We presented our rakusus to Misha last night, the end of a whole lot of work on our part. Misha will fill up the empty space with my Dharma name, and special to her, she'll add some funky artwork. If I remember right, the Dharma name is typically four characters: the first two are your sort of everyday Dharma name, and one character will be shin, or "heart-mind" (not to be confused with another character pronounced shin which means "faith" or "trust"), which she gives to all her students. The second two are sort of aspirational: what the teacher hopes for you in the future.

I'm trying not to look at the Chile program I'm applying for (Patagonia Sur). It seems more daunting than the others: greater quantity and diversity of work required, more time, more uncertainty about exactly what's involved. It looks like it might be balls-out challenging, which of course is part of the point, to go and stretch myself and try something really hard that I've never done before.