battle_of_mud flux there was a weekend of shugyo (hard training) a seven hours drive upstate - zazen, misogi, and samu. i've never been to this location before, though i mostly knew what to expect. the car ride was mostly just me and an older teacher (or fellow student), who'd been doing this for 20 years longer than i have. i've always been intimidated by him, but most of that was an impression from on the mat. i'm bad at small talk, and was relieved to take over driving while he took a nap. we picked up another devotee from the syracuse airport, and didn't arrive at our destination until 230 am. on arrival, we drank and spoke with sensei, though i was exhausted and socially uncomfortable and didn't say much. training started early, and consisted of 2 hour periods of zazen and misogi. four members of the nearby zendo at st. lawrence university joined us, in order to be introduced to the practice of misogi. after lunch, samu. a new well had been installed, but not yet hooked into the house's plumbing. the extant well wasn't good to drink and froze over in the winter. so we needed to dig a 5 ft deep trench from the well to the house, about 25 ft away. it was raining. we couldn't find any reasonable materials to build a cover from the rain, so we just started digging. digging a trench in clay soil in the rain is difficult - the clay was incredibly hard from a long drought, but as soon as we broke it up the rain turned it to mud, which we'd sink into. digging is harder than running miles, harder than kneeling and chanting with all one's might for hours. there's also an intense awareness that's required, to not whack someone with a shovel in close quarters, or spatter them with mud. we were soon sweating, despite the cold rain, and utterly filthy, but at the same time it was intensely enjoyable. 140911 ... flux that night, after the zen students had left, we ate pizza and got drunk, and conversation turned to philosophy and mathematics. sensei, who's a physics professor but only speaks japanese fluently, tried to show the others the nature of mathematical infinity. i used this as a starting point to talk about cognitive linguistics, zen, and physical cosmology, and was scoffed at on all sides. still, there's a sort of emotional connection in drinking together and bullshitting that even hard training can't instigate. my ride back was much more comfortable - we talked about our lives, how we got into our practices, and many shared experiences in drug use, and readings of crowley and gurdjieff. i found myself very glad i'd come. 140911 what's it to you? who go blather from