Doug had told of me that after their a.m. meeting, around 11:30, they were all going to town for lunch at this fantastic vegetarian restaurant so I waited around in the lounge on the iPad.
While I was there, the two Sylvia's were there along with Jose Miguel and the four of us ended up having this amazingly deep discussion for almost an hour about love, different kinds, relationships, how each of us had tried, and sometimes failed too work them out. It is the kind of discussion only a conference/retreat like this can foster, I think. Their English is excellent so that helped as well. One Sylvia is an Occupational Therapist and I'm not sure what the other two do.
Finally the monastics were ready so we headed out to the metro. Half the group was going to visit some garden on the grounds here and the rest of us were going to visit a Tibetan temple and Llama here in BCN. On the way walking Doug was looking for some kind of an offering to bring. Sr. Dao and Doug finally bought bags of fruit in a grocery. He found another store where he found a nice basket and we stopped on the street to arrange the fruit and proceeded to the Temple.
It turns out the Llama was in Germany visiting his daughter. He had escaped with the Dalai Llama from Tibet (his mother was killed by the Chinese but the father escaped with the children) in the 50s. He later became a monk and he's sort of the main Tibetan monk in Europe for the many centers here. Doug bought some books and the book bag says Dalai Llama Barcelona 2006, so my guess is he visited here then.
Anyway the woman in charge showed us around and it's a beautiful center. One main room had a gorgeous mandala, which is a picture made from colored sand. It took a group of monks ten days to construct it from a drawing. They blow the sand in place with little pipes. There was a large photo above it of a young boy, could be someone that is ill. At the end of a time period, they sweep all the sand up and throw it in a river or the ocean. It's a healing tool, from my understanding. I remember taking Doug to Woodbury Yoga Centro back in the 90s when he was staying with me. Later these monks did a huge mandala in the lobby of Waterbury hospital for all the patients there.
There was a small room she showed us where the whole mythology of Buddha's life was painted on the walls. Another room had the holy Tibetan scriptures in flat foldout books were stored. One room had paintings of maybe a hundred martyrs who had immolated themselves to draw attention to the occupation of Tibet. Another room had the actual photos of these mostly young monks. The group did their three prostrating bows to the altar and then we had our photo taken with our fruit offering. It was a lovely visit!
Sacred folded books in special room
Library
Our group bowing three times; me only once as tough on the knees!;
Sr. Dao doing her bows. paintings of. Arthur's on the wall.
Then the LOOONG walk began across town to the restaurant. Doug said a 30 minute walk but it was 59 minutes! The other group from the garden was already eating. This was a raw food, vegan and gluten-free menu! I I didn't know what to expect so I ordered the 1/2 order of the three main courses. It was all deviously different, switch salad, seed wafers, falafel, zucchini a roll with quinoa, potatoes. Doug had ordered this carrot pate on this wafer bread and shared it. It was delicious! I had a strawberry/banana smoothie and aqui con gas -sparkling water.
Doug left after scarfing down his dessert - they were pretty slow on the service - and headed off a bit late for his four o'clock dr. appointment.
I left the group and headed for the nearest metro as I was feeling really tired and not too hot. So I decided when Daisy came at five thirty NOT to go to tonight's session and rest in my room which is what I'm doing now!
Wednesday night's Moon picnic, May 14th
I said I had skipped the session tonight because I wasn't feeling great. But thankfully I went downstairs to see Doug when they came back from the session around 10 pm. There was a gorgeous full moon and a bunch of monastics were going to find a picnic spot and shared fruit, bread, etc. So I went along and it was magical! Sr. Mai Nghiem who lives in Hong Kong, grabbed my arm, which was helpful as we were going uphill on uneven grass in the dark! I had never officially been introduced to her but we had a lovely chat on the way. She told me how Doug had shared at the beginning of the planning sessions for this how grateful he was that I would be here for this retreat. That he had loved me being a teacher and he remembers helping me get my classroom ready in the fall each year. She said she had ordained two years before Doug and remembered him coming to Plum Village with all his long hair. She is from France but I hardly could hear any trace of accent, her English is so good!
So, we sat around and watched the moon move across the sky. We had avocado, apricots, melons, a nutty bread. They passed around a seaweed pate ( I didn't try that!) and some cold pizza - no cheese! While we were eating we saw a huge pig/boar heading up towards us! Then she went back down to the other side of the fence. Apparently there were some small ones too. We figured we were in her path to get to the trash barrels as we soon saw a garbage drive up behind us and pick up the can. So some of the guys took our scraps down to a spot to leave them for her and the babies. One of the monks said they see these pigs all over Barcelona. They reminded me of the Havanas out in AZ near Tom and Roe!
Sr. Mai asked me if I knew a song about the moon - so I shared, of course, I See the Moon! Said it was kind of a family song that we all sing! We walked back about midnight! What a lovely picnic!
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