All the talk was of the coming rain, and it blew in right on schedule; the transition from the last hot days, Friday and Saturday of last week, was abrupt.
Luckily I was able to make the most of the last heat and stillness, getting outside on my bike, and on a well-attended and enjoyable roam, as well as sitting on my deck listening to such a variety of birds in the trees. On Sunday, I volunteered with the Bicycle Coalition for the first Sunday Streets in a while; it was wonderful, even in this age of Slow Streets, to experience the party atmosphere of Valencia Street hosting booths and dance troupes; I had many nice conversations with people about bikes and the city. And I made it home before the first wave of soft rain.
Seeing how the forecast was shaping up, I planned to take a short ride on Wednesday after an early class, but the rain got there first, so it turned into a day mostly filled with studying for the final Zen Center class on Hyakujo and the fox. Even though co-leading is way less pressure than being the sole teacher, I noticed feeling stressed about what I was going to present most weeks (except the third week where we focused on Dogen), perhaps because the material is not what I would have chosen, so I didn’t feel like I was on such firm ground; I am grateful to Zachary for all his teaching work and presentations for the class.
I had to get all my wet-weather bike gear out to go over to the studio on Thursday morning, and though it had blown away by the end of the day, I felt a little depleted before the class started; I still managed to say what I wanted to, and we had some wonderful contributions from the attendees, as we have each week, but I could definitely feel some spaciousness at it being over. That said, I have plenty in my schedule that I need to work on, which I had consciously set aside until the class was done.
In the midst of all of that, there was a wonderful response to the public release of the Suzuki Roshi archive, which I have been working on extensively for the past couple of years, and that felt very gratifying. I will write more about that on Monday.
Shundo David Haye 