Shamatha-Vipasyana-Mahamudra Retreat at Cloud Mountain
January 27-30, 2006

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over ten years, I was close to many famous retreat centers and meditation centers, including Tassajara, Spirit Rock, and Ananda Village.  What comparable resources are there for a Portlander?  My search so far has turned up two likely candidates, Great Vow Zen Monastery and Cloud Mountain.  CM's very name lit me up, evoking the Cascadia ecoregion and centuries of Chinese poetry as well as Buddhism.  I dare say it was a factor in my decision to visit it sooner, rather than later.  This short retreat organized by KCC looked like a perfect hors d'oeuvre.

CM lived up to its name.  Any horizontal surfaces to be found there are made so by human hands.  Sunshine made a brief appearance during my stay, but fog, mist, and rain ruled.  A noisy stream called me from the parking lot into the adjoining woods.  The buildings a scattered around the hillside under mature alder, bigleaf maple, cedar, hemlock, and douglas-fir, so you never leave the forest.  I saw blacktail deer every day, and a plodding raccoon, a Douglas' Squirrel, a pair of crows, and a couple other miniscule bush birds.  The usual tree species for this area were joined by some white fir (as identified by  David/Dharmasana, founder of the center).  Chantrelles provided color behind the main hall.  David has planted three young sequoias by the parking lot.  Come back in a few hundred years.  Even now, less than six feet tall, they are lovely, though.

Sleeping accomodations were simple and small.  There are some single occupancy rooms, but I had two roommates.  You don't bring a lot of gear to these sorts of facilities, or you keep a lot of it in your car.  But there was plenty of hot water, better showering than I have at home.  One roommate, Pierre, is an anesthesiologist in Vancouver (Washington, not B.C.).  I didn't meet the other before we went into silence (after dinner on Friday night).  My building, named "Alder", had a living room downstairs, allowing me to read late at night without disturbing my roommates.  (That turned out to be Peter Matthiessen's Nine Headed Dragon River., which has rapidly led to other significant reading, notably Stripping the Gurus.  I will have to write about that later.)

We rose at 5:30 to be seated in Diamond Hall (the meditation hall) by 6.  The schedule was not as rigorous as dathun at Karme Choling was in 1986, and it was marked by more discursiveness (teachings by Lama Michael throughout the day, as well as a two hour "questions and dialog" period in the afternoon).  But it was a serious enough retreat for my purposes at this time.  I was able to enjoy some hours of crisp awareness and stillness.  Lama Michael continued to impress me favorably.  He's well trained in the tradition and occupies his seat simply, naturally, and respectfully, and connects with the listeners.  I am also slightly amused to enjoy noticing a slight physical resemblance between him and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Mahamudra practice is apparently a more fundamental, basic piece of Tibetan Buddhism than I understood it to be from the time I was with Vajradhatu.  (In retrospect, I must say that Vajradhatu was already too regimented when I first went to the Washington, D.C. Dharmadhatu Center in the early 80's.  They have since carried the regimentation to ridiculous extremes under the new brand of "Shambhala".)  First one learns shamatha, or "calm abiding"; then one introduces vipasyana, or "insight", into the context of shamatha.  That is mahamudra practice.  Mahamudra is a "complete teaching", meaning no other techniques are required to become enlightened.  (Thus have I heard, from Lama Michael; I don't know who he heard it from.)  I was very pleased to learn this practice, and somewhat disconcerted that it took me some twenty years of mostly active interest in Buddhism to do so.

Bracketing the meditation itself with taking refuge beforehand and dedicating the merit afterward is nothing new to me, though this group does so for every sit of the day, not just one set of brackets per day.  Lama Michael remarked that refuge and dedication of merit are what make the practice Buddhist.

The CM map indicated a Babaji shrine!?  Of course, I had to investigate this unexpected reminder of my life with Ananda.  This modest shrine was dedicated by "Yogacharya David R. Hickenbottom" (a disciple of "Yogacharya Mother Hamilton", who was in her turn a disciple of Yogananda) at the conclusion of a year-long silent retreat he spent at CM.  Hmmm.  The time was right for a modest bit of healing, as I bowed to this representation of the mythical Babaji.  Honoring Babaji is honoring the time and sincere effort I dedicated to inner fulfillment at Ananda.  I still have a pronounced distaste for the whole business, and did not care to thoroughly read the linked bio of Hickenbottom, but ultimately I must compost those years and turn them back into the garden.  And Hickenbottom's choice of Babaji, the most purley and clearly mythical person in his lineage, reminded me that mythology, in particular, is a living problem for me at present.  What is a myth?  What function does it serve?  Is it possible, with proper understanding, to employ it beneficially and avoid harm, and even simple foolishness?