Sunday

Sunday has been as busy as any day of the week, which has been a very busy week indeed. This is a good thing. It's one thing to survive during hard times, but it's another thing altogether to thrive during hard times. Work has been pouring in lately, for which I'm most grateful (and quite a bit surprised).

This morning, I had the opportunity to provide the instruction to newcomers at the Zen Center. I like doing this - newcomers are fun. However, it made me quite sad that one of the young women of the two who showed up saw that her cell phone had (silently) rang six times during the orientation session, and that it was her boyfriend in the service, to whom she hadn't talked in two weeks. I understand that he's stationed in some distant land that they call "Rhode Island." She went outside to call him back, but by that time he was gone and she won't have another chance to talk to him for another week.

I know how that feels - I've been in more than a few long-distance relationships in my life, and most of those before the days of email, IMs, testing, and cheap, long-distance cell-phone coverage, so I understand how it seems that one's whole life is dependant upon that one call during the week. And then to miss it and not be able to correct the situation is frustrating and sad. This is duhkka, this is suffering.

She didn't stay for the ceremonies (a memorial service and a precepts renewal) and the dharma talk. Which is also sad, because they were lovely little ceremonies, what with the repentance verse ("All my past and harmful karma, born from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow"), the Kanzeon chant, and the renewal of the precepts itself. I'm not sure they would have helped her suffering, but they would probably have taken her mind off of things for a while.

But after the ceremonies, I could not stay either. I had to use the day to prepare a Power Point presentation for the BeltLine advisory committee to give to the City Council later this month. I might have to give the presentation myself (a real motivation to do a good job, I can assure you), but I'm likely to be out of town on business that week (part of that thriving-during-hard-times thing).

Finishing the presentation, I then had to reply to several emails concerning the still on-going controversies regarding the City's plans to pave over our neighborhood park and then write a settlement offer to a yard contractor with whom I have a payment dispute. And then shop for groceries. And pay some bills.

And post to my blog.

None of this is a burden and all of it is welcome (even paying my bills), but it keeps me busy. Tonight I can unwind with some supermarket sushi, Game 5 of the NBA Playoffs and the season premier of True Blood. Jehovah might have rested on the seventh day, but Shokai can't afford to.