jueves, 26 de junio de 2014

First impressions of my organic farming experience at a rural Buddhist community in Germany

So here it goes, my first blog since I began my organic farming experience at a rural Buddhist community in Germany. I still think it is a little bit random, but nevertheless amazing that I ended up here. It all started with the realization that I want to have some level of responsibility, tasks and a schedule during my break to make it more productive and meaningful than the summers before. I asked around and searched the web for jobs in anthropology or music, but for the amount of time and the time of the year it was almost impossible to find something like an internship. So I began searching for something I could do that involved my Buddhist practice and would give me some space to develop and clear my mind before graduation.
So our wonderful Diamond Way teacher Gerd Boll was the first idea my dad threw my way and I went with it. He offered me a volunteer gig with a place to stay, food and enough time to meditate during the day. And given that I have been obsessed with the idea of visiting Germany and have great admiration for the way Buddhist teachings have flourished in this country it wasn't a very hard choice given the amazing offering. I have been here for 12 days and a few impressions and reflections I've had motivated me to sit down and start writing about this in case it might inspire other organic farming friends, Buddhists, or anyone else who might come across my writing.
The farm is at least 20 minutes by car from the nearest town called Eckernförde which lies on a bay in the Baltic Sea. Despite the relative isolation there's always a lot of activity around with at least 20 seasonal workers from many Eastern European countries, especially Poland and former Soviet Union territories living in the land. Some of them are Buddhist practitioners and some are here for the jobs the farm offers during the summer time. This already makes for an interesting experience for a big city girl like me who has always been terrified of the "apathy" of suburban life, and even more petrified about the idea of not being able to run to a corner store or pharmacy to buy random shit I really don't need.
My first day I noticed that the food left for me at the retreat kitchen was all organic, vegetarian and with German labels. I should mention then that I have never visited a German speaking country before and have only taken one semester of German and 11 levels of duolingo before arriving. Of course for the carnivore I am, my first thought was to head over to the town the next morning and get some meat and some other random toiletries and snacks that I apparently didn't need because I already forgot about them. Little did I know that I was at least two hours away by foot from the town and that everything closes after 5 PM so going on a random shopping spree is impossible.

My first day or two of work were another interesting linguistic adventure. out of the eight people working the strawberry fields six are Polish, one is Russian and then me. All with beautiful unpronounceable names that are slowly starting to click in my ears. One of my colleagues who I would describe as the alpha female is convinced that the louder she speaks in Polish the more I will understand what she says. The good thing is she always screams with a beautiful big smile and offers help and comments even though I still don't have the slightest clue what she is saying. Something about strawberries, "Erdbeere"... Non of them speaks fluent German or any German at all, but know pretty well their berry picking vocabulary so they understand things better than me.

The only one I can relatively communicate to is a young man from Tajikistan who speaks a little German and has the patience to pay attention to my 3-year-old fluency in German, which saved my life this morning during a rainstorm by telling me there were rain jackets in the shed after I asked him where he got his auf Deutsch! There are a lot of smiles which are cheesily better than words, but yesterday morning two of my berry-picking colleagues came to me and said "good morning", and I got excited and handed them buckets for discarding the nasty moldy berries we find on the fields and they said "Thank you very much". Somehow such a simple effort to communicate from them warmed my heart after 10 days of working in silence and the company of my delicious podcasts for five hours a day.
I have to admit however that I keep eavesdropping, and although I don't understand a "shit" I do understand "Kurva". After watching my colleagues drop boxes of strawberries or complain loudly and continuously repeat "Kurva! Kurva! ..." I just assumed it was an equivalent of shit, f@#% or something juicy and expressive like that, and indeed it was. If I stayed a whole year I could learn Polish I guess, but my afternoons are filled with German love! Being a guest at the retreat house I have shared the place with seven beautiful German Buddhists who have already earned a special place in my heart, but today I have the time to write only because they are all gone.
I have been exposed to Autobahn-speed German conversations from day one which has forced me to shut my mouth and learn to listen carefully. Of course the listening carefully does not mean by all means that I understand. Lets put it this way, I began by understanding a word out of an entire sentence and making the rest up and now almost two weeks later I'm understanding the sense of a sentence and making only a few words up. However my tongue is still tied as speaking a word of German besides "Danke" and basic greetings scares me to death.  But we're getting there, this is just a phase!
All meditations here are obviously guided in German so I've given myself the challenge of learning new dharma related words everyday, and now I'm starting to need my English booklets less and less and just enjoy the German sounds which start to somehow make sense.  I'm now even able to understand conversations about dharma in German among the sangha. Most of my sangha speaks fluent English, even though they judge themselves to harshly and get all self conscious about their English all the time. This has definitely saved my life as I would be seriously bored to death if I couldn't at least chat a little bit with someone about something besides "Erdbeere". They are all wonderful. Maria who is about my age brought me a German-English dharma dictionary to help me out, Ergin who loves to hear me speak Spanish brought me a Long Life prayer from Lopon Checho to Lama Ole last night, and all of them are always hugging me, smiling and bringing a lot of warmth and love to my days at the retreat house.
It is amazing however how this situation of relative linguistic isolation has filtered my speech and even changed my thoughts in what I would consider a good way. At least on the basic level of cause and effect. With my developing German skills I can't fluently critique or complain about futile feelings, emotions and situations. Because non of them are Spanish or English native speakers or have lived and studied in Spanish or English speaking countries our ability to talk about these futile topics is limited, and instead all of our conversations are positive, encouraging and I think constructive. The amazing thing for me is that not having these conversations is also changing the way I think. The few frustrations that have arisen during my stay have been neutralized by what I naively first called "lazyness", but then realized after listening to some of Lama Ole's lectures is "wisdom". Haha! Why think the Polish-alpha-female doesn't like me or thinks I'm stupid? Instead she knows what she is doing and she sees I have no experience in farm work and decides to help me. If she gets a little exasperated that's her own problem, all I can do is smile and laugh at the ridiculous situations that arise and enjoy every second of them.

This stay has also messed with the concepts I had of my own habits, my schedule and time management. I am now waking up early everyday to have breakfast  and coffee which was a totally foreign concept in my world. I work until 1 PM and then have lunch with Gerd's family and all the farm workers which is simply wonderful. (I'll have to write more about just that next time) After lunch I nap for half hour and then meditate for a couple of hours by myself before the whole sangha meets for 16th Karmapa meditation in the evenings, and afterwards I find time to study German, read a little bit and send a message home to my parents and brother. Somehow I am able to be productive and relaxed at the same time which I attribute to the amazing example of highly productive, happy people you see in this part of Germany, especially at the farm, and of course the 4+ hours of meditation everyday. It only reminds me of why as Buddhists we take refuge in the sangha, seeing so many great people around me makes me want to work harder.

With this being said I understand that this is a retreat, much like a laboratory in which I have the ability to generate the conditions with which I'm able to work with my mind, change certain habits and replace them with nicer ones and recognize attitudes and tendencies I've always had. Now the challenge is to drill these habits so that hopefully something sticks once I jump back into my last semester of university studies and the normal amount of stress and disturbing emotions of "everyday" life. With that being said, I'm going to hit the cushion now so I have time to shower and look decent by the time the sangha arrives to meditate together in a couple of hours and keep enjoying the rest of my stay here. And if you're in Germany come visit, I wouldn't mind having some housemates in the next couple of weeks. I promise to cook you a nice vegetarian dinner!