Last weekend was packed, mostly with pretty fun stuff. On Saturday morning I had the first of the three Dogen classes, with a full screen of folks following in – at least I hope they were following. I felt like I talked a lot, but when I listened back to the recording later, I was glad that I had covered most of what I intended to, and also went off on what I hope were helpful tangents. I feel good about the next one, and hopefully we will be in a place to dive whole-heartedly into the more expansive material in the third class.
It was a lovely day, almost warm (it has been notably colder than it should be since about January when we had the warm spell that encouraged the blossoms to come out), and I would have gone for a little ride, but I was still pretty tired from riding Tam – and waking up early in anticipation of the class. So I sat on my deck watching football until it was time to put on my robes and go down to Zen Center.
Dan has been a great shuso, and when I saw that he looked a little nervous at the beginning of the ceremony (as everyone is) I almost wanted to lean over and whisper to him that he would do fine, which he did. As always, after the ceremony there was a chance to catch up with people, especially those who were visiting for the sesshin and who I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see.
On Sunday, with my legs still tired, I had a medium-sized ride over to Pacifica, then over Skyline and across to the Bay, which felt just right. On the way back I went to a gathering of folks who are campaigning for a better Valencia Street for everyone – a reminder that this is my other community – and after a brief rest, set off for the afternoon roam.
We had a nice group, as always, and even though this was a little more urban than most, around Ocean View, Ingleside and Merced Heights, the places we got to stop were charming, with great views. The wind was still cold though. At the end of all that, I definitely subsided in a heap with my usual post-roam pizza and beer. I still felt the effects of all that on Monday, as I tried to catch up with little things, then went out to sit, onto South San Francisco to teach, battling the wind all the way back to BART, and back for the Dogen study group.
Shundo David Haye 