this day in history

Kimmie and I were out in the sun at the waterfront park we simply call Automall Park, because it's next to the Auto Mall. I took my prose sketchbook and made an entry, but noticed that I'd made my first entry in this sketchbook exactly 3 years ago: 19 July 2002, while I was attending Nitartha Institute, a 4-week intensive on Buddhist philosophy, at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. I was still a temporarily ordained monk at Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton. I'll present that entry as it was:

FRI. 19 JUL 2002 7:26 am CUTHBERTSON HOUSE, MT. ALLISON U.

The two mosquito bites on the back of my neck itched freshly as I lay in the morning dimness. Could there be unseen "mozzies" sharing my room? I lay, refraining from scratching.

I didn’t want to get up, didn't want to be at Nitartha Institute, didn't, above all, want to be a monk: didn't want to get into my robes, which seemed more like greasy overalls to me, like the body which people with near-death experiences say they don't want to go back to. I just didn't want to. Samsara: wanting things to be be other than they are.

Fresh frustration: when I tried to talk to Colleen, the coordinator, on her way in from lujong, to tell her again that we are out of candles for Rinpoche's talk, she put me off by whispering, "I've gotta have a shower." I guess she was worried about not being first in the bathroom. It's a frustrating annoyance, even humiliating.

According to Pönlop's last vajrayana talk--

Colleen reported back immediately after her shower: "What can I do you for?"

I'd give all my Nitarthas
For a single Kim-mee-ee...

Thus I imagined singing as I returned to my chair with my second mug of coffee.

Yesterday: Tsomo and I in the household kitchen, getting breakfast, having trouble with the Spanish omelette and the colored turkey-strips that were standing in for bacon. In her interview with Rinpoche he lightened her load of ngöndro so she can return to shamatha practice when she returns to lay life in November. Rinpoche came back after breakfast and talked about Vancouver. Steve Seely was there. Rinpoche and Steve each left, but Steve came back in to go to the washroom. I asked Tsomo whom to contact about an interview with Rinpoche. She said Steve. I felt that the gods had sent Steve back to provide me with the opportunity, so when he came out I asked him.

"He gets a lot of requests in the last week," Steve said. "Everyone wants to see him."

"Well," I said, "If he can’t, then so be it."

Steve's eyes were steady and blue: the stillness of the 3-year retreatant. He looked into my eyes and I looked calmly back. The request was from the gods; it was bigger than either of us.

"He usually sees everyone who asks," said Steve.

"Okay. Thanks."

Steve left. I asked Tsomo about the protocol for an interview with Rinpoche. Yes, three half prostrations.

"And I could let you have a katak," she said--an offering scarf.

"I’ve got one," I said. "I bought the last one in the Abbey store."

"Ah..."

Another sign. Sign of what, though? At dinner, talking with Sherab, I found out that he, like Tsomo, had received fairly detailed life-instructions. Pönlop told Sherab that his main contribution will be music, with perhaps some translating as a side activity. So Sherab is excited about practicing piano for a year after leaving the Abbey, and auditioning for the masters program at the University of Washington.

"Whoah," I said, "you came out of the interview with a 25-year plan."

Pönlop is both Tsomo's and Sherab's root teacher. I'm quavery on the topic of my root teacher, but I'm pretty sure it's the Sakyong.

Two days later I ruptured my left Achilles tendon while playing doubles tennis on a day off, and soon, unexpectedly, was winging my way back home--and to The Age of Pisces.