Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

Going into the weekend, I realised that it was only the second one I have been able to spend completely at our new place since we moved five weeks ago. All I had on my calendar were a couple of roams. While it had been lovely to get away the weekend before, we both found ourselves very tired afterwards.

As with any good weekend, I tried to spend as much time outside as I could. The roams benefitted from fine weather, especially Friday afternoon in Golden Gate Park; it has been pretty pleasant most days in the city, while everywhere else struggles with more extreme temperatures. Ruth and I also got to walk around the neighbourhood more, and try the third of the local farmers’ market – the North Beach one, which is much smaller than those at the Ferry Building and Fort Mason. I took a couple of short rides on Friday and Saturday, and then, looking forward to a longer one on Sunday morning, spent several hours in fog, including the thick damp kind up above Daly City. It was good to get out for three hours though – what used to be my baseline is now a bit of a stretch goal after recent months of not getting enough miles in.

Then we had another round of jolting news, with Biden stepping aside. Personally I would have prefered Gretchen Whitmer to Kamala Harris, but I guess we have to take what we can get, and I feel more optimistic than I did beforehand. This week I have taught on being in the middle of history as it unfolds, how stressful it can be not to knowhow the story ends.

After my accounts being drained with the costs of moving last month, money has been flowing back in: getting the deposit for my old place back, and being paid for recent work at Zen Center. It’s nice not to worry about that for the time being. I did recently see the figures for what qualifies as low income in San Francisco, and my best year, a couple of years ago, just brought me up to the level of “very low” for one person. I suppose I have a simple life.

Tuesday started with another visit to Mukunda, where I am offering in-person meditation in the morning. It hasn’t taken off yet, so if you have been tempted to come, please do, or else it will be cancelled. I went to work afterwards, and the person I was sharing the space with was snuffling a bit during the day. Since someone else in the group had tested positive for COVID, my co-worker was encouraged to take a test at the end of the day, and it turned out to be positive. I came home monitoring myself carefully – another moment of stress where we don’t know what the outcome will be. My first test was negative, and so far I feel okay, but I will keep testing until the roam on Sunday. Certainly I know a few folks down with the disease right now.