Oh, joyous Ango!! What a pleasure it was to all gather together for these last two days! I start the day today a little confused to not be gathering together and seeing your beautiful faces.
I wonder, would anyone be interested in getting together for tea to celebrate the culmination of our celebration? I would love to share insights and experiences, and to just generally bask in the glow of Ango together.
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I started last night to write about my experiences. I was so energized that I stayed up later than I normally do and had to make myself set the writing down and go to sleep.
So, here is my post-Ango celebration essay…
Goodness abounds! That was a wonderful retreat! It was quite literally
filled with wonder on so many levels.
I was amazed by how often patience and quiet presence came with ease, much of the time anyhow! Far more than I ever would have expected.
Going into Ango, I was curious if there would be enough thoughts to fill the entire weekend or if I would finally find their limit. The answer is yes, yes there is an endless font of thoughts. And yet... And yet now there is somehow more quiet between and beneath the thoughts. Oh! Wonder indeed!
I also expected that there would be some waves of upwelling emotion. I had my drying cloth for oryoki and a crying cloth for just in case. And I vowed from the start to let that flow naturally. But the only deep waves of emotion were love for a friend who is going through a very difficult time (as if feeling some of her pain could lift some of her burden) and gratitude beyond measure to have found this Sangha, this non-striving middle way, this community, to have found YOU. Such good fortune for my path to have led me here.
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Through the Dharma talks I felt that I was being reminded of things I have always known but forgot how how to remember. Truly, this sitting with no desire to arrive on some exotic shore feels like the most natural thing in the world - it feels simultaneously mundane and wondrous and and like the best possible waste of time (
Kodo Sawaki).
I am someone who exists without goals or ambitions but with the great aspiration to help bring some ease and peace to the world so that others can bring a bit of extra ease and peace to the world. (Just being nice to someone instead of irritated changes the course of their day, which changes the course of so many others. And, of course, it changes the course of one's own day as well!)
So, to have found you all, well I have said it before… I am simply filled with joy and "how did I get here? This is not my beautiful wife. This is not my beautiful home." But this IS my beautiful home!
(That was a David Byrne song reference. If you do not know the song, the humor probably did not come through. Apologies for leaving anyone out of that little joke!)
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In all seriousness, it was an honor to be surrounded by such beautiful souls and to be graced by those who have uncovered so much wisdom and who possess the ability to articulate and pass that wisdom on so naturally, as though the knowledge already dwells within us. (Because it does!)
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Thank you to everyone who brought this together, all the way back to and including Shakyamuni Buddha himself!!
Gassho times infinity,
Aimee
sattoday