Buddhism Reloaded

WEEK 1 = 28 July to 4 August 2011

[A few notes before you read. First, this text you are about to read is a straight lift from my diary, raw and uncut, so do not expect it to be sophisticated nor for it to be my "final" opinion on stuff ; Second, whenever I think an important detail or explanation was forgotten that would help the reader understand the context of the experience better, I have inserted it in square brackets, just like this bit you are reading now].

[About 30 participants, aged 16 to 30, participated in this experience. Some are life-long Buddhists, others are certainly not (like myself). Some have been in DCL for tons of other retreats, for some (like myself), it is the first ever retreat. Present nationalities are Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Belgian, English, Irish, Polish-Dutch and Italo-Dutch (guess who!).]

28-07-2011

After an 11 hour drive from Oegstgeest to DCL (Dechen Choling, a small Shambhala Buddhist village close to Limoges, France)  in the lovely company of two fellow participants, I am ready for it.

“It”… being = sleeping, of course.

After all the food was finished merely 30m after dinner start (merci Paris peripherique pour notre retard) but the girls and I managed to fight over some leftovers and satisfy some hunger. Just before hitting my bed…well actually, flimsy mattress in a tent (yuck), we sit around in a circle with some of the participants and, whilst gazing at the stars, introduce ourselves to each other.

29-07-2011

Its morning now and I woke up to the sounds of cows, birds and… woodpeckers?

Ahhhh I took a nice refreshing shower too though I need to walk a half marathon in order to get it but I guess it makes me savior it even better.

Few people were awake it seems, but walking back from the shower block for my tent I observe small groups of middle aged being yelled at by people in uniform, and sometimes repeating the very same phrase. Hmmmm, is the boot camp or peace camp? Anyhow, their program is different from ours… or so I’d like to think, because surely enough meditation & contemplation is what I came for, not brainwashing. OK, time for breakfast, the sun is caressing my face, it’s still hesitant at first and warming up, but it’s there. My dominant thought pattern: resistance. Perhaps it’s good, it means I can learn much, or at least discover a lot! For sure, I will be able to note down some “amazing discoveries” (those for which the 30 day money back guarantee is NOT needed!) in my diary and share them with you via the electric digital surfing highway known with the mysterious name of… WWW

The afternoon stays warm and sunny. We just wrapped up morning meditation session of 1 hour. I did 45m, because the first 15m were chanting. I have some reservation against chanting so I opted to skip.

Amazing… we have as per standard a 2.5 hour lunch break. No, this is not a typo.

I DO mean 2.5 hours… so I can once again practice the greatest and most and most ancient rite in Buddhism = siesta

In the afternoon we discussed the story of prince Siddhartha, which is a lovely one. As a child described it once very succinctly: “Buddhism is about a very skinny man sitting under a tree. One day he became very happy, started eating a lot and became fat!”

We were told about the Shambhala tradition in Buddhism, born by the courage of one man (ouch, this starts to sound like the trailer of the latest and greatest Hollywood movie!).

This man, a spiritual leader in Tibet, was chased out of Tibet in 1959, at 20 years old, leading his own party of monks across the Himalayas on foot and on horseback into India, later ending up in the USA. Having been instructed his entire youth to become a great leader, and already writing his own Buddhist views at the tender age of 8, he after his exodus decided to somehow bring Buddhism into the West (though many of his writings were lost in the 1959 trek and had to be rewritten). He tried to make Tibetan Buddhism tangible, intelligible and practicable for Westeners and, above all, non-monastic (i.e. no need to go into a temple and lock yourself up to follow his tradition).

Personally, my guess is that he understood, as a very young man, that the greatest curse of the Tibetan people will perhaps simultaneously turn out to be their greatest blessing. Let me explain. As by now the Chinese have swamped Tibet (a settlement practice which reminds me, at least on a surface level, of Israeli settlements in Palestine), and when HH the Dalai Lama will pass onto the next life, the 15th Dalai Lama will be “officially” appointed by Chinese, not Tibetans. That will break a strong, vibrant message and cultural-religious-political lineage that has persisted in the East for thousands of years. But in that curse, the blessing may be that Tibetan thinking, and Buddhism in general, will be forced to move elsewhere (too). What one can already witness now, that Buddhism is swamping modern societies, desperate for something “real” to believe in, is but a start I think.

Out of Tibet, into the world, just as Mount Everest towers over planet earth, so Buddhism can “conquer” souls through compassion, interconnectedness, loving-kindness and many other of its principles.

No, no missionary style conversion, just slow one by one conversion out of free will. Christians have done enough damage with that other “technique”, Buddhism has not a single trace of zealous evangelicalism as far as I can tell. Let’s see what happens, but much is already happening. So yeah, even if diluted by misinterpretation and ad-hoc or fashion usage by westerners like myself, it can be a spiritual bombshell for a world so desperate for … ehm, “change we can believe in” ? [Sorry, this last phrase was a joke, I actually really dislike Obama as a politician. He is just the prettiest face the US elites could find to mask a socio-cultural-military-economic system that has been in stall for quite some years now and will destroy itself probably still in this decade... but this is not the place to start this topic hahaha].

In the afternoon, I for the first time experienced a walking meditation.

I had seen some footage once and thought of it as something very special and mystical and, well, it’s just walking around, usually in a circle around your meditation cushions whilst holding your hands together. Hands in front of you, left hand goes as a soft first into the right hand, with the right thumb closing the gap your curled left index finger makes. You then keep your arms and hands at a comfortable altitude and walk slowly and controlled at the same pace as the others until instructed to sit down again.

I expected a whole lot and ended up very disappointed. Most interestingly though, what annoyed me most, well no, surprised me, was my own resistance to it. My thoughts were (blank) (blank) (“Why am I here again? Why am I doing this stupid walk?”) (blank) (blank) (“I am now gonna walk to back to my tent, pack my gear, get in my car and escape”) (blank) (“Pappa Smurf, are we there yet?”). All thoughts, except for the last one, were real thoughts, and repeated themselves quite a lot.

Luckily, it’s evening now and we have a campfire going on now, I ‘d better go over there and check it out. It’s slowly getting dark and I spent the last 1,5 hours booking my Arabic course in Lebanon and round trip to Beirut. Great, time now to enjoy some FIRE !
30-07-2011

I woke up pretty rested. I thought it was actually kind of warm. Hmmmm must be late. Crap, its 8:54. I was planning to jump straight into the 9:15 meditation. Guess what, NOT!.

