Tassajara

At sit­ting tonight I sat at my zafu and imme­di­ate­ly start­ed to sob. I was faced with a n over­whelm­ing sense that I was in the mid­dle of some­thing much big­ger than I am. I felt that here I am pro­tect­ed, and maybe I’m able to see myself in this refuge. I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take refuge here in Sang­ha in a way I’ve nev­er been able To before. yet I’m fright­ened of this oppor­tu­ni­ty to take refuge. It seems as though I am afraid of what tak­ing refuge means that I can’t do it myself, That I have to ask for help.

My ego wants me to han­dle life. My ego wants me to believe that I am pow­er­ful over the things that hap­pen in my life. I want to believe that I am pow­er­fud over peo­ple places, and things. It’s just plain denial to believe that, though. So I want to not take refuge. I resist tak­ing refuge. I guess the tears I cried tonight were from rec­og­niz­ing my surrender.

I’m pret­ty calm now. I was pret­ty ner­vous when I arrived here at Tas­sa­jara this after­noon. Was­n’t able to eat much at the lunch din­ing peri­od. But it helps so much to be with peo­ple I know. Hav­ing Taigen here, and this evening hav­ing Adri­an show me what to do dur­ing the zazen peri­od was a great com­fort. It reminds me of when I was in The Fall of the House of Ush­er and just hav­ing Dave there on stage made my per­for­mance bet­ter. It was so clear that Dave knew what he was doing that his con­fi­dence and demeanor rubbed off on me. It was as though Dave was anchor­ing me on stage. Like­wise, tonight Adri­an was my guide and my anchor. Just with a cou­ple ges­tures and a sug­ges­tion or two, Adri­an helped me to see that here I am part of some­thing far greater than I can be by myself. Maybe that’s why I was crying.

There is a mouse in our cab­in. We (Doug and I) have named him Mouse Roshi.

Up at 5 am tomor­row. I must go to sleep so that I’ll be able to get up in the morning.

One More thing that I’m not hap­py about and want to acknowl­edge I don’t have the Mon­ey in my account for The check I wrote to Taigen to pay for this trip. Over­draft pro­tec­tion will cov­er the check, but that is unse­cured debt. I get to start count­ing days of absti­nence once again.