Chants, lots of chants, were read and I gave up after the first one trying to keep up. I've never been good at reading and speaking with rhythm or smooth transition from line to line unless I've had a chance to read something over a dozen times so I sat in the moment to take everything in. The room was full, with a drummer hitting the beats to which most people kept up. Everyone had been given a daisy flower to give as offering and one by one we all went up, bowed to the Sakyong, Sakyong Wangmo, and Jetsun. Even though I had no idea what was going on in general and I followed the lead of everyone else the feeling of awkwardness was very small. The room was just so full of calm happiness that even with the practice decorum there wasn't a tense moment at all.
Afterwards there was food, lots of food. Lots of talking, laughter, and joy. I felt a little bit like an outsider in the sense this wasn't my world, I had just stepped into it theirs, but everyone was so happy I didn't feel like they were treating me an outsider because they weren't. It was my mind that made me feel like the outsider and the feeling of not knowing anything and ignorance shadowing questions.
I couldn't help but reflect the irony of everything, first Kyudo, and now Jetsun's birth just before I came to sit. I tried not to look too deeply then at it, since my mind was mainly a kyudo and not so much in joining the Sanga. That didn't last too long though, as it shows.
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