Dhamma Neru, as most of y’all know, is the meditation center in Barcelona where I was living when I arrived in Spain.
In my three months meditating there and volunteering in the kitchen and the garden, I only took out my camera twice: once in March, and once in April.
Both times, what drew my attention the most were las cositas — the little things.
From email update March 30th:
SPIRITUAL ECONOMY
I was amazed to learn that the entire operation budget for Dhamma Neru comes directly from student donations. No grant proposals, no NGOs, nada. To me, this is wonderfully inspiring as an example of compassion in economy — compassion based on direct, personal experience. Nobody pressures or shames you into giving, and nobody rewards you by putting your name on a building. Funding isn’t subject to nonprofit fads, nor contingent upon the program’s success in producing X number of enlightened beings per year. Always, the best motivation to give is born of direct, continued experience. Of course, in life we should help distribute resources that we don’t use directly (like sponsoring a soup kitchen that doesn’t feed us, or an accompanier for threatened organizers in Guatemala). Still, it’s quite special when the impetus to give comes from thinking, I have personally benefited from this, I continue to reap its benefits to this day, and I wish to share its benefits with other people who want to learn. Solid. Besides, I like the fact that “dana,” or donation in Pali language, can come in many forms, not just money: from a handful of fertile soil for the garden, to an afternoon of scrubbing toilets and sinks.
From email update March 30th:
LANGUAGE LEARNING
Fortunately, my language skills are beginning to improve. Thanks to its location and purpose, Dhamma Neru is actually a wonderful place for learning two different dialects (“idiomas”): Kitchen Spanish (“¿Puedes cortar las remolachas?” “Can you cut the beets?”) and Dhamma Spanish (“Que todo los seres sean felices.” “May all beings be happy”).
And some great translations:
English: “to give birth” :: Castellano: “dar la luz” (“to give light”)
English: “mischief” :: Castellano: “travesura” (I dunno, I just get a kick out of that word in both languages, heh)
From email update March 30th:
KITCHEN CRISIS
After a 5- or 6-day work period of center maintenance (much of which I spent lugging and laying huge slate stones for an outdoor walkway in the men’s area — literally ‘making a path,’ hehe), I reported for kitchen duty for the next 10-day course, along with a dozen brand-new volunteers. During introductions, we were told that since the position of kitchen manager involves a lot of intense responsibility, the job would be split, 5 days apiece, between two people: Anjel, a long-term server; and Natalia, who had run the kitchen when I served at the end of February. Okay, cool.
Less than 24 hours later, Natalia and Anjel have both backed out. And guess who is named the new, sole kitchen manager? That’s right, the only one who doesn’t speak Spanish. Yo.
A lovely woman I ran into on my block this morning. And she was so sweet about letting me take her picture! Made my day.
In reverse chronological order, some homes of the past five months. Except for the month when I was walking from home to home every day. Hopefully those fotos’ll come through soon!
From email update March 30th:
Hóla querid@s!
It’s me again, popping up to say qué tal. I hope this note finds you happy, taking good care of yourself and those around you.
Okay, first of all, Thank You So Much for sending me mail! Good heavens, people. A couple of weeks ago, just as my first brief spell of homesickness set in, I got a text message from Courtney and Jonathan in Barcelona telling me their mailbox was full of letters for me. Wow. I truly appreciate it so, so much! I hope they were half as fun to send as they were for me to read, which I finally got to do last night, having arrived in the city for a < 48hr break between serving meditation courses up in the hills. All such beautiful gifts — many, many, many thanks.
Here’s the thing, folks. On the one hand, I want to keep this short. On the other hand, there is so much to tell! So let’s compromise, shall we? I’ll divide the news into categories, and you can read any/all of the sections that interest you. Sound good? Here we go!
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[To be continued…]
It was a little over one year ago when I announced to my friend Matt that I dislike flowers. Flowers in general. I believe I called them “too ostentatious.” Heh. Joke’s on me now, I guess. This spring, the beauties at the meditation center (completely barren when I arrived; then a paradise a few weeks later) just sucked in all my attention like dainty little nuclear-strength vacuums. This helped me to stay present, especially when meditation got hard. This is my thanks to them. Wassup, y’all.
Email update February 23rd:
friends! family! hello. you adorable things.
how are you? hope all’s well, and even if it’s not so well at the moment, that you’re feeling happy regardless.
in keeping with my goal of brevity, this travel update email will be, uh, brief.
Hey y’all! ¿Que tal? Muy bien, I hope. Me, I’m doing great. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? So long, in fact, that I don’t quite know where to re-begin.
But since the book in my bag at the moment is The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, I guess the best place to start is… ;)
Kloncke 