San Francisco Trip |
Matthew
Stibbe's Homepage
San Francisco TripSan Francisco |
Summary:
In August 2002, I went to San Francisco for a month's working holiday. These pages record some of impressions the trip made on me.
View from my desk at 6am
My friend Mike visited me from Oregon for three days towards the end of my trip and he was followed by my cousins and then, at last, Aileen. But I was determined to do something special on my last day alone in the city, so I resolved to spend that Sunday at the Zen monastery in Green Gulch.
The Golden Gate Bridge at 6.30am, seen from the North side. There were armed soldiers patrolling the whole time I took this picture.
They run a meditation workshop for beginners (me!) followed by talks and lunch every Sunday. Since it began very early in the morning, I had to get up at 6am, which is much earlier than I am used to. Much earlier. But it did give me a chance to see the city before the traffic and before the sun burnt off the fog. The last two weeks of August had been foggy almost all day every day and then from the beginning of September the weather cleared up and it was Mediterranean blue all day every day.
The Zendo
I drove up to Green Gulch, which is about half an hour north of the city near Muir Woods. There were about forty visitors and we filed into the Zendo, the meditation hall, and took up our places for an introductory meditation. Our guide gave a very entertaining explanation ("the fast food version of Zen Buddhism") and made me feel like an expert after five minutes. Zen meditation is different from other meditation I have done because it is done eyes open with no 'object' (i.e. no focus on the breath, or a mantra or some object).
Our guide described how he had gone to Tibet to visit another monastery and had been discussing his practice with one of the Tibetan monks. When he explained there was no object in his meditation, the monk said "ah ... very advanced." Well, I guess you had to be there. It WAS funny in context.
Actually doing Zen meditation is difficult. After our training, the monks filed in and everyone sat for forty five minutes or so in silence. For an unbendable beginner with a busy mind, the posture and the calmness of mind is hard to sustain. But I did feel different afterwards.
Green Gulch
Once the meditation was over we had muffins and tea in the courtyard and walked around the beautiful gardens. It seemed like a very attractive place to live and an enviable way of life - so simple. It probably takes more strength of will than I have to actually stick at it.
Perhaps one thing that keeps people there is the sense of community and a feeling of being around really impressive people. I don't mean impressive in the corporate sense. Not well-dressed, charismatic and strong. I went to a lecture and Q&A by the abbess and she struck me as, well I don't want to sound too crystals-and-hippy, but actually as quite an advanced human being. She listened to people asking questions so intently, so actively that it was hard to escape the feeling that she was actually reading their minds. Her lecture on the nature of greed was softly spoken but compelling and insightful.
I'm intensely suspicious of any kind of organised religion and yet I had something like a religious experience here. It's a bit too personal and bit too difficult to talk about it, suffice to say that for a few hours I did see the world a bit differently.