On Tuesday Doug had a long morning meeting so I headed off myself downtown to the Apple Store at Catalunya Place. Doug needed a wire so I went downstairs and quickly bought that. Then I had uploaded some photos from the camera and couldn't find them on my iPad. I asked this young woman, one of the "geniuses" wondering on the first floor to help me and within minutes there they were!! We hugged and were so excited to have found them!! I said I had learned never to delete the photos when they ask if you want to, until I have checked that they are there somewhere!
I had written to the bike tour place that I had used last Friday for my four hour tour around BCN to see if maybe I could get a discount for a private group of the monastics around town with their own guide. One of the employees had written back that we could get a tour for only 25 euros each! I had only paid 22 E for my tour with 8 people! So I walked over there to see if I could do something in person. The young woman manager came down and was very nice. She said she'd have to check with the owner and would email me as he was in a meeting. She emailed later and said he had " great respect for the Buddhism" and could offer us a tour for 20 E each! I don't think the guys will be able to fit it in anyway, as they have these planning meetings each morning.
Doug was not feeling well and has a deep cough and he said someone here in the sangha had arranged a doctor's appointment for him tomorrow but he went to the session that evening. After a few songs and a meditation with the whole group, we followed Valerie and Sr. AnNghiem (Peace) outside, down some steps and to another building and up two flights of stairs. I had taken a folding chair with me as the day before we had been sitting in a circle on the floor in a hallway and I just can't do that! Of course, when we got to the room., it was regular classroom with desk chairs! Daisy had insisted on carrying the chair for me this whole way! "It is my pleasure!" She sweetly insisted. So of course when we finished, we didn't return to that big hall! And she carried that chair all the way back to my dorm room, that she would come the next day at 5:30 to take it back the next night. Even though she's not even staying here but downtown in a hostel somewhere and had to go back to the metro at 9:39!! She's too much, but that is the way the Chinese would also treat me, just because I was an "elder".
The theme for the discussion was emotions. Sr. Dao (the French sister who had arranged for me to stay at Maison de l'Inspir in Paris) gave an example of being in a grocery line , in a hurry, and then all of a sudden, some woman cuts into the line to hand a little boy to the cashier. She talks to him for a few minutes while the people in line get more and more irritated because of the delay. Finally the child is taken away and the cashier resumes checking people out. When this woman gets her turn, she says to the cashier, "What a beautiful child!" The cashier says, "Thank you! That's my son and my neighbor takes care of him as I work two jobs and never get to see him. My husband was killed in a war and I have to work to maintain us so she brings him over to say goodnight so I can have a minute with him! "
The point was our perceptions on things can change when we give someone the benefit of the doubt instead of letting our irritation build to anger! I I think that was the point.
So in our group, we were directed to share if we wanted, some emotion. then usually people do not respond to so, Ron's sharing. But Valerie wanted us to try an 'inquiry"questioning of the sharer where one could ask the sharer an open ended question regarding what they had shared. We tried a few but I'm not sure if our group was successful.
I just stayed quiet as there was a jazz group practicing in a nearby room and none of us could hear the sharers very well!
I walked back to my room with Daisy to put the chair there and then went down to the common room on the first floor. Valerie and Sr. Gina and her friend were there frustratingly trying to get on the Sagrada Familia website to order tickets for later this week. They didn't want to wait in the long (how do you spell it, Judy?). She hadn't been here last Thursday when we had all had that wonderful guided tour and tickets had been already provided by the local sangha. Valerie had never been to BCN before and wanted to see some of the highlights. It was very loud and noisy with young students playing pool and ping pong and just chatting! Think college dormitory! But no alcohol is allowed and smoking only outside.
While I was working on my iPad, two women came over to talk with me. Doug had mentioned the first night that his mom who had been a teacher in America so everyone now knew who I was. They were two Sylvia's from Portugal. They had just met here but wanted to tell me how wonderful Phap Lu is and how much they and the others in the group appreciate him! They are amazed by his command of Spanish language! We chatted for a bit I and then headed to bed around 11 pm.
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