FLOWERS IN THE SKY
And so it came to be that I was finally around an authentic Zen Master in Katagiri Roshi. The year after the incident with the truck I was moving back and forth from Seattle to New York bouncing around with my obsessions until I finally decided to move back to Minnesota during the summer of 1987. I wanted to do the summer retreat for two weeks with Katagiri and even though some of his students were leery of letting me back Katagiri OK’d it with the condition that I stayed in the retreat for the whole two weeks.
I did it! I made it through with up to 8 hours of meditation a day and waking up at 4:30 am. FOR two weeks!…but of course I often at least once a day had to go off alone and meditate alone in the countryside. Overall I was at most of the meditation sessions and all of Katagiri’ talks. I felt a very strong connection with him. I still do.
The theme of this summer retreat was KUGE, which means Flowers in the Sky. Flowers in the Sky became for me a deep transmission of something that I still cannot label. It still brings tears to my eyes. The thing is with all these clues and small realizations I still had years to go threw the worst of the OCD mental torment manifestations.
MORE ON FLOWERS IN THE SKY COMING!