Gasshō,
When the time came to write this blog, I thought there wasn’t all that much to say. Turns out I was, dare we say, wrong? When engaged in the day-to-day, it’s easy to lose sight of just how much is happening.
We are about two weeks from the first Summer of Sangha retreat, and, yep, no building. As the process of approval from the building department dragged on, we realized it was prudent to just go ahead and resurrect the old tent from last year—hedging our bets; belts and suspenders, as I’m fond of advocating.
The good news is that it was waaaaay easier to put it up the second time. The pallets had been carefully stored under a tarp against the winter rains, and so with a brush off and a touch up of paint, in they went. We’ve happily been able to have meditation and group “at home” for the past two weeks.
However, a nudge to the permit suppliers produced nothing other than “well, m a y b e by the first of June.” Suspenders time! Order another tent, get additional pallets, get the covering for the tops of the pallets (to turn them into little floors to hold a zabuton and zafu), get the paint to make them sparkly and we’re all set, whether a permit comes through or not.
Then, just when we thought it couldn’t get more suspenseful, our lovely contractor, Kyle, called to say he’s going to proceed with ordering the trusses for the Gazebo. Apparently, it will take about three weeks for them to arrive, and he figures even the overworked building department should be able to come up with an okay by then. In the meantime, if it comes through sooner, he can build everything up to the trusses and be ready for their arrival.
We had about two weeks of glorious weather, simply ideal for building, dry, warm but not too warm. This was the period we all, including Kyle and Chris who had come out to oversee the project, thought construction would happen. Not in the cards. The gorgeous spate has been followed with all the rain we need to stave off conversations about drought. Too soggy for Bee (remember Bee, our bright yellow zero-turn mower?) to do her job.
Blessedly, it seems we’re heading into another dry period with some sprinkles but nothing to slow down construction. Will the building happen soon? Will we start and then need to postpone during the retreat? Who knows? Not us. It’s a true “maybe yes, maybe no” situation, the kind practitioners of awareness relish!
One of our projects beautifully accomplished, even as we got much-appreciated rain, is the fence. If you’ve been here you know what a gift to the eyes that fence is. The Gazebo will contribute to the disappearance of neighboring property by taking up about 30 feet of the fence line, from the old entrance up to the corner toward the greenhouse.
Speaking of “old entrances,” this retreat season we have a new approach to parking vehicles. Last year locals got a bit testy that we took up so much of the parking in front of the park next door. To keep peace in the ’hood, we won’t use the gate we came in last year.
Here’s the plan:
1. We won’t park in front of the park or walk onto FAZC via the entrance to the park, as many did last year. (If you’re coming for retreat, this will all be explained again in the confirmation; this is just to keep everyone informed about the goings on.)
2. We’ve opened the gate that is about 100 yards further up 3rd Ave.
3. We will turn left through that gate at the “1718 sign.”
4. A “parking attendant” will be on duty the first day of each retreat to direct you to a parking place in the field at the top of the FAZC property.
5. The original gate we came through last year will be kept locked from now on.
In case you’ve been wondering how Bee is getting on, let me assure you she has found a loving home here. If you’ve ever driven past someone mowing a big area on a riding mower and thought they were working, please be disabused of that erroneous assumption. In fact, we’ve kidded about offering rides on her as a fundraiser during SOS retreats. The only thing a person needs to be watchful about is not letting the “inner teenager” take the controls. Refraining from spinning brodies is challenging!
We received the surveys asking about virtual or in-person practice from Sangha. Hearing from a number of folks that not even the cost of finding accommodations, food, and transport but also the overwhelm of doing all of that is a stumbling block. We began to explore how we might mitigate some of those issues. A couple of interesting possibilities have come to light.
One is to create a “tiny abodes” community here on FAZC that could contain some simple, “bed-sit” options for visitors. The other, truly in the really? stage, is the possibility of a group of Sangha going in together to purchase a local motel that is for sale. That motel would be available for Sangha as well as non-Sangha, and since it comes with a restaurant and an additional ¼ acre of property, could be developed into a sort of mini-in-town monastery for Sangha. The design of it lends itself to becoming something like Villa Angelica at Carmel, without the Pacific Ocean across the road. This could develop in many ways, one of which would be as an income opportunity for the owners. We have looked high and low for a facility at which to offer a retreat. Not only is everything booked up for at least a year, prices are very high. We could offer practice inexpensively at the Monastery because we owned the facility and we were the staff. Other groups are probably having the same difficulties finding space and we could provide for them. Anyway, there are lots of ways for this to go. You can let us know if any of this is of interest to you and, as you can tell from this blog, we’ll keep you informed whether you’re interested or not!
And, finally, if you sent in a question for the next book but weren’t notified about what’s happened with that, here is that info. As a way of clarifying and cataloging topics for the book, we recorded the questions and a response to each. These recordings are available for anyone who sent in a question. Contact the Guestmaster (information@livingcompassion.org) for access to them if you didn’t receive the notification.
In gasshō,
ch