On the one hand, I guess it is a good sign, my mind and body are “slowing down”, I am slowly really arriving in this place. On the other hand I already imagine Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the founder of Shambhala Buddhism, which is the lineage/denomination my retreat centre follows, appearing in my sleep and chasing me on the Tibetan mountain tops trying to beat me with a stick in order to make me take the program more seriously. It makes me smile.

Anyhow, for now I have another serious concern to take care of – not having had my breakfast.

Oh Lord, so many thoughts. I wish I had had the opportunity to write stuff down like every 30m. I almost jumped out of myself in order to go grab a pen and piece of paper. I have no idea where or how to start, but chronology is always a good one for a writer, so let’s try. On a separate piece of paper, I jotted down the following chronology: (10AM) Sitting / WALKING + SITTING + MEDITATION INSTRUCTOR meeting / WALKING / (11:48) ESCAPE. Hmmm, very clear, brilliant hahaha.

So yeeeeeeeah, starting at 10 AM was great. I mean last time I had such a wonderful 8.5 hour sleep must have been more than a month or so ago. And after all, I felt no sense of guilt or remorse for starting late. So we start the meditation seated. I continue with my Zen style, it feels ok, just a few adjustments of my body are needed. After a while we did a walking mediation, indoors. So we all stood up, moved the pillows to the centre of the room and started walking slowly clockwise. It’s awkward and fantastically weird. My dominant thoughts: (blank) (blank) (blank) (slowing pace to check my balance, breath seems regular and slow) (“Hey, how funny walking actually is.” I feel my feet as their different parts tickle the floor and my shifting weight pressures them, I then notice my legs trying to find balance which seems much more difficult now I go so slowly.) (blank) (blank) (blank) (“Yuck, it’s bloody warm, let’s see if I can open up a window whilst walking”) (blank) (“Ah, Trungpa’s photo, how must his life have been”) (“Dalai Lama, touring the world for his lost cause, preaching “My religion is kindness”, I love that thought, it is utterly brilliant”).

We have to sit down again, the so-called Samatha (which is Sanskrit for = sit your ass down and don’t do anything stupid) and continue meditation. No problem, until a fly decides to test my patience. My dominant thoughts in those moments: (“Oh, it’s in my hair, bugger off”) (“I don’t move, fly does not move”) (blank) (Fly goes and comes back to sit on my right eyelid. “Oh come on can’t you find a more suitable spot to fiddle about with your little legs and tentacles?”) (To which the fly’s response seems to be to stick it’s middle finger in my face, though with my eyes closed, I could of course not see… but I could FEEL that it proceeded to walk around and fiddle about on my eyelid and eyelashes as if there was no tomorrow.) (blank) (“Grrrrr”) (blank) (“I should not be angry, maybe it is a reincarnation of some lama, not the spitting animal one, the spiritual human one”) (“Let’s try and be one with the fly and enjoy its movements”) (My eye starts producing tears by now as it notices something is wrong and my mood swings violently from resistance to acceptance of the situation, and back and forth, and back again) (“Shit, enough alright” and I shake my head violently) (“Pfew”) (blank) (blank) (“Crap, it has now landed on my left eyelid!!!!”) (I shake my head once more) (blank) (It now lands on my nose, I am fit to burst out in laughter) (blank) (I still feel like laughing, cuz my nose tickles like hell, but with some effort manage to keep it inside and not roll over the floor in hysterical laughter.).
Anyhow, time to meet my meditation instructor now! So I get called out of the meditation room for a chat. Great, it’s the man of the three, exactly what I had hoped. Not because I think less of the two ladies, simply because I find so few men interested in spirituality that I enjoy and value male involvement and energy in such discussions. We have a nice chat in which we discuss Zen Buddhism versus Shambhala Buddhism meditation technique. I tell him that going from hands in cosmic mudra (too hard to explain, you can find a photo online for sure!) to hands simply resting on my legs, I dislike, and the same for a light smile and closed mouth versus and open mouth. The rest of the differences I can cope with. I do find it difficult to make the switch though, it’s throwing 4 years of practice out of the window. So what are these differences? Going from closed eyes to open eyes, from locked body and knees planted into the ground to loose body and knees pointing horizontal or even upwards… He suggested me to have a clean break from my previous practice, to start anew, see it all with fresh eyes. I think I will try. As someone later told me, Zen and Shambhala perfectly illustrate that between Japanese and Tibetan interpretations, the main difference is being uptight and strict versus being more loose and relaxed. It makes me giggle, because at least one Japanese person I know is actually TOTALLY loose, as in, a loose cannon ball. Anyhow, that was an inside joke, no worries if it’s not funny.

So I go back to the shrine room (which is what the meditation room is called) and fiddle around a little with different positions. All feels kind of right except the two aforementioned issues: my hands, after every change of position, seem to want to go back to the cosmic mudra and my eyes, when I am focused, almost automatically wish to close. Luckily, I am put out of my mindfucking misery by a second walking mediation, again indoors. As we walk and walk and walk, my dominant thoughts are simply for the body. I pay even more special attention to my legs. I try taking bigger and slower steps with intention, tightening my every muscle to execute this as precisely as possible. Also, I really solidly plant my heel first at each step which should open the first chakra (which resides in your heel), which, among other things I suppose, is good for grounding. Airy fairy people like yours truly should benefit from that. I feel my bones, my ligaments, my muscles and their interaction which enables me to walk. It’s quite awkward to dissect a simple act such as walking into such detail. It makes me feel very, skeletal?

Now we go in to the last sitting meditation for the day and I am not really focused. I have many thoughts, all immediately addressed or followed up by others. Also, I just wanna write, my head is so full, I need to squeeze my soaked inner sponge in order to be able to absorb anything (a)new. Then, a bomb drops as three thoughts instantly manifest into concrete action. A girl is crying, I feel like handing her a tissue, the moment my thought arises somebody does exactly that. My legs hurt and I want to slowly get out of my meditation pose for a short resting pose (which is legs up and aligned, feet on the ground together and knees together), the moment the thought arises somebody does exactly that. I feel like leaving, my head is full, but we are in a small shrine room today and I do not wanna make a fuss, the moment the thought arises, somebody walks into the room, leaving the door open and making noise, my perfect excuse for squeezing out. As I leave the room, with an already full head, another train of thoughts overwhelms me: further. If many of my thoughts are in fact those of others, something I have started thinking some months ago but now manifests with such intensity, where does that place me? Where are my own thoughts? How do I recognize them? I want a gift, not a curse. I wanna understand what it means. Is it pure coincidence? Am I just making a big fuss out of it? This train of thoughts accelerates like a snowball and leaves me with a splitting headache, which slowly diminishes as I write up these words in my diary…

At lunch, I eat like a maniac, terribly hungry from having skipped breakfast. The afternoon meditations, another few rounds of sitting and walking meditation, are great. Not too spectacular for me though… but perhaps that is a good thing.

