Buddha statue in a lush garden at Pure Land Farms as I sit quietly among the plants in afternoon sunlight.
This weekend, Katy and I left our own retreat center for the day and visited a neighboring property called Pure Land Farms.
We spend a lot of our time helping create retreat and healing experiences for other people but do not always give ourselves the same opportunity to receive.
So for a day, we did. We sat in the temple, wandered through the gardens, drank chai, ate lunch, and talked with familiar faces.
Later, during a book fair, I picked up a copy of Dr. Nida Chenagtsang’s Let Meditation Be Thy Medicine.
He signed it for me and asked me to open to a random page. I opened directly to a chapter called Wind.
Only about half an hour earlier, I had been sitting outside asking questions about that very element.
From the Day
Earlier that afternoon, we had gathered in the garden around a Buddha statue for a standing meditation.
Each person was asked to find the animal corresponding to their Chinese zodiac sign.
Mine was the horse.
Dr. Nida moved through the garden, asking us to imagine what our animal needed from us and how we might care for it.
Then he turned the question around.
The way we imagined caring for the animal might also reveal something about how we needed to care for ourselves.
Not long afterward, Katy and I joined a hormé workshop.
We sat outside filling small cloth pouches with nutmeg, clove, and fennel while learning about the Tibetan understanding of loong, or wind.
Wind is associated with movement, and hormé — particularly when used with sesame oil — is traditionally used to calm an excess of it.
I had been asking questions about the wind element throughout the workshop.
So when I opened Dr. Nida’s book shortly afterward and landed directly on a chapter called Wind, I had to smile.
The Insight
I do not think every coincidence needs to become a message.
But I like noticing when something repeats.
A word. An idea. A question.
Sometimes repetition simply asks us to pay a little more attention.
And maybe that was appropriate for the day.
We had gone there partly because we spend so much time creating experiences for other people.
There is always something to organize, fix, prepare, facilitate, or make more comfortable.
For once, none of that was ours to manage.
We could simply participate.
The Practice
As the sun went down, we returned to the temple and lay on our backs.
Healers moved quietly around the room, applying warm hormé pouches to our feet and the tops of our heads.
A sound bath unfolded around us, filled with unusual instruments and tones.
Later, Katy told me that Green Tara had appeared to her during the meditation.
Nothing quite so vivid happened for me.
I mostly lay there listening.
I felt the warmth at my feet.
I felt the sensation at the crown of my head.
I listened to the sounds moving through the room.
And that was enough.
Receiving does not always need to produce an insight.
The practice can simply be allowing yourself to be cared for.
Heard This Week
“Receiving can be a practice, too.”
