Inspiring Walk

It's an unseasonably sunny day, with an unseasonably bright blue sky, and a temperature around forty-five degrees. I took a walk to the library. The walk (approximately twenty blocks each way) inspired a total of four little four-and-twenty poems (that's poems that are no more than four lines and twenty words). However, I won't post them here because I'd rather hold onto them and submit them to the fourandtwenty.com or, failing that, another literary journal that takes poetry.

I've been meditating a lot since last Thursday--experiencing an unofficial at-home meditation retreat often interrupted by working or hanging out at In Other Words (the only remaining nonprofit feminist bookstore/community center in the United States), or by attending parties. Tonight, for the first time, I'm going to join a Buddhist sangha, the Portland Friends of the Dhamma, even though I've had bad experiences with two previous sanghas.

A few weeks ago I went up to a Buddhist monastery in White Salmon, Washington and met some members of Friends of the Dhamma, and they have me convinced--or at least hoping--this will be a much more satisfactory sangha. I'm glad I'm back into my formal sitting meditation practice after two years of grad school--no sitting meditation, and no reading Buddhist books for a whole two years. I graduated in the spring but wasn't very disciplined, despite my intention of plunging back into sitting meditation immediately after grad school. I think visiting the monks at White Salmon was an inspiration, a reminder.