Dhanakosa Jan2010: A Foul Wind

I’m a devoted listener of Ajahn Brahm’s Dharma Talks and have been bemused by his mention of the monks’ practice of eating all their food from the same bowl.

I can’t imagine having my soup, main and dessert all slopped into the same dish. Spicy tomato soup, Quorn sausages, beans and trifle? No thanks.

But then, I’m betting monks don’t eat so exciting a diet.

Thankfully at Dhanakosa we ate very well, thanks to Mike who was running the kitchen of rota’d retreatants.

However. By Sunday morning meditation, I discovered what happens when you feed 30-odd meditators on root vegetables, curry and lentils for two days then sit them in an enclosed space for an hour and a half and allow their body muscles to relax…

It was actually kind of musical…

Dhanakosa Jan2010: I Rejoice in Your Merits.

On the Saturday evening of our weekend retreat, we had a Puja in the shrine room (pictured:view from my bedroom window). This was only my third Puja, but I’ve fallen in love with them. I struggled a wee bit to keep up with the parts that weren’t call and response this time because I’d forgotten to bring my Puja book with me.*

Beforehand Dassini, who was leading the Puja, stood surveying the retreatants with a look of mischief in her eyes. Once everyone was settled, she announced that after the Rejoicing in Merits stage of the Puja we would perform a sort of ‘garland of merits’ ritual.

This would involve turning to the person on your right and vocally rejoicing in something you appreciated about them. They would then turn to the person and do the same and that person would turn to the person on their right and so on until we’d reached back to the first person.

There was much uncomfortable shifting on cushions and benches by those embarrassed-in-advance of this.

Dhanakosa Jan2010: Two Views.

So on Friday we set off to Dhanakosa in the Scottish Highlands, Gus and I, him driving and me munching bags of crisps while we chatted. I’d had Friday off and was well-prepared and though I was a bit anxious about what I thought was a very late departure, we actually made good time*.

After navigating a slightly scary 3 point turn on a single track road because we’d overshot the centre, we arrived to a friendly welcome. As we drove into the centre car park at 6:35ish in the evening, the view was something like this:

Yes. It was very dark and there wasn’t much in the way of light pollution. This was actually quite beautiful.

After stashing the bags in our rooms, orientation and dinner, we had evening meditation in the shrine room, after which a silent period began which would last until the end of morning meditation next day. I sat in a comfy armchair in the ‘quiet room’ and read a book while listening to owls hoot in the forest, then went to bed**.

On Saturday morning, the bell rang at 6:30 to waken us for morning meditation. At around 8:30 we left the shrine room and I was delighted and surprised to discover that that the view, with the benefit of daylight, was actually this:

* Despite the roadworks on the M73/M80 that started in Feb 2009 and will allegedly be completed by – I kid you not – September 2011.

** I didn’t sleep well. My roommate was a lovely guy, but had such a loud snore that it was inescapable even with earplugs!

So..

..how did the retreat go?

It was fantastic. We sat in mediation, we studied the Dharma, we celebrated at Puja, we enjoyed friendship, community, walks in the stunning scenery that surrounded the retreat centre.

And we really, definitely, benefitted.

Rather than a big chronological script, I’m going to make small blog posts about various happenings of the weekend.

So If You Want, Rain God, Go Ahead And Rain.

Today is quite exciting. Firstly, after two weeks, we finally have running water again in our flat! It seems the frozen pipe under the lawn has finally thawed. When the first drips came from the taps we couldn’t quite believe it. Then when the gush came we started jumping around, cheering. You’d think we were the first of the ancients to discover fire.

Also, today I’m off to Dhanakosa (pictured) in the Scottish Highlands for my first ever residential retreat weekend and I’m very excited about it. I’ve been to ‘day retreats’ at the Buddhist Centre before, and to single day Zazenkai a few times, but this will be a new experience.

The theme of the retreat is ‘Steer to the Deep!’* which is excitingly pirate-y (the retreat posted had a big skull & crossbones on it) but it’s obviously all about deepening of practice rather than doing Puja while dressed as Long John Silver or Jack Sparrow. Though that would be cool.

I’m not too sure what to expect. I know there’ll be a fair bit of meditation and there will be the choice of three Suttas in the study sessions: the Dhaniya Sutta, the Meghiya Sutta or the Akkosa Sutta.

I’m an absolute Sutta n00b – my only real exposure is the Dhammapada and Sangharakshita’s book on Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland. So any of them would be new and interesting to me in a study group.

But having read the three Suttas now, I’m really taken with the beauty and poetry of the Dhaniya Sutta, so I think I’m going to go for that.

It should be an interesting weekend. I’ll report back on Monday!

* I’ve always thought that the traditional symbol for the Eightfold Path looks like the wheel of a ship – before I knew anything about Buddhism I thought that’s what it was supposed to be.