Monday, 8/20/2012 - Mom's birthday

Monday, August 20, 2012 – just realized today would have been Mom’s 92^nd birthday. Happy birthday, Mom! Miss you!

I have a few minutes after breakfast and before Thay begins his dharma talk to finish writing about Sunday. Doug, Phap Lindh (Dylan from UK), and the Indian monk whom I met at PV last year as an aspirant and is now ordained, walked into town for lunch. This was the monastics last shot for this week of going into town so they wanted to eat out. We found another outside café and ordered several appetizers, hummus, etc., cheese bread (looked like a pizza) and a veggie pizza and a big Greek salad for the 3 of them. I had Wienerschnizel (really dry and NOT what I’d been anticipating) and salad and fries. We were very hot by this time so had several bottles of mineral water mit gasse (sparkling water). Some other monastics had been eating inside and brought us their water as they were leaving. I guess they all had the same idea.
On the way back we stopped at everyone’s favorite ice cream place but this time we sat down and I had a banana split, others had berry sundaes. All delicious! Only 15 Euros for all 4! It’s the bargain of the town, apparently.

We had a very hot walk back (this is a heat wave for them – apparently it’s been over 100 degrees at PV) so I showered and lay down for awhile. The German retreatants were arriving between 1 and 5. Overwhelming!! I got two ladies from Munich, one who speaks some English and the other not. The first one has a paralyzed left arm so she wasn’t able to make her bed so I did. She looks maybe late 40s or 50s. This room is made for 2 (only 2 closets) but they added another bed so we are scrambling for space.
At 5 or so I went outside into the crowd registering.

 

Met Tom and Katherine a maybe 30 something couple who live east of Bavaria near the Czech border in the forest. She is a potter and he is an osteopathic doctor. We were supposed to meet with our dharma group, mine and Doug’s is called Ananas – pineapple, for dinner. I wasn’t in the least hungry so just took over some tea. We were lucky, meeting inside Asoka, which is the big building they are renovating. It was relatively cool inside and had cool marble floors. Doug is the monastic facilitator and he had a German nun, newly ordained, as a translator. He explained inviting the bell to start and she was translating everything he said. When someone came a bit late, he rearranged and had me sit between him and the translator, so I could hear her English really well. It was very sweet of him to even think of it!! I was grateful! So every afternoon this group of 30 Germans and me!! And Doug and the translater will meet I guess to discuss the talk this morning by Thay. We will also eat dinner together every evening.

Then after dinner was the opening ceremony of the retreat. Monastics (that refers to both monks and nuns) were on stage and behind Thay seated was Sr. Trai Nghiem, the Japanese sister who stayed at my house last fall, who gave me the names of some friends in Japan that were so helpful to Betty and I traveling last year. She is a concert-level violinist, 5 years ago was playing with the Berlin Orchestra traveling around Europe, and decided this was what she wanted to do. Then Dylan, a Cambridge graduate and high level cellist played. Doug was on the drums (right behind Thay so I couldn’t see him much but he kept a great beat!) and Phap Lai, from UK, on guitar. They played and then accompanied the chanting. It was beautiful!

Doug’s main job here for this retreat, besides being the monastic facilitator of the Ananas group, is the webmaster who puts the live stream of this retreat on line. So if you go to www.plumvillage.org and find German Retreat, you might see the opening ceremony. I know he was streaming this morning when Thay was giving the first dharma talk.

I didn’t sleep too well last night as now we are 3 crowded into a small room for 2. Also it’s HOT here and we opened the windows. But then it poured rain and I woke around 3 to hear the rain pounding on the awning downstairs. Then at 4:30 while I was still lying and tossing and trying to get back to sleep, after a trip down the hall to the bathroom, they started chopping fruit outside and downstairs under that awning. That’s where part of the kitchen is, set up outside, so they were starting on breakfast. Have to get an early start when you are feeding about 900 people!! They are pretty efficient about it. Breakfast is my favorite meal – oatmeal, probably soy milk (they are vegan here – no animal products), nuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, and fruit. Oh, and bread and various spreads. Nutella is very popular.

That’s all for now! Next I’ll write about the “Hearts” project. It’s pretty amazing!