The shuso twisted her ankle yesterday, and we decided last night to have someone else ring the wake-up bell. I had a note on my door this morning saying she didn't want to do the jundo even. I opened the zendo for her after breakfast, which I never mind as it gives me an extra few minutes to drink my coffee after oryoki - and no-one senior had showed up for breakfast, so I had to open the zendo then as well.
Arlene gave a very sweet talk to a full Buddha Hall, which I cannot link to as I quickly realised that there was nothing being recorded - I guessed that in dismantling the equipment to test for the funeral, I had managed to inadvertantly disconnect the record feed, and since she started the talk with a request for silence for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, I couldn't start pulling the cabinet out and rummaging in the back for a stray cable. Laura was particularly upset that this prevented us from livestreaming as well, not least since Arlene had people expecting to hear her over the internet.
The newcomers' table was mostly filled with students from CIIS, some of whom had some very insistent questions that I did my best to confound, but as always I enjoyed meeting the people who came.
Then another test of equipment, in the brief window of time before the EPP programme took over the Buddha Hall for the afternoon - and to my joy, with a minimum of fuss and almost no swearing, we managed to do a complete transmission chain from camera to laptop to livestream to laptop to projector and sound system.
Now it is time to put another hat on - I go over to Green Gulch for an overnight with the Coming of Age group before coming back for the funeral rehearsal tomorrow morning. I sat in the bath, shaved my head and gave some thought on how to present the precepts to twelve year olds, and whether I bought enough chocolate to make smores on the beach tonight.
7 comments:
It's one of the little delights of spring that arrive with unswerving regularity. Most noticable for me when it's light when I start and finish my shift at work or at home when you can catch the sunset by going for an evening stroll rather than going out in the middle of the afternoon. Interesting to see the change between years.
Good luck in trying to install precepts in 12 year old minds. I could never install anything in a twelve year old mind, mind you, they could never install the 4-4-2 arrangement or the offside rule in mine so it's only fair.
Good old Wikipedia, now I know what smores are - look good.
Thanks Sandy - I hope you read the update. Sorry I didn't think to translate 'smores' for non-Americans. They were definitely a surprise to me when I first encountered them.
I read the update earlier but hadn't got round to commenting yet. Nice contrast between the centre and camping - yurts are the luxury end of camping (unless you have to put it up yourself, in which case you might be glad to go back to poles and canvas)
Hi Sandy, this is a pretty permanent yurt, I suspect it's been in place the best part of twenty years, so we didn't have to build anything except the fire in the stove. The plastic sheets that served as windows weren't exactly close-fitting though.
Ah, was wondering happened to the livestreaming of Arlene... "“Technology is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.” CP Snow (1971).
Yeah, sorry about that - and it was such a lovely talk as well...
By the way, your sister called up today, which was sweet - and not during silent time either, which may be a first. We are keeping her entertained with magazines, but I expect you know that already.
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