stick to the plan

Sticking with the plan Tuesday is Things You Might Not Know day.

What possesed me to come up with that one? jesus.

New Year's Eve 1999.

I chose to do something different.

I was here for a 3 day retreat. I had been going to weekly meditation sessions and teachings for a few months and when the New Years event was announced I spent a long time deciding if I should go.

The first night there was not so good. I was sharing a room with 3 others. There were two 'good' matresses and 2 horsehair matresses. I was the third of the 4 in that room to arrive, so you know I got one of the horsehair ones.

It was like trying to sleep on a bag of rocks.

I tried to arrange myself in between the lumps, but because this bag of rocks was also perched on a frame which was too small for it and was too high I couldn't really do too much manouvering.

I did not sleep at all.

I wanted to go home.

When the morning finally came round I leapt out of 'bed.' Never happened before or since.

At breakfast I was talking to a lovely woman called Marilyn who was sleeping in the dorm and she said the magic words - 'there is a spare mattress in the dorm.'

She helped me shift it into my room.

Cheered by the idea of getting some sleep that night I had a great day.

Discussions and meditations, excellent food and conversation. An interesting group of people.

I went to a class on Buddhist art and the precise proportions involved.

The required measurements are laid down in a standard pattern, which corresponds to ideal physical proportions. The span is the basic measure, i.e. the distance from the tip of the middle finger to the tip of the thumb of the outspread hand. This distance corresponds to the space between the dimple in the chin and the hair-line. Each span has twelve finger-breadths. The whole figure measures 108 finger-breadths.

At the end of the 3 days I didn't want to leave.