Saturday, April 9, 2011

Buddha's Birthday

The sun shone for Buddha's Birthday this year, which was a blessing, as all the parasols and stuff look much better in the sunshine than they did last year, when I was, frankly, feeling a bit cold and grey myself and not in much of a mood to celebrate. This year I was slightly better rested and more festive feeling.
One advantage of the ceremony coming at the end of interim is that I had plenty of time this morning to make sure most of the necessary things were set out; then, when I went off to the zendo for 9:25 zazen, in my newly washed robes, which I then proceeded to sweat through of course, a number of other people were ready to take care of all the other details for the setting up - I was grateful to have so many helping hands.
People seemed to enjoy it a lot, and I even did myself. We are almost a victim of our own success, in that we were a little crowded for the circumambulations, and we may have to rethink the way we use the space. Enough of that though, I did manage to bring my camera along in my sleeve, and grab some pictures from time to time, and I think they tell the story better than I am going to:










2 comments:

Mike said...

So I know that this is a Zen Buddhism blog, but I think cycling and Zen are related.

Wow! What a Paris-Roubiax! Boonen with bad luck and an amazing surge by Cancellara, but is fun to see a "domestique"win. Quite a ride on his part.

Was sort of cheering for Thor, because I like his name, he is the World Champ, and Norwegian. My wife is Norwegian and it would have made her smile. Hope you got to see it. Funny that you and my riding buddy were two of the folks I was thinking of when I was watching it with my coffee.

Lovely photos of Buddha's birthday. SFZC is not a place I've visited for a long time. Always nice to see the photos.

Shundo said...

Hi Mike, Always happy to have a bike conversation on the side. I think cycling and zen are related too. Today panned out as I had hoped - I was watching from a little before the Arenberg, and it was quite a race, incidents, crashes, bad moods. I forgot to mention Geraint Thomas in the last comment, but I had hoped he would do well - I think he was in the thick of the crashes as well. Glad for the winner though, sometimes the underdog has his day. Went up Diablo afterwards, which was amazingly green, but a bit chilly on the descent.