July 6

We’ve arrived at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Father William picked us up late in the afternoon yesterday. He had just been on a ten-day trip driving to St. Louis, Missouri and Chicago, Illinois.

Our stay in Minneapolis was lovely. On July 4th the meal was offered by Joanne and David. They also invited two of their friends, Amy and Niomi. After the meal we sat and discussed Dhamma until 3:30 pm. My experience of Minneapolis in my two visits to the Common Ground Meditation Center is that people there really love the Dhamma. Back in November I gave two formal talks in the evening and people stayed until midnight to continue the discussion.

Out hosts Patrice and Dan took us to get a few gifts in the early evening of July 4th and we visited Lock and Dam #1 on the Mississippi River. They have this lock set up as a tourist and educational facility. We saw them lower the lock once while we were there for two kayakers.

Yesterday Veronica offered us the meal and we shared it with Mark and Wynn Nunberg. Mark and Wynn are the main teachers at the Common Ground Center. They have a very large committed community. I made a point of complimenting Mark and Wynn for their commitment to offering the teachings on dana (generosity). They have been teaching in this area for eight years, using their home as a meeting place, and have always refrained from charging.

Father William has been busy catching up on a bit of office work today, but has made time to make us feel welcome and shown us around the campus too. St. John’s, besides being a monastery, is also a small liberal arts college. About 1800 students attend. So the campus is quite large. The property has several thousand acres of hardwood forest and about seven lakes. I’m tempted to go for a walk on one of the many trails they have through the forest, but I don’t have the energy. I’m also tempted to take out one of the canoes. Last night after evening prayer services Austin and I walked outside to look at a statue of one of Jesus’ disciples that looked strikingly similar to a Buddhist monk, especially the way he was wearing his robe (except he was wearing a hair shirt). After being outside for two minutes the mosquitoes found us. I got my first bite of the year.

That reminds me of a poem that Patrice and Dan had in the guest room. The first two lines of the poem read: “It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing and it was going to snow.”

“I got bit and I’m going to get bitten.” There sure is a lot of “I” in that sentence. Maybe I should write: “Mosquitoes bite and they are going to bite.” Sounds a bit better, but still suffering happens.