What is more interesting, between lunch and afternoon practice, I disappear into the woods with one of the fellow participants. We both felt like singing and so we did. [Some of you may have missed this, but I have been taking 6 months of classical singing lessons by now, as a tenor.] She is a singer/songwriter by profession, and by calling, I would add, so needless to say I was utterly… terrified, Rightfully so, because after some warm-up exercises on my end I let her start the singing and I was treated to a mindboggling solo concert, which me as solo audience enjoyed thoroughly. I sang as well. Wait wait, I mean, I sang TOO, not AS WELL as she did hahaha. But hey, the fact that I dared to sing after her at all was quite something for me. Let me give you some context here: if you are an upcoming MC and Eminem or Busta Rhymes just dished out a freestyle rhyme in front of that same crowd and hands you his still fuming mic, or if you find yourself wearing a tuxedo, behind the scenes of an Opera where Pavarotti was just performing an aria and asks you out of the blue to please take over… ehnm, you understand now what I mean by embarrassment? Anyhow, my poise, noise (!) and confidence keep growing, and my voice control too. I also manage to start finding my own variations/interpretations to great classics such as “Fenesta Che Lucive”, “O Sole Mio” and “Core ‘Ngrato”. I actually wanna try singing “Nessun Dorma”, but it terrifies me, let’s see when the courage for that will come up . [I will, later on towards the end of the programme!]

Later that night, I am beatboxing and freestyling with another participant, from English to Spanish, Spanglish, Italian and Russian. We are totally having fun, but my rhymes are still slow, the flow has gone solo, outta here, and back nono, slowly coming back, one day in the track, right back in my face, spat out through my mouth in craze… yo yo (I made this rhyme up as I am writing now haha). Anyway, It will not be till the coming days that my rhymes start flying out.
31-07-2011

There is but music in my head, and lyrics. Sadly, there is also restlessness, as I had an absolute crap sleep last night, waking up a million times, not on my mattress but next to it, feeling cold and somehow anxious. I hope it is the anxiety of a brain awaiting the destruction of some routine, some thinking patterns that are ready for the next level, in favour of my search for the self. [As the great Rumi says, “Our only mission in life is to destroy those inside barriers that exist between us and love”. Voila`, that is what I am doing here in my first part of my own version of EAT, PRAY, LOVE, where I started with the PRAY part…;-)]

Ow, but wait, behind me there are two people having sex in the tent. I guess they are forgetting about not being at home, but rather some place where their only sound proofing is a flimsy thin layer of tent. Haha, oh, what, they already finished? So soon a climax, gosh, amateurs…

So anyhow, where was I? The soul, infinitely wise (and a big crybaby at the same time, have not figured that one out yet) and your every cell, which probably contains the Alpha and the Omega about your life, and the universe at large.
Hmm wait, a fly was just crawling up my arm and then it started chilling on this very piece of paper I am writing on to which I said … ups, nothing, it already flew away. It’s so awkward, so check this. Some wise people told me once that the intention with which a name is given, along with the name itself, determine much of your spiritual path, and challenges, along the path in this life. So if I am named after St. Francis, why o why, among many other of his qualities, I am not just a little but totally and utterly lacking any basic communication skills with the animal kingdom? I mean, how hard can “flytalic” or “flyish” be? It drives me mad = I, lingvus freak maximus, have not even found one single animal language I can communicate in. Grrrrr!

In the afternoon meditations, not too many bombastic things happening… the only thing steadily growing is my back pain… the rest sort of comes and goes. [That “sort of coming and going” is actually one of the top messages and reminders of Buddhism, impermanence of everything / nothing is permanent, being the only certainty in the universe].

Euhm, I did do one interesting ad-hoc contemplative meditation which requires massive concentration, but I started it just before a walking meditation, so with the standing up and walking about part my concentration got messed up and I lost my zen… a bit, tried to continue it and somewhat completed it still. I cannot wait to soon ace it and repeat it till the end of times. If I learn to do this meditation properly, and I will, it is the most transformative meditation technique practice I have ever come across. So what is it? I will not tell you. I am not sure who is ready to hear such a message as the one put forward by this meditation. More importantly, I want to experience it first as wholely as I can, then it is the time to try and explain it if I can.
01-08-2011

Actually there was more yesterday. For example, during meditation I got really annoyed at some people seemingly unserious in the meditation practice. Walking in and out all the time, doing the walking meditation walking seemingly kinda half-drunk as if they had no real interest. Yes, it annoyed me, and at the same time not, because after these thoughts I started to observe the observer, me, and I disidentified from these thoughts.

It slowly made me laugh, realizing that later on, when I was called to fulfill my umzeh (timekeeper) and gatekeeper tasks during meditations, I chickened out citing attachment to my Christian tradition giving me a mental block in trying officially perform any Buddhist function. Ergo me, the fashion Buddhist and renegade Catholic, was being “holier than thou” about Buddhist rules and form…? Bhuahahahah silly me.

Ghanywaysssss… we later that night had a phenomenal camp fire with one of the participant dropping magic/philosophy acts, a heartwarming solo singer, a sensational sax player and a sing along crazy with some short & sweet songs.

What I enjoyed most was another exercise yet… improv. With 20 smth people around the camp fire in by now pitch darkness where faces are distorted and contours fade into a happy blurry patch. Everybody throws in a note, no matter what, no matter how long, the only instructions are to keep the same note and carry it with all the breath you have, and you may then start anew with the same, or another note, Silence, at first. Then a few people start humming, a first note is tossed into the fire by a courageous soul, soon more follow, the intensity and volume increase. Soon, everybody is in and the sax kicks in for a little improv on top of all the notes. Again, notes are dropped, this time it is the solo singer who does the improvisation, caressing and tickling the top of our notes with a sweet and comforting voice. It was downright magic, and the electricity and vibe of the group and this particular exercise cannot be described faithfully enough by the pen painting this paper with mere letters and words.

I am sure though, you imagination will do the trick.

Do you have the picture in your head and the sound in your ears? Good, now I can give you my approximation… I could only say it is savage like a sizzling and cracking tesla coil firing up and ready to jolt some object, gentle like a bumblebee hopscotching from flower to flower in the distance, mysterious like a night in the deafening silence of the endless desert.

Francescopod? No action for him yet. My time will come I told myself standing grumpy on the sidelines. Some people asked me to sing, but the whole evening was prepared without me so I felt it to be inappropriate to say “Hey by the way, I am going to wrap up your show now.”

