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Previously: Monday (and backstory): The Road to Green Gulch Farm

I stayed at San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm for three days. Here’s the second installment about my time there.

My watch alarm went off at 4:30 and I had a brief argument with myself about getting out of bed. I’d already decided to make quick cup of coffee in the morning to drink before mediation. I think often of something I read recently which said that most thoughts are memories, plans, or judgments, and that in meditation it can be helpful to identify which it is before letting it go. My plan was to make coffee, my judgments are about whether or not I really need that coffee and what it might mean if I do. I think this can get a little obsessive. (Judgment.)

I make it Green Dragon Temple on time (I’m still working out in my mind the difference between a zendo and a temple; the “zendo” at Green Gulch is Green Dragon Temple).

Since the seats are assigned here, I stop at the door to find out where I’ll sit; a woman looks at the chart, considers who’s here and who isn’t, and tells me to go to the seventh seat on the left side; I enter, taking care to step over the threshold with my left foot as instructed, and bow at the bottom of the steps before turning to the left to find my seat.

This zendo is different from the one I’m used to at Stone Creek; the seats on the outside are all on a raised platform called a “tan”. One positions the zafu on the edge of the zabuton, bows, turns clockwise and bows to the others, then sits back onto the zafu and, pulling legs up, turns on the zafu (always clockwise) into position. I don’t think I ever managed it gracefully, but I got better at it as the days went on.

The meditation period is different than I’m used to, also. During the first 40-minute period, there’s a gong that sounds regularly, and some chimes at some interval. My legs are screaming but I make it through. Then there’s 10 minutes of kihnin (walking meditation)…somehow I end up right on floor board that squeaks with every step I make. Then another 40-minutes of silent zazen. During this period, a deep voice asks, “Are you awake?” I was…at least outwardly.

After the second period of zazen, we did a series of full bows, and then settled into a sort of kneeling position on our zafus for a chanting service. I liked the chanting service more than I ever thought I would. Among other things, we did Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo again.

At the end of services, we file out of the zendo silently, bowing to the person across from us at the bottom of the steps and crossing the threshold with the right leg. We line up outside the zendo in Cloud Hall, the dormitory. Those with regular assignments are excused, and Kate goes down the line quietly telling each of us remaining where we should go to work. I’m assigned to the temple, and there someone quietly shows me how to brush down the zafus and zabutons. We all work in silence, and then return to the door and “bow out”. We’re excused until breakfast.

Pretty good for 7:00 am.

Meal gong hanging outside of the dining room.

Breakfast is at 7:20 am. I think I might have gotten there before the meal gong rang, because I was there for the short chant done before Breakfast. I’m trying to get a copy of the full chant; I thought it was beautiful and meaningful. Breakfast was oatmeal, nectarines, yogurt, and a huge bowl of hazelnuts. Vast quantities of food are available and people take large helpings. I have nectarines, yogurt and hazelnuts, sprinkled with Gomasio and feel like it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.

Kate does a short chant after the 10 minute silent eating period and then everyone says good morning (”Good morning Buddhas!”). After breakfast, we’re free until the 8:20 work meeting.

The work meeting is held at “the pool” — this is an outdoor area that used to be a small pool but is now decked over. Everyone stands in a circle, and a small incense offering is made at a tiny altar installed on the wall (there are small altars throughout the grounds, and work periods begin and end at them). Then announcements for the day are made. These range from reminders about special events or meetings that day to minor things like people looking for items that are lost or wanting to switch dish night. There was a humorous one this morning from a woman about someone apparently in her care (the name escapes me — call her ‘Sue’): “Sue has been asking people to take her for ice cream. Please know that this is not required and you should only do so if you want to.”

After work period I follow the other guest-practice retreatants and the guest students back to the dining room for our work day, which begins with incense at the dining room altar and bows. (All of this incense offering and bowing sounds really odd from the “outside”, as I write this days later — but it flows very naturally through the day at Green Gulch). Then Kate lets us know what we’re going to be doing. Today it’s dishes, followed by work in the fields.

