Subj:    First Impressions!
Date:    5/5/01 1:21:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time

It is 9 pm on Thursday, May 3rd. I have just completed my first full night and day on Holy Island.

I came for tea on Tuesday to check it out and to see what I might need to buy in the village in Arran.  My reaction to my room was dismay. Stained walls and carpet, peeling wallpaper and chipped paint and the bed….oh my God! One night in that soggy lump would have finished my back off.

Well I returned to Arran with speed shopping consciousness, especially since the ferryman had brought our departure time forward to 10.30 am from the agreed 3.30pm. My innkeeper called his friend the carpet man, who is also it turned out, the furniture man and the bed man for all of Arran. So at 6.30 at night I am in his store in Whiting Bay, 5 miles away, testing mattresses. He had already had dinner and a couple of pints so we quickly made a deal and he agreed to deliver it to the pier for my morning ferry.  I thanked, mostly myself, for insisting I take all those fabrics and little rugs and altar bits and pieces, to turn my room into a haven of comfort.

Well, things got put in perspective today when my companion, on a tour of the west side of the island, told me that most of the residents lived in four foot square meditation boxes in their rooms. These boxes are about 2 feet high and open. They are sized so the occupant cannot lie down to sleep. Sleeping in posture is the idea.

I am on the south side of the island in a house that was originally built for the lighthouseman. I am upstairs by myself. There is a large bathroom with a good shower….Hooray!!!  My window looks east over a large organic garden towards the sea and the mainland of Scotland, an hour away by boat. The feeling is a lot like Northern Maine or bits of Cape Cod.  Mercifully the weather has been great since I got to Arran.  Blue skies, sunny days, calm seas for the past 5 days.  My friends tell me its winter in London.

My companions are mostly nuns and monks ( some are actually lay nuns and monks which means they aren’t ordained)  The gardener and his wife, Dechi, the manager, Chichi, the french retreat mistress, ( sounds sexy… believe me its not!)
Damcho, my guide today, Numgen, the carpenter, Zamcho, the artisan and assorted female retreatants.  All told, 11 people.  28 to 58 in age span. All quite tough physically and not particularly healthy. It is a time warp, back to how things must have been in the middle ages. Food that isn’t grown here is delivered to the north end of the island by boat, a 2 mile hike on a rocky path. It is transported to the south end by wheelbarrow. It is a 4 trip experience with each turn taking about 2 hours. This is because we walk the barrow in a circle around all these different totems each time we pass them on the path.

I have had three good talks with residents and two have told me that they came to Tibetan Buddhism and Lama Yeshe or his brother Akong Rimpoche from mental institutions and alcoholism. Modern world coping skills are not priorities around here.

We eat well. I have enjoyed all my meals. All 4 of them that is. I am starting to detox. I hurt my back badly on the afternooon I left the US and have been doing anti inflamatories, muscle relaxants and ice for two weeks. Do ya suppose it has anything to do with leaving the familiar support system. Schlepping huge amounts of luggage around, packing and repacking does not a healing make. Now that I am settled I am beginning to feel better and I will probably be back to normal in a week.
Otherwise I feel healthier and stronger than I have been in a long time. No allergies here, so far.

My first day was an auspicious one (popular word around here), Guru Rimpoche Day, ( the founder of Tibetan Buddhism). This was celebrated by prayers in the shrine room after dinner followed by offerings to the Deities. I had actually brought Arran made Brie, GoatCheese, Oatcakes and Truffles as my contribution. After an hour of chanting, none of which made any sense to me and was hard to follow, and after many drum rolls, cymbals clashing and bell ringing, we all set about eating all the offering food that the deities handn’t eaten, which of course was all of it.  It was pretty informal in the shrine room, (very, very beautiful space) with everybody noshing away and talking local politics.
Holy Isle has taken rigourous precautions against foot and mouth desease. The goats, sheep and horses run wild here, so there has to be extra caution. There are no day visitors allowed. The poor ferryman is on the verge of bankruptcy.  The island does not have its own boat and is dependent on the ferry…and so on.

In general, I like it here. I can see lots of opportunity and challenge. The residents seem involved with a lot of superstition which I do not relate to, so I must make my own space. Everyone is very sweet and supportive. I haven’t had any time to feel my cravings yet but I imagine it will soon come.

The servers are busy so I can’t upload my photos this moment, however I will try again later.

