Lately I have been pondering my plans for how often I will go to Deer Park this year. Last year at this time I was going down 1 or 2 times per month, which lasted the first seven months of the year until the monastery closed so that the monks and nuns could travel and lead retreats around the country.
This year I am anticipating being there with less frequency, which gnaws at me a little bit. As I've reflected on it, however, I have realized that part of the reason it bothers me - perhaps a way too big part, is that I've gotten used to feeling this strange ego boost from my relationship to the community at Deer Park. I go there often enough and feel at home enough there that people ask me if I live there. I have friend who are monks and who are nuns. Some of them I correspond with, collaborate with, organize with, etc. And I have begun to realize how much a part of my spiritual ego identity it is when I am here in Los Angeles or Pasadena to talk about my nun friend this or my monk friend this or my other friend who used to be a monk, etc. I feel special and unique. I have this set of experiences that others do not - I am unique and interesting and fascinating and special... and somewhere in my reflections upon this I have decided that I want to stop holding up flashing neon signs that say "I am friends with nuns and monks at a Buddhist monastery...." and so forth. I want to just practice. And I can do that at home OR at the monastery. I can do that with friends who have never been to Deer Park. I can wear my connection to a place with much less ego and pomp. I can just be a person in the world. Like Rilke's beautiful verse:
I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.
I think it is easy to to want to be more than what we are, just as we are, in any given moment. Because my practice is about a practice, not a place. And it is about a spiritual community, but not as a sense of ego identity, but a place and a way of being together to call home. And that is something that can be nurtured everywhere and anywhere. It doesn't need to be in the mountains of Escondido or at Plum Village in the south of France. I can just be who I am in any moment. To simply be in the presence of something holy. Myself. My steps. The earth. All of you.
Every day.