My job for dishes is being the scraper. Pretty simple, just scrape all of the dishes into a bowl which gets emptied into the compost bucket. From there they go into the hot soapy water of the dishpan and on through the steps to the sanitizer. I’m surprised to find how quickly my hands cramp…I’m not sure I notice until I pick up the prettiest thing to be scraped, the blue crock that sits next to the coffee and tea for used spoons. I drop it to the floor and it shatters. Everyone is very nice about it of course, but I felt bad and have vowed, in addition to freeing the numberless beings, to find a new used spoon crock and send it to them.

To show me where to put the broken pieces of crock, they have to lead me through the kitchen…the “famous” kitchen as I think of it, though I may be the only one who considers it famous. In any case, I’m glad to get a glimpse of it; I’ve been too intimidated to peak in.

After dishes are finished, we sweep the dining room so it can be mopped. I notices that things here are not immaculate; they are in fine repair and basically clean. Great care is taken to keep things sanitary, which is of course essential to communal living, and I notice references to this throughout my stay. But things don’t have a chemical shine. It’s very much a working farm. I like the earthy neatness of it. I see spider webs in the wall corners and am not sure whether to raise the broom and sweep them out or not. I decide to leave them.

At about 9:45 we have a break, with snacks. Then it’s on to the fields.

I’m given the choice of helping to build a compost pile, weeding, and something else. I think compost sounds interesting, which I say, and choose that. The guy looks at me like I’m crazy and tells me to follow the truck that just headed down the road.

The truck contains buckets of food scraps…they say that this is the most they’ve ever done at a time…about 45. We loosen the existing compost pile and then unload all of the buckets and dump 14 buckets of slop onto it. Then I rinse the buckets and we carry them over to some palettes where someone shows me how to clean them, and I’m set up scrubbing buckets for the remainder of the work period. I’m not going to be able to wear my work clothes again before washing them, that’s for sure!

I notice a lot about my own thought processes while doing this work. I notice that I often have fantasies of someone noticing what a good job I’m doing, of giving me credit for doing something well, perhaps better than others, or maybe for doing it with a positive attitude, or anything. I’m constantly hoping for approval, to be noticed in a positive way. But that’s really absent here…everyone is grateful, I’m thanked for anything I do, but that praise that I seem to keep looking for is missing. No one else is getting that praise, though. The more I think of it, the more I realize that it’s pretty freeing. I don’t have to strive to work harder than everyone else or be nicer than everyone else…I can just do a good job and be happy with it myself. Still, I’m aching from bending over to scrub buckets for an hour or so, and from all the extra sitting meditation I’ve been doing.

The finished compost pile.

I do feel like it’s good work, and think that cleaning out my one slop bucket once a week at home wouldn’t be so bad. I’d like to have a compost pile. I dunno, maybe I just idealize this all too much. But it’s nice to think about the work I’m doing this morning turning into delicious food that someone will relish later.

We’re release from work a little before noon and I head directly for the shower, and then lunch. Lunch, oh how delicious: brocolli soup, spinach and spinach root with sesame dressing, and bread with poppy seeds…wonderful amazing bread. Spinach root!

One view of the garden. More fields and garden photos are on flickr; click to view this within the set

In the afternoon I read, nap, launder my work clothes, and take my binoculars and camera and walk to Muir Beach. The sun is finally making it through the fog, but it’s really windy at the beach. My legs ache, but the walk feels good. On the way home I meet local cat, a friendly orange and white kitty who runs over to me for petting and belly rubs.

Dinner is amazing beets, greens (collared greens I think, which were especially delicious with gomasio), brown rice, roast zuchinni, and cheese.

At dinner, someone has a large piece of chocolate and pieces are broken off and shared with relish. Someone explains to me that chocolate is a form of currency here. Someone else seems to have poison oak, or something similar, that’s discussed quietly. I’m told that the poison oak soap in the shower is Dawn dishwashing liquid…as a degreaser, it’s supposedly as affective as Technu when used in the same way (apply, wait for several minutes, then rinse).

Someone comes into the dining room and has a discussion with someone at the table…it’s Susan-the-ice-cream girl, evidently arranging another rendevous.

After dinner, I use a phone booth room to call Steve. There might be internet access in the library, I’m not sure, but I decided to stay off the internet completly during my stay, even though it’s difficult to relinquish that connection that I have over email with Steve.

The evening goes by quickly and soon it’s 9:00, and time to try to sleep to be ready to get up at 4:30 again the next day.

Next: Wednesday at Green Gulch