Month 3...

every word

every word i feel for you

love songs do speak my thoughts

a quest i’ve had to search for you

and I just connected the dots

no doubts, no tears, fear disappears

when my hands do reach your chest

my certainty, as i speak loud and clear

is incredible to express

for miles and miles i’ve traveled

without you by my side

now each second you are near me

my heart, it beats with pride

so may the mighty ocean

unleash salt water in our eyes

we’ll wipe our faces and unwavering

look up at stormy skies

when you speak you’re building

a house ill call my home

and i will always be with you

no matter how far we roam

we’ll live a thousand lifetimes

with each and every blink

and ill love you more each second

than you could hope or think

every word i feel for you

love songs do speak my thoughts

a quest i’ve had to search for you

and I just connected the dots

Two months in the land down under...

The honeymoon period between me and Australia come to an end over the past 3 weeks. I'm not kicking her out of bed by any means, but the novelty of being in a new place has worn off and I had to remind myself that marching around with a group on nuns is NOT normal.

Highlights:

Cabin Fever
  This one hit me hard and fast one weekday afternoon. I had been cooped up writing papers, reading and doing typical temple things when it dawned on me that I hadn't been my full self in a while.
By this I mean that as a human being with a range of emotions I felt like the solitude within which I was conducting my studies didn't let me get my weird on, a part of daily life I truly cherish. Whether it was trying to get Kevin to sing the National Anthem with me and Nguyen at work, waking up next to Katrina after staying up past 9pm due to our sugary cupcake intake or going to a poetry slam with Kamelya and Ryan only to try our hand at it in the privacy of our judge-free abodes, I had quite a community to explore life with in LA...and those are just examples of people who's name start with a K!

   I quickly remedied the situation with Facebook phone calls to friends so I could word vomit onto my dearly beloved. The frustrating thing is that I am tired of the pixel images; non- moving, non-breathing, non-responsive. This highlighted my reliance on non-verbal cues to read a person as I talk with them and really experience a conversation in 3D. A long term solution of course is to form strong bonds with people here and there are certainly some contenders! I ventured to Sydney to get some real person contact with people. It was great! I walked the Bondi to Coogee trail with a German friend I met in Fiji. We did a little sprechen auf Deutsch and grabbed food. He also got a beer while I drank a delicious sparkling water, my first experience "going out" while not consuming alcohol in Sydney. My body has already formed a new habit of not drinking, so I knew that wasn't an issue but I had reservations about hanging out at a bar but not partaking and how that would effect the mood, conversation, etc. I'm happy to report that I was still hilarious and no one was thrown off by my lack of intoxication. Later that evening I hung out with Shadie at her beautiful place on Manly Beach. Conversation flowed between rehashing events from the past month and planning future adventures. Also worth a mention, big props were given to TFA for setting us up in the world. The following morning I met up with British girl who I also met in Fiji and we had a lovely brunch next to the Opera House. Then, we explored the Botanical Gardens and went into my favorite Art Museum. After a scrumptious pumpkin quesadilla I headed back to the temple in good spirits.


Class
   My second class took place over two weekends and it was much smaller in size than the first one I had taken. Some of the classes are "one offs" that anyone can take and others are more specialized for each major and have pre-requisites. Thus, the Wellness through Leisure and Recreation was more tailored to people who are going for the full masters. The class was also more practice based instead of content heavy. We practiced Tai Chi and meditation and I even got to lead a meditation session, complete with the meditation bell borrowed from the temple, very exciting! My presentation was about deep sea scuba divers and the psychological impact the sport has on them. I learned a lot about the sport as well as the reasons for why people take on extreme risks in the name of fun, some self reflection upon this topic was also required.

Kids
   One of the best parts of my week is going to schools on Wednesday and Thursday mornings to teach kids Buddhism with Venerable Chun (aka Nun or Reverend). She lets me have full control of the class and only directs me about what topics to cover. Through these trips I realized how much I love (and certainly missed) teaching. When I was a bright eyed and bushy tailed 21 year old in charge of my own classroom I didn't care for lesson planning nor did I enjoy having to behavior manage. I am clearly at a different point in my life because typing out page long instructions gives me joy, I love to set procedures and practice them until the kids become well behaved little Buddhas and I plan out curriculum in utter bliss. Nothing beats actually being live in front of the classroom though and watching those little brains work. It's funny how quickly I tapped into that same feeling that I had when I was coaching the dream team with Lianne (there should be a post about it somewhere, so so many years ago) or the excellent 6th grade class I had in Korea that was the best thing ever ever ever (pretty sure I wrote them an open love letter way back in the day as well).

The other benefit is that I get to discuss the topics with the nun and get more clarification and insight into each item we cover so my learning is also extended. I'm truly bummed that next week is the last time I have class and then they go on break and my hectic schedule of marathon classes and 10 day meditation retreats begins in October.


