Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998Mike was also bemoaning a dropping off of attendance at the Columbia Sanghasittings (often down to just two) but said that Janné’s beginners’ class on Sundayswas going well, as was Robert Beatty’s Vipassanā group. My energy levels werestill a bit too low to really engage with the issue and give much concrete advice –we’ll get back to this one for sure…•Richard Eaton comes by to provide transport to Cloud Mountain retreatcenter and we wing our way northward through showers and over rivers to CastleRock. Greenness surrounds us and, as we pull into Cloud Mountain’s drive, fillsevery corner of the vision. Thick undergrowth and glistening luminescent treefrog emerald moss is everywhere. Welcomes by David Branscome and his partnerLaura, who now run the place together. A small group and no monastic assistance– it should be a pleasantly low-key session: 17 retreatants only for the nine days.Alone in the kutī by Diamond Hall again – outside my windows walls of greenand fiddleheaded fern fronds rise into the dimming sky – blackbirds begin to maketheir roosting calls as the light draws in. The silence rings – alone and togetheragain.Night comes. We have our first meeting – this tiny clutch of beings – and thechorus of frog-song fills our ears.25 th April – May 3 rdLow chi, slow to rouse. Like the fishes of Cloud Mountain ponds, we swim in a vasttank of verdure – a massive tangle of green.Fountains of new fern growth spring from the heart of the old – a thin pinesprouting from the broken and decaying stump by the path. Layer upon layerupon layer of moss – the Buddha is almost buried in the cave of his green mountain,it was bare rock when I first came here seven years ago.Tiny birds hop amongst the reed beds around the pond – the palest of drifts ofblue mist rise from the glassy surface – morning sun-gold pours through the densegrove filling the eastern border. A robin hunts, listening for worms and grubs; thecats stalk the birds and invisible rodent life; the worms munch their way throughthe earth; all is eaten with the hungry eye. Day begins on Cloud Mountain, morninglight through fern-forms and leaflets – iridescent, multiplying life.Paticca samuppāda Saturday night.The Five Hindrances Sunday.The question period brightens us up, brings us together more.Bamboo clusters, green and stately; grand, dark brown fishes in the pond.Scroll paintings from the Met re-echo in the mind: what pools of carp and swaying,creaking fronds did those masters stare into? Where are the fishes now? Are theclumps they so delicately sketched still shouldering snow and reflecting the brassysuns of Chinese summers, bending in the autumn winds of Hokkaido?54