Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

A couple of days after the trip to Tassajara, I woke up with an enormous headache. The last time I remember feeling something like that was at the beginning of my case of Covid, so I was relieved to test negative this time (I took three tests in a week in the end). These days it’s easy to fear the worst, but I also heard of other people getting colds and other seasonal bugs. I wanted to ride, but didn’t have energy for much in the end.

It was a sunny end to the week, and the Saturday roam, in particular, benefitted from still skies and warmth. As a large group sat by Lake Merced towards the end of the afternoon,  I reflected on how few days of the year it would as pleasant to do so.

After the roam, I set off for the East Bay, as I will be looking after my girlfriend’s bulldog over Christmas, and wanted to take at least one bag over there; on Sunday we did some errands on a rainy day. I went back to the city the following morning for my Monday group, after which I headed across town to be collected by Zachary for the last of the three shuso ceremonies, at Green Gulch. We passed through a dense downpour as we crossed the bridge, though thankfully it let up enough for me to wander round the garden with my camera before the event itself.

It seemed prudent to wear a mask for this; by Monday the bug had passed through the sore throat stage and had settled in my sinuses, so I was quite noisy as we sat in the zendo. Had the shuso been someone I didn’t know as well as Steph, I might have begged off, but – rather like with Andre, she was someone I had sat four practice periods at Tassajara with (this time in my second stint), and she had also been there in the run-up to the 2008 fire. 

On the dharma seat she was most self-assured, invoking love, warm-heartedness and doing things for the sake of all beings, as well as gently throwing the questions back on the person asking them a few times. It felt like the longest of the three ceremonies, and I knew Zachary had a talk he needed to get to, so he left me to come back with Tova and a few others. This meant I got to stay for dinner, which I don’t always get the chance to do at Green Gulch, though I was also wanting not to linger too long, as I had to get myself back to the East Bay afterwards with more stuff. I was glad to stay and chat, though, and glad that a truck which had blocked a section of Highway 1 as we headed back did not detain us too long as we could take to the back roads. 

I also had to get up very early (even by may standards) on Tuesday morning to see my girlfriend off to the airport, which, combined with not feeling 100% still, made for a tiring day, though I made up for it on Wednesday by doing almost nothing!

And I have plenty of open days ahead of me until we get through the New Year. The rain may have moved on for a while, so I will go back to the city to collect my road bike on Friday, and hope to make much use of it over the week ahead.