Tassajara 2011
My last time at Tassajara was 1979 with Jan, who’s been going regularly before and since. The combination of romantic getaway and monastic retreat was dissonant for me then, and I never accompanied her again until now.
June 16 8:30 A.M.
I was sitting on the bench built into the bridge over the arroyo listening to the water tumbling beneath and converging with Tassajara creek. I was feeling solitude at the crossroads–monks and students and guests walking in opposite directions, stopping, bowing, moving on. I was looking at sunlight crawling downward through the leaves on the opposite bank. I was feeling the afterglow of last night, the buzz of morning meditation, the warmth of the sulfur bath, the sparkle of caffeine–all blending like flavors. That was before she woke up and joined me, before I descended the rock stairway to the edge of the water and stared at back-eddies and rills, before the sun ignited submerged rocks and the remains of yesterday’s food passed through me and I started to record what long had passed downstream.
6:30 P.M.
The sun has gone from the top of the valley’s vertical walls. A subtle breeze riffles armhairs and cools cheeks and eyelids still radiating midday heat from rounded rocks I embraced naked after a cold swim down below the narrows.
June 17 8:30 A.M.
Sitting on the great boulder in the creek approached by the tiny arched bridge. Feeling again the blend of zazen, chant, bath, and coffee. The second morning of effort to achieve non-achievement. “Enjoy,” sings the creek that feeds life in this burned over and regenerated wilderness. “Feel yourself,” gargles the water boiling from the rock.
My Rule of Tassajara
4:30: Wake up in the dark and watch the full moon dip below the peak closing the valley upstream.
5:00 Drink coffee
5:50 Remove shoes outside zendo, parade in, receive seat assignment, hearing large bells, drum, knocker, small chimes, large chime. Practise zazen facing wall for 30 minutes, smelling incense. Follow with genuflections and chants.
7:30 Drink more coffee, walk to bath, watch sunlit alder branch reflections on surface of outdoor plunge, sit in hot plunge, float in creek, shave.
8:30 Walk back to dining area and drink coffee.
9:00 Meet for quiet breakfast; move belongings to a different cabin; pack lunch
10:15 Hike to Suziki Roshi memorial led by Jan, then up steep promontory to waterfall overlook, in fields of flowers and charred trees. Find beehive. Walk through creek to waterfall base.
12:00 Find way back to new cabin, eat lunch at table above creek.
1:30 Drink coffee, nap in cabin
3:00 Go to baths—steam room, hot plunge, float in creek, nakedness nibbled by fingerlings. Young men and old. Everyone quiet.
4:00 Read old histories of Tassajara going back to Indians and first resort development in 1870’s
4:40 Return to cabin and read Gary Snyder.
5:00 Practise zazen on floor in cabin.
5:45 Read Snyder and Mary Oliver
7:00 Eat dinner and converse with people from San Luis Obispo at table.
8:00 Return to cabin; read by kerosene lamp; give over to nature.
