2010 TC10km Tasty Treat and Picnic Crowd Pleaser

Warm Almond Stuffed Dates with Sea Salt and Lemon

12 pitted dates, preferrably Medjool
12-24 whole roasted unsalted almonds
1tbsp olive oil
Sea Salt
Grated rind of 1 lemon

Slit the side of each date and pull out pit. Insert almonds in the cavity and push the edges back together to enclose nuts. Warm the oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add dates and cook, shaking the pan so that dates roll around in oil until warmed. 2-3 min. Sprinkle lightly with the salt and lemon rind. Toss again and serve. Serves 6.

Enjoy! with friends, laughter and sunshine.....

Birthday card

I thought people would enjoy this image. It is from the front of a card that my sister gave me for my birthday...

No Place Like Om

Tuesday April 20, 2010

Wearing The Robes For The First Time

My oh my, lions & tigers & snakes.

Tuesday night at the Interfaith Chapel, I came out. In freshly, lovingly hand crafted robes, it’s been a long time since I’ve worn a "dress".

What an opportunity for practice!

The stuff it brought up was all fear based with roots that reached in the past. I felt vulnerable and was afraid of being laughed at and not being good enough. There was even a tinge of feeling that I wasn't "entitled".

Logically, I was wearing the prescribed and accepted garb for the activity. Yet inside, out of the depths of the past, rose an image of 17 year old me graduating from high school in an orangish/yellowish/pinkish empire-waisted, puffy-sleeved dress with big flowers and my hair “done” up on my head. I felt awkward, out of place and very uncomfortable. I confess, I did it for my Mom.

As I immersed into the role of jiki, doing sampai, comically trying to sit while tucking robes under my legs and walking in kinhin, I felt at ease. Present. Even, graceful.

And finally, by evening's end, a homecoming.

(This time was for you too, Mom.)

Presence

What is presence?

Being fully aware, present, in every thought, action and word.

How do we practice presence?

By infusing quality into every action, thought and word; submersing into every moment with no concern for the next. No thing is more or less important then another.

How do we practice presence in action?

By fully becoming one with the action with no concern or expectation of the outcome.

How do we practice presence in thought?

By fully knowing that the mind is another sense organ, using it as a tool when memory or knowledge is needed, letting it go when it is not.

How do we practice presence in speech?

By being mindful that words are powerful tools, they can enhance life when used wisely, they can wound when not. Yet at the same time recognizing that the nature of words is their symbolic representation. It is not possible to explain the limitlessness of experience within the limits of vocabulary.

Presence is not a goal; presence is be-ing.

Mitra update

Well, I have talked to Mitra and few times and she is doing well. I like this photo of her. I think she looks radiant.

The blog on the retreat is here:
http://www.peacemakerinstitute.net/profiles/blogs/rwanda-bearing-witness-retreat-5

There are entries for each day.

The question now is if Mitra can get home. She leaves on Sun and arrives home on Mon, assuming everything is flying. The problem is that she is flying through northen Europe and the ash from the volcano in Iceland has caused most of the flights to be cancelled. Hopefully, things will be clear by the time Mitra leaves.

Bodhi Playoffs

So I watched that PBS documentary “The Buddha” the other day. It had its ups and downs. One of my favorite parts was when Jane Hirshfield spoke. My previous blog entry was a quote from her, with a graphic image I thought á propos. Maybe when I post this entry, that previous entry will be right under it. We’ll see.

Anyway, one of my favorite parts of my favorite parts was when Jane talked about us all being Buddhas, were we but to realize it. She talked about walking down the street and looking at each of the people one passes or encounters: “Buddha? Buddha? Buddha! Ah, Buddha!”

What does this have to do with hockey? Everything, dude.

In the intensity of the most focused moments of a high-speed sport, the skillful player is utterly unencumbered by self. This becomes especially interesting and evident when it is a high-speed team sport. And there is no higher speed team sport than hockey.

A digression: In barbershop quartet, there is a phenomenon that happens when the harmony, the blending of the four voices, is just right. It’s called the “fifth voice.” It’s an acoustical phenomenon that is well understood scientifically (you can look it up) but is nonetheless magical: It absolutely sounds like there are five voices, but there are only four singers.

Years ago, it struck me that an analogous phenomenon can occur in a hockey game. Something happens to a team and they start to play as if they were a single organism. The passes are so crisp, the movements so in unison, it’s as if they all have eyes in the backs of their heads; they utterly know where each other is, and they are no longer a collection of highly skilled individuals, but a single being that divides its body into parts and occupies the entire rink that way.

