prunes and coffee

I can't believe another week has gone by. It's free day today (Sunday). Tonight we begin sesshin, or "session", which is 5 days of uninterrupted sitting. It's about 4 more periods each day than we have been doing, and I'm hopeful my body will hold up.

Speaking of bodily functions, a few words on the food. Overall, it's excellent. We do eat gruel alot, and I've heard that sesshin is daily gruel -- a mixture of soft rice and leftover vegetables. We've got a run on beets at the moment, so much of the time gruel has a reddish pink hue.

I'm finding the whole grain diet -- porridge in the morning, rice at lunch and dinner -- is a bit tough on the system. Hence, I rely on the twin virtues of prunes and coffee to keep things moving. They are not quite enough. Perhaps sitting still stymies the natural colon flow and peristalisis. Regardless, I've discovered one of the challenges of maintaining the monastic schedule.

Last week I took quite a bit of time off from the program to prepare for and go to job interviews. I met with some very nice folks at Adobe Systems and at UC Berkeley. I would be thrilled to get an offer from either place. One concern, though: I'm not sure I'm ready to be anyone's employee again, so may ask Adobe to investigate contract work. The UCB gig is short term contract, although a longer commute, to downtown Berkeley. Working for a non-profit has a great deal of appeal, and the poeple seem very mellow. I'm realizing how wrong my last job was for me, with the reliance on firedrills, the lack of process, and the general lack of support for my function at any level of management. Thank you, Sun, for laying me off. I sure do appreciate it.

Time for laundry. Then I'm off to the pool, to stretch my muscles and take stock of my weight loss, which is a lovely 4-5 pounds. (Thank you, gruel!) One note: saw a very good Buddhist movie last week: The Fisherman and His Wife, by Dorris Dorrie. Her most well-known movie, Enlightenment Guaranteed, is also supposed to be excellent. Can't say much for last night's selection: Zen Noir. It was funny for about ten minutes. So I stayed fifteen minutes too long.

Gassho!