Entries this day: 10_day_course_finished Zzzz_still_here

10 day course finished

9:32am JST （土）6 May 2006

(transcribed 12:53pm JST Monday 15 May 2006 (day 13200))

Just absolutely amazing...

this Vipassana experience blew me away...

in the last 24 hours, but mostly in the last 1/2 hour.

Starting the 6th day, I began a list of words representing the days

1. Excited

2. Interested

3. Hopeful

4. Pissed

5. Aggravated

6. Bored

7. がんばった

8. Happily distracted

9. Distracted

10. Reinspired

11. Blown Away

Ended at 7am today with a bit of crying: one half tear on my left eye, and one person sobbing. I have a new way of seeing the world.

Plan to email Kentaro: "not 'you should do it' but 'You Absolutely fucking must do this.'"

Zzzz still here

12:30am JST （日）7 May 2006

(transcribed 1:02pm JST Monday 15 May 2006 (day 13200))

I am still at the Vipassana center. Really inspired to serve in some way. Repaired 3 wooden seats from deterioration outdoors in the garden area. Cut 8 pieces of wood from a flooring slat that had served its flooring duty. Bit trick to cut them lengthwise safely and accurately with the available radial saw, where I needed a table saw to do the cut.

I cut and lodged a piece of wood back behind the fixed metal plates for bracing the wood. This way I was able to line up my strips with the saw blade at one end, and the blade's intended destination at the other end for basically perfect cuts.

(Wish I had gotten pictures of the fucked up seats, and hope I remember to get pictures of the finished product tomorrow when it's light.)

Then lunch, then "rehearsal"'s meaning revealed. Tomorrow is a 1 day kids' meditation camp, including a puppet show and several memorization activities. I helped paint and decorate and draw numbers 42, 88, 36, 25, 50 and 91. Lovely child's play fun all day today!!

People I really met today and yesterday: Will, who wore the Aesop Rock T-shirt so I really wanted to talk to him first on Day 10. Dave who I ended up connecting with even more, with cool world politics knowledge and is a chef and lives in 高田馬場. Masa had long hair in almost dredlocks. Shoulda gotten pics. Prolly never see Masa again.

Sent 8 emails tonight with permission. Have NOT opened my computer, but only because it's sealed in plastic airtight bag and fully off (as of Day 1), and because I am not allowed to. Argh!!