From this sea of burgundy robes, I send you my good wishes and love

Allen

Subj:    Twenty-One Days
Date:    5/24/01 7:18:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time

You haven’t lived until you have been dive bombed by a gull protecting her nest. There you are minding your own business, strolling along, when out of nowhere dives this screeching creature at breakneck speed with a three and a half foot wingspan. It sounds like a small sound barrier has been broken as it misses the top of my head by 20 inches. This is their island and I better not forget it.

As I’ve been sitting in my meditation practice these past few days, ( so glad they call it “practice,” whew)! These perfectly formed sentences kept on arising in my mind to share with you, not that I can recall a single one now. This nudged me to write another report, partly in the vain hope that I would be left in peace.

21 days and nights, at least 50 sittings and 93 meals. What do I have to show for it?
Well, for starters, beaucoup gas. We all knew I was full of hot air, so no surprises here. That aside, I am quite content. The cookie stash, that by all reason should have been consumed by now, still has lots of life in it. Many of my historical cravings seem to have evaporated and I miss very little. I feel somewhat in awe of this contentment with a simple life and how little it costs. My companions are all paying $5500.00 a year to live here, I pay a special rate because I’m from California, on the assumption that unless it costs twice as much as the rest of the western world, it won’t be of value.

After a couple of weeks of settling in, I decided to set myself a daily timetable. I do not follow the practice schedule of the monks and nuns. They are involved in Tibetan tantric practices involving repetitions of Tibetan texts, tens of thousands of prostrations and different rituals for hosts of deities. Not my cup of tea!  However because I am a serious and committed retreatant, I formulated my own schedule as my advisors had counseled me to. I start the day with Chi Gung followed by a sitting, I do another sitting before lunch, a walk in the afternoon, yoga and a sitting before soup and an optional sitting before retiring. Well, it’s all optional really! I now have this nicely printed out on my wall, to remind myself of what I said I would do.

The first day I did it perfectly. Since then I’ve been wobbling.

Partly this is because I am undisciplined and partly it is because my nervous system is quite exhausted. Some days I just cannot wake up and others I just crash for 2 hours in the morning and afternoon. I guess there are layers under layers. There have been many years of overriding myself in one way or another, so I am not going to be a “type A ” meditator here. If I don’t set achievable benchmarks for success, I will lose my motivation.  Meditation is difficult.  Perhaps more so here because the mind has so little to occupy it, and it becomes a scavenger for content, in the pursuit of silence.

There are so many different ways that people approach retreat. It can be highly individualized or very structured. Many of my companions here have done 7 or more years of formal Tibetan retreat. Waking at 4 AM, doing practice all day and retiring at 11 PM. (Practice is a combination of activities in the privacy of their room that includes some meditation) For others, it is simply withdrawing from the distractions and stimulus of the common culture and reconnecting with Self and nature. I had always heard that after completing a 3 year formal retreat, the retreatant was entitled to call themselves a “lama.” This is true for all those who retreated under Kalu Rimoche and is also true at some centers in France. However in the 30 years that Samye Ling has existed, (the mothership for Holy Island and the largest Tibetan Center in Europe), nobody has been given this title. ( Lama is the Tibetan transalation for Guru or teacher). By retreat duration standards in other Sanghas, 6 of my companions are lamas. Actually I am glad they are not because, although they have subjected themselves to torture, they are not particularly wise or peaceful, just more so than they were before. Actually this is helpful as it lowers my expectations for myself in my own little wimpy retreat. Honestly, it does feel wimpy compared to the trials of some of these folk.

A week after I arrived a large, loud, Spanish monk called Phunsok arrived to occupy the other room on my floor and share my bathroom.  He is here for a month long retreat/vacation. He regaled us all with stories from Samye Ling, where he has been resident for 18 years. After meeting me around the lunch table for 5 minutes he announced to everyone that he liked me. It was almost a Sally Field moment.  We later discovered that we had the same birthday and I wondered, was I as loud upon my arrival as he is? Actually it was the volume of my luggage that was loud. Phunsok has spent 7 out of the past 10 years in retreat.  I almost wrote jail. He is really very sweet.

I have had 2 growth experiences. The first was pulling a 60 pound writing table on my luggage trolley 2 miles from the North end to the South end in the pouring rain, on that same rocky road much traveled by wheelbarrow.. It felt like a real accomplishment and astonished everybody. The other was washing all my laundry by hand. The washing machine has been broken for 2 months. Actually washing isn’t too tough but ringing is really hard work. One of the nuns was watching me and as I was kneading my clothes in the basin I turned and asked her if imitating the action of the washing machine was the right way to do it. She howled with laughter and reminded me that the machine was designed to imitate the hands, not the other way round.

