Wrapping up loose ends.at the Gulch

From all around comes the call to prayer from the three or four mosques close to this area,  it is 5:45 am. and this means i stop eating and drinking among other things like no dirty or negative thoughts and no sexual activities; the fasting for the day commences. Sleep has eluded me all night long and so here I am emptying my mind onto the Blogging and fb entertainment. Back to the subject of Zen in America, I became a part of the Zen community in SF in the early eighties, 1984-85 or so and after that i kept  in touch with the center at Green Gulch as much as I could until I left for Japan in March of 95. The Zen community at GG saved me from myself, I was on the road towards self destruction before I moved to Sf from Green Bay, Wisconsin. I had over stayed
my welcome in Green Bay where I had been living for eight years. I left the cold Wisconsin weather to join a Zen school in SF, I had no other intention than this and this is why I am passionate about Zen, especially the SF Zen community.

How did I reconcile taking up a Buddhist practice while being a Muslim? I never thought much about being anything to be honest, I simply lived my life day to day and there was no one there at the time to remind me that i am a Muslim. At Green Gulch I browsed over the subject with Ed Brown, one of my practice instructors at one of our Dokusan and Ed simply told me that if I had understood the Buddha's teachings I would not have a problem about bowing to the altar where the wooden statue of Manjushri sat. It was because I placed an image instead that i create the problem; what does it mean form is emptiness? He also said that if i wish to join the club i have to play by the rules. I played by the rules and sometimes I made my own rules which bent others out of shape as I went along. I was dubbed the 'disruptor' by a few of the students and teachers, but I had to unleash my emotions one way or another at times and so i rang the bells when i was not supposed to, allowed my libido free reign with the ladies who came to find peace and spiritual awakening; I lived my life with gusto like a divine madman. I had no future to look forward to and no one to cared for or cared for my well being until I found my friends at the Gulch. These fellow students and the few teacher that were there had saved my life as i was suicidal then. For this i am forever grateful to the Zen community at Green Gulch. I found peace and I found myself at least long enough to turn my life around. From a sickly man with a serious bout of pleurisy when I first entered the farm, I walked out a super hero ready to take on the  world; and I did.

I found Love and I found confidence in myself through the many walks i took with my fellow students and the many talks that i had with my teachers. I understood what being compassionate was when i was allowed to be myself, letting go of who i was before i entered the community and adopting a more positive view of who i found out I could be. This turnaround could never have happened anywhere else and I realized more importantly that the Zen Community was a healing ground for all of us who were there each with our own pain and suffering and we who were there during this two year practice period helped to heal the community that was going through a crisis of identity; we nursed the Gulch back to life. In the word of old man George Wheelwright, "You boys and girls have brought the sunshine back to the valley!"

I am indebted to my practice teachers, including Paul Disco, Blanch Hartman and Ed brown and Norman and Cathy Fisher and Wendy Johnson and last but not least my good friend and brother in arms, Peter Rudnick, who through their patience and understanding have healed a splintered soul in me. I am indebted to my friend and fellow practice period students including David Lueck, Jim Abrams, and the rest for their support and encouragement throughout my practice. They had created a healer out of a patient, a Bodhisattva out of a messed up neurotic fool. It was my blessing to have made that journey to San francisco in search of Zen when I left Green Bay, Wisconsin and by the grace of all the lineage of the Soto Zen ancestors I am now a better person than i was, with four beautiful children, one of whom was conceived at the monastery...that is another story.