied heavily on spontenaity and creativity, which allowed for tons of freedom and openness of thought. Personally, my creations were fairly minimalist with some concepts as innovative as I could muster, and I tended to steer clear of jushi, or "friends," which basically serve as filler to flush out the piece (the dharmatic equivalent of baby's breath, though obviously much more interpretable).




We were also treated to a class in the art of kyudo which is a form of meditation centering on the practice of archery. I was a little bummed to learn we wouldn't actually be practicing archery, just watching someone talk about it and then witnessing demonstrations of it. Something of a let down, as I ended up having to go the entire week sans weapons (save for a brief but frenzied pillowfight near the end). The man demonstrating the practice was a key part in both the opening and closing ceremonies of our time on the mountain, so getting to hear from him about the specific meanings and practices of kyudo was still pretty interesting.



On our second night there, Nathan and I formed the Midnight Stupa Club, which essentially consisted of us both hiking up to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya at around nine-thirty at night. Very cold, very long, and somewhat spooky all by ourselves. It was a perilous journey, at one point taking us through a small bich grove which was said, by the locals, to be "bad ground," where some kind of atrocity had taken place, a battle or slaughter of some kind. Something which resulted in bad juju on that particular spiritual "low-ground" of the land. I'll tell you, in the middle of the night, with almost no light and complete silence, you'd be ready to believe it too.

And then there was the mediation. Oh, so much meditation. We spent hours meditating, daily, and I can honestly say it was the most liberating and clarifying thing I'd ever done. It was profound, the change that came over me, the energy I felt after beginning the day with a solid meditation. Shambhala teaches you to sit and focus on your out-breath, your in-breath taking care of itself. So you sit, sometimes for as much as two-and-a-half hours, doing nothing, your eyes unfocused, and attempting to think of nothing, just putting all your attention on the outward motion of your breath. For the most part, this practice came fairly easily to me. By the end I was able to sit into meditation naturally, though as a novice I was plagued by more difficulties than the more experienced teachers present. We practiced different kinds of meditation, the two most prevalent being sitting and walking meditation, in which you walk slowly around a path, hands held in front of you and eyes slightly unfocused, which serves the same purpose as sitting but allows the blood to get flowing, so you're not sitting for too dang long.

There were tough days. I remember one in particular was not easy for me. I tried to focus on the breath, but I found my mind wandering to making a Myst movie, scenes from films I'd seen before leaving, the most common being a specific scene in Kundun, sex (my steadfast fear), and "Ironic" by Alanis Morrisette... anything but the breath.

Rota, the work detail rotation, was another chance to practice mindfulness, to keep your thoughts from wandering and to maintain control of your mind. Walking and rota, for me at least, were not as much fun as plain ol' sitting meditation, which I found extremely gratifying, even with my aching knees and back (thanks, dad). During one session, a rabbit hopped by the large windows overlooking the garden behind the Sacred Studies Hall. I dubbed him "Meditation Bunny," and called him friend.

I was amazed, most of our stay there, just how well so many people were getting along. We were all so different and myself, along with a few other admitted hermits, were not, by nature, social people. Odd, then, that I should make so many friends so quickly, and find myelf to be liked by so many people so universally among them. This lasted throughout most of the week, and was a constant subject of discussion in our occasional "check-in" sessions our professor Barney would hold, in which we'd talk about how we were dealing, how we were feeling, and basically what we thought of the entire thing thus far. For the most part, we all got along so well it was absolutely unbelievable. When the problems began, then I started to believe it.

In one instance some people had gone to sleep early while the rest of us were still socializing, still enjoying each other's company and the freedom and joy we'd been afforded, and decided to storm into the room and scold us for being too loud, declaming, "I'm really dissapointed in you guys." Well... I don't think I need to explain how annoyed that made us. Many lines were crossed right then, and many people were feeling angry about being talked down to with such disrespect. Another instance in which I was personally singled out perhaps upset me a bit more.

A bunch of us were goofing off in the dorms when suddenly one guy, Justin, stops and says I need to stop messing around. one must understand that, moments prior, he had been somersaulting off of beds and making just as much racket as anyone else, and that when he decided to turn a complete 180 and shut us down, he did so directly to me. The next day, he found me away from the group and proceeded to have a heart-to-heart with me about how he felt "disrespected" and how he was going to talk to everyone there about it, that I was just the first one he'd had the chance to talk to. By that night, my anger welling up and my annoyance at its zenith, he had still not spoken to anyone but me.

I felt singled-out, picked-on, but mostly, and most despisedly, I felt scolded. I felt that some people had singled me out as the person to take out their frustrations on if they don't feel like standing up to anyone else, either because of my generally whimsical nature or my reluctance toward confrontation. By that night, having been scolded by at least three separate people on three separate occasions, I was feeling real anger and resentment. At that night's check-in, I said as much to the group as a whole, that I was angry at three people, and that it was really starting to bother me that I could become angry so easily. All I could do was cling to the fact that it was something I had to work through, and that it was my own anger not allowing me to be happy.

Still. I felt betrayed. For the first time since I'd gotten there, for the first time since I'd made twenty-five new friends in one sitting, I felt singled-out, and I didn't know what I was going to do about it.

Over a month and no update. I'mma have to crank the next one out soon