Tassajara

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, located in a remote (2 hours to the nearest town, the Web site warns!) part of the Los Padres National Forest, southeast of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, is fascinating.

First and foremost, it is a Zen monastery. In fact it was the first training Zen monastery in the US and was established on the site of an old hot springs resort which itself was built on top of a spot where the native population took the healing waters. It still functions as a resort in the summertime. There is no hired staff to keep the resort running: the student monks comprise the workforce, and that work itself is part of their training.

They call this work-as-practice time the “Guest Period.” Tassajara also trains students through an intense “Practice Period” in the fall and winter, replacing the work required to care for guests with sitting meditation. The two periods are tied together: a cost-free practice period is granted to those students who complete a work period.

Between the the guest and practice periods are the “Work Periods” to clean up after and to prepare for the guests. There’s too much work for the students during this time so they open the doors to volunteers who live with the community and share work in exchange for the great food and a stay at this amazing place.

So to recap: you have this monastery, which is also a resort, which is nestled in a valley in a remote corner of a national forest. Monks and guests mingle in amongst the hot springs and the fabulous mountains. People searching for spiritual liberation next to folks just looking to chill out for a while. It is truly unique place.

Tassajara is also a particularly special place for M. She used to go often when she lived in the Bay Area. I’ve been fascinated by Buddhism and Zen for some time. So when she suggested we go for work period, the decision was easy. We went for a week in April.

It’s remarkable that after all the places to which I’ve travelled, this place a few hours away from Silicon Valley is the most disconnected place I’ve visited. No cell. No data. No wifi. No wired Internet. Nothing but a (single, public) voice land line telephone for 8 days.

Wake Up

Sounding board used in the students' area.

Every day begins with the wake up bell at 530. A student walks through the compound ringing a hand bell. Then an hour of zazen — sitting meditation — followed by a Zen service.

This service was frankly inscrutable to an outsider: chants in at least three languages, many prostrations and bows and no stage direction,: no “and now we turn to hymn 40…”, no “next we read from the book of..” I was lost the first time I attended. Still it was a fascinating event to witness.

Sit

The Engawa (wrap-around porch) of the zendo.

Just as the day begins with meditation, it ends the same way with meditation a short while before ‘firewatch’ where at least combustion light needs to be put out.

I’ve had a consistent meditation practice since about 2012. It fell off while on the road; the original draw was stress reduction and I don’t feel much stress these days. But it was always a solitary practice. This was my first time sitting with others, in a *sangha * of the Buddhist faithful.

It was a wonderful experience. Extremely peaceful and much more physically demanding than mentally tortuous due to sitting longer than I’m used to. I stubbornly insisted on half lotus and my hips were in pain about half way into the hourlong sessions. Experiencing the pain and my reactions to it so consistently was interesting.

Sadly I have to report I’m not yet enlightened; or I just don’t realize yet than I always have been. Maybe I just need to add extra zazen sessions…

Eat

The bell is struck at mealtime. Actually, it's struck to summon volunteers to carry food to the dining hall.

Next, breakfast. Vegetarian, of course — this is a monastery after all.

Tassajara is famous for its food; they’ve even published a series of cookbooks on the strength of that fame. The reputation is well deserved. They feed their work guests extremely well. Maybe too well: I’m used to two meals a day but Tassajara has three plus two snack times. So there was a kind of battle to resist the swamping tide of delicious food. It was especially embarrassing at breakfast and lunch: we’d chant a text which includes an promise to be mindful of greed, only to have some fantastic meal placed family-style on the main table.

After breakfast and lunch, we’d have “work circle”. Everyone gathers and all sorts of announcements are made: who’s coming, who’s going, lost and found, (construction) work being done in the ladies’ bathhouse by men. Calls for students to take up the day’s zendo jobs of helping out in the services and playing the drums and bells which synchronize the activities of the community.

Then finally work assignments are handed out and we go off to our crews.

Work

Unless you have skills, you’re assigned to general labor. Whatever needs more people that day. Cleaning cabins. Raking leaves. Washing dishes. Prepping food. What you do one day may not not be what you’ll do the next.

All the work held at least the prospect of being a form of spiritual practice. Focus your attention only on the work and on your body and mind, don’t get caught up in achieving anything, but equally don’t avoid anything that needs to be done. Aiding this — though not enforced on the guest workers — there’s a rule of functional speech — talk only when you have something relevant to the task to say.

The work was the best part for me. As I explained here, there’s an amazing sense of satisfaction doing useful things well. Things which will help people you see every day and help them in a direct fashion.

Community

Being a unique place, Tassajara unsurprisingly attracts many different kinds of characters. Many students and retirees. Many hippies. A few burn-outs. Tarot-reading students older than their years. Fit bay area power couples clad in technical fabrics. Folks with lives that can do without them for the week minimum commitment.

Like was the case in my faraway travels, this one closer to home introduced me to many people at a crossroads, just as I am. Different kinds of crossroads, of course: one lady balancing her long time marriage with her thirst for travel, another processing her abruptly ended career. Still others transitioning between careers or callings, or between student and practitioner. Each spending some time in contemplation while they mull their futures, or simply forgetting the future and focusing on suprèming two gallons of oranges.

Freedom

Being able to attend the Tassajara work period was a privilege. It’s not a vacation exactly. It’s more like having an entire pre-fabricated life set up for you, complete with work, rest, community and friends. You can just drop in on it and start living. Then you can leave. Like some immersive video game of simple living.

It’s hard to I imagine giving up the vacation days in my former career to have this experience. The pull to spend that artificially scarce time on ‘exciting’ experiences or a too-rare visit with family would be too strong.

It’s the great good fortune of being outside of a defined career now than enables dropping in on such uncommon places. Replacing a monoculture of a single lifestyle with a series of possibilities.