{"id":129,"date":"2010-07-20T08:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T08:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2010\/07\/island-hopping-and-vipassana\/"},"modified":"2010-07-20T08:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T08:27:00","slug":"island-hopping-and-vipassana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2010\/07\/island-hopping-and-vipassana.html","title":{"rendered":"Island Hopping and Vipassana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n
How to pack for back-to-back Asian adventures:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. Dig out $25 Chinese suitcase purchased on last Asian adventure<\/li>\n
  2. Locate A4 binders from England from 5 years ago<\/li>\n
  3. Toss in 10 year old Birkenstocks<\/li>\n
  4. Add a book with a Buddha on the cover and some coat hangers, just in case\u2026\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Luckily this isn\u2019t my actual bag \u2013 which is in many ways much worse off \u2013 just a casualty of my last-minute packing to get out of Missoula.<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n

    Friday, my last day in Montana, turned out to be a major day of waiting<\/i>. One sees why the perfection of patience (P\u0101li: khanti-p\u0101ramit\u0101<\/i>) is so important in Buddhism<\/a> and other spiritual traditions. I had a few, simple tasks to complete before getting to the airport: copy\/scan a few documents at the library, bind them at the copy center, pick up foreign currency at the bank. Each, I thought, would take only a few minutes. But instead they wound up consuming about 90% of my afternoon.<\/p>\n

    In such times, two responses seem equally possible. One is to plan more<\/i>. The other is to simplify<\/i>.<\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/div>\n

    And that brings us to here and now. In Avalon, on Catalina Island<\/a> (pictured above), in perhaps the only coffee shop with wifi on the island. Apparently the island was once owned almost entirely by the Wrigley family \u2013 hi Cub fans \u2013 and the Cubs themselves spent time out here each year for spring training. Today the place is torn between crazy development and going broke, with most people who live there, and have lived there for a while, hoping for the latter. But at 2 hours by ferry and 15 minutes by\u00a0helicopter away from one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, this place has big $$ potential.<\/p>\n

    For my part, I camped, played cards and a couple rounds of mini-golf and ate oatmeal for breakfast; not exactly economy-stimulating activities. The one pricey thing I did end up getting talked into was para-sailing:<\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/div>\n

    Me with my sister\u2026 It was fun, for sure, but, as my sister said, \u201conce you\u2019ve jumped out of a plane, everything else is just\u2026 blah.\u201d Both of us have been skydiving and, yes, this is more like a ferris wheel than a roller-coaster. You\u2019re lifted up. You come down. You go up again. You come down again. Nice views. Worth the price? Not really. Unless you\u2019re rich and starving for \u2018experiences\u2019 to tell people about. \u00a0In fact that is how much of the tourist activity on Catalina Island seems to be focused. An expensive zip line<\/a> to hang onto as you descend a mountain (whoo-wee), motorized pedal-bikes to tour the sites around Avalon, and so on. Good for some people \u2013 perhaps the family crowd \u2013 but not worth the extra dollars, IMHO. The mini-golf, cards, and oatmeal, on the other hand, were worth every penny.<\/p>\n

    ~<\/div>\n
    So that\u2019s stop one on my journey this summer\/fall\/winter. And it was a good one. Family time for me is always good, especially when I know we won\u2019t see much of each other in the coming months.\n

    I signed up for a 10-day\u00a0Vipassana\u00a0course in Bodh Gaya for January 1-10. I\u2019m still not sure if that will work out; diving into meditation immediately after teaching, but it\u2019s the plan for now. Meditate and teach, then just meditate, then travel some more. Purrrr-fect\u2026<\/p>\n

    This wonderful weekend, wonderful people and out-of-this-world future plans, I\u2019m very grateful for it all.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Next up is finishing my syllabus for teaching in the fall (again\u2026) and getting to the airport for Taiwan\u2026 More (hopefully), from there.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How to pack for back-to-back Asian adventures: Dig out $25 Chinese suitcase purchased on last Asian adventure Locate A4 binders from England from 5 years ago Toss in 10 year old Birkenstocks Add a book with a Buddha on the cover and some coat hangers, just in case\u2026\u00a0 Luckily this isn\u2019t my actual bag \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIsland Hopping and Vipassana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How to pack for back-to-back Asian adventures:Dig out $25 Chinese suitcase purchased on last Asian adventureLocate A4 binders from England from 5 years\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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