friends, as you may have heard, i just emerged yesterday from 100 days of solitary retreat. i had planned on ~60 but stayed longer than expected, not because of the virus.
i am safe and healthy and hope you are too.
i am safe and healthy and hope you are too.
as you can imagine it's been a very confusing transition - both because the world is dramatically different and because it's confusing to switch from a small cabin with nothing to do but follow my breath, to a world with emails and tweets and slack messages and phones.
a few quick impressions, since so many have asked. i hope to write more in my newsletter soon but it's all a moving piece of adjustment and re-orientation.
it seems like my job for the last three months was to be a sane person in the midst of confusion. i had my own struggles with confusion and insanity - the hindrances - but learned to work with them and be saner. i hope to be able to share this sanity to you and the world
it's still unclear to me whether the world is more or less sane than it was when i got out. but what sanity is is clearer, in my own mind - freedom from the hindrances, and exploring the territory that emerges in that freedom - and in the world.
as far as i can tell - and i expect many to disagree - the economy's health is the best metric of our sanity. if it is unhealthy, we and the world are sick. when the economy is going well, we have more carbon output, more pollution, more confusion, more suicide, more problems.
what would a world with a healthy, trustworthy economy look like? i don't know. i tried to live accordingly in the cabin. now i'm trying to re-integrate.
more impressions. the dharma is precious in all circumstances. the dharma is yes, mundane Buddhist truth - but also simply any truth, sanity, wisdom, clarity, ethics.
relatedly, community is precious. even more precious - invaluably precious - is sangha, communities of trustworthy people practicing the dharma. as far as i can tell, our community is less confused, hurt, and scarred than the world i'm hearing about outside.
people here are happy and healthy, touching and smiling and caring for each other. they are trying to improve themselves and the world. as soryu put it in a talk yesterday: we are trying to develop a vaccine. you need to deal with the symptoms and the root problem.
please forgive me if this message is upsetting to you in any way. i'm still learning how to talk + write in skillful ways, and these are extreme circumstances for speech for me - transitioning from silence to speech, from a sane, quiet, small world to a big, confused, loud world.
i'll have a more elaborate, less rough, but also less raw version of my reactions in my newsletter. tasshin.com/join/
and i will of course share more about my retreat. to me, this, the fruits of extended practice, is perhaps even more important than my Rip Van Winkle reactions to a world event - especially one that (as far as I know today) only directly impacts humans.
feel free to be in touch by mention, DM, or some other medium at any time but my inboxes are overflowing so I may reply slowly - and participate here slowly.
i am sending you love and happiness, hoping you are safe and well. please do good things for yourself and others, staying calm and collected even if things are confusing or changing or painful.
