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Sunday, March 30, 2008

MOUNTAIN RESCUE STATION


We built this building for Dr Ajari in 1975. It is at the 6000ft level on Mt Shasta. Driving 8 hours each way in the commune's caravan left only 4-5 hours on weekends for work, so that construction took 6 months to complete. Then once the building was finished, we never returned because the group was struggling with its business of manufacturing and selling Japanese bedding, there was never any mountain rescue, and no spiritual practices were ever done here (other than a partial retreat by Bishop Green of St Sophia's Church). The only merit went to Ladybear of Mt Shasta who kept an eye on the building for about 15 years before Dr Ajari defaulted on payments and was forced to sell it.
However, we did get some experience in construction work. You do know the definition of "experience," don't you?
EXPERIENCE, noun -- what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
On the other hand, according to a Japanese kotowaza, or proverb:
SEIKOU NO MOTO WA, SHIPPAI DESU
The origin of success is failure.
So the experience wasn't entirely wasted; it came in handy when constructing the goma-do at Cobb in 2006.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Be still my heart! So much happened at that cabin! You will be happy to know that Jerry & I dismantled the one collapsed camper shell, the one that was viewed straight out from the deck,it was almost flat like a pan cake because of the weight of the snow, burned what we could and took the metal to recycling. One night I got a call from Bhagavan Das asking me where he should stay. I took him & friend Surya, one of the builders of The Lama Foundation, up to the cabin & we all slept out on the deck that night. It has changed some now as the Ski Park's "TEMPLE HUT" stopping place for cross country skiers needing to warm up.
I have lots of stories about our cabin! one night sleeping on the top of the camper,along came a BEAR sniffing around!