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From Nomon Tim: The Practice of Patience

Friday, August 08, 2025 8:29 AM | Program Administrator (Administrator)

It's amazing how often challenges and stress in our lives circles back to the Buddha's second noble truth.

As you know, he taught that suffering arises from the desire for something to be other than how it is.  Whether that something is me, someone else, something that's happening (or not happening), or the world in general.

How powerfully the conditioned mind is drawn to strongly towards the unpleasant state of wanting something to be different!

So much so that we can easily lose track of the blessings and supports in our lives. So much so that we're tempted to take ethical short-cuts and lose track of our precepts practice.

So much so that we can be so stressed out and miserable sometimes.

So it's felt for me off and on in these last weeks as the Sansui-ji temple project moves gradually towards completion. My mind has been repeatedly caught by various versions of the desire to be "done!" I don't want "gradually" anymore! I've felt sometimes like the kids in the back seat of the station wagon on a road trip: "are we *there* yet??!!"

One of the needed improvements for occupancy: address numbers.

As I write this, we are expecting three more building inspections to happen today which, if those three inspectors are satisfied with the state of our almost done building, will then allow us a "Temporary Certificate of Occupancy." With that in hand we can legally use the building for our programs.

This is particularly relevant today as months ago we scheduled at One Day Sit followed by the ordination ceremony for Seishin Tyndall this Sunday. At the time it seems like surely we'd be done my August 10th, but it's going to be down to the wire (if you're signed up: do keep a close eye on the email on Friday eve/Saturday morning to see what's happening on Sunday and where!)

I really want to be able to do these events in our temple. I really want us to get to start practicing at the temple. I really want all of our collective energy and zazen there. The Unitarians have been fine hosts, but it's time to get out of their basement. This desire is quite strong.

A strong desire easily gets obsessive doesn't it? Strong enough to do things to the mind. Strong desires, as I'm sure you've seen, can contribute to taking ethical short cuts. And strong desires easily lead to losing track of the positive while the mind hyper-focuses on the unmet desire.

I have a confession to make. I feel moved to admit that I was encouraging the leadership to consider starting programming at Sansui-ji before we receive that legal permission from the city. Just a few days before most likely but who knows!

This would have been a minor infraction only, but still, breaking the rules for our convenience.

The building, as far as we know after consulting our architect and builder, does meet the safety requirements needed to be approved for this temporary certificate of occupancy, but we don't have it yet. Why not just sit in our space, that mind of desire was saying.

But of course it'd be risky. I was reminded by a colleague that it's fine to have our folks volunteering to come work on the building. That there's is a certain assumption of risk in picking up a hammer or a paint brush in what you know to be a construction site. You'll naturally be more alert to the hazards of that environment. But it's a different thing to have a public event in an unfinished building. And of course if a worst case happened and someone was hurt, all we've built as a sangha is potentially put at risk.

I'm grateful the collective wisdom pushed gently back at me. Point taken. Thank you.

Reminders to practice do come in so, so many forms, don't they? I can get curious about how mind got there. I can renew my patience practice.

And the joyful part of this: I can refocus myself on the miracle of the whole thing.

The little sitting group that came together with a few friends in 1991 is now, 34 years later (!), close to opening a Zen temple in Bellingham. In a building we own. After doing a major remodel to turn that building into just what we need it to be. How is that possible? Amazing. Very amazing.

I smile and sigh as I think of the miracle of all of this. And I can't help but chuckle a little at the power of desire and impatience. And how it can cause stress and overwhelm so easily.

We'll get there. We are really, really, really close. (And if you have some time this Saturday, or next Sunday, or pretty much any time really: we could use all the help we can get.)

I hope to see many of you at the temple soon!

Maybe we'll have our first formal practice there this Sunday, or maybe it'll be next week, or the week after. But it'll happen.

And I'm so grateful: for the temple, for the sangha, for the teachings, and for the way life serves up so very, very many opportunities to deepen and renew the practice.

With love and a deep bow,
Nomon Tim

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