Deer Park, Day Ten
(written on Monday January 20th)
1:30pm.
Ah, lazy day :) The sun is shining and the birds are singing cheerfully. I woke up naturally at 4:30am, which has been pretty common for me the last few days. After getting dressed and moving quietly around the room, so as not to wake up my roommate, I headed to our small meditation hall here in Clarity Hamlet. The light by the alter was on but no one was in there. I grabbed a cushion and pad and put it down by the front of the room. I practice sitting meditation for 30 minutes and then in backwards progression I sang the morning chant. It was quite lovely to sing in the dharma hall and to sit by myself in the dark of the early morning.
After sitting I went to the dining hall to read and to write. It is a good place to go in order to have space to journal or to sit with a book, especially when your roommate is sleeping. I enjoyed a cup of tea as I sat and read from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh and took some notes. Around 7:00am I went out to the dirt parking lot in order to do some stick exercise. I found a lightweight good-sized PVC pipe by the dining hall to use as my stick. The length of the stick that seems to work best should be about the same size as your height. It was cold this morning and in between sets of exercises I rubbed my hands together briskly to warm them up.