The opposing team is “back on its heels” as the hockey announcers say. If you came upon the game on your TV at that moment, you’d think there was a power play going on. But when you look at the info field at the top of the screen, no power play is indicated. How is that team getting away with having six players on the ice, plus net minder? And then you realize that it’s just the regular number of guys, but they’ve hit that harmony so it’s like there’s a “sixth guy,” like the “fifth voice” in barbershop quartet.

In many fields of endeavour, when a skilled master is fully engaged in that endeavour (singing, gardening, programming, bathing an infant, hitting a golf ball, installing a door, etc.), he or she is Buddha. It might be momentary, fleeting, interspersed with intrusions of self-concern, but those moments of self-concern are interspersed with intense, awake moments of utter dissolution of self and the absence of distance of any kind between mind and everything else. “Between” becomes meaningless.

And then it changes, and the difference between self and everything else blurts out rudely and he ain’t Buddha no more, or at least there’s a bunch of noise going on over top of Buddha. That’s ok. It’s the way of being a human, I reckon. Even Buddha wasn’t Buddha sometimes, I would guess.

But there are sublime moments, quite extended moments, when Roberto Luongo is Buddha. The sublime presence of the high-level hockey goalie in the playoffs is a wondrous thing to behold. And out in mid-ice, there is the speed and flow of that intricate web of coordinated activity: A good hockey game is like the nice flow of meal practice in a zazenkai of skilled practitioners. Everyone just dissolves into a solution of mutual activity and intention. Despite how it may appear to the casual, unengaged observer, there is no ice, no goal, no stick, no puck, no fight, no penalty, and no hockey game. The skillful hockey player relies on prajna paramita with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance and therefore no fear. Gate gate para gate para sam gate he shoots he scores! Hands raised, he skates for a moment in sublime light, and then breathes in, and he’s the guy who scored, and self arises. But then the play begins again, and as the intensity builds, self dissolves, and even the fans in the arena dissolve into selflessness and their dancing and songs are the voice of the Dharma.

Seven Words

“Everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention”.

— Jane Hirshfield

http://practiceofzen.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/36-seven-words/

Mitra leaves for Rwanda on Wednesday

Tomorrow Mitra is flying to Kigali, Rwanda to participate in the first Zen Peacemaker Bearing Witness Retreat in Rwanda.

After a few days of acclimatizing, the retreat will begin on Sunday night with thirty to forty participants (thirty of the participants are from Rwanda). They will start each day in Kigali, the country capital and move out to various memorial and genocide related sites. Personal stories will be told by people regarding many aspects of this profound disaster and they will hear about the works of many NGOs doing reconciliation and healing work in the country. They may even be meeting President Kagame. They will finish on April 16 and Mitra will arrive home on April 19.

Apparently, you can follow the retreat starting Monday April 12 via a daily blog that will be written by Fleet Maull (one of the people leading the retreat). I am told that you can follow the blog at the following website. However, I haven’t been able to find the appropriate link :-(

Perhaps it is best to start checking it after the retreat starts on April 12.

http://www.peacemakerinstitute.net/

With great love, I hold Mitra in my heart and my thoughts as she goes through this experience.

VZC Roadtrip to see Yushin at FAME West

Early in the morning of March 27, four adventurous Victoria Zen Centre members embarked on a short road trip to see Yushin compete in the 2010 FAME West Competition.

We began our trip at 5:30am driving around the quiet city, much of it still slumbering, to pick up one member and then another. Bleary eyes and yawns were the order of the hour.

Arriving at Swartz Bay to catch the 7am ferry to Tsawwassen, we began to wake up and get excited for the trip.

Once on the ferry, we treated ourselves to a tasty variety of breakfasts, many of us choosing the yummy deep fried hash browns. Our hunger satisfied, we settled in for the short ocean crossing to the mainland.

Google Map directions in hand, we ventured forth down strange roads and questionable turns and at points were quite sure we were lost. But our digital directions proved to be reliable in getting us to our destination, even if the road traveled was a bit adventurous and at times a bit surreal!

Single lane bridges, strange side roads, and industrial parks were traveled through but eventually we made it to Maple Ridge, the location of the FAME West Competition with minutes to spare before the event began.

We came prepared with balloons, a cow bell, and lots of enthusiasm to cheer for Yushin.

The event itself was quite the experience, and before we knew it, Yushin was on stage flexing and posing and showing the culmination of all the hard work and training that brought him to that moment. Here is a little video clip of Yushin's performance!

After the performance, Yushin came out and joined us before we began our trip back home. Before this trip, I really had no idea what a body building competition entailed, and seeing Yushin on stage brought home just how much work, focus and dedication was involved. Much respect.