Kiwi Meditation

I find it's helpful to begin a solo journey in a foreign country with something concrete

scheduled - a built-in way to meet friends and start off on the right foot.

Earlier this fall, I attended a 10-day meditation course at a Vipassana center outside of Seattle (Dhamma Kunja). I had a wonderful experience and learned that there is also a center outside of Auckland. This seemed like the natural place to begin my journey in New Zealand, so I signed up to volunteer in the kitchen at Dhamma Medini in Kaukapakapa for a 10-day course in late November.

I admit my ulterior motive for volunteering in the kitchen was to learn the recipes for all the amazing, gourmet vegetarian meals that are served at Vipassana centers. Also, when you sit a meditation course, you observe "noble silence" - no verbal or non-verbal communication for 10 days. But as a server, you get to talk!! :) And it was amazing to meet people from all over the world who practice this style of meditation and are volunteering to he

lp others learn. During my stay at Dhamma Medini, I met other servers from Burma, Belgium, France, Scotland, England, Ireland, Spain, Germany and (oh yeah) New Zealand.

On my first day, I learned how to make yoghurt from scratch (yum! and way easier than I imagined), and later my routine jobs included ringing the gong for mealtimes (glad I had all those years of softball training) and growing sprouts (just like 4th grade science class). I gained a reputation as a master sprout-ician. Or you could say sproutologist. (Sprouts-tronaut anyone?) We started greeting each other with, "How's it sprouting?" "Great, thanks. I've just been sproutin' about."

As you can see, we were a ridiculous group and we had a lot of fun despite a very demanding schedule that started at 5am and ended at 9:30pm, with a 1.5 hour break in the afternoon. Servers also sit for three hour-long group meditation sessions each day.

We got along so well that three of us left the center together after the course for our first wwoof-ing opportunity (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). Wwoofing doesn't always take place on farms - in fact we are working at Wellpark, a natural therapy residential community 18 km north of Auckland, doing odd jobs to help expand/improve the property. We work for three hours each day, and in return receive free accommodation, attend free yoga classes every day, enjoy a large outdoor swimming pool, beautiful landscaped gardens, and hang out with the super friendly, fascinating people who live in the community.

They often have themed meals at night (tonight is oven-fired pizza night - bring your own toppings), and make group outings to activities of interest. For example, the Dalai Lama is visiting Auckland this week, and one of the Wellpark residents is a Tibetan nun. Her guru is another of the "lamas" from Tibet, and last night I went with her to hear his small group talk in Auckland. An amazing experience!

I am so busy that I haven't had any time to take photos of Wellpark yet, but I do have tons of photos of Dhamma Medini here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fortinm/DhammaMedini?feat=directlink

I hope you are doing well and I would love to hear from you!

More soon,

Molly

Certified Sprout Conductor