The time here goes very fast and I cannot believe it’s 3 weeks already. 6 months does not feel very long at all and I wonder how much I can accomplish.  The one startling realization is the degree to which I have defined my Self by the way I have responded, reacted or related to my environment, life situations, people and even inner friends. All these reflections of Self arise from something outside of me and have had undue influence on the way I have made choices. The opportunity here at Holy Isle is to develop some new reference points for experiencing Self.  There is in fact, very little here. Minimal relating, one path to hike, north to south, a rugged big cliff, wild goats, sheep, horses, feathered friends, the garden and the sea. I am not sure this place is even deserving of its name, except in the sense that its very emptiness is pregnant with spiritual promise. It certainly doesn’t pack a wallop like Glastonbury or Findhorn and other power points I’ve visited. Probably aren’t even any ley lines crossing through here.

Now if I can just lose those pesky Tibetan Buddhists…………….

Lots of Love

Allen

Subj: Nowhere to run, Nowhere to hide

Nobody told me this place is at 56 degrees latitude, same as Anchorage, Alaska. San Francisco is at 37 degrees to put things in perspective.

By now you may have gathered the honeymoon is over. It’s the weather that’s responsible actually. For a couple of weeks there, I was thinking that global warming had turned this place into the new Riviera. Alas, not so! It’s been a solid two weeks of gale force winds, rain and bleak, gray light. It doesn’t get dark really at this time of year, just a sort of twilight, which, given the weather, is what it’s like at midday. The wind is so strong I have to be careful opening these heavy outside doors lest they flatten me with brute force. Rumor has it that summer is over, and this will be the norm until fall when hell descends.

I know, some of you think I won’t last, that I will bale on this place before my time.  I’ve heard you whispering. You’re wrong! There’s GOLD in them thar hills.

It’s not that I never have the thought…. Give me a 10-plex digital multi channel designer gourmet tantric full body contact latte, that’ll do it for me!  After all I do have a few pleasure memory cells left. It’s just that the context is so different here and once you buy in, temptation just isn’t so, well, tempting.

I must confess I am getting a bit tired of so called “spiritual books”; with their prescriptions for and commentaries on the pathways to enlightenment. It all seems like ancient history to me, urging us to come fully into the present by repeating the machinations that may have worked for a few fortunate ones in the past. I am definitely more aligned with the “no technique” approach. In fact I am sure there is a “how to” book that delineates definitively and precisely which forms, postures, attitudes, diets and meditations will facilitate mastery of this approach. (The Sloth’s Guide to Self Realization)

Then, of course, there are those, super sleuth, super spy, last minute saves of a world about to be dominated by love slaves of our current President and his cousins, novels, normally reserved for bed ridden bouts of the flu and sandy beaches. Well, there’s only so much pulp I can digest.

Days, weeks, pass here with ferocious speed. Because of the weather, I spend almost all my time in my room, with breaks for meals and a forced walk once a day, rain or not. Most days I might have a few minutes of chitchat with one of the other prisoners around the dining table, but not always. I have not yet had the urge to visit Arran in the nearly seven weeks that I’ve been here, even though it promises chocolate, smoked salmon, pastries, newspapers etc.

Every couple of weeks I connect by phone with my mum, who is perpetually miserable in a Jewish old-folks home, my sister, who bears the brunt of mum’s despair and Terra who is thriving. The occasional email from one of you dear, dear friends is always so very heartwarming so keep ‘em coming.

The choice to be here is actually brill. Those of you that know the Enneagram will clearly identify me as an archetypal 3. According to Sandra Maitri in her brilliant book, “The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram” 3s need to stop long enough from the never ending cycle of doing, achieving, presenting, etc., to experience fully their inner truth by facing the yawning abyss of emptiness that they feel when they turn inwards. This leads to hopefully discerning what is really true and what is the spin we have given things. She also says that we have a knee-jerk tendency to want to see results right away. Mostly we want a payoff rather than having to face the inner emptiness, which looks distinctly unrewarding. The emptiness brings up the dreaded feelings of defeat and failure, that despite all of my best efforts, I cannot shape myself into God. (Nor can I dress for the part) So this is a slow deep dance, so different from the life I have lived. I welcome it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The meadow behind my room is hang out space for Romeo and Georgio, two of the wild ponies. They are both stallions that have been ostracized from the herd for razzing the girls. Romeo is gray and Georgio is taupe. Yesterday on my walk I noticed Romeo on his own for the first time and he seemed a bit sad. As he moved slowly towards me he was sporting an ever-growing erection. I now understand what “hung like a horse” means. Could it have been the pretty color of my Patagonia fleece top or the scent of the feminine principle arising in my auric field? I’ll never know! Sadly, I discovered upon my return home that 4 horses have fallen or been pushed or blown off the cliffs in the past week, plunging 200 + feet to their death on the unforgiving rocks below, Georgio being one of them. This reduces our herd to 13. Just imagine going out for your afternoon meditative stroll down by the shore, head down as you contemplate the great mysteries of your soul when suddenly……….well, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

