Recent Blog Entries

     Today Johneo and I prepped Stephan and Jessica's Gompa for an earth floor.  We sifted dirt on site to get some real fine rock free material.  We hauled up termite rock.  We overcame broken down equipment.  We ended up haveing to do some picking inside the Gompa.  The floor was too high in some places.  For those who haven't used a pick-maddox (sp?), it's an easy thing to get over the thrill of using.  The ground was very hard and as I tried to drive my shovel into the little piles only to be stopped short by a hidden rock, I remembered the first time I felt joy while shoveling.    It was over a year ago here at DMU.  Doug was using me to build rock retaining walls for all the terraced earth around Michael Dunn's retreat cabin.  I loved that job.  The rocks around his site are top of the line.  Pink granites, grey granite, odd golden conlomerates, cherty flinty smokey greys, white marble like stones of all sizes.  A person would pay thousands of dollars in this sort of material anywhere else and I was having a ball stacking them.  The joy happened while I was moving a dirt pile from one place to another.  This happens a lot at the retreat valley.  The dirt was over the septic clean out.  So there I was, flinging shovel fulls of dirt over my head into a pile behind me.  I looked up into the sun and saw the dirt reflecting light as it flew.  It looked like water. or crystals.  It was so hot outside and the heat had been wroking me for most of the day.  But as I looked up into the particles flying over my head I started laughing.  It was so beautiful this dirt!  Each shovel full was a shot of bliss.  It got to be so intense I was at the edge of crying.  If only I could work like this all day.  What would that be like?  I remember thanking my teachers in my mind as I finally slowed down.  I was thanking them for this place and this opportunity to learn in so many different ways. 

     Before all the building started I was wishing for a way to contribute more to DMU.  I saw so many brilliant people around me who could teach asana, translate Tibetan or Sanskrit, computer wizes', dharma teachers, business professionals, chefs, performers, caretakers and the like.  So when the building started I felt that it was perfect for me.  Now I could really do karma yoga.  Now I could serve in a way I felt capable in.  As I worked I felt my intellectual studies suffer.  My meditation suffered.  I would close my eyes and after ten breaths start dreaming, morning or evening.  I couldn't remember what I had read in class or at home.  This was not good.  It was around this time that Geshe Lotar came to visit DMU.  Geshe Lotar took care of my Lama, Geshe Michael Roach, when he was living at the monestary in India.  The love and compassion and solidity coming off of him is amazing.  I could go on about him but I want to keep this entry succinct.  G.L. was holding a question answer session in the main temple at DMU one night.  Many people asked questions about three year retreat.  Each answer G.L. gave was so right on.  He kept inviting more questions.  I finally asked him about what had been troubling me.  I said "What can a student do who means well but can't seem to remember anything he is reading or learning.  What can he do to improve his memory."  As I said this I looked briefly at Lama Christie who was looking at me with so much love, like a mother.  And Mother-like Geshe Lotar gave me such a beautiful answer.  He gave me a long answer with several things to try.  He told me about a young monk who started out not being able to remember anything.  Over time and effort he overcame it and became a Geshe.  At one point he looked at me and said "As you work, with every stroke or movement, think to yourself "I am removeing obsticals.  I am removing impurities."  You will remove them this way."  I didn't tell him I was a worker. He just knew it.  There is a quality I have felt in great Lamas that have spoken to me.  I can only describe it as something like Real Honesty.  I can feel that they are incapable of lying and the things they say are so true it shakes you deep inside.  And the automatic response in my body is that of trust.  It's an exchange I've only had with great teachers.  Geshe Lotar is like this for me.  Ever since that night I try to remember to take his advice to my daily work.  I am always digging, shoveling, trowling stucco, hammering, cutting, lifting, moving all day.  I feel that if I could make each movement a prayer (I am removing obsticals, I am removing impurities) and do it all day, at the end of a few weeks I would see massive results.  As it is, I do it a little each day.  I have seen a little change.  The amount of which is equal to the effort I put into the practice.  Perfect, eh?  It's only me and my untapped potential out there building your cabin.  May I make it perfect.  MahaSuka!

First the bitter: My dear friend Ven. Jigme called to say she wasn't going to do retreat, that she felt called to do service out in the world to deepen her practice. Bitter for me, because I quite liked the idea of being her next-door neighbor during retreat. Not that we'd get together for tea during retreat, of course, but just having a close friend with such a strong practice 400 feet away would be a strong support to my own practice.

And then the sweet: Jigme said that after talking with Geshe Michael and Lama Christie, who gave their approval, she was offering her partially built cabin to me! What a blessing! What a gift! And then the extraordinary news that the work remaining to be done to complete the cabin would be covered by the donations pledged to me for retreat.

The obstacles to retreat appear to be melting away in a seemingly miraculous show.

Here's Jigme in front of the cabin, earlier this summer:

The cabins look to be different sizes. Of course they are different in terms of the exterior dimensions, but the interior for each is 12'x12'.

This is the panoramic view from the door of the meditation cabin (gotta love Photoshop for stitching multiple photos together so seamlessly). The view is basically north to east, looking towards what I call 'ocotillo hill,' which will have briliant red blooms in the spring, on up to McCollough peak, which separates the retreat valley from the rest of Diamond Mountain land. There will be a wall from the sides of each cabin surrounding the garden area (scraped dirt now), creating a completely enclosed outdoor space, hopefully keeping the bear, deer, javelina, and coatamundi from the garden's bounty.

These next images show the progress Kevin and crew have made over the past month.

