Here it's the link to my new blog:
http://www.hapan.wordpress.com/

I'm moving my blog to Wordpress

I'll go on writing in Wordpress. I found it interesting. I'd like that people could read it.I'll leave a link to it.

today I'm off from work

today I really feel like doing nothing. What kind of meditator I am? Not wanting to take this chance and sit in the zendo (meditation hall). That can't be good and I will really regret this when I come back to New Jersey and I'd have to negociate some minutes after the work and digging some extra energy for that.
I saw Kendall again and I'm glad that she liked (so far) what I wrote in this blog. I feel like her - I miss the contact with others here. I thought candidly that coming here would allow me to express all my oppinions and hear other's in a group activity, but Zen has nothing to do with therapy, and ego activity!!!
Kate invited me again to take a hike but I'm not in the mood. I should meditate today. For the moment being, I really want to enjoy my time off. As if I didn't exist for the world around me. When we are off here, we are "invisible" and untouchable. Thinking about writing a story - a science-fiction story, and other things that I lately thought that I'd never try to do again due to the lack of opportunities of publishing or exhibit or so...
That's just the activity of the mind called the "ego". By the way, I always feel glad when people praise any of my skills. For example - yesterday Meghan ( guest student) was telling me how good my English is. I feel then that it is improving now. I can't express how great it feels to know that I can communicate with people in their own language, and hear them say that it is so good... It is an accomplishment of my own effort, although I learned it along the years. Let's not compare my skill with other's.
I feel the day is fading away and I feel so sorry for not having a whole life like this, with plenty of free time to think about Life. The day is so short... Tomorrow I must work again, in the Guest House. I already have a different feeling now, thinking that I'll be leaving soon ( in one week ) and I'll be back in New Jersey. Back to the crazy world of cars, highways, condos, malls, advertising everywhere... In a way, this feeling of impermanence is good, liberating. I could write like Jack Kerouak in " On the road", forever missing to have the repetition of the experience of being nobody for himself - or being totally unknown for oneself, having no past, no future, no name, no personal history. I myself miss that experience, though very short, of waking in the middle of the night, sitting on my bed in the dark, and having erased the memory of who I am. It's frightening...

my drawing - Mandala

Link to an insightful blog

blogs.bootsnall.com/grannygold
That's the link to the blog I was talking about. She has a real passion for people. She can write properly about the adventures you can live if you decide coming to a Zen Center for a retreat.

This afternoon I was hiking to the hills together with 2 girls (Guest Students here at Green Gulch Zen Center). We went to a distance which I didn't really plan to go at the beginning. After visiting Pirate's Cove and the beach, we came back, just that I disagreed about the shortest way back. They took a different track along the hills and the cliffs by the sea. I said to myself: I'm going to teach these "city girls" a man's sense of orientation. Just that I missed a path, and ended up in Muir beach. They reached the compound and the dining room about 5 minutes earlier than me ( they were running part of the way down the hill ). Fortunatelly they had thought about me and left a plate of food for me. The kitchen had already taken the food away and I won't be able to have my dinner.
Well... on my way back I was getting mad about myself for my lack of attention, and then a sense of futility about my feelings arose. Like - " what a stupid thought is that of thinking about writing a blog and getting read by others. That's just the activity of the ego; wanting always to get puffed up by every means. That's supposed to bring me joy and pleasure. Pure egotism! I won't write anything at all!" And then, I was thinking that the normal activity of the ego entails a desire for happiness and joy. Just that the real happiness is something permanent, it's not just pieces of joy here and there. I get the feeling that permanent happiness is something impermanent! It always comes and goes so fast. I should talk more about happiness someday. If it isn't a product of our ego, then it must be something real, but then, is it permanent?

Today it's my day off and I was reading a blog which I found very interesting . The lady (the owner of it) is here as a guest student, her name is Kendall, and she can really write. She told me about opening a blog instead of using a notebook and a pen for writing my ideas.
I didn't see the sun for some days now. How nice it is in our memory, when we didn't see it for a while...
My intent is to write my ideas and my thoughts as they appear and to hear their echo in the air, what people has to add to that. I believe our experiences could be worthly to others - that is the way in which we can interact with each other and teach and learn new dimensions of our souls. Many people want to be heard but less people succeed. Besides, many people who have little or nothing to say are heard and their messages are so poor in content. Others would have very meaningful and helpful things to say, and in contrast, are almost not heard. But who says that this life is fair? Even worse is when this life isn't fair for anybody - not even for few of us. Because I think that the full potential of us human beings (the energy which lies beyond our sub-conscious mind) is being neglected.