We had a visit from Akong Rimpoche and his brother Lama Yeshe the other day. They came to look at the site for the Interfaith Conference Center. They are starting to build it this summer at the North end of the island. They are very much the Chairman and his CEO act. Akong Rimpoche is renowned for his unceasing hard work on behalf of Tibetans and his almost legendary humility. Trained as a doctor of Tibetan medicine, he seems completely without charm. He is the most dower, withholding, antisocial guardian of truth I have ever encountered. It borders on arrogance. (Hey, when I fall in love, it’s big time) His bro., on the other hand, is totally engaging, charming and warm. He has a bit of the vibe of a retailing hustler. To his credit he raised all the bucks for the purchase of Holy Island and is the visionary behind the new center. Apparently he was a Tibetan ne’er-do-well, living in the States, driving fast cars, wearing flashy clothes and actually running some kind of store, until his somber brother collared him. Twelve years of retreat in Woodstock, NY and he emerges as the Abbot of Samye Ling.  I enjoyed being on the fringes of all the considerable fawning and pandering that occurred during their 24 hours here. It was a bit like a visit from Royalty.

I gather the “snap shots” I sent out a few weeks ago were a bust. (3 URLs of the same 5 shots). ACDsee had a wee server problem. (”wee” is a Scottish word for little, much employed around here, wee this, wee that, nothing to do with relieving oneself) I am including a new URL, which you can paste into your browser that I hope will provide more rewarding images.
http://www2.sendpix.com/albums/010613/12250b00e91e9000510151e/

I was listening to a David Whyte CD the other day and he shared part of a poem by Mary Oliver, which touched me and somehow seems to sum up this journey.

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert
repenting
You only have to let the soft animal
of your body love what it loves.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I send you all my warmest greetings

Love,

Allen

Subj:    Constitutional Remedy
Date:    7/30/01 3:13:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time

I have now been at Holy Island for three months and I am halfway through my retreat commitment. Being here is like taking an extremely potent homeopathic remedy, prescribed to catalyze alchemical change throughout the entire system. If only it could be bottled and ingested in fifteen drop increments.

I am living inside the heart of Tibetan Buddhism by participating in a community that practices organically and almost effortlessly in its every action. It is this that makes the affect so subtle, hence the homeopathic reference.

I had the privilege of spending a week with Lama Yeshe, the Abbot of Samye Ling and the visionary leader of Holy Island. Each day he would trot down from his house, high up on the ridge overlooking the water and hangout for several hours around the kitchen table with the four or five of us who are staying here. “Hanging out” is actually an accurate description for the quality of our time together. He is a gregarious, amusing, loquacious and wise dude with an excellent command of the English language. He would regale us with stories about his brother and his youth and the somewhat miraculous way that the Holy Island project came into being. He didn’t learn to meditate until he was thirty-one and it took him two years of a five year solitary retreat to get the hang of it. Hmm, I still have time.

It fascinated me to learn that “lineage” was his most important asset. The Karma Kagyu lineage was founded in the eleventh century by the first Karmapa and there has been an unbroken line of reincarnated Karmapas since, including the 17th, a fifteen year old who recently escaped from Tibet and therefore China’s grasp, in a well publicized and daring adventure.  What moves me about this history is the way it has impacted the approach Tibetans take to building the future. I have come from a culture that believes a five-year plan is long-term and that quarter-to-quarter results are critical, so the meticulous way in which human and capital resources are invested here to build foundations for and protect not only their own legacy but also our worlds’ sustainability is very inspiring. In a previous communication I stated that there wasn’t anything extraordinarily “holy” about Holy Island. I can now report that what is deeply sacred about this place is the quality of intention and energy that is gently guiding its development. Unique today, in twenty years it will be a precious jewel reflecting not only the depth of one of humanity’s richest shared legacies but also a deep love and reverence of the earth and all her creatures.

I had some private time with Lama Yeshe and after a few minutes of chat I asked him if we could sit together. In the depth of the profound silence that ensued, I started to tear up. We stopped when my nose started running. He looked at me and said sweetly, “Heavy heart.” I realized how all the strategies I have employed over the years to maintain a semblance of control in my life have only served to separate me from the greater life we all share. My wish for all of us is a “light heart.”

