Tag Archives: Zoom

Adios

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I just returned from 10 days in Oaxaca where I visited with one of my meditation teacher friends, Linda.

When I met Linda at our Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock in 2005, she was just retiring and moving to Oaxaca. Now she is 84 and has lived in Oaxaca for 18 years.

So when we had our last meal together, I said, “Farewell, dear Linda. I may never see you again in this lifetime.”

I may or may not ever go to Oaxaca again. She used to be based in California, where many of her friends and family are, so New England is seldom in her travel plans. I cannot truthfully say “See you later. Nos vemos.”

I used to depend on seeing Linda at our CDL3 retreats every 18 months, but due to the Heavenly Messengers of aging and illness, our classmates recently decided to “sunset” those get-togethers. As a group, we are either too old or too infirm to travel, so it’s time for those in-person retreats to come to an end. I wasn’t surprised that our in-person retreats expired. For our last retreat, 16 people signed up, but then 9 of them cancelled due to aging or illness or disability.

I may see Linda on a group Zoom call in the future. A dozen of our 85 classmates do get together every month to talk about EcoDharma, but that little Zoom square is not the same as a 2-hour lunch or a 1-hour walk or an unexpected adventure.

The previous time I saw Linda, we stayed in an Airbnb in Boulder to acclimatize for a weekend before going up to the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Center at 8500’ for what was to be our final CDL3 retreat—a hybrid retreat.

In person, Linda and 3 other classmates and i had the adventure of breaking into our Airbnb because the batteries on the keypad lock on the front door had died, and the host didn’t answer the phone. When you’re in person with a friend, memorable adventures sometimes happen.

Good-bye. Adios to all that.

Another friend recently said that she hates to say good-bye. She just wants to leave, sneak out, get away before good-byes are said. I, on the other hand, like to recognize these sorts of passages.

That’s the reason I held Linda’s hand, looked her in the eyes, and thanked her for her friendship. Just in case I don’t see you again in this lifetime, fare thee well, my friend.

Who Do You Spend Time With?

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If, in your course, you don’t meet

your equal,

your better,

then continue your course,

firmly,

alone.

There’s no fellowship with fools.

Dhammapada 61

Reading this verse from the Dhammapada, I imagine the ascetic Buddha walking down a dusty road. A farmer falls in beside him and chatters on about his sons and his crops. Perhaps on another day, a villager talks about the politics of the village he lives on. Or maybe a young man is in love and tells the Buddha how beautiful the girl is. Oh, if only his parents would agree; if only her parents could afford the dowry.

That’s when I’d want to extract myself as gracefully as possible and ask, “Which way are you going? Oh, I’m taking the other turn at the crossroads.”

Then I imagine another scenario as the Buddha happens to meet up with Sariputta. “Which way are you going, friend? Let’s walk together.”

I start my day by spending Zoom time with my noble friends—my meditation friends. At six, I meditate for an hour on Skype with Elizabeth, who I met at a five-day retreat with Culadasa in September 2017. That retreat offered a bi-weekly study group as a follow-up, and one Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth asked, “Does anyone here want to meditate for an hour in the morning?” I jumped at the opportunity.

In his book The Mind Illuminated, Culadasa recommends meditating for at least an hour a day; I knew I was unlikely to follow through on that intention all by myself, so I am grateful for the spiritual companionship. After an hour of meditation, we chat about our practice for a few minutes. I am inspired by Elizabeth’s steady progress.

Thanks to Zoom, I can hop over to the 7 a.m. meditation at Vermont Insight Meditation Center. Though I am always five or ten minutes late, the timekeeper lets me into the silent Zoom room. Afterwards, I stick around to chat and catch up on any local Dharma news.

My neighborhood meditation group meets at 8 a.m. as it has for the past 24 years. It’s a big enough group that there are always at least two of us; in Zoom times, there may be five of us; if we meet in person, there may be eight. After catching up on neighborhood news and reading a page of a Dharma book, we sit for twenty minutes. We close with chanting the refuges and reciting the precepts.

By 9 in the morning, I’ve spent between two and three hours meditating with my Dharma friends, my noble friends. These are the friends who always encourage me to take the high road, even when I’m feeling low.

Following in the Buddha’s footsteps, I spend as much time as possible with my wise, spiritual friends.