Talk on "Being Brave: Transforming our World" by Adam Lobel

Excerpts from Adam Lobel’s talk, May 9 – Introductory to Sangha Retreat “Being Brave: Transforming our World”, a one-week meditation reteat at Dechen Chöling.

“What is more natural – the beautiful strong magnificent oak tree or a modern city with highways, buildings and people busying around with headphones plugged into their ears? Or, look at the routine of our busy lives and that of a toad? What is more natural? Many of us would say, it’s the oak tree and the toad’s life. The simple point I want to make here, is that there is an invisible background understanding that we as human beings are fundamentally unnatural, problematic, confused, maybe even aggressive and violent. How have we come to understand ourselves in this way? How do we experience ourselves in the midst of society, feeling unnatural? There is something sad about this experience. Many of us thrive on this feeling.

In the Shambhala tradition Human society is considered basically good, natural – just as an oak tree or a toad. We as human beings have a right to be on this planet, there is goodness and dignity about being human and part of nature. So, it needs a shift in experience – being as simple, good and natural as an oak tree. In the midst of our ordinary experience there is this sense of wakefulness always available. It is completely basic and ordinary. And therefore we miss it. But we do all experience it, in moments of freshness, appreciation, silence and stillness. Within the speed of our lives, it’s difficult to rest with what we call basic goodness. Many of us don’t experience this natural being. In part that’s because of the simplicity and ordinariness, there is something very boring about sanity – compared to all kind of madnesses and horror news on TV.

There is so much incredible goodness happening on this earth every day and minute, there is so much of what people have let go of in favor of others, so much kindness, we wouldn’t believe it. Just think of the countless ways of someone caring for someone else, or just people preparing good food for each other. We can’t forget that.

Every consideration of transforming our world has to do with our own state of being, our heart and emotions and how we live our everyday life. Cultivating our own goodness, connection, opening up and wisdom is inseparable from shifting modern society.”

Adam Lobel invited all participants to touch and taste their own basic human goodness.

Working day & a cake to die for

“Only 17 days left until the Sangha Retreat! In order to make sure that Dechen Chöling is completely ready for the spring/summer programmes we decided to call the “community work afternoon” into being. From 14:00 pm to 17:30 everyone leaves the office and works in facilities, household or landscaping to make sure that all visitors find their place in the sun.

After a hard day of work, and a tea break with a cake to die for, we could feast our eyes on a whole different Dechen Chöling. It seemed as though the staff campground and the big dining tent had appeared out of nowhere. It’s amazing to see what a difference it makes if everyone bundles their powers for just one afternoon! And then to think that we did that in only one day.

This afternoon we will help Hans Willie (our “Lord of joy”) to make sure that all tents are equipped with beds and cabinets. So that all visitors can get a good night rest after sitting on their cushions all day. Because, it turns out having sour backs doesn’t make people jump for joy.

The following two weeks we will keep bundling our powers to turn Dechen Chöling into a little piece of paradise. To make sure that every single person can enjoy the splendor of the land of great bliss.“

by Rianne Pelleboer, volunteer from the Netherlands

Review on Dharma Art Programme

We just look back to a wonderful Dharma Art programme happening here. Fabrice Champion, Herb Elsky and about 20 participants spent a week exploring „First Thought, Best Thought“. It was a very vibrant time and everyone contributed with their inspiration.
One of our French participants wrote a poem that she shared with the group and allowed us to post on our blog here, and we tried to translate it into English.
Lily Martin, the coordinator, shot some pictures that capture some glimpses of the programme: exercises in calligraphy and brushwork.

L'eau du lac reflète le ciel
Le ciel tutoie la montagne
La montagne parle à la plaine
La plaine pleure dans le lac
Le lac transpire
La montagne aspire
La vie expire
Tout est relié
Vous que je ne connaissais pas
Moi qui étais inconnu pour vous
Nous avons bâti des ponts entre nos âmes
Votre flamme illumine mon coeur
Tout étourdi d'éclairer le vôtre
Je vous aime.



