Sesshin

If you want to follow along at home, click on the picture to see an enlarged image.

Including the dharma talk and meals that's nine and a half hours of sitting. An hour of kinhin. Over two hours of free time for bathing and whatever. And 40 minutes sauntering towards your seat after the densho bell is struck.

Grading problems

Driving up the road from Tassajara on Monday afternoon I found an unusual roadblock just below Lime Point. One of Monterey County's graders was stuck with its back wheels off the road where they had removed burnt supports. I turned around and went back down the hill for a bath and a hot drink.


A couple of hours later I tried to drive out again and found that attempts to drag the grader out of the hole were just starting. With each attempt the grader tilted further towards the steep drop without moving back towards the road. As darkness fell it became obvious that the grader would stay stuck overnight until a crane could be driven to pick the grader up and lift it back onto the road.


After they'd moved the tow-truck out of the way there was just enough space to squeeze the car between the workings and the cliff wall. I left the road crew working to clean up the site at the end of a very long day, and with a drive back to Salinas still ahead of them.


One of the sites where the road crew have removed burnt supports.

Ginger

Rohatsu

While City Center and Green Gulch are in sesshin Tassajara continues with the normal daily schedule. Yesterday was a personal day with pizza dinner, today the wake-up bell rang at the usual 3.50am.

The 7-day Rohatsu sesshin starts on Tuesday, the day after the 8th. In what is becoming a common practice, several fresh faces will be joining the residents for this sesshin - to receive an invitation you must have close links with an Abbot.

Then the practice period will be almost over. A day off. The Shuso ceremony. A packing day. And finally, the goodbyes.

The winter practice period, lead by Abbot Steve Stucky, starts on January 3rd.

The Third Cat

Concerned about the possibility of large mudslides and debris flows closing the road, Zen Center bought a second-hand Bobcat at the start of the practice period. Shortly thereafter it blew one of the hydraulic seals and had to go back to Bakersfield to be fixed.

A few days after arriving back at Tassajara the seal blew again and the Bobcat had to be abandoned on the road.


We've now exchanged this machine for another which was driven into Tassajara on Wednesday, a drive that took about 5 hours. The driver passed the time listening to Joseph Campbell and Willie Nelson.

The two kittens are now well on the way to being cats. Boy Cat is a total love machine, happy to sit on my lap purring heavily while I watched the early morning coffee drinkers ghost around the courtyard. Girl Cat is more self-reliant, to the dismay of some residents, and keeps herself amused.

Swimming

Some of the practice period students are still regularly using the swimming pool.


The pool is particularly vulnerable to falling rocks even now. When I was taking these pictures there was a small slide, most of which was caught by the fence. One rock the size of a football picked up enough energy bouncing down the hillside that it sailed over the fence into the pool.


After the recent light rains this small slide reached the top of the sandbags which meant some heavy digging for the shop and general labour crews to remove the debris.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving started out as a work-day with that work-day gesture towards a lie-in, the 4.50am wake-up bell. Work ended at 1.15pm and after a break to clean and polish ourselves there was a short service at 2.15pm. This took place in the dining-room before an altar decorated with baskets of produce and tokens (mainly photographs) of people and things for which the residents are grateful.

Thanksgiving dinner then followed at 2.30pm. This year the kitchen spurned the accumulated years of tradition and replaced nutloaf on the menu with an excellent mushroom strudel. This was served with mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, crispy fried kale and salad. Dessert was a hearty cheesecake. Vegan, non-mushroom and other alternatives festooned a side-table.

Kathy, the work leader, was able to join us for both the work period and dinner. She has her left arm in a sling after falling from a ladder last week and breaking the arm in two places.

In the evening the dining-room was converted into a cinema for a dharma-event double feature; Amongst White Clouds and Enlightenment Guaranteed. This started late as four laptops had to be tried before we found one that had a working DVD player and would work with the projector.

The winds of change blow gently through the valley carrying the sounds of laptops from room to room. Can wi-fi be far behind?

Some links...

Here is a selection of Simon Moyes' photographs of the construction work.

And here is Keith Baker's account of his time at Tassajara helping to move pipes.

Soft rains falling

It's raining softly but steadily here with the NWS radar showing that we're getting about 0.1inches per hour. While some Tassajara residents are looking forward to a sterner test of the new defence walls, most are grateful that the heavier rains moved to the south of our area.

The trees come down

We were advised that trees close to the creek bed can act as anchors for debris when the waters rise. In particular we were warned that the handful of trees close to the junction of Cabarga and Tassajara creeks posed a threat to the foundations of the dining-room porch. So now they are gone. Did you notice the difference?

We have also been cutting fallen trees in the creek beds into smaller sections that will flow more readily downstream and felling dead trees on the road up to the water plant.

The walls spring up

After the fires many people made donations to Zen Center. Of this money, a large amount has recently been spent on preparing Tassajara to withstand the rains of the next 3 or 4 winters.

A crew from Ventana Engineering lived at Tassajara for the first month of practice period and moved a large number of rocks to construct rock walls and gabions. They filled several thousand sandbags and gravel bags and built berms and swales.

