I’m going to save the update on the Four Acre Zen Center until the very last in the hopeful anticipation of having some very big news to report. (I think that’s called a teaser?)
While slightly more than six months in the future, the Summer of Sangha is shaping up rather nicely. More details about that as it unfolds.
Following three or four conversations over the same number of days with parents encountered in various businesses, all of whom spoke about their concerns for their anxious children, it dropped in that perhaps it’s time to explore anxiety through the lens of awareness practice. One father whose ten-year-old daughter is nearly paralyzed by anxiety told me that their family doctor informed them that doctors are now being encouraged to test all children eight and older for anxiety. When I asked if this meant so medications could be prescribed the Dad nodded his head sadly saying, “I’m afraid so.”
Here’s my question: Would that be of interest to you? As a practitioner of awareness practice would that be something helpful to explore? I ask because what dropped in for me as a way to approach the subject is to ask people to write to me, anonymously or not, of their experience with anxiety. What it is, what it feels like, what happens as a result of it, how it has been affected by a practice of awareness if at all, what you feel/think/believe about it, how it shows up in the lives of people close to you, how you approach it, what you “do” about it. Would you be in favor of an email class on anxiety as a way to explore your own relationship with anxiety and learn about the experience of others? It has occurred to me that an email class could be the “launch pad” for the larger, fuller expression that you could send to me. If this is of interest to you, please write to me at anxiety@livingcompassion.org to let me know. If folks are interested, this will be an evolving project and, much like the Summer of Sangha and everything else in Life, we will just follow along as it unfolds.
Four Acre Zen Center: What a lesson in evolving and unfolding. And learning! Recently we’ve been reminding ourselves how grateful we are that the work is being done at this time of year. The rain and the softness of the ground are making obvious what needs to be done to protect buildings from the rain and the softness of the ground. The “Mash Tent,” being built into the side of the hill down which water naturally gravitates, had a propensity for leaking. This was the need for the Great Moat around the back and west side of the building. The trench went down below the juncture of slab and concrete “stem wall” so that the connection could be sealed and leakage prevented. The Great Moat is now filled with gravel which covers the perforated pipe at the bottom of the trench. It’s currently not terribly attractive, but then a floor covered in water is not terribly attractive either. We’ll go for the gravel which we can likely cover with a layer of dirt and plant something on.
We grow more enthusiastic about Around Again, our local recycle, reuse, repurpose headquarters. On the trip to find a sink for the little “kitchen” in the Tent, we learned about GreenSheen paint. What a find! Recycled, inexpensive, great quality.
Glad I waited for a report on the progress at the Mash Tent. What a day! Three plumbing trucks each with its own plumber, two electricians, and James the earth mover. Yes, we got the sink ready to be installed, but that was barely a beginning. Of course all of this would be much, much easier if we weren’t dealing with a concrete wall. Drilling through concrete to bring in and send out wires and pipes is not the ideal. But they’ve done it. Loud, dirty, and altogether heroic.
The heavy equipment gets the job done! The water is being diverted from the building.
Today the work of the professionals ended and tomorrow it’s all on us amateurs. Lots of cleaning and painting and maximizing the positioning of potted plants to camouflage the worst of the irreparables. There are just some things that will remain in the realm of wabi-sabi regardless of the best efforts to fix them. We taught the words and concept of wabi-sabi to our contractor who immediately started referring to it as wasabi. Close enough.
The amateur crew is really good…
Tomorrow we meet the chap, passionate about Giant Sequoias, who is going to dial us in to the where, when, and how of planting said magnificent life forms at Four Acre Zen Center. As if all were not perfect enough already!
In gasshō,
ch