Can you see me there in the back with the striped sweater?

I did not make a new best friend.  I did meet scads of nice people, scads of interesting people, and some Venn diagram of nice and interesting people.  I began the groove of getting to know a few people – some are seminarians, some are ministers, some are lay people.  I met someone I liked who grew up in Oregon but doesn’t live there anymore.  I met one person in the last hour of the retreat I wish I had met in the first hour.  Such is impermanence and clinging.

I did not find the long-sought-after perfect spiritual director who would meet my needs as both a UU and a Buddhist.  At least I think I didn’t.  I figure, if I can’t find that person in this crowd, s/he doesn’t exist in that combination of traits and I must reconsider who and what I am looking for. Or now is just not the right time.  Or my eyes are covered in dust and perhaps will find clear seeing at some point.

And I did not achieve nirvana.  (These three things make much more sense if you have read my most previous blog post.)

I feel gratitude for the people who put this gathering of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship together.  The gratitude has continued to grow since the convocation ended and we went our separate ways.  This happens every two years and is no small amount of effort to pull off.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I met an incredible woman who glows from the inside out, who beheld me truly in the midst of a communal and otherwise mundane dinner conversation.  It turns out she is a UU minister and a composer of music and I am crossing my fingers that our paths cross again.

I practiced embodying healthy boundaries in an unstructured affinity group.  This group of about 16 or 17 people gathered on a shared subject but without direction or identified facilitation.  We did very well until one person shared too long and showed no sign of recognizing his monopolizing the space.  After doubt and self talk, and observing no one else stepping in to help ensure the space was protected for all to use, I spoke up, hopefully skillfully, and opened the forum to others to share.  I felt like I moved a step closer to being a competent minister in that moment.

On Sunday morning, I attended one of the most moving, engaging, loving UU worship services.  Ever.  Led by both Reverend Mary Grigolia (the woman who glows from within) and Reverend Meg Riley of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, it was funny, tender, joyful, connecting, and organic.  I aspire to midwife worship like that.

Tara Brach, PhD, was the headliner for the convocation.  She’s a psychologist, raised a UU, a popular Buddhist teacher nationally who has written two books, both of which are worth reading.  She is the founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington.  Her day-long session was on her latest, Finding True Refuge.  Her voice is calm and reassuring and she has cultivated a successful image as both approachable and polished.

I know I am supposed to write something about Tara Brach, since she was the celebrity draw and the primary teacher.  I’m supposed to write how wonderful she was.  She certainly has a fan base, some of whom came to see her even though they weren’t UU.  Her presentation balanced dharma content, humor, and actual visioning and meditation exercises, the last of which I found profound (I became smitten by the partner I had for that brief exercise.  It was such an intimate sharing, so tender, it was hard not to fall in love, if only for that bit of time).

Tara is smart, psychologically-savvy, and I pay her my highest compliment: her guidance and teaching methods are trauma-informed.  This is not always the case with dharma teachers (as I experienced at my last retreat), thought they should be.  Trauma is too tender and potentially-devastating to not have skills and knowledge as a meditation instructor or dharma teacher.

My biggest criticism is that I think she is sometimes lazy in her storytelling.  Some of the stories she told I have heard other dharma teachers tell.  Now, that is not, I hope, a sin.  I aspire to be a preacher and I know that all my sermons will be largely, if not fully, iterative – owing wholly to those who come before me.

In fact, I plan to use one of Tara’s stories in an upcoming sermon.  So that’s not the source of my complaint of laziness.  It’s that some of her true stories weren’t fully accurate.  For example, the story I plan to borrow (and give attribution to where I heard it from, which Tara did not always do) – I have already done research on it.  The core of what Tara said – the parts relevant to her point – is true, but other elements that she included in the retelling were off.   Not damning, but lazy.

After a full day, I was in desperate need of time alone (see previous post re: introversion).  Though the session included silences and guided meditation, it was thoroughly and utterly saturated with humanity: in the workshop, at meal times, in the bathrooms, on breaks.  Quirky people, also lovely people, but people nonetheless.  I needed AWAY.

I missed out on good content and scintillating discussion at the workshops scheduled directly after the session with Tara because I opted for rest – first in bed, then a walk in an old graveyard.  As I walked in the cooling spring air, I spotted a red bird high atop a dead tree, standing a bit apart from the rest of the trees, not yet clothed in leaves.  The bird whistled, but no reply was forthcoming.  I decided to whistle back: flirting, …even without pets or babies.