I live a quiet life so being on a Buddhist retreat with all of these people seemed like a social event. I had no idea what to expect. I instantly discerned this was the real McCoy. The staff were dressed in formal robes and a Buddhist nun presided over the meals, much like a quarter master monitoring the food rations, her cold eye missing no spoon unturned. The stricture of silence however extended to a vast coterie of the forbidden. Such wild and illicit behaviours were not sanctioned as leaving the grounds, looking at people in the eye, reading (a distraction), writing (an intellectual pursuit that my heavens is enough to foment all kinds of aberration). In addition to coffee being prohibited so was sugar tabu as apparently such indulgences could lead to buddha only knows what, along with salt and pepper which of course is a wild rendition to any meal. Dinner consisted of soup without any bread, not an endorsement apparently to the liberated mind. I breathed my way into all of this, as after all I was here, wasn’t I? I found myself balking at the master/disciple relationship though as I do equal. Then I caught the lama in a huge mistake during my interview. A furious downpour ensued leaving me soaked. Trees being felled next to my tent on an adjacent property was all the permission I needed to give myself the nod. Gleefully, I shoved my sopping tent into my car and deliriously chuckling thought this must be the laughing Buddha part of the retreat as I wildly drove out and careened towards the ferry. I headed to a lovely restaurant I knew where I indulged in the licentious behaviour of pepper grinding to a good book. I love it here I sighed to the waitress, recent events etching a deepening gratitude for a sumptuous piece of salmon with papaya, and she replied that she loved it here too. We smiled at each other. To each their own I thought and sighing felt liberation as I smiled contentedly from ear to ear.