Anyhow, back at the tents, Mr. Beatbox & I started beatboxing & freestyling. Have not done that in ages before that one other time a few days back so… jikes. Anoyhow, needless to say, I was back in the game, mastering my flow, not just so so, more like “hell yeah you know”, turn it up a little, spookier than… [composed these again as I write this down] ah crap, where has my mojo gone ? Anyhow, taking turns rapping and beatboxing in English, Spanish and Spanglish we entertained ourselves a lot, as well as an ever growing crowd, for quite a while.

If I am shaking now it is because I slept so little as my head is constantly producing new funky beats & sizzling rhymes, which is pretty cool if you ask me, but hey, even a flowmaster got’s to sleep… aaaaight? So damn it, be quiet now. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
4-8-2011

Two blank days just passed.

Not that there was not enough writing material, I just was unable to find time to write anything down till now. I choose to just skip and move on for the sake of this diary: SELECT – DELETE – OK

Well, ok, just a few highlights then. The children’s reign of terror has started yesterday (as our mornings, for a week, will consist in taking care of some children whose parents have come over for a retreat); there was a monsoon-in-Africa worthy thunderstorm in which I sang “O Sole Mio” in the pouring rain, and ran around and outside of the DCL terrain in boxer shorts, running shorts and running shoes like a caveman on a bad hairday. ; we enjoyed two phenomenal lectures, one on the Buddhist “4 reminders” and specifically in the context of romantic relationships and one on the concept of “doubt”, for the next talks I hope to have my diary around so I can take some notes and share. Very much regret this because they were very good.

So anyways, I did not walk out in the middle of a lecture to really write, but to read. To read though, I want an empty mind, so I squeezed my inner sponge into whatever you are reading right now… and I am ready. See you later.

I am off again into a book that is utterly, cosmically, mindblowing – Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”.

Every time I open it, it seems a different book altogether, and it’s not like years pass between one read and the other, I am talking about months, sometimes merely weeks. I am not sure any words, for sure not mine, can do this book any justice. Would crying it out for you do?

If love is “trembling happiness”, as Khalil Gibran says, and when we cry when we feel joy at the core level of our being, I could only cry it your way I guess.

If you are ready for any kind of awakening of your true self or want to get rid of some ballast you are, or think to be, carrying (which, I would argue, is the EXACT same thing), if you feel really want to be emotionally hung upside down and turned inside out, or if you simply like books that give you a smack in the face, look no further…. this is it.

For more info on Shambhala Buddhism vision:

http://www.shambhala.org/about_shambhala.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala

For more info on Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, here are two suggestions (do read the accounts of his death). Also, if you are interested, do read up on his eldest son, Mipham Rinpoche, current holder of the Shambhala lineage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chögyam_Trungpa

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/chogyam-trungpa.php

Stay tuned for weeks two and three of my experience in Dechen Choling. I am still working on typing up the notes from my diary. So, till then, thanks for your patience and take care.

Ciao.

————————————————————————————————-

WEEK 2 = 5 August to 12 August 2011

[A few notes before you read. First, this text you are about to read is a straight lift from my diary, raw and uncut, so do not expect it to be sophisticated nor for it to be my "final" opinion on stuff ; Second, whenever I think an important detail or explanation was forgotten that would help the reader understand the context of the experience better, I have inserted it in square brackets, just like this bit you are reading now].

6-8-2011

A few evenings ago I had a beautiful conversation with a girl in my group.

I realized something special was occurring, which has happened many times before in my life, and almost every time it occurs, it grows in intensity.

In essence, this is what happens = someone talks, I listen, the person keeps talking, I listen, and on and on and on.

I sometimes snap out of my zen mode and ask a question, which I invariably regret (unless it is a simple clarification question) because it interrupts the flow of the person’s speech and the space of comfort and acceptance your silence provides. This space that with time elapsing becomes more and more profound, as emotions and thoughts grow in intensity. I just love this the more it happens, the more I look the person in the eyes and I wanna cry the person’s joy and pains as their story unfolds, but I do not, I keep my space and my peace (if I manage).

So anyhow, I never fully appreciated this process until just now reading again a passage from “The Power of Now” which states the following

“True relationship becomes possible only when there is an awareness of Being. Coming from Being, you will perceive another person’s body and mind just as a screen behind which you can feel their true reality, as you feel yours. So, when confronted with someone else’s suffering or unconscious behavior you stay present and in touch with Being and are thus able to look beyond the form and feel the other person’s radiant and pure being through your own.”

Wow, I am speechless.

It makes so much sense that my swelling tears are those of joy, love perhaps, because I see a flower blossoming. I am listening to suffering, hope, frustration, bitterness, appreciation and no matter in which cocktails of ingredients, I see, in Matrix-code fashion if you will, a parallel image of something much more true, much more real. Where the ego or mind of the person talk, I guess I can simultaneously see their immortal soul / beyond the mind, and time and time again, I am speechless, and more than once, overwhelmed.

If you are unsure as to what this is, or how it works, try listening in at a next conversation, and not utter a single word. Your ego/mind will present its usual thoughts, answers, questions, distractions, and will perhaps even start punishing you for not uttering them. Try to resist. Just smile, or nod, or shake your head when the conversation is directed at you. Others may make a remark about your silence, or look at you confused or even with disdain. More importantly, at some point in time, most of the noisemaking activity in your mind will (largely) stop. Enjoy the awkward silence in your head… and see what happens inside of you. If nothing happens, that is still good, as it will show to yourself that silence is golden sometimes.

———–

7-8-2011

Yesterday there was lots more meditation… duh !

Not much to share there. Just a few things.

During the last meditation I could not help but think of the indigenous peoples of our world. I guess, in these weeks, my lifestyle recalls much of what most people in history have lived like, and, in some pockets of the world, still do. I am not talking about poverty here, more about people who choose willfully a traditional/simple life, to live as their ancestors/people lived before them, and embrace it fully.

Although work wise I hated this experience, my first ever “serious” work experience was an internship for an organization aiming to be a kind of UN for indigenous peoples and first nations all over the world. The romantic notion of people knowing a land, and the flora and fauna on it, and treating everything in a respectful, dignified and healthy manner had fascinated me.

I guess part of my spiritual path has been about finding some meaning to this, and trying to learn from whatever bits and pieces of information I could find. During the meditation today, I simply dedicated some thoughts to that, telling the indigenous peoples and first nations that the time that the world will (once again) appreciate their wisdom, is near. I have no concrete evidence for this, it is a feeling, and it gets stronger and its encouraged by bits and pieces of information I find everywhere. Enough about this for now.

