Phew, the winter has been pretty odd in Northern California this year. Most of it has been amazing: warm and dry. It has been way better than most Finnish summers, but it carries a threat with it too. We might have a really dry summer, draughts and all. But the last 2 and a half weeks it has been pouring down almost non-stop. We spend from October to March in almost total isolation since people mostly visit only for festivals, which happen only from March to October. Now we are supposed to get ready for the first festival of the year but the weather doesn’t allow us to do much.
Some people think that monastic life is just about sitting quietly and always being peaceful, but that’s not the case at all here. It’s ok to stress out about arranging things that have a spiritual purpose. It’s ok to run so much and do stuff that you’re on a brink of a burnout if the goal has true value. That’s actually a form of yoga when all the pieces are in the right place.
One of the teachers in our line liked to say, “work now, enlightenment later”. It’s better to stay completely engaged at first, because that will bring with it the purity consciousness that is required for meditation.
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