A Slice of my Dathun Experience – written Jan 5, 2012
A few minutes ago I was sitting on a bench made out of a fallen tree under a sky full of stars. The bench is about 100 feet from the entrance of the Blazing Mountain retreat center midway up the side of a mountain that is the living presence of Rintro Gonpo (a Tibetan Buddhist Protector Deity who watches over people in retreat). As I sat in the cold 5am air gazing at the sky for about 20 minutes, I saw 7 separate shooting stars. I felt the presence of the mountain, the rocks and earth around me and beneath my feet; the friendly loving trees and clouds. The morning cook whose shift was starting walked by, gravel punctuating her every step. A deep spaciousness has arisen within me. While being with all of this, I remembered you and wanted to tell you about some of my experiences here.
“When I’m with you, it doesn’t matter where we are,” sample of old Chicago song in my head. I can honestly say I have completely altered my relationships to time, space and food here. I know exactly how much I can accomplish between the 15min conch shell announcement of practice and the 7min conch of “time to line up outside the shrine doors.” I have traveled through portals in my body into vast spaces that I was unconscious of before this retreat. I have expanded my heart to encompass the sky and practiced Bodhichitta for bees and sent loving kindness to my “enemies”. For 24 days I have eaten 3 Oriyoki style meals a day and very little else (Oriyoki is a very formal ritual Zen Buddhist eating style involving 3 small nesting bowls, chopsticks and a paddle covered with linen for cleaning. You eat in silence except for Sanskrit & English chanting about the Buddha’s virtues & the power of generosity. There are servers and everyone is on a Serving team once every 4 days). I eat bee pollen and about 15 supplements daily and have not had any refined sugar at all since November 3rd 2011. Tonight I will take the Bodhisattva Vow.
Oriyoki sets, Rintro Gonpo Mountain (both mentioned above)
More about, from, or inspired by my Dathun experiences
“When Lightening Strikes: The Living Teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche” – Reginald Ray will do his first live interactive video class series this February 15 – March 21 8-9pm EST for only $79
Find all the details here on the Sounds true website
Look here to learn more about Reginald Ray and his teachings
Links to older Dathun recordings and Guided Meditations 12 fold breath, & 10 point Earth Breathing are here. These are some of the exact practices I did when I was meditating fro 8-10 hours a day at the Dathun I attended Dec 12-Jan 8th. Notice that all of these recordings are free and available to the public.
Left-to-right: Pele Shrine, Main Shrine
I was honored to meet Emily Utz & Jonathan Daniels the two senior students who are singlehandedly responsible for making the audio recordings and then creating the archive of Reggie’s teachings so they can be available in this way. I am so grateful for their work!
I met a lot of deep people at the Dharma Ocean Wiinter Dathun and one of the meditation instructors was Jake LaBotz who also happens to be an actor and a famous Blues musician. He performed a short set of songs for us at the first of out two feast nights.
Here are a few of his videos: “Tiny“, “Getting Closer” & “Hard to love what you kill” (click each to view the videos)
Kurukulla’s Shrine (which I slept under), Trungpa Rinpoche Shrine
Crestone’s Naga Shrine Video
My Sangha brother Gabe LePerele came across a frozen water Naga shrine during one of his afternoon hikes during Dathun. He was the ride share driver for my departing trip from Crestone to Boulder, Co and I was eager to see the shrine on or way out. Avyen and Allen were with us as well and Avyen took a video with my camera as I was not certain I would be able to find a way down the steep snowy slope. Gabe found a gentler way down and so I got to get close enough to be in some of the photos myself. Here is the beautiful snaking water shrine for you to see yourself.
What is a Naga you ask?
Here is a definition of a Naga from Wikapedia: Nāgas are considered nature spirits and the protectors of springs, wells and rivers. They bring rain, and thus fertility, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought. According to traditions nāgas are only malevolent to humans when they have been mistreated.
They are objects of great reverence in some parts of southern India where it is believed that they bring fertility and prosperity to their venerators. Expensive and grand rituals like Nagamandala are conducted in their honor (see Nagaradhane).
The nāgas also carry the elixir of life and immortality. Garudaonce brought it to them and put a cup with elixir on the ground but it was taken away by Indra. However, few drops remained on the grass. The nāgas licked up the drops, but in doing so, cut their tongues on the grass, and since then their tongues have been forked.
One of many beautiful sunsets, view from Shrine room porch
Nekole Shapiro’s video of the talk she did in Reno Nevada to open Ricki Lake’s new film on Birth is still blowing me away!
I am so proud to love and know this amazing woman. I told the beautiful pregnant women I meet at Winter Dathun 2011-12 that I would send them info about Nekole’s work and when I rewatched the video, well, I just think everyone should watch this video. Again, I am so proud to get to teach with this “Hot Mama” who was brought up in a tantric tradition in Hawaii. While I was on retreat for a month she changed the name of her work from Tantric Birth to Embodied Birth www.embodiedbirth.com
Here is the you tube posting for her amazing video!
Follow up on Past postings:
Imagine my delight and surprise when I discovered that Charles Eisenstein of Sacred Economics, whom I have mentioned before and whose work I posted in last month’s LLR media stream is in Seattle right now and doing workshops on Sacred Economics. I am so happy about this. Many of my friends are going. I did however have to work during his Wednesday talk at Phinney Ridge community center and I will be flying to Austin during his Monday the 16th workshop. I hope Leela and othere who are attending taking good notes for me. I really am planning on incorporating a lot of his ideas while building intentional community around the principles of the Living Love revolution. So I am reposting his Occupy Love video, an essay and a book download hereOccupyLove.org
Charles Eisenstein of sacred economics moving us steadily toward a new culture that uses a gift economy
Occupy Wall Street: No Demand is Big Enough
Beautiful essay by Charles Eisenstein
Ascent of Humanity
Charles Eisenstein’s amazing book that you can download and read (you can also listen to the introduction here)
More beautiful helpful links that move up toward building healthy viable alternative cultures while the current dominant cultural paradigm continues to collapse…
Three ego- renunciation practices
practices for dealing with financial insecurity
If We Get Occupy Right, We Get Everything Right
Vancouver Occupy Ian MacKenzie talks about “If we get this right” and shows the Charles Eisenstein video. Ian runs Occupy Love & makes movies with Velcro Ripper