In the evening, something very particular happened (to not get your hopes up, it was NOT a majestic vision of a Native American chief telling me about the future of our planet). We went to a talk by a long time Buddhist who lives around here. Besides his musical barn which is a beautiful sight, he gave us a short talk about what Native Americans consider to be the 5 things in life that, when absent, cause disease in a person. I had no pen and paper with me, so sadly I cannot give you the nuances, which I really really regret.

In plain words, this is what he said. The 5 reminders were: honour your parents (somehow, no matter what kind of relationship you may have with them) ; honour the earth (pollute as little as possible, use only what you need and give thanks for that which you use) ; keep promises and vows you make (they carry strong emotional and spiritual power, so think well before you make/take/break them) ; develop your talents (do that which you love doing and do it to the best of your abilities) ; and, listen to your intuition (trust your other-than-logic thoughts, those which give you a good feeling).

My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard this message.

I was absolutely astonished that a list which on a level of logic/intellect feels so incongruent has nevertheless absolute emotional and spiritual coherency for me. I find it such a wise and simple formula and, examining myself through these five lenses, I notice that I found them important already without understanding this healing power, nor seeing the interconnection between them.

Wow, I can only say wow, and my recent leap forward in the last two categories (by quitting my job and going for my passions) cannot but feel terribly good.

Oh, I almost forgot. One or two days ago, I am not sure anymore and could not be bothered to find out, something magical happened = we had our “men’s circle”. After the women had an all-pink assembly in which they surely scolded and cursed men for eons to come and gossiped their asses off (J/K)… it was time for the men to… do the same?

Woooohaaa. I feel my inner Fred Flintstone coming up in a big ol’ yabba dabba doo. It was going to be a mighty and powerful experience. We did two main exercises. The idea of the men’s circle was simply to sit around with men of all ages, to exchange views and experiences on what it means to be a man, now, yesterday and tomorrow.

One exercise was to sit in a circle with 4 people in total and each take a turn to talk, whilst the other 3 remain in absolute silence, when the person with the talking stick recounts a day in his life with his father at age fifteen. It was sick, each of their fathers had an element my dad has too: loving to cook on special days, especially fish; being the exploratory driver of the family, taking to new places, eating new foods and many other things.

Some stories were filled with quite some tragedy, so much so that I almost felt guilty about having a good relationship with my own dad. Anyhow, I am neither responsible for their experiences, nor their emotions, so whatever they do with my story I cannot control anyway… so I just observed my thought and did not judge it.

[There is a great story on what to do with emotions = treat them as gifts.

Once upon a time in Japan lived a great samurai master. When he retired, he opened a samurai academy for young pupils. It was a fantastic place to learn about both the inner and outer warriorship of the samurai.

One of the pupils had never lost a fight thanks to his astonishing ability to counterattack any opponent by simply imitating, and instantly improving, the opponent’s technique. The only drawback was that he was unable to start a fight; he had to provoke the opponent into attacking first.

This young student one day grew arrogant and challenged the old samurai master to a fight, right in the middle of practice, in front of all the students.

Absolute silence.

In shock, the students looked at the scene unfolding in front of their eyes. The young student walked up to the master and tried to trick him into fighting,

He scolded at his teacher. No reaction.

He then spat on the old master. No reaction.

With his frustration growing, his desperation to fight brought him to even do the unheard of in Japan; he insulted the great samurai’s ancestors.

Still, there was no reaction.

Fuming with anger, he ran away confused, angry and embittered. The other students still did not dare to move, remaining in shock at what had just happened.

After some time, one of the pupils did however step up and asked in a trembling voice the question that was on everybody’s lips: “Great master, why did you tolerate such insolence from one of our fellow students?”.

The old master smiled and answered: “My dear students, if someone comes to you with a gift, and you refuse that gift… to whom does it belong?”]

I recounted the day my dad took me to Geneva to visit the Car Show. Not sure I was exactly 15, but I was certainly not older. It was a great day which I remember it with great fondness. It was (one of) the first time(s) a passion I have cultivated largely myself in my family was being honoured in such a profound way. It was fun, and we enjoyed the one on one time as well. I remember it as a very happy occasion together, and one in which he, even though not the biggest fan of cars, still chose to stimulate my passion and invested time and energy in it. When I think back of that, that memory tends to fade as a car-related memory in favour of a father-son trip.

The second exercise, pfew.

Let me sit up straight, before having the privilege of recounting it.

It was very very …. No good word for it hahaha. So I will first explain the exercise and then tell you what I experienced.

The idea of the exercise was to visualize the father lineage and feel its energy. You stand firmly on your two feet, take a few deep breaths, feel roots growing out of your feet, feel your masculine energy, whatever it exactly means to you. Breathe in, breath out slowly and intensely, increase that masculine energy, bring it to the surface. Then, visualize your father, or caretaker(s), behind you, at a distance you feel comfortable with. Feel his energy moving through you, feel the positive things that were/are there and which you appreciate from your father. When you have found and felt those elements for a while, visualize your father’s father. If you have no recollection of him, imagine someone anyway. Feel his energy moving through you, feel the positive things that were/are there and which you appreciate from this grandfather. Repeat for father of your grandfather, if you manage to feel something. Then, visualize your entire lineage, from the beginning of times. Feel all of your male ancestors. Now, if you are ready for it, slowly turn around and face them. Look at them, feel, and make any gesture or comment you feel like, then slowly come back to the here and now and sit down.

You may have guessed it by reading the exercise that it has the potential to trigger quite something, it turned out special indeed for me.

So now my experience.

My dad showed clearly. I pictured him right behind me, with a big smile, a very proud dad. So proud, that despite having his arms stretched and leaning on my shoulders already, he at some point steps up to me and hugs me from behind, very firmly. Shortly thereafter, he lets go. He takes a step back, puts his hand under his chin and gently scratches his beard, and nods, like saying “Go get them tiger, you do not need me anymore, you have all it takes”.

My father’s father was also easy to imagine. I remembered walking around in his house in Bra, waking up in the early early morning as a small child and following his daily round in his small greenhouse where he kept his collection of orchids. In each one of the rooms, we measured temperature, humidity and something else which I keep forgetting. We wrote that down in a notebook with utmost diligence. Then we would water the plants. I loved this all, it gave me a special way to connect with this kind, a bit mysterious old gentleman that I saw only a few weeks per year. My next thoughts were about his passion for traveling, and how I would have loved telling him that I went to one of his favourite countries, Yemen, and how cool it would have been to exchange stories about it. [Actually, now I think about it, one of the few complete self-invented phrases I ever pulled out in Arabic whilst in Yemen was to say that “my grandfather visited a long time ago, and that he was now with Allah”].

