Field Trip to the Fields

I may not be traveling anymore right now, but I can still take a field trip. So, last Monday about a dozen Happy Boy Farms employees (including myself) took a field trip out to the fields where our veggies are growing fresh and lively.

One thing that can be said about the Happy Boy farmer's market workers is that we are our number one fans! Which is to say that we probably eat more of Happy Boy's produce than any of our other customers. The running joke is that the people at the grocery store must be laughing at us when they only ever see us buying dairy, toilet paper and beer. Well, maybe not exactly, but when all of our veggies, fruit, bread, rice and honey are coming fresh from the farmer's market, there's not much need for anything else.

Mouths watering, we hit the fields. A few of the veggies were so tempting that they just had to be plucked on the spot. Other than eating watermelons and tomatoes in the field, I also took home a "first of the season" red kabocha squash, a few fresh red cippolini onions, and a handful of okra.

California is such an amazing land. The skies were big and blue and the sun was shining hot. The majority of the fields we visited were in the Hollister and Gilroy area, although I don't know all the exact locations. Greg (the owner of the farm) was excited about our newest field because of the mix of long hours of sunshine with a cool coastal air - perfect for our baby lettuce!

The colors were beautiful, the smells were fresh, and the Happy Boys and Girls were smiling happily. Yum!

By the way, I've used up all my free space on Picasa, so I started another account to fit the new photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bhavanatraveler

Jumping Off Trees in India

Here's a video that a friend took of me and some friends in India. This was day 39 of our 40 day retreat when we were first allowed to talk again, and we were invited to take boats out on the lake to get to know each other.

I ended up in a boat with 4 other men. Men! So, what do you think we did? Well, we sang funny songs, and then decided to jump out of a tree about 30 feet high above the water. In the video, I'm the last one climbing up the tree, and also the first to jump.

My friend Eskild took the video. He was also the guy in the room next to mine, so I saw him every day of the retreat as I had to walk through his room to get to the front door. The guy speaking French in the video was in the room on the other side of me. And the fourth guy was on the other side of the house. As we jump, we shout out: Asish Bhawan! (which was the name of the cottage we were living in.)

Oh, what fun we had.

Meeting Mokshananda

LighthouseCalifornia is a wonderful place for all things related to mind, spirit, psychology, and the inner journey. Especially wonderful is Santa Cruz which happens to be home to an enlightened master named Mokshananda (who knows how many enlightened beings are in this town, perhaps quite a few.)

I wanted to go to a dharma gathering of some sort and meet some like minded individuals, and also to continue my ongoing process of inquiry. So, I looked in the Santa Cruz area and found quite a few options. Big on my list to visit are Vipassana Santa Cruz, and the Burmese monastery in nearby Boulder Creek. But I found a gathering with Mokshananda to be the first event which really fit well with my schedule, so a couple months back I went. I'd been meaning to write something about it for a while, but it's also been nice to let it sink in a bit and be able to write on it with some perspective.

I found Mokshananda on the website of Adyashanti, who apparently was one of Mokie's teachers. Of course, one of the most obvious things about both these teachers is their use of funky Hindu names despite the fact that they are zen teachers who are white guys from California. Even funnier is that Mokshananda goes by Mokie, and Adyashanti goes by Adya. But, whatever... we're all a little quirky I guess.

The Adyashanti lineage seems to teach a sorta amorphous non-dual enlightenment that's only very loosely based on zen, and is most commonly transmitted through Satsangs (a hindu concept which basically means a community gathering "sangha" to explore truth "sat"). So, it's got a very Advaita (Hindu non-duality) feel to it as well.

Anyway, I went to see Mokshananda and found it particularly amusing that he decided not to give a themed talk on that particular day. He started by saying "well, most of you seem like familiar faces and have heard everything I have to say, so I'll just open it up to questions instead." Doh! I haven't heard any of it, yet! In fact, I'd never heard anything from Mokie before, since I only found him on another website and decided to check it out because it was close by. What's also funny is that the one time I went to see Gil Fronsdal he also decided not to give a talk, but rather just answer questions instead. Oh well.

I arrived a minute or two late for the gathering and so everyone was already sitting in silence. Mokie was sitting on the big red couch in the front of the living room, and everyone else was scattered throughout, sitting on the floor or in chairs. I found out later that this was actually Mokie's house I was sitting in. Cool! It's not often that a spiritual teacher just says "hey, c'mon into my house and let's talk."

He had on an Independent beanie (a skateboarding brand) and he looked pretty peaceful sitting on his couch in silence. What was also obvious very quickly is that almost everyone there was older than me with the majority being over forty, and maybe a couple folks nearer to my age. Mokie looked like maybe about forty years old himself, but maybe he just looks good for his age (edit: I just found out he's in his late fortys). It was quite an eclectic group too, like maybe comprised of ex-hippies. No matter - I was happy to be there, whatever the crowd.

Although I didn't really get too much sense of what the teaching was, I really enjoyed hearing Mokie's responses to questions, and enjoyed asking a question of my own. I'm not sure his answer helped me too much, however. He was big on the practice of asking the question "who am I?"

So, in the end I can't say much about him as a teacher. I still feel fairly unacquainted with who he is. But, he did have a very welcoming attitude and made it clear that I was certainly welcome to come back again. I may take him up on that, as I like the idea of a simple teacher living locally and easily accessible.

Tomato Time!

heirloom tomatoSo delicious!