When the sandbags were ready, a group of day labourers commuted from Greenfield to place them. They would arrive at Jamesburg at 6am, climb into one of our Suburbans for the drive to Tassajara, work until 5.30pm and then reverse their journey.

I'll post shots of this work soon.

Sesshin

The seven-day sesshin ended on Wednesday evening with a Shosan ceremony. Thursday was a personal day with a lot of people taking the opportunity to rest after the sesshin. The Abbot, Director and Tanto left for commitments in San Francisco.

Dinner on Thursday was a chinese meal prepared by the Doan Ryo that featured spring rolls produced at an exuberant community rolling festival in the kitchen.

Breakfast this morning offered adzuki bean soup in the second bowl and kimchi in the third.

Boy cat is resting at Jamesburg after a trip to the vet to be neutered.

Some new life on the hills

We were hoping for early and light rain that would enable the ground cover on the hills to flourish. We got the early rain and thankfully it was light but the ground cover has not come back to the hills. As this shot of the hillside below Lime Point shows, the larger vegetation is making a robust comeback but the grasses are totally absent.


The same is true of the hills above Tassajara. This is the hill above the hill cabins and Stone and Pine rooms.


And the hill above the Kaisando and guest cabins.

Kittens

Tassajara has two new cats. Kitchen and dining-room cats which for now have to be known as Boy Cat and Girl Cat as in a vivid demonstration of Zen Center dysfunctionality they are still nameless after several meetings and one community vote.


Boy Cat having quickly worked out who is the most important being in the kitchen, seizes the Tenzo's chair.


Girl Cat patrolling the courtyard.

Possible problems

While the fires are out, the Ventana will be living with their consequences for several years at least. Some of those consequences may be entirely welcome - many people are looking forward to an abundance of spring wildflowers. Some of the consequences are less welcome, with floods and debris flows posing possible threats to lives and property. The report of the State Enmergency Assessment Team (SEAT) states:

As a result of the fire and the burn severity there is an increased risk for storms to result in flooding, debris torrents, mudsliding and debris flows. As storm intensity increases or as duration rises, there will be an increased risk for the storm to trigger flooding, rockfall, debris torrents, mudsliding and debris flows.

So for example, we can expect an increased water yield of 390% for Tassajara Creek at Tassajara, 1141% for unnamed tributary creek at Tassajara, and unnamed tributary to Church Creek road crossing of 855%.

Lots more water than usual, probably mixed with mud, rocks and logs.

More information:
The CPOA website has links to maps from the State Geological Survey showing projected debris flows and probablities and a Google Earth file of the hazard locations from the SEAT report.
Xasáuan Today has a collection of posts on the aftermath of the fires, for example, here are some maps of the soil burn intensity.
SURCATS has a report on a recent meeting that combined a presentation of the SEAT report with a dsicussion of winter preparation. Although this focuses on the problems confronting the Big Sur residents, many of the dangers discussed are present on the east side of the fire area.

Work periods

This is what I understand:
From now until August 3rd there is a work period to restore Tassajara so that it is as close as we can get to pre-fire. If you'd like to come and join us for at least 5 days out of this work period then you should call 831-659 2229 during business hours.

The guest season will open sometime in early August. We are currently aiming at August 3rd. The end of the work period will obviously dovetail neatly with the 2nd coming of guest season.

And then there will be a return to the schedule as posted. The autumn work period will start on September 15th. If you'd like to come to this work period then you should call 831-659 2229 after August 15th.

Just sitting...

Lots of activity here in Jamesburg this morning. Up the road. Down the road. Cheese into fridge. Cheese out of... Well, maybe not yet.

Anyway, over the hill in Tassajara, we think that they're now running on a work period schedule. Which means that zazen is once more on the schedule, and no longer an optional activity as it has been since the fire bounced almost everyone out of the zendo a month ago.

Once more unto...

Yesterday's final group of returnees weren't as lucky as their earlier colleagues. They were turned back at the top of the hill after waiting an hour and spent the night here in Jamesburg. The zendo once more bcoming a dormitory.

They tried again early this morning and were again turned back. Told to try again later. This morning's MODIS image shows why (click on the image to enlarge). The fire has moved up one of the small creek beds in Miller Canyon and is now burning both sides of the road and now appears to be burning in the area of the observatory that has previously been back-burned.

The road less travelled

After dropping off a large load of recycling and picking up produce for the returning students I drove into Tassajara, stopping to take a few photos on the way.

In some areas the fire is still actively burning, or the firefighters are back-burning around structures.

Some areas are still untouched by the fire.

But along most of the road the fire has stripped away almost all of the vegetation revealing hidden details. This is the Church Creek trail from above.


The valleys are still full of smoke. The horizon hidden.

Tassajara felt dead to me. A ghost-town, stripped of the life that normally fills the summer months. If they can get past the road-block on Carmel Valley Road some 40 students will return today to start the clean-up and bring fresh energy to the valley.

More photos available here.

Now's your chance

We are accepting applications for work practice students from July 25th through September 26th, for a minimum of 5 days.

As you can see from the state of the pool, we need a bit of help to clean Tassajara and make it ready for the reopening of the guest season. And we also need to prepare for winter and the onset of the rains so there's more than enough work to go round. See the SFZC website for details.