A few days ago, the weather changed from rain to snow. I suppose it dropped below that critical temperature, and voila! The world was white. When I left the office late in the evening the night before last (yes, I know, we're supposed to be on retreat...) a white blanket had been silently and gently draped over the land, softening the sharp outlines of the buildings, and muffling all sounds of life.
This might not seem a lot of snow, but often the weather is markedly warm here in November, and snow is pretty rare at the best of times. Below is a shot of the azuchi (the platform for Kyudo, Zen archery) from the day before, after most of the previous night's snow had melted, but showing the pristine elegance of the winter landscape at DCL.
So, perfect weather for our annual staff retreat. We have had the honour of receiving daily teachings from two local teachers, resident Acharya, Mathias Pongracz and also our local Shastri, Chris de Block. They are teaching us about Shantideva's Bodhicaryavitara. Which is much more accessible than it sounds, and extremely pertinent. In a nutshell, to make progress on the path of the Bodhisattva, we must learn how to work with Shenpa, situations where our buttons are pressed. In a community, this is surprisingly easy to find, thus we should regard ourselves as even more lucky to be here!
