Winter in Sequim is a fairly mild sort of time, but regularly cold enough that outside painting is not recommended—hence the continuing color scheme of the mash tent. However, Spring seems to have arrived with the time change and, with the arrival, plans for painting and planting and preparations for the Summer of Sangha.
As you know, if you’ve been following along with these messages, we’re quite thrilled with the progress on the mash tent. It no longer smells, its coats of “green” paint and installation of six windows have made it light and airy, only that eyesore of a front door left to address. (Yes, calling the door an eyesore could sound harsh, but keep in mind that you didn’t see it. Total strangers made those kinds of comments about it! Empirically speaking, it’s ugly. One person wondered aloud that that door was ever constructed and purchased in the first place. Poor thing.)
Now, thanks to another successful visit to our local Around Again recycling yard, we have a front door that, while no one will accuse it of being a beauty, has the merit of not being an eyesore, plus is much more in keeping with the tone and flavor of the mash tent. A coat of paint is all it needs. True, it sticks on one side and drags on the floor, but that is not the fault of the door nor of those installing it. When floors slope in every direction and concrete walls are not plumb, there’s only so much one can expect from a door and from those installing it. We’re going to love it. We already love it.
While we’ve been mostly unable to proceed with outdoor tasks—aside from getting the woodshop up and organized—the mash tent has been functioning wonderfully as a recording studio. Recording our books has been a dream for years. With the advent of ebooks, the disappearance of bookstores, greater awareness of preserving trees by moving away from printed materials, and Recording and Listening moving into a prominent place in practice, the time has certainly come.
What our sound engineer Jen and I didn’t expect is how fun it is and what great practice it is. We’re hearing similar comments from folks listening to the books. “Huh, I don’t remember that. I didn’t know that was in The Key (There’s Nothing Wrong with You, The Depression Book, The Fear Book). I had to pull out my copy to be sure it actually says that.” Especially for old, old-timers (those folks who have been around for as long as these books), it’s like re-connecting with an old friend. And, it simply is different to listen/hear than to read.
Being immersed in the process is just a plain old good time. In part, it explains that experience most practitioners have of “getting” something for the first time and realizing they’ve heard it hundreds of times. Of course, the voices of ego want to toss in a wet blanket of “well, duh!” but, as always, ego is wrong. That’s just how it works. We encounter Truth. It resonates. If we’re paying attention, we feel it. There’s that little spark of “ah, yes.” We feel happy, up-lifted. But it’s no big deal. We go right on to whatever follows and very likely never think of it again. Then we get another hit of the same Truth. (For me it was “it’s not what, but how.” The difference between content and process. Took eons for the lights to come on with that one.) Again, it feels good, but it’s already sliding over into the “known” category. On we go with those little “hits,” until one day we get it. Bliss.
I hear people talk about getting talked out of practicing, being convinced by ego voices that, as the book title says, “I don’t want to; I don’t feel like it.” Not knowing they’re not ego, that the voice is not them, they go along with it. It’s very sad because what everyone wants is to be happy. In our lucid moments we know that going along with ego’s distractions, endless conversations with ego in conditioned mind, is only going to end us up in self-hate and feeling bad. But in that moment of vulnerability, we fall for an ego scam once again. As we know, ego never delivers the happy, feel better, have what we want because it can’t. Well, also, it doesn’t want to. What does deliver the happiness we seek? Practice. How? By bringing us into the moment, into thisherenow where happiness is.
Does this mean we have to quit doing everything else and spend the rest of our lives sitting on a meditation cushion? Of course not, though ego would threaten us with that. “If you keep up this Awareness Practice stuff, you’ll never have any fun, never get to do what you want, never have what you want.” Au contraire. Only awareness will deliver what we want, happiness, and every moment we spend practicing awareness gives us that happiness. Every moment we spend with ego resisting Awareness Practice is suffering, it’s true, but ego talking about not wanting to practice awareness is not Awareness Practice!
So, give adding some audiobooks on Awareness Practice to your practice. Even ego can’t complain about the price (free!). And, if you add listening to them to activities such as chores, walks and commutes, ego can’t manage a counter-argument that you’ll fall for. We hope!
In gasshō,
ch
The Recording Studio
An Entrance is Transformed
The Shop gets organized
