Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

Last week I was largely focused on preparing for my class. Having felt a little under-prepared until after the event at the SF Dharma Collective, I put in a good amount of work in my less-scheduled days, and was starting to feel like I was on top of it. On Wednesday last week, I had been looking for old files on various hard drives, and wondered if I should also do a back-up of my laptop while I was at it. I had done one just a couple of weeks ago, so ended up skipping that. 

At the end of my noon Within class, my laptop gave me the low battery warning, even though it was plugged in, something I always do as a precaution. I tried reconnecting it, and plugging into a different charger, but the computer was not drawing any power. It shut itself down, and would not fire up again. 

I realised that the one thing I had not backed up were my class notes, especially the side-by-side translations I had been compiling. I could obviously redo the work, but would have rather not had to rush around to do so. As a last resort I put the laptop outside in the sun, where, after forty-five minutes or so, I was able to reboot, and immediately throw all my class documents into the Notes app which is shared across my devices.

Since the machine is already a few years old, with an ailing battery, almost no storage space left (despite the external hard drives) a tendency to get warm when I was asking it to do too many things at once, and had just fizzled out a couple of times when trying to connect it to the television, I had been looking into replacing it. I took the old machine down to the Apple Store – thankfully just a short bike ride away these days – and after being seen very quickly, was given a pessimistic prognosis. The credit card came out for a replacement, and by the end of the day I had the new machine up and running how I like it. I left the old one plugged in, and a few days later noticed that it felt warm again – it had charged itself up, so I pulled over all the other folders I thought I might have changed in the time since the last back-up, and gave it a factory reset.

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I have taught classes on many different subjects for Zen Center, though I tend to focus on Dogen and Suzuki Roshi. Occasionally I like to test myself by teaching on something I don’t know so well. Since my early days of practice I have been interested in Yongjia’s Song of Awakening, not least from having seen the exchange between him and the Sixth Patriarch in the comic book Wisdom of the Zen Masters, and subsequently read Nyogen Senzaki’s translation and commentary in the book Zen and Buddhism. 

It seemed to me that the best format for this teaching would not be the usual three- or four-part class series, but a half-day workshop, and so we lined it up for this past Saturday. Then I was asked if I could officiate a wedding in Marin in the afternoon, and, even though I knew it would make for an exhausting day, I said yes to that (and then I was invited to a birthday party for a Zen Center friend in the evening, but I knew that would be a step too far – I was indeed heading to bed by the time the action was due to start).

There was a nice sized group in attendance on Saturday, including a notable poet, seasoned practitioners, and former Tassajara colleagues (among others who had signed up but did not join the live session was a transmitted teacher from a different sangha). This made for a rich conversation, something I am always happy about, especially in this format, which was quite intense, even with a couple of breaks (I had planned for one longer break, but I needed to pee before we got to that point, and we were at a natural pausing point). 

After it was over, I was able to enjoy some lunch before navigating my way through the North Beach Festival to pick up a rental car and drive an hour or so towards Point Reyes for the ceremony; I was very glad that these were mostly roads I was very familiar with from my years of riding in the area, and that I had plenty of time so I could enjoy the drive rather than feeling rushed. The location was quite beautiful – the couple had chosen it as friends of theirs had been married there, and they appreciated the fact that they could host the reception and dinner in the same place. This all went smoothly, and was well-received. I was able to get back to the city for dinner, finding parking away from the crowds.

Sunday was a beautiful day, grey in the morning, as it mostly has been, but just a touch warmer. I had a nice ride in mind, not quite as long as the last couple of weekends, but also challenging in terms of climbing, and I was happy to feel that my legs could cope. After returning the rental car, we had the rest of the day to go out and enjoy the second day of the North Beach Festival. Last year this had been just an obstacle to our various trips moving our stuff to our new place, having to figure out which of the limited ways to access our street were still available to us. This year we wandered happily in the crowds under the warm sun, finding things to eat, and a few things to buy, meeting neighbours, and many, many dogs. 

I have two more weddings to officiate this month, and one at the end of August, but that was the last significant teaching for the summer (unless I get invited to give another talk). I have trips to Wilbur and Tassajara to plan, and our wedding to take care of. The sun is out, and I am looking forward to a bit more mental space.