meditation course

it was a good experience serving ('dana service') at the meditation course held july 20th-31st at the Northwest Vipassana Center. the kitchen is where i worked mostly to help provide meals for the hundred or so people at the center. three times a day us servers joined in the group meditation hours in the hall. i met some wonderful people there and overall enjoyed a very beneficial and pleasant time along with a lot of hard work.
one part of the work that was especially important to me was tending to the compost. there was a huge pile there because the regular courses at the center produce so much food waste. my assessment the fisrt time i took out a load of compost was that the pile needed aeration. it was especially wet from recent rain.
in the kitchen i noticed that we were throwing away the brown paper towels that we were required by health code to dry our hands with. it occurred to me that it could be a beneficial carbon material to balance to food waste. so i began layering in the paper, and also cardboard waste from the kitchen i tore into small pieces. normally the center draws from a pile of manure they get from a nearby farm, but it had all been used up.
so while i was also giving service in other ways, i got my wish to specifically work with giving back to the soil. there is a vegetable garden at one of the residences on the land, which can make use of some of the compost, and maybe in the future this garden will expand and provide lots of nutritious food for meditators. wherever i am i'd like to be doing my part to steward the soil so that it is there for whoever comes after me. this is for my own benefit, for i may pass through this place again one day, and if everyone acted this way, wherever i go, where others have been doing this good deed, there will be abundance for me to share in.