Now I'm standing at the northeast corner of the garden looking back towards the living cabin on the left and the meditation cabin on the right, with the rest of the retreat valley and the Chiracahua Mountains beyond to the southwest. The living cabin is wearing the first coat of stucco, and gorgeous door trims and windows installed. The meditation cabin will have french doors and a screened porch on the east side, and there will be a gate between the corners of the two cabins to completely enclose the garden area. The meditation cabin wasn't originally designed with a porch in mind, but to me, it's not negotiable. I'll need the protection of a screened porch to help keep the tiny flying critters from entering my meditation space. The overhang on the south side is 4 feet, so that will be the depth of the porch; just deep enough to squeeze in a chair. We have yet to figure out where the composting toilet structure will go. I'd like it to be situated so I can easily remove the composted matter out to the garden after the second year, but Kevin and I are still pondering the best location.

These next shots are of the interior of the living cabin.

This is the eastern wall of the cabin. The shower will be on the left, and then a counter running from there along to the south wall and wrapping under the south window, where the sink will be. The counter will serve as a desk by the shower, and there will likely be a small propane stove nestled in there somewhere.

This is a shot of the southeast corner. This tiny cabin has two doors - on the south and north sides - which are required by code. Quite frankly, I'll probably never use the south door.

This is the north wall, the door leading out to the garden area and the meditation cabin. This cabin has solar power, and a ceiling fan.

This odd photo is of the west wall, curving around to the north window. This wall will be nearly floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelving to hold all my food, supplies, clothing, etc., with a cutout for a small propane fridge. The big question here is how I'm going to reach to open the western windows, which are eight feet off the floor. The floor will be tile.

The meditation cabin is filled with doors, windows, and insulation right now, so I couldn't get any good pics. The interior is similar to the living cabin, except that it has two huge windows on the north and south (5' wide by 4' tall), and a french door on the east leading into the garden. Because of the depth of the bales, I'll be able to climb up into the deep ledge of those north and south windows and gaze out at the sky. During meditation breaks, of course. I wanted an earth floor, but counterintuitively, they're quite labor intensive to install, so wood it will be.

Kevin and crew are doing an amazing job on this cabin. They're over working on Karen's cabin now, where they've just finished painting the interior and installing the floors, windows, and doors. They're putting on the finishing stucco coat inbetween monsoon downpours. After a well-deserved break for a few weeks, they'll be back to work on this cabin. Bless 'em.  

HI again 

This is jaki - Lama Pelma has asked me to help post the photos taken of her site. I'm still learning how to use this so, somehow the captions for the photos on the previous post disappeared ! Anyway, those photos show Bodhisattva Ben and various stages of the floor being pounded and pummelled into a thing of great beauty - sounds a bit like the path in general :) 

Here are some much earlier photos of the site when work first started and as, day by day, a cabin rose from the dirt :) 

     Second coat of plaster is now done on Vira and Rene's cabin.  Only took three days.  We are unstoppable.  My arms are stiff and swollen with, dare I dream, new muscle.  At thirty four I am finally getting what I wanted so badly at eighteen, some muscles.  During the downpour we cleaned up the inside of Vira's cabin.  Johnneo put nails in the studs so we could hang our "bags" (tool belts) off the floor.  I then proceeded to label the studs with our personal initials in red construction crayon.  Then I put up curtains and a throw rug.  "There", I said with satisfaction, "That's better."  We are stucco cowboys.  Our legend resounds off the walls of the retreat valley.  We know no fear.  

     I've just realized that all the building is just a back drop for people to do more serious practice on themselves.  We're pushing ourselves to complete the building before the deadline and this is pushing up all our issues.  We only have a limited time with our friends.  It's good to be out here with all of them. We do our best to support each other.  I now have a friend who is holding me accountable for my meditations by text messaging me every day and asking if I have done it.  I admit that it is working.  Small things are happening that are helping me.  I get a letter in the mail, then another, then a care package from my mother.  All this the morning after I had been feeling lonely (common theme for me out here) and was about to get into some serious mopeing around but stopped my self saying, "No.  You're going to be all right.  Everything is actually all right."  Then it was all right and three people reached out to me.  The message for me is to do my practice and be grateful and to send people love through the mail. Bless the postal service.  We're so lucky to have it.  It's a beautiful thing in this country.

     I wonder how the rest of the country is doing.  This area is such an island unto itself and so cut off.  But what an island.  The sky puts on a show every evening here.  Lightening comes out of blue clouds.  You can see the rain run in sheets ten miles away.  The sun shoots laser beams across the horizon.  I see square clouds and disc clouds.  Black dot clouds mixed in with pure white dream clouds.  We're in monsoon season right now.  The grass is growing like it thinks it's in Indiana.  Strange plants are coming up that were long dormant.   Each downpour is of epic proportions.  It's the sort of storm you want to go crazy in.  Rip your shirt off and run straight into, shrieking at God, on fire because you finally can have your showdown with the father who gives no answers that you can hear.  Now he's going to give you some answers.  "Is that all you got!?" you scream with Lt. Dan like insanity.  Lightening splits a cactus in half.  "Ha!, You missed!!!" I've never done this but at the right moment I think it could yield something powerful (don't worry Mom).  This land is extreme.  Gila monsters move slowly across the road.  Cows get killed in flash floods and left on the side of the road to be food for coyote and buzzard.  The poor cows, better to die free on the range.  The Cows!  I went to a cowboy museum and there were many wonderful old photos of people of another time.  There were also pictures that were just documenting cow torture.  I'm so sorry.  We've lost our minds and do terrible things to you cow.  Anyone who spends time looking into how we slaughter you knows deep down it is a sick thing we're created. It's too much, it's wrong.   It's an old habit in this world, but we can make new habits.