Today, Friday 25 March, it is exactly five months since I arrived on the Isle of Arran, and thus also at the retreat centre. In addition to that it is also my first birthday on Arran. Not that that in any way made any difference, since most of my birthdays, even the more significant ones, were spent either working, or people forgetting. Such is life. ;->
And my day did not unfold any different to any other day. I still got up at 3h00, did my internet work, and then got the breakfast stuff ready. After that I came back to my cabin and checked my emails and Facebook messages. It seems, judging by the number of well wishes compared to in the past, I should have left South Africa a long time ago. Substantially more messages and birthday wishes than in previous years. Once I had done all of that it was time for my morning snooze. When one wakes up at 3h00, and is going to be on ones’ feet all day, then it helps to catch up on some sleep when one can. Invariably I do that while the retreatants have breakfast and before I start preparing lunch, and again in the afternoon, sometimes immediately after finishing up with cleaning the kitchen, and sometimes just before the evening time.
According to their schedule they are not allowed in the dining hall or any general area after 19h00, which enables us to sort out things, and for me to for example put out fresh fruit for the next day. In addition to check on their provisions of sugar and jams and stuff, to fill the urn so that the next morning when I make my morning tea I can just walk in and turn on the urn without having to wait for it to fill up. It is a gas urn, and it is also a great big catering type urn, to ensure there will be enough boiling water for everybody for breakfast, plus to be able to fill their thermo flasks to have boiling water until lunchtime. The electricity is only on from 4h15 until 8h00 now, it does not come back on before 16h00, and thus there is no other means to make boiling water for tea or other hot drinks. This may not be such an issue now as it is gradually starting to warm up a little, but at the peak of winter it is a definite must have.
But there will be more about the routine and stuff another time. Today, being my birthday I decided that since I could not celebrate with them, I would bake a cake and then they could celebrate for me. Accordingly I had attempted to bake a cake. Note attempted, as it has probably been more than thirty years since I last baked a cake. The first attempt was a dismal failure, but not wanting to waste anything I managed to salvage it by turning it into a trifle. The second attempt was a bit better, though still far from excellent. No hurry, eventually I will be able to also bake cakes as proficiently again as bread.
Lunch is always a bit of a dicey situation, as one never knows if they are actually going to like the food. Nothing is worse than having a lot of leftovers, and now having to try and figure out how best to utilise them so that there is minimal wastage. That was one thing I had told Lama Yeshe when I arrived here, that I do not believe in wasting food. So he could tell them that anything they did not eat today, they would get rehashed at a later stage. That even applies to the fruit on the tables. Quite often they do not want to eat the fruit because it looks overripe, or because the banana skins are black on the outside, for a variety of reasons, but invariable the fruit is still good on the inside. Then I take the fruit, cut it up, and it goes into the soup or stew. Most likely most of the people here have eaten far more fruit now than they have ever before, or than what they are aware of, because it gets eaten with the rest of the soup. Don’t mess with me. J
On the days when they have a tsok puja day, that is a day on which a specific practise gets done with edible offerings etc. then invariably they are not very hungry. Simply because by the time they get to the dining room they have had loads of other things to eat already. Also again when there is a Lama visiting, then usually people send gifts and treats for the Lama, which then gets shared with all the people in retreat as well. Then they are also not very keen on normal lunch, regardless of what one cooks. Just to clarify from earlier on, tsok is a food offering, and puja is a practise. So a tsok puja is a chanting practise in the shrine room at which there are food offerings.
As an aside, strictly speaking people on retreat, regardless of whether a weekend retreat or a long-term retreat, should not be focused on food. Even at the best of times, one should ideally only eat in order to nourish the ailing body, and not for pleasure, or because eating is the done thing. Yet especially when on a long-term retreat there is usually so much sensory deprivation that it is quite difficult to not, at least initially, be ‘consumed’ by food. In addition it is naturally also one of the few opportunities for ‘socialising’ that they have. So invariably meal times is a big thing, and also something which many almost live for for a while, as it is such a lovely diversion in the otherwise perceived monotony of daily existence.
But I digress. The flopped cake was turned into a successful trifle, and the second attempted cake, though by no means an accomplishment, was none the less not too bad. And both were, together with the remaining food, all eaten up. In view of there not really being any direct contact between the retreatants and the caretakers, other than a request book which they can write things into, one is, especially as far as cooking meals goes, flying blind. You have absolutely no idea why the food was not eaten. The only gauge you have is how much was eaten, and whether anything was thrown into the composting bucket. Other than that you have to guess. As mentioned earlier, over time you learn that on tsko puja days there is less of an appetite, but that is only maybe three times per month.
I am also convinced that there is something of a group conscience at work. Why would otherwise, some days, the apples hardly be touched, or all oranges be eaten, and on other days hardly anything gets touched at all. Yet put out the exact same stuff the following day, and sometimes it is all gone by the end of the day. In addition I would imagine that whatever the very first persons opinion or perception of the food is gets carried over to everybody else. Either by something that they comment on about the meal, which then pre-forms an opinion in everybody else’s mind, or else it all happens on an unconscious level.
!O-3|-W;-
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