retreat and special person
the daylong vipassana retreat was very nice. it was interesting to be in a Zen zendo, but practicing some things from the Vipassana tradition. the teacher, whose name is Arrina, was full of joy and knew how to transmit it. there is a transmission of good things when you go to these meditations in community. one unusual touchy feeling thing that we did was that at one point we were paired off in twos and guided into looking at the person in front of one, trying to see the goodness in the person, and then closing the eyes, re-opening to see where the person has suffered. i could see that the person i was paired off was very kind. i could sense he had experienced reasons to grieve as well.during tea i met someone who floored me. i don't mean to be chatty and spew out blatherings but let me see if you've experienced meeting someone like this ever. because we had introduced ourselves earlier after meditation in the zendo, i had found out he was an ordained catholic Jesuit priest. it's not too often that you meet a currently ordained priest at a vipassana meditation in a zen center, although it has happened to me that i have met former priests. i sat next to him during tea, noticing that his t-shirt read bhatki flow yoga. i mentioned i was once going to be a monk (that was 32 years ago), and that i was passionate about ashtanga. in the conversation i found out that he was a horse trainer in his early years, an expert in show horses. he had trained a breed of horses that are giant animals, for one of the founders of a silicon valley fortune 500 company, an intelligent woman wealthy beyond imagination. he became a jesuit priest while studying at Loyola University, a university which, he told me, always feels a rivarlry with Notre Dame, where i did my undergraduate studies. he is a licensed psychotherapist and runs a therapy program in a hospital. his interest is in combining philosophy with psychotherapy, to achieve an existentialist psychotherapy. he teaches yoga and continues his studies with Rusty Wells. he is also becoming interested in Anusara, because of its attention to "opening of the heart". Someone who started talking to us, a technical writer for the same Silicon Valley company we were discussing said to him, "what an incredible trajectory your life is." indeed. somehow, now that i have written all that, it seems that it is possible for one person to do all that, although it seems like the careers of five people. he left the gathering as he arrived, in a motorcycle.
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