The father of my grandfather, not knowing much about him and not knowing how he looks like, I was unsure as to his energy but I for some strange reason could picture him very clearly.

When it was time to face the lineage, I was almost shaking like a leaf, but I was so curious, and already so full of energy and excitement that I went for it. As I slowly turned round, not to lose my connection to the ground, the pain I had in my left arm was increasing steadily, reaching almost unbearable levels [I have some blood circulation problems every now and then which cause my left arm to lose sensitivity, but now it felt also squeezed and crushed on top of that].

Facing my lineage was mighty. Just mighty.

I pictured a looooooong line of men going back to ancient times. This shape was a sort of S-like shape, much like the monument to the fallen soldiers in WWII in Bra’s cemetery. There was a dark space in which this happened, but the line of men was light and surrounded by cosmic flashes of light and each had their hands on the shoulders of the man in front. They were all staring at me.

It was silent.

I was unsure about what was going to happen, if anything at all.

At some point, they let go of the shoulders, faced each other. They then erupted in smiles, handshakes, hugs and kisses, whilst staring at me. They looked proud of me, very proud, and I was utterly amazed. I was so humbled, I felt like crying, I am now crying as I type up this experience. It was so beautiful I could almost not believe it, especially because I always question myself so much that I am never sure I can feel proud of myself, nor what my family thinks of me. Well, I know somewhere in the back of my mind that they are proud of me in most ways, but I do not always accept that feeling somehow. Then, I decided it was enough, I need to go back to planet earth, so I took a big big bow, smiled to my ancestors, and spent the next 5 minutes trying to revive my arm.

—

9-8-2011

We are almost halfway the programme.

I am happy because sleeping in a tent still sucks big time.

How could I ever miss waking up full of insect bites, shaking from the cold and/or with a back feeling like a plank of wood? Oh, and don’t get me started on the tent aroma… I could fill pages about the smell that accumulates in a tent, no matter how much you try to air it, but let’s not go there shall we? At the same time, there is something raw and pure about waking up at a time (more or less) and temperature (for sure) dictated by nature, it’s cool to take a dump in an eco-toilet that uses no water but woodchips to breakdown whatever comes out of you, and it’s cool in a weird way to be full of insect bites, much like wartime scars

Besides that, or on top should I say, it’s quite phenomenal to be here and live this lifestyle: wake up, breakfast together, activities together, lunch together, activities together, dinner together, camp fire together, sleep. I suddenly realized something yesterday evening when walking back from the toilet blocks to my tent and seeing the campfire from a distance: this is raw, pure community life. It’s an uncomplicated life, we all struggle with different aspects of it (the more so because most of us participants are city people), but at the end of the day it gives more peace of mind, a basic life structure and little to no BS distracting you from what life really is. I think our species must have started with some similar form, and many of today’s surviving first nations/native/indigenous peoples still do. As such, probably, it is not only the oldest but also the most sustained way of living in the world. I never thought the meaning of primitive and sustainable/advanced could be so close together.

During the latter part of yesterday afternoon’s meditation session, all the images that popped in my mind were about… girls. It’s funny that, in a week of letting thoughts run freely many hours per day, it has taken me so long to have this subject fly by on the mental highway! Yes, you will have guessed correctly that after that thought, my meditation practice did not bring me much further, ehm, spiritually speaking. By now, you are already wondering, I sense, whether I am hunting down the girls here… Well, not really, though I must admit that Buddhist girls are somehow very very cute and intellectually/ emotionally/ spiritually pretty advanced and therefore… arrrgh anyhow no matter what excuses I make up in my head almost no girl in my group passes the simple mathematical rule of girl’s age needing to be minimum of guy’s age divided by two plus seven. Ergo =  I tell myself “No, no, no! BAD FRANCESCO! Foei (this is Dutch and untranslatable, sorry!) ! Stay out of prison and keep your blood where it’s supposed to be… in your head!”

Shit, it’s 7:55, I really need a shower, I smell like shit and breakfast starts in five minutes. But first, let’s see if I can scavenge some more of those fine blueberries from the bushes around our tents.

I just had lunch now and I am really stuffed… AND tired. Stuffed from overcooked, unsalted penne with too much egg and a delicious vegetable sauce. The cake, some kind of carrot-walnut cake, was uberawesome

Kids were fun this morning. I read Peter Pan to them, but it was in French so I had to constantly translate for my grand VIP audience of two Dutch boys and two Dutch girls. At some point there were 5 kiddos, a cute French dude popped by (he looks like a carbon copy of Benigni’s son in “La Vita e` Bella”). He looked at the text in French, me talking jibberish in a non-French devilish tongue, looked at the text again, looked at me again with a face expressing “QUOI?” and slowly made his way out with his confused stare. Otherwise, let’s see, I was tossing about German kids, squashing a French girl and tickling her to an almost certain death, and marching outside with a drill sergeant and four kids (two being Dutch and needing my translation services).  YEAAAHHH kids rule!

The Daddy Day Care we have going on here will last another 3 days I believe. It’s pretty cool actually on many fronts: one of them is the reawakening of what is the most developed/stressed/exasperated/ready-to-explode part of my brain, my language centre. It will serve me a great deal for my coming months in the Arab world [in which I am giving myself a ridiculously little 4 months to learn MSA and two Arabic dialects].

Ow, I forgot to mention that we have silence day today! Starting with lunch, my entire group’s rest of the day is now silent until sunrise. Except for functional talk like for our cleaning tasks or to say “Hey moron you are standing on my foot” we are to be quiet. It’s a form of meditation almost, a challenge to the mind to not generate too much BS or risk leading to an explosion of the head, as the steam valve (= the mouth) is shut tight and not allowed to let any pressure out. Funnily enough the other groups in the village are not doing this practice simultaneously so both kids and adults have already come to me in the afternoon to say or ask this and that. If simple, I smile or nod. If complex, I smile/nod and make some gestures. If very complex, I stick out my middle finger.

That last phrase was a joke.

When things tend to be very complex, what I really do is I make a serious face and point to the sticker on my shirt spelling “ GOLDEN SILENCE”. It’s intriguing to be dumb for a day, and frustrating, and inspiring.

It’s late afternoon and there is a talk going on. For a change, I have my diary around. Yeyy.

[So, as also with the other talks I will record here, I try to write up as much ad verbatim, without interpretation and without summarizing. Sometimes I could not keep up and therefore you will notice some gaps in the various thoughts presented].

“So today we will talk about romance, sex and relationships right?

