The silence system is the wrong approach.  It is an illusion that it intensifies the practice.  It simply provides each with an excuse not to look up and out and observe and note with wonder, and especially to disconnect from the rest of us.  Meditation is only a portion of living. It's not the whole thing.  It's how we live that counts.

My appointment with Lama Surya Das is 4:30 in the infirmary.  I'm not sure what to expect, but it's not this.  I enter a room and no one's here.  Just a table and three folding chairs. A sign: "Have a seat. Someone will be here soon."  Very serious looking.  Not a place for levity.

Now I wait.  4:30 has come and gone. One of the staff comes to whisper the Lama is running late.  She advises me that I'm to have fifteen minutes with the Lama.  There will be a rap on the door when I have two minutes left and I must then sum up.  I either have to speak quickly or let him speak.  I haven't yet decided which course to pursue.  Let it take me where it does. This is a waiting room not unlike Purgatory.

Finally I am led down a corridor to a small room.  The Lama is sitting cross legged on a pillow on the floor behind an altar.   He is in full regalia.  Attendant brings in a chair for me.

"Well," I begin, my voice shaky after not much use, "my purpose in asking for an interview was twofold.  First, I have your video on breathwork and we use it regularly."

"I'm glad to know that," he says.

"And you look like one of my sons.  I bought the video for him too!  You feel like one of the family."

I get the impression he is only mildly interested.  I continue.  "The second reason is that I've been waiting for this opportunity all my life, and I can't let it pass without asking Come se llama Lama?"

He gives me a blank stare.  "I don't speak Spanish," he says.

I go on.  I have no choice.  "And you 're supposed to answer: 'Me llama Lama, Momma.' "

"what does it mean?" he asks.  Still not smiling.

"It means:  What is your name Lama? And you reply:  My name is Lama, Momma."

He barely manages a smile from his tightly pursed lips and I feel like an idiot.

"Are you Spanish speaking?", he asks.

"No, Yiddish speaking."

"My mother will be happy to hear that," he says.

I try to warm up the conversation a little, tell him I enjoyed his reference to Emerson, who was my first teacher and still guides me.  Tell him of my own coming to Tibetan Buddhism, but I know I'm not getting through to him and it doesn't matter anyway.   He's tired.  He shows it. Just came off a 14 day workshop in Austin, Texas.  He's drained.   I might have been a messenger but he wasn't listening.

Then I make a suggestion.  "why don't you conclude your guided meditations with the lion's roar? (a breathing exercise).  It's wonderful and will release a lot of tension.

He seems to consider it.  "that's a good thought," he says.

I tell him we expected to be practicing more on the breath, and he said he was planning to begin those the next day.  I explain we're leaving on Thursday and he says "Why?  Don't you like it here?"

"I'd rather be outside on these wondrous days than in a room."

"Then why did you come to a meditation retreat?" he asks.  "I also teach at Esalen.  And that's more outdoor oriented."

"We didn't know what to expect," I say.  "But it doesn't matter, we learn from all our experiences."  I get up and make my exit. On opening the door, the staffer says:  well, you didn't take long at all."

"Give my leftover time to the next one,"  I say.  Then remembering something, I poke my head back in the door:  "Say hello to your mother for me."

"I'll do that!" he calls.

Some people like to suffer.  They don't feel they're getting it unless they suffer.  Early conditionings make living difficult.  Pleasure is eyed suspiciously making life hard on yourself all along the way.

Tonight' s speaker is Christopher Coriat.  He looks like he'll be a bore, but no, he's very good, clear, lucid, intelligent, communicates with a minimum of fuss.  For the first time, I'm glad we came.  Needed this time apart from all.  Alone with my lover.  Coriat speaks of joy and compassions as states of awareness, (at last) and how to use the appropriate mantras to get us over a hurdle and through a dark  place.  To find the state of equanimity.  At rest with the self.

I sleep soundly, one dream drifting into another. A new day.  A new meditation and lecture about to begin. 

The mediation room has been decorated with three thangkas hanging on the front wall, an altar, flowers, photos on a table of the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, and other gurus I can't identify.  A red Persian carpet runs down the middle which the Lama walks on when he comes in the rear door and heads for the altar.  All rise and press hands together and no one sits till he does.  In the front of the room are the old timers who've brought their paraphernalia of mats, cushions, kneeling devices, all the business of meditation is on display.

In the rear of the room, on a table, is a pumpkin, a prayer book, and a note informing retreatants to leave their prayer requests on the table.

Many men here finger worry beads or wrap them around their wrists.  A rosary.  Or tfillen.  The effect of counting and repeating is the same.  A form of self-hypnosis.

This morning, Wednesday, Lama Surya Das leads us in guided meditation.  He mutters so softly I can't hear a word he's saying. I don't know if he is doing it deliberately, or to what purpose, because he's spending energy on talking while no one can hear him.

During the questioning, someone asks what to do with the thoughts that come through, and he says to ignore them, set them aside, too much thinking about them, detracts from the other experience.

I have a question. He calls on me by name.  "This question is not about my
practice," I say, "but  about my hearing.  I can't hear a word you're saying.  Is it me or are you mumbling?"

"What I say isn't important, he says.  "After all, this is guided meditation. "

"I don't want to miss any words of wisdom."

"You're not missing a thing," he smiles. "Ask my mother."

I'm getting to like this vegetarian cuisine.  My joints seem lubricated and I feel loose and limber.  These hills!

Arturo has also been granted an interview with Lama S. D. at 5PM today.  He
plans to ask him about Qigong.  We have the afternoon to ourselves.  I'm reading.

At the lake again, my favorite spot.  A memorial plaque reads:  "Dance with
the flowers, laugh with the trees, flow with the waters, dream on a breeze."

Arturo and I take turns writing lines in my little notebook.

Improviso

J:  the fountain sprays the water on the lake

A:  lake full of life and wonders

J:  a butterfly applauds us with its wings

A:  Yes!  And it is a Monarch, no less.

J:  No less the twin oaks shade us

A:  and frame a view of the fountain

J:  while Spanish moss adorns the branches

A:  of a tree that is almost totally dead.  The parasite is just too hungry

J:  hungry for love.  That's what the world starves for

A:  I suspect that love is way above the understanding of the Spanish moss.

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