Foolish gibberish
“Do not indulge anger – cultivate equanimity. In the realm of the selfless dharma, not contriving reality for the self is the precept of not indulging anger. Not advancing, not retreating, not real, not empty. There is a brilliant sea of clouds. There is a dignified sea of clouds. ”
– From the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts.
(note to self: Every time I read this my mind is boggled. contriving reality for the self? what does that even mean?)
Every once in awhile I will look at one of my photos and I will say to myself, “Monica, you’ve made a pretty good photo there.” I can probably count on one hand the photos I feel really and truly good about. This is one of those photos. I really like it alot. It helped that when I took it I was hanging out with two very talented pinhole photographer friends of mine, Donna and Gretchen, and that I basically stole their composition. 🙂 Well, copy-catted them anyway.
We had such a great day! I swam in the lake with a unicorn mask on. It was fun!
this was made with my Zero Image 4×5 camera and a 120 roll back. Ektar film.
Way back in April I talked about my home darkroom project. Well. The dream is alive! A few weeks ago I made my first print! I And last night I worked on my second print, which is featured on this post.
I have been making contact prints from my 4×5 zero 45 shots. This camera is very challenging on many levels and making prints adds a whole new level of challenge, but I am enjoying it. This is not the best print in the world but I like it. Darkroom prints of your own photos are infinitely better than negative scans, in my opinion.
My dear friend lost her zen teacher last week, suddenly of a heart attack. Not only is this a great loss for her (which in and of itself makes my heart break for her) this is a great loss to my sangha. He was the co-abbot of Dharma Rain Zen Center, which is the “mother ship” so to speak. Our little sangha falls under the Dharma Rain umbrella. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for this, and in turn, we owe Kyogen a huge debt of gratitude. His leadership has set the stage for us, and has allowed us to be what we are. I have never met him but I feel like he is a part of me because of his teachings.
Last night at our sitting group we had a beautiful memorial for him. This was the first time I participated in a Zen Buddhist memorial service. It started with zazen and about 10 minutes before we were done with zazen one of our teachers quietly made an announcement about the ceremony.
When I am sitting in the zendo I pick a seat that faces a window and has a beautiful view of Mt. Hood. Generally, when sitting in zazen you are supposed to face a blank wall so you don’t have any distractions. But I do allow myself this one luxury sometimes. I guess because I am still so new at this. I will marvel at the view for a few minutes but then my gaze goes down to the carpet a few feet in front of me (like it’s supposed to).
When our teacher was introducing the ceremony she talked a little bit about Kyogen and how he has been so important for our sangha. As she was talking my gaze went from the floor to the view because something caught my eye. It was light that had caught my eye. Until that moment it had been a gray and dark, rainy day. I couldn’t even see the mountain from where I sat. But at that moment when I looked up there was the most glorious beam of light shining down on the foothills in front of the mountain. I kind of couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It gave me chills and I wanted to grab my friend who was sitting next to me and point out the window but felt that it would be inappropriate to do so. So I sat silently in awe as I watched the clouds light up with the sun.
It was a beautiful moment that filled my heart with hope and love.
When I was a teenager I worked at Baskin and Robbins. Like any minimum wage job, it was thankless, despite being surrounded by all of the ice cream I could ever want to eat.
One night as we getting ready to close a woman came into the shop. She was pregnant and she wanted an ice cream sundae. We were out of hot fudge. I had to tell this pregnant lady that we were out of hot fudge. I told her and she flipped out. She couldn’t believe a Baskin and Robbins was out of hot fudge. But we were. I couldn’t change this fact. I couldn’t magically make hot fudge appear out of nowhere. I was not the Jesus of Baskin and Robbins. So I had to just keep telling her that we were out of hot fudge and she kept becoming disappointed and angry with me. She couldn’t accept the situation. She left feeling very disappointed and I felt horrible for denying a pregnant lady her hot fudge sundae.
Blatherskite 