Let me start with basic goodness though. Basic goodness is basic being. Just being, and acknowledging that. What’s basic about it? It is something in us which is always there. It is not just physical, it is also mental. Why is it good? It is not good as in the opposite of bad. There is simply no better word than “good” in the English language. Humans, dog shit, thoughts, bodies, everything that is Buddhists believe to be basically good. With parts of the body, there is stuff we all share, like a nose, others, like sexual organs, are bound to the sex we are born with.

Talking about private parts, what is all the fuss about it? One day, as a little girl, I went into a toilet with a boy my age because we both were curious about each other’s private parts. We had a peek and were impressed. Once about to get out, there was knocking on the door. It was a teacher, there was no escape. We were caught and beaten by our respective parents. Such experiences, which we may all more or less have lived as children or young teens, make it hard to experience your body as basically good. It is simply the way it is, whether you like it or not. The reason we do not experience basic goodness is because often we do not experience it because of the chattering of our mind.

The basis of coming into this life is sex. Ergo, we are sexual beings, we cannot avoid it. If we deny it, we deny our own basic goodness.

I will talk about four things today; 1) Sex with love. 2) Sex without love. 3) Love without sex. 4) Tantric sex.

[Hold your horses dear reader, don’t you sneakily skip to part four directly…]

1)      When I talk about sex, it is not just the private parts coming together. It is eroticism, because when you look at someone it can trigger energy (ushering in a kiss or hug for example). Usually, we experience this as positive. Then our mind has thoughts, desires, it wants to do something about it, to prolong and sustain that feeling. So, when we care for and want to protect that other person, this gives an experience I would call sacred space. You open up, you surrender to that person. It opens up energy, time can stop for you. I think that it is something we inherently want. If I look at you nothing happens (chuckling by us!) but in another context, with others, it can happen! Then, you could fall in love. However, if one of the persons wants and the other not, the other becomes meat, selfishness may kick in and, well, you know the rest…

2)      One night stand. When you are young and cool it looks quite all right. So basically you wanna make love, but it is not going to be my partner. So far as you are young and clearly understanding each other’s “sex only” it can sort of work. Also, sex without love can give quite some emptiness. And, you know, sex can make babies… unwanted pregnancy creates issues for all three. Different reasons may exist for sex without love. It can be a sport, statistics with your friends, showing off or needing to feel “power over” the other person.

3)      When I was 18 I met a guy and we loved each other a lot, without sex. It was strangely enough fantastic. I am sure some of you will have had a similar experience. Also, in long term relationships, when people are married for a while sex often gets boring. Other things than sex can then be shared and cultivated instead.

4)      Tibetan monks and nuns learn how to integrate male and female energies in their own body. As such, they do not need a partner. Other tantric schools do “use” the body. It takes lots of training with the own body, then they use the body of another. All are still responsible for their own arousal, you go into controlling energies and coming to unification. Tantra is huge, tantric sex is tiny. There are many ways to reach that desired unison. What prevents a profound sexual experience? Not seeing the basic goodness in oneself and/or the other. This triggers possession, jealousy and can destroy relationships. In a wider context, Christianity did a lot of damage to sexuality as well, but in this day and age we can slowly work on repairing it.

Sex is basically communication with all our body and senses. Joy is an essential ingredient therein. Without joy in life, there is little. Don’t let yourself be pushed in sex, just feel and go from what the feeling tells you.”

——–

10-08-2011

It’s early morning and the silence round will finish as soon as I walk out of my tent to go brush my teeth.

I never thought it would feel not only nice, but even sort of natural.

And funny, funny as hell, Lord have we laughed.

Like a bunch of kids, and at the campfire yesterday evening too, just gazing at the campfire and at each other… utterly brilliant and, somehow, completely hilarious. Later I have a discussion about this with another participant. We come to the conclusion that silence is so funny because it forces you in the present moment when around others. You see, when out of words to convey a message, it is difficult to convey concepts, ideas and actions that refer to the past or future. As such, you tend to focus on the Now, and on the most basic of body language conversations, or simple gazes, to get your point across. This makes you super aware of your surroundings, as your other senses are on full alert. This, combined with the great vibe among our group, made sure that no person tripping, dropping a fork, making a funny face during meditation or doing anything other than being totally “normal” was spared from laughter. It also tended to go in waves, back and forth laughter, and then laughter about the laughter, and then people having to leave the scene because they get stomach cramps from laughing… and people laughing about that too! Crazy Buddhists, I love them, I love… us.

This afternoon, we listened to a recorded lecture by the Sakyong. The Sakyong is the current lineage holder of Shambhala. Yes, those of you who paid attention in the recount of week 1 will remember that he is the son of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, namely Mipham Rinpoche.

[Again, please remember I was taking notes, so that bits and pieces are missing and at times the text seems to lack coherence… well that is true, because I cannot always keep up haha]

“What our community, the sangha, does is ultimately more important than I, the leader. So, when people question my wisdom, my state of enlightenment, my interaction with other people etc that is totally fair. I will tell you more, I believe one can tell the greatness of a teacher by observing the students. Yes it is useful to have guidance and to learn from someone. However, the teacher/guru principle is not the continuity factor going forward.

In Shambhala we say “basic goodness”, which comes from the Tibetan words meaning “from the beginning” and “pure/good/complete”. As you know, I just completed a one year retreat and I thought a lot about it. My conclusion is that yes, there is basic goodness (he chuckles).

As things grow in complexity, we tend to look for complex solutions. Why not simple ones instead?

Television and other stuff questions our basic goodness, with lots of violence among others. There is a transition now though. I imagine a village, I imagine a group of people where one can ask; “Is life good?” This group can answer “Yes, life is good” and really mean it. Does that mean life is easy? No, it can be, but people still have tensions, relationships, parking problems, bad weather etc.

I will not always be here and not always will there be someone around to tell you that you have basic goodness. So what do you transmit? What do your heart and mind communicate every day? Reflect on that transmission, and learn from it. How does the mind think about itself? When you woke up, what did you think? Happy or not, confident or not… that has a profound effect on your every day.

We have so little patience these days… not even for ehm, slow internet! Things seem to be quicker and more under our control. But does it change the humanness? No. A thousand years ago or not is the same for the human mind or body, which still want to be in control.

Many people begin and stop meditation. Meditation does not do anything wrong… but expectations of its effects tend to differ.

Now I want to talk about bravery = warriorship in Shambhala. There are 3 kinds of bravery; in mind, in speech and in body.

Basic goodness may cast doubts. Doubt is a forked mind in meditation terms. If you want to feel, your mind has to be with you. You know that, because you know it is hard to feel two different things simultaneously. With meditation, we gain trust in our mind. The notion of warriorship means not falling apart in front of obstacles. So what causes doubt in meditation? We do a dance between conceptuality and real feelings.

