August 19th: I have arrived! I am Home! – this is one of Thay’s calligraphy sayings that is hanging on the wall of my house, for those of you who have been there. It’s also one of the songs they sing – we sang it this a.m. after breakfast.
Didn’t have an adaptor so I haven’t been able to post before. Today is Sunday, the first day, or day of arrival, for the German retreat. 900 people are expected!! I think the other 2 beds in my room will be filled by tonight. I have a lovely room on the first floor of the smaller building here, where the offices are and Doug spends a lot of time. He lives across the walkway in the larger building, that was a 200+ bed hospital. The ground floor has been renovated and this week, on the 22nd there will be a grand opening ceremony, since Thay is here.
So let me start at the beginning. The flight from Boston was smooth, although I moved around 4 seats before I got settled. I know I had reserved, on the transoceanic part of the flight, a window seat. But I was assigned a middle seat in the middle row when I got on board. Eventually I ended up with two seats, near a window to myself. So I was able to kind of lay down and, I think, sleep for part of it. Watched The Artist before sleeping as I hadn’t seen it before. Enjoyed it.
Had a long walk across the airport – maybe 25 minutes of fast walking – to get to my KLM flight in Amsterdam. We flew low so I got a good view of Holland into Germany on the way. When I came out of the gate in Dusseldorf, no Doug! I figured probably two bald guys in brown robes shouldn’t be too hard to spot! I hung around for a bit, then spotted a McDonald’s close by to get a breakfast sandwich. As I was waiting for it to be prepared, I spotted the two brown robes! We met up and he had a monk from Indonesia with him. He’s just visiting for a year in Plum Village (PV for future). Doug looked healthy, wonderful! We headed out to the van and headed for Cologne (Koln) to visit the Dom or large cathedral there from maybe the 11th or 12th century. Not sure as everything was written in German and we didn’t find an English guide. We parked by the train station (Hauptbahnhof – refreshing my German!) and walked to the Dom. It is in a constant state of being cleaned and there was large scaffolding over one of the peaks. Doug said there is always work being done on it. Many of the windows had been blown out during the war and the surrounding area had been leveled. So this area of town was relatively new construction. It was a Friday so it wasn’t extremely crowded with tourists and we were able to wander around and see all the side altars, many with what looked like maybe crusaders tombs? Went downstairs under the altar to where the past archbishops of Koln are buried.
We then headed back to the autobahn and out of town to Waldbrol, the small town east of Koln where the monastery is.
One of the nice things, for me, is you can walk down the driveway and be near the main street of town. So yesterday, Saturday, Doug and I walked around downtown as I had a few errands. We had a wonderful pizza lunch and then ice cream, a favorite here with the community.
Doug had meetings all afternoon (he is really pretty much in charge of the upcoming Italian visit/retreats and was doing a lot of organizing). I rested for awhile, already have blisters on both sides of both feet from my new (mistake!) shoes/sandals. So today have switched to my sneakers for relief. Then I walked back into town (this was before the blisters) again and tried on my own to find an adaptor plug for my computer, cellphone charger and curling iron. No luck after pretty much covering the town. But this morning, Doug came up with one for me to use!
I stopped during my walk back at the pizza place, with a lovely outdoor terrace, and had a heavenly beer and French fries!
I had a bit of salad when I came back at dinner but wasn’t really hungry. Doug also provided me with a selection of peaches, nectarines, oranges, bananas, and an apple. I also have walnuts, protein bars, chocolate covered almonds to snack on. So I won’t go hungry.
Doug invited me to the Italian trip planning meeting in the main hall of the large building. There were about 30 monastics there who are going. I’m going on Thursday with Doug and one other monk, flying to Milan where we will meet two others, one from PV, and one coming from Thailand. We are the advance team to check out arrangements with the Italian sangha for Thay’s public talk in Milan after the Rome retreat. We will stay 2 nights there and then train to Rome and check out arrangement there. He said we are staying at a B & B owned by one of the Italian sangha. There are only 2 rooms so I may try to find another B & B nearby so the guys aren’t all crammed into one room because of me! We’ll play it by ear. This Italian sangha is apparently very accommodating, very anxious for this retreat to occur. Not sure if Thay has done a retreat there before. Hopefully I will have time, either by myself or with Doug, to do some sightseeing there. Would like to see the Last Supper in Milan if I can. And then some sights in Rome.
Right now there are a few (maybe 30 or so) Germans here who are lay staff to help out with the retreat. And a large group arrived from PV yesterday of monastics. This is the largest retreat they’ve ever held here. Tents are set up behind this building for the overflow. There will be 10 food station rows plus a children’s line and an Express line for those who have to go through quickly to get to a work station. Everything is set up under tents outside, each Dharma group will meet somewhere under a tent outside, but have a backup place inside in case of rain (which is expected 60% chance tomorrow). For those who haven’t been to a retreat, basically each morning after breakfast and working meditation (everybody helps clean up!), Thich Nhat Hanh will speak for maybe an hour and a half on some talk (a dharma talk). Then after lunch each monastic and assistant are assigned to a group of people (30) to meet each day with the same group and have a discussion. So I will just follow along with Doug’s group.
So far the weather has been beautiful, cool (for me! They are all bundled up and think it’s cold!). Doug was actually stopped by a reporter when we were walking around town yesterday and asked how he would deal with the coming “heat wave” today!! It’s apparently been a very cool summer here, unlike America!!!! I actually saw some leaves that had turned yellow and felt a nip of fall in the air yesterday.
Doug said Madrid is on a latitude line with New York and we are 16 hours north of that. So I’m figuring it must be close to Montreal or so latitude-wise!
There is a large pine forest and hills behind the hospital/monastery but I haven’t hiked up there yet.
Have seen a few familiar faces: Phap Lai, from UK; Phap Linh (Dylan) from UK and he visited my house last fall; Jackie, Sr. Peace, whom I met in Saigon in 2005 when she was still a lay person, from D.C.; Sister Juwel, from Atlanta, whom I also first met in Saigon, and then one other time. I remember she had graduated from Stamford, her father was a Baptist preacher. I just met him, Al, here when Doug introduced me. He’s been in Europe for 3 months, here and at PV. We had a nice discussion about Houston where he grew up. We’ll talk later.
So that’s all for now. I’ll try to load a couple of pictures to add here. Wish I had Michelle here to help me! She’s so good at this! But I’ll give it a shot!
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