Ango 2011 - Day 27

• Morning Zazen (30 Min @ 1pm)
• Well I suppose this wasn't "morning zazen" but was the first zazen of the day.
• Leaving on a trip to Zen Mountain Monastery tomorrow and so lots to do today.
• Work therefore took precedent this morning and had to wait on zazen.
• However!  I was able to sit with 5 others on G+!  Two of whom aren't Treeleafers, just random Buddhist guys.  
• Today I sat with Peter, Don, Bob, Soen & Louis.
• I also did 30 minutes of suizen afterwards which was wonderful.
• Shakuhachi Practice
• Today's shaku practice was suizen.  
• Was wonderful because I find that when I play after sitting it's so peaceful, so effortless and so goal-less.
• Things come much more naturally...and when they don't..they don't. Absolutely love it.
• Contacted my sensei, Jon Johnston, and asked if he had a copy of the notation for Yoru no Uta...sure enough, about an hour later I was set!
• Spent a good part of the day practicing the first two 'stanzas' of the tune.  Just love it.
• Practice Partner Exercise #4
• The PPE for Treeleaf this week was to do the dishes.
• Sounds simple, but they have to be done by hand, mindfully.
• While doing them I had wished I hard read Instructions to the Cook by Dogen first.  Too much to do, too little time.
• Took me about an hour and a half to do them.  The first half was great.  Just reading each dish and being very careful and mindful of what I was doing.
• The latter half I picked up the pace.  I had wanted to get it done because I began to think of all the stuff I have to do tonight before my trip tomorrow.  I began to stack dishes to put them away and didn't really look nor think too deeply.
• Seems I have the attention span of a gnat...or a toddler.  Need more practice here as well apparently.
• One interesting note.  My wife had received several coffee mugs from her half-brother.  These were hand made ones and on the bottom there was some inscriptions.  We've had the mugs for years and I have never, ever looked at them.  I had assumed that they were just the name of the maker.  And while that was partly true, each one had a little not as well.  The two that I washed had written on them "Love me tender." and "Have a good day. I will too."  Thought that was so neat.  So often we rush through life trying to get somewhere or do something...never realizing what we are missing.
• Evening Zazen 30 Min at 9:30pm
• Going right now to sit.  Will not do G+ tonight unless I notice someone sitting when I head over to the altar.  
• Off to Zen Mountain Monastery tomorrow so will be offline from the blog until Tuesday.  No technology will be a challenge, but very much looking forward to the downtime.