This bravery has not just daring in it, it is also about sensitivity, gentleness, resilience, brilliance. So when something arises during meditations, when a thought comes and we believe it. So our goal with MIND is not to give into anything that is occurring. So how can you tell when you are clinging? You feel tired, anxious. In terms of SPEECH, bravery means being free of gossip. Gossip means words coming out in an uncontrolled way and diminishing the reputation of the person and/or hurt another person. When we have no bravery in speech, our life become like an echo.

With bravery in MIND, we obtain clarity. With bravery in SPEECH, truthfulness/directness. With bravery in BODY, its embodiment & strength. In the MIND, when having less bravery, we trust our thinking less and deciding what to do is difficult. In SPEECH, people do not trust us or we need more words to convey a message. In BODY, we become more scared, health deteriorates.

Being true with gentleness is important. In an aggressive and speedy culture we can present different methods or messages. So people may want meditation, spirituality from the East. So they add it to their lives. Fine if that helps. However, that is different, not a very genuine way of relating. If we cannot manifest it, we will not be here anymore at some point. Now we get science to prove mindful meditation works, something we Tibetans already knew (he chuckles). So far, so good, pfew haha! But also people believe soft methods do not work. But compassion goodness and peace are actually very strong. It takes a strong person to use them.

So it sounds good, but don’t get me mad with this! Nowadays we threaten people saying “Hey, stop doing that, or I will smack you!” I think it should be vice versa: “Don’t let me get more gentle with you, you will get really in trouble if I do that” (he chuckles). Basic goodness has no opposite.

As spiritual teacher and lineage holder, every day I get requests for prayers for sick and dead people, a constant reminder of the fragility of life. It is also patternless. Not only old people get sick and die.

Also, in modern, life sickness and death is often taking part behind the scenes, in a hospital, in a retirement home.

So when you get up in the morning give praise, you are alive, it is powerful.

Let it touch you, not to scare you, but to help you appreciate your life. It makes us deeper people, character, as opposed to shallow and superficial.”

 

——-

11-08-2011

Brrrr it’s freaking cold. Despite my two extra blankets, I still had a pretty rough sleep.

Yesterday at the campfire I gave two massages, trying to perfect an important art Also, I was beatboxing and freestlying in English, Spanish, Italian… and Russian. Surprisingly, the Russian freestyle worked out damn well, though I butchered the long words quite a lot in order to cram them into a funky beat.

Today I am going to sing that the closing ceremony of the parent’s retreat, so also the children we took care of will be there. I will have to sing in a pretty small room, one of the shrine rooms, which measures about 15 by 20 metres. I hope people will not sue me for damage to their eardrums afterwards… ;-(  Ok, gotta run now, it’s 9 and I have the last morning with the children to supervise.

We have a phenomenal talk this afternoon but I am interpreting for one of our Spanish participants, so I cannot write anything down. Anyway, the basic message was simple: to be in the Now, don’t make a storyline in your head, just be in the moment. For example, when seeing somebody on the street, your thoughts may start labeling age, appearance, etc, or the person looks like somebody we know, ah yes that asshole which still owes me money etc etc. Why all this jibberish? Just be. You know you can simply be by the manner in which you interpret say, a soft wind breeze. You can view it as a simple current of air. Or, you can look at it as the freshness of nature itself, a welcome cooling for your body, a reminder from nature to tell you “I am here for you too”, a caress from God to remind you that God is inside you.

Voila`, that is quite a different level of magnitude, is it not?

So, what happened at the big ceremony yesterday? Well well, quite a lot ! So as I mentioned, I was to start singing in a rather small room, with windows open, so people, with a prosecco glass in hand, would finish it up and slowly start walking inside. So I blew off “Fenesta Che Lucive” and the moment I opened my tramp the cocktail party came to a screeching halt as people flocked to the open windows to see who that goofy guy was who suddenly started singing in the shrine room. By the time I started “O Sole Mio” quite a number of kids had already entered and started, during the song, to jump on me, pull me by the arm and some even smacked me on the ass, others were softly hitting the gong beside me and stealing the mic from the ground, to which I thought “O Lord …Mio” but it actually made me laugh. So I continued the song with a slight giggle in my voice. Then, once everybody was inside, I sang a song for the kids, where I first asked the parents to translate the lyrics and telling them I would mime the text as I would be singing. Also, I told the parents, you know the song, like for sure, so whenever you recognize it, sing along! So I started … “Volare”, in its classical version (as opposed to the Gypsy Kings style version which is more commonly known), a typical song of which nobody knows how it starts, but everybody knows some of the words towards the end… hahaha. Whoaa, it was electrifying: I was singing in full glory, curious as hell when people would start recognizing the song, and when they did, it was a sing along craze, karaoke bar worthy!

Ok. You may ask yourself, why are these Buddhist peeps pretty serene, why am I so inspired? One small example will illustrate this.

After my singing, we had a big Asterix-style banquet dinner for all the villagers of Dechen Choling. One by one, during the dinner, many adults made a short speech, read out a poem or other.

One of the adults, a father to one of the little girls in my children’s group, was to perform a kata, a series of karate movements, in front of everybody.

As he mindfully and elegantly assumed his starting pose, out of the blue his 2 year old daughter walked up to him.

Nobody moved. Nobody stopped her.

Her dad had created so much tension and anticipation in the air by his first gracious movements that everybody was in a trance-like state.

When she was at his feet, no scolding, no reprimanding, no smacking… he tenderly picked her up, hugged her gently as if she just got out of bed at home, and slowly walked her back to the mother as he kissed her and held the free hand on top of her head as a sign of protection, and then walked slowly back to resume his kata. You should have seen it. It was, magical, and I do not think I am the only one who thought that, as everybody erupted in a wild applause.

I felt for that entire night, I cannot find a more suiting comparison, as if being part of an episode of Asterix. The final scene with the banquet, which comes back in every episode, where the whole village feasts and toasts and laughs and screams, everybody telling stories, entertainment coming from the various community members.

Luckily for me, one thing did not match; the bard was not punched in the face, tied up and silenced in our version… at least not this night

 

Campfire by day is pretty sweet, but when nightfall comes…

… it becomes campfire magic !

[who remembers Ice Age's Sid? =] “With this little stick, and my highly evolved brain… I shall create – FIRE !”

Tossing about kids is always fun…

… painting their faces is too …

… or making them hang(ing) (in) there …

… because when big kids play, they do mean serious business !

How cool can you be?

I think Twister abilities decline exponentially with our linear aging… or worse ;-)

Siesta art taught by the masters themselves… Viva Espana !

The countryside of Limoges…

… makes you wanna jump for joy !