The lake water reflects the sky
The sky caresses the mountain
The mountain speaks to the plain
The plain is crying into the lake
The lake transpires
The mountain aspirates
Life expires
Everything is connected
You, who I did not know
I, who was unknown to you
We have built bridges between our souls
Your flame brightens my heart
Stunned to enlighten yours
I love you.

Our Youngest Member of Staff

What does this button do?

 

This is Clara, who, while not technically a member of staff, is definitely the youngest person around on a typical day. Her father, Jean-François, is our Head of Kitchen, and her mother, Konstanze, has recently taken over as Head of Programmes. Konstanze was previously Head of Operations, and then had maternity leave, for obvious reasons.

Clara herself spends a lot of time at Dechen Chöling too, often choosing to hang out with her grandmother, Angelika, and she is a great bringer of fun and joy to our community. She sits at the head of the table for meals, and presides over the rest of us. I want to thank Konstanze and J-F for allowing us to share in watching her grow up.

Mother, daughter, grandmother

Suddenly Snowy

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!

Abundant fruits

The rich harvest of life at DCL continues. The juice that we pressed was delicious. 70 litres was easily consumed. Some fed Phillip's sourdough culture, with which he made marvellous bread, easily as good as that which is delivered. Mushrooms are popping up everywhere - Marcus counted 85 parasol mushrooms in the horse-field next door. On her first mushrooming foray, Brooks found a highly sought after cepe (porcini) after about two minutes. She dried that and a bunch of other boletes to take back to the States. Our chestnut tree produced big fat juicy chestnuts, which are such a hassle to prepare that we are giving them away.

Sutrayana Seminary, our last big programme of the year came to a triumphant close. After that most of our summer volunteers left: we hope that they have harvested joy and confidence in their time here. To celebrate their presence, we had a dance party in the dining room, which was livened up by some killer moves on the dance floor.

Finally our new sewage system came online. M. Brun and his team made the final connection and our daily thousands of litres of wastewater (including everything!) began to seep through our reedbed system instead of the old septic tank and soakaway. To celebrate we joined them for a glass of eau de vie - a good investment as M. Brun also runs the local apple press.

We recruited the staff and those still here from Seminary to plant up the reedbed and canal system with reeds, yellow iris and purple loosestrife.

Environmental sewage system!

Gravel is leveled out on top of the coarser layer beneath

Construction has begun on a reed-bed system to replace our aging septic tank. Shown is the large tank which will comprise the first of the two-phases of purification. Raw sewage will flow into this and filter through graded beds of gravel. Reeds will use the nutrients to grow. Excess water will flow out into a more naturalistic system of channels, planted with various types of vegetation, including the Robinia pseudoacacia which already grows there.

Reed bed with chateau behind

This large project takes our commitment to the environment forward in a big leap. Not only will we no longer need to have a septic tank regularly emptied by big truck; we will create a wildlife haven and we will be able to harvest and make use of the organic material that is fertilised by our waste.

Some of the shades of tomatoes

We are very keen to minimise our impact on the environment. We already took a big leap last year, with a commitment to buy only organic food. We have also, for many years already harvested vegetables from the garden each year, to supplement those that we buy. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, mostly from our polytunnel. We continue to harvest squash, chard, lettuce, greens, courgette and have kale and cabbage for the winter. Unfortunately our current Gardener will soon be leaving, so if you are a passionate and skilled organic gardener, and would like to spend the next few years helping to take our vision forward, please get in touch.

All these apples came from just one tree!

Our staff campground is also an orchard, containing trees planted by us, and others that were here long before we arrived. Ralph and I spent some time harvesting one tree: I climbed and shook the branches and he picked up the fallen fruit. We took about 160 kilos from just one tree (see picture) and we will take it to a local cidrier to press for juice. If some accidentally turned to cider, we would have to deal with that...