Back On Seat

It is commonly acknowledged among Zen Center people going to and from Europe, that the return leg works much better in terms of jet-lag. Arriving back on Sunday afternoon, I was lucky enough to have an extra day of vacation time to try to get my feet on the ground. I woke up at around 2:15am on Monday, and had to wait a long time for it to be light enough to ride my bike - it was lovely to be out, and I noticed that the air smelled different, so maybe I was right about the trees. On Tuesday I woke at three, and today at four, so maybe tomorrow I will be bang on.
It has been interesting feeling my way back into the schedule. Even after a couple of weeks away, there is a sense of having slipped out of the routine, and I feel like I am looking at everything a little from the outside, and I will continue to observe how this feels, and when things get back to 'normal'. Having the World Cup and the Tour de France going on is also helping to distract me somewhat from my work.
I am definitely most grateful to Keith, the acting ino, and to Daigan and Charlie the head doans, for keeping everything going in my absence, and leaving things very nicely organised, so I don't have anything to worry about for now.And of course it is always gratifying to catch up with everyone's news, and to be told that I was missed; this is one of the joys of the community. With that, I also noticed how nice it was to see everyone again, not just the residents, but all the volunteer doans, the zendo regulars and even the casual sitters, to be part of the sangha again.