Other:
All the nuns went to a conference in Taiwan and so my daily meditation in the meditation hall as well as early morning Tai Chi is on temporary hiatus. I was able to borrow some 2kg weights from a classmate and now make my daily walks around the lotus pond while doing various arm exercises. I sometimes wear shorts (scandalous) and the tourist almost always stare but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

Namaste

First 4 weeks in the Land of Oz

It’s been 4 weeks since I left the states. I wanted to give myself a settling in period before I began writing my experiences so that first impressions could be vetted, a necessary action because things seemed a little too good to be true. The good news- they still are!

There is something wholesome and good natured about every aspect of my surrounding. First and foremost- the people. I have met the nuns- called Venerables as well as the volunteers and employees who work here and all of them have been kind and welcoming. I do not have a roommate, I originally anticipated having one, but the other international student is a nun and she cannot share a room with a layperson. One thing I really enjoy is watching people greet each other by pressing their palms together and saying “O Mi To Fu” as they pass by. It translates to blessing someone with Endless Light and Wisdom. Just imagine if each person you met you blessed with wishes of wellbeing and endless light…I think everyone would be happier. 

The place. I live at the lodge in a single bed room. Nothing too fancy but very cozy and comfortable. I have my own bathroom in suite  and there is a tea room and a meditation room down the hall. The complex is large and nested at the base of a hill. Sometimes Venerable Xian Xing and I climb the hill after breakfast to look out at the ocean and another nearby hill where a heard of sheep hangs out. We have seen a bunny before, no kangaroo to report however. There are two shrines, a museum, an art gallery and a reading room at the temple. There is also a meditation and Tai Chi room and a cafeteria. The institute I go to is a 4 minute walk down the street. The university is an architectural marvel. I feel like I am in a space ship when I walk around there and the meditation room looks out at the temple which is a nice meeting of east and west. It was designed to have the same color scheme as the temple but with a very modern shape so the blend of the two is very symbolic.

The food. Oh the wonderful wonderful carbs. Not a day goes by that I don’t have enormous platefuls of pasta, noodles or rice with a variety of fresh and steamed veggies. There are curries and mock meats (the only somewhat questionable part of the diet) and salads and we even had flan once! Meal times are regimented. Breakfast at 7:30 (this is immediately after 40 minutes of chanting and 20 minutes of Tai Chi) and if you get there even 3 minutes late all the good tater tots will be gone. Lunch is from 11:30 until 2pm but I usually try to get there at noon as to avoid the crowds. This meal varies the least from day to day because the majority of visitors eat in the cafeteria during this time and they provide more standard fare (rice or noodles) to appease the masses. Dinner is anything from communal hot pot (yay!) to lunch leftovers (less yay! but still delicious) and each meal is always served with some type of fruit. They have a green house in the back of the property as well as some fruit trees so oranges are fresh picked! 

We eat together at tables, sometimes in silence, and there is a blessing that is said before each meal. The blessing is one of loving kindness to all beings and it has become such a routine that I almost did it when I was sitting down to eat in Fiji. Same goes for eating with chop sticks, I often get comments about how I am the only Western person in the room and also usually the only one using chop sticks.

Class. So much to say. There were 15 people in my first class. There is a small cluster of people aged 30-ish (I consider myself part of this cohort) and then another group in the later 40s to 50s and rounding us off there was one sweet man who was retired and could school us all with his knowledge of Sutras. The class was a week long intensive course, starting at 9am and getting off at 5pm with a break for lunch. I learned 2 things: that most of what I had thought of to be “Buddhist” was wrong and that the more I understood the more mysteries there were to resolve. Before the course we were assigned with writing a one page response to a pre-class reading and I foolishly tried to argue that Buddhism refrains from mysticism and it is a rational religion that would not allow for a thing like Immaculate Conception into it’s teachings only to find out that Buddha was reportedly conceive when a small elephant walked into his mother’s right rib cage. My paper got a C. I also didn't do a great job on my citation. One thing that I really appreciated about the Intro to Buddhism class is that we did, just like the Buddha prescribed, practice as well as learn. So each day included a 10 to 30 minute mediation. The Triple Gem is the idea that the Buddha, the teachings (Dharma) and the monks and nuns doing the practice (Sangha) are the way to enlightenment. Thus, we must not only learn and discover, we must also practice these things through meditation. Lot’s more to say about this topic, but I will give it a rest for now. 

Explorations have been limited because I was studying. I did go up to Sydney for a few days and saw the famous Opera House and looked out at the Ocean from Shadi’s Manly Beach apartment! The weather has been pretty cold though, I now know why they make UGGS here! It was so cold in fact that I jetted off to warm up in Fiji. I wanted to get my PADI license because the perk of being in Australia is that it is so close to all of these exotic destination for diving! The diving experience was more challenging than I thought and I loathe taking my mask off 30ft below the surface. The cool part is that once I got over water jetting into my nostrils I saw a shark on my very first dive! A pretty big one about 20 ft away, just chillin. The good thing about Fiji is that since the sea life is so abundant the sharks have plenty of fish to feed on and so they don't go for humans. They called them tame sharks. I also saw a large sea turtle swimming along and it came up to us to give us a "Good'ay mate".

That's it for now. 

Namaste.