I have become a card carrying garden laborer. Since I have spent more time in a dentist’s chair than working in a garden, this is another revelation for me. How weeding row after row of onions, potatoes and beans can give so much back amazes me. I found myself so quickly connecting with the circular flow of all of life and would return to my room after a few hours buzzing with energy. Alec, the head gardener, used to be a Buddhist monk and a Belfast policeman. He has the demeanor of a kindly plodder. He keeps on giving me jobs that he estimates will take a few days. To both our surprise they get completed in a few hours. It seems that I apply the same kind of intense focus to my work no matter what it is. Manic weeder! Behind the retreat house is a five-acre pasture completely overgrown with bracken. The entire island is overgrown with bracken, a very aggressive fern like weed that matures at about five feet. The problem is that it covers all the grazing land for the animals. The nuns were set the task of clearing the meadow, which they were valiantly attempting with scythes, and the bracken was winning. “Haven’t they heard of weed whackers?” I thought, one morning, in an attempt to meditate. So I started phoning around to see if such a thing existed here. After getting a brusque rejection with attitude from several garden machinery salesmen I stumbled upon a kindly soul who asked what I was trying to do. He told me I needed a brush cutter for bracken, in an unbelievable accent that took a few tries to translate into English. So I bought one and have initiated myself into a craft that up until now I would never have imagined myself attempting. Suffice it to say that the bracken almost kills itself off as it sees me and my whirring blade approach the meadow.

A couple of weeks after arriving here I ordered an inflatable canoe from California. It is called a Soar and is an award winning 14-foot boat that can be paddled, kayaked, rowed and powered by a small outboard. It inflates in 15 minutes and rolls up into a duffle bag. Holy Island does not have a boat and is entirely at the mercy of the whiskey-loving ferryman who can be somewhat difficult. Connecting with the water is just as vital as the land, for me, so I was pleased when it arrived in mid June. Little did I realize that I would become the unofficial island boatman. Since the Soar can carry 800 LB, I now pick up all the food from Arran every week as well as do occasional runs to ferry members of the community to dentist and doctor appointments at times that the pub is open or the ferryman is recovering from the previous nights debauchery. Once a week I do a ritual circumambulation of the island. The winds, current and tides are very treacherous here and I have suddenly found myself in 4ft waves, which can be a little scary in an oversized rubber duck. Restarting the little Tohatsu outboard when it conks out in these conditions is a barrel of fun. I have only fallen in once. Nobody worries about drowning because hypothermia will kill you before you sink. I do take every precaution and the sea teaches one wisdom swiftly. Lama Yeshe was so impressed that he has finally approved the purchase of a boat for the island. They were worried about what to do when I leave as they have now been weaned from the 7 or 8 wheelbarrow trips over the 2-mile rocky path to get the food.

I found myself being a bit compulsive about checking emails so I decided to initiate a month of virtual radio silence at the beginning of July. Halfway through the month I learnt that my dearest friend Dennis Miller had died after a long and difficult illness. Although not entirely unexpected, as he seemed to have exhausted his nine allotted and bonuses, his passing had a big impact on me, however not in a sentimental way. I had known him since I was 21 and he was a very karmic fixture in my life in for 32 years. He was family and we were present for each other through many challenges. It certainly wasn’t all sunshine and roses and in his passing I, too, am released from our agreements. I do miss him deeply. This event triggered an intense period of pain and suffering for me which I am actually grateful for as it pushes me deeper into my journey into Self and forces me to confront the ferocious forces in my mind that would keep me from experiencing greater freedom.

At this time of year we are getting quite a few visitors coming for a week as part of their summer vacation. We only have three rooms to rent and they are always full. I am always asked if I am a Buddhist. I tell them that I have not taken “refuge” so I would not call myself one. I am, however, living a Buddhist lifestyle in every way, surrounded by “Anis” (Nuns) and monks. The foundations of this lifestyle seem to be congruent with all sacred teachings on ethics, morals and love. At the heart of it is the experienced awareness that you and I are not separate, we can never be and therefore everything we do, think and feel is one. I begin to think that China has provided our world with an enormous gift in forcing the Tibetans on the West, not that it in any way excuses their appalling record on human rights in Tibet. The depth of their teaching on the nature of mind is a powerful force in informing our crystallized and self-destructive culture on the impermanence of all form and of the doorways to freedom and peace.

I hope your summer harvest is abundant and I send you my warmest greetings.

Lots of love

Allen