Satya guided us through a meditation. She asked us to localize the place where we feel our father in our bodies and asked us to connect with the feelings that came up. My brother became emotional. Satya started chanting. Sahaj made a little fire and burned our letters. Then we put seeds in the fire, symbolizing a new beginning for our father’s soul. My brother brought weed seeds. I thought this was a good idea: to provide our father with the kindness and forgivingness of marihuana. We extinguished the fire with water from a special coconut that we drank from first and we put a bit of milk on the fire. This way the seeds could grow and his soon to be unborn baby soul would have some milk. The ashes were gathered by Sahaj and put in the coconut. My brother and I walked to the sea in front of the temple and after reciting a mantra he threw the offerings in the ocean and I threw the coconut with the ashes in the waves.
A spiritual path sometimes sucks
This path is making me desperate. I have a confession to make: every morning I have to fight myself into the day. I always wake up with a lump in my stomach and I always have to make an effort to turn it around. The vast majority of the days I manage to make my day into a good day but it is never without effort. Another confession: the spiritual path also comes with uncomfortable and weird symptoms. Right now there are two chakras hurting, one of them the root chakra. It feels literally as if I have been kicked in the balls. The other one feels as having been hit in the stomach. Nice huh?
The fear of death
Let me see. Is there more I have to say about death and dying? This is what comes up now: I really believe we don’t have to fear death. But I do, just like all the other humans (a very small number of enlightened beings excluded perhaps). Our fear of death translates into all the other fears we experience. Because we are afraid to die we are afraid of change. We cherish a naïve belief that if we just make sure that every thing stays the same death won’t come. In a way quite innocent: we are still the child that thinks he becomes invisible if he puts his hands before his eyes.
We know that many of our fears are so-called irrational. This is if we acknowledge them. But since we also have a fear of acknowledging our fears we keep many fears hidden from ourselves. Basically, we are all cowards. We don’t have the courage to admit that we are afraid. So we blame circumstances, diverting the attention away from fear.
Preparing for dying
We don’t control when we are born, we don’t control where and who our parents are and we don’t control when we die. The only thing we can have some sort of influence on is our relationship with life, with the present moment.
The sad and painful incidents and accidents that happened to my friends can also serve as a reminder of the preciousness and mysteriousness of life. We come and we go. Death is inevitable and we better be prepared. I think this makes sense but in reality most human beings are trying to deny or even defeat death.
Remembering The Wayfinder
I received the news of the death of James Baye. We first met in November 2006 in Salt Lake City. We were both attending the International Big Mind Conference, an intensive month long training under the guidance of Genpo Roshi and Diane Hamilton. I liked him. He was smart, friendly, devoted and funny. But what really struck me was that he told me, literally and straight to my face: “I like you”. I think that it was the first time I heard somebody saying that to me.
James never came back from a small solo retreat he planned for himself. A year ago his father died and he went into nature to commemorate that. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, memories and the elements, I guess. According to the report his girlfriend received from the Rangers who found him he slipped from a rock during a full moon hike and hit his chest
The next level
I have decided to try to spend some time meditating in a monastery. The possibilities for trekking are limited and I have been contemplating what to do. The guys that I have been accompanying the last days will move on to other places. I could do the same and leave Ladakh to find nature somewhere else. Or I could stay and give up the wish for trekking and look for a place that facilitates deepening. I will do the latter. Hopefully I am fortunate enough to fall with my nose in the butter and will I meet a beautiful teacher: a warrior that I can write about.
It is a difficult decision. Ladakh I too beautiful to spent just 3 days walking. I wish I could stay here for 6 months. But this is not the case. I choose for the meditation because I feel I have a chance to open up part of my subconscious I haven’t opened before. Also, I feel ready. And I would like to arrive in Hong Kong well prepared as I have the feeling that there will be a lot of work to do.
Row, row, row your boat
What’s on my mind? I feel rested and ready for a new trip. Today I will go to Nubra Valley. The things we do are alternatives for the ‘real trekking’ because the mountain passes are not open yet. This is a bit of a bummer but also not because I don’t know what these treks are like so I don’t know what I am missing. I have let go of the idea that I can or must see everything two weeks after the start of my journey.
Yesterday I visited a monastery and an old royal palace. I both place there were huge statues of the future Buddha Maitreya. It was impressive. Also the locations of these buildings are pretty impressive: always on the most impossible top of some mountain. I don’t know why. Maybe because of strategical reasons, maybe because they didn’t want to make it too easy on themselves. But the places are certainly powerful and the views are overwhelming.
Iraqi’s love their children too
What could I say? His words send chills down my spine. There are 115.471 Iraqi civilians killed (and counting) because George Bush lied to the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. This number is just the civilians. Of course many, many more Iraqi soldiers had to be killed, men who were fathers, sons and husbands too, but killing soldiers is completely justified. I mean, if you can’t kill foreign soldiers anymore, what is the fun of having an army? I feel ashamed to be from a country that condoned that. How would it feel to live under a dictatorship and then have the most powerful country in the world come slaughter you? When America decides to liberate you from the dictator it used to support, you can be sure that no power in the world will be able to stop the killing. You are completely defenseless.
Arriving in Iraq
The plan is to train two groups of young Iraqi’s. There will be 20 participants per group. We will train each group for 5 days.
The challenge is so big that it overwhelms me. I have no clue how to work with people who are separated from me by language, tradition and religion. I have no clue how to bring them together, how to be able to hear them and how to give them the feeling they are heard. But I will try and they will notice that I am trying and every centimeter of terrain that we cover is gain.
For a moment I felt completely vulnerable and surrendered to destiny. I messaged a friend and I broke down. I didn’t feel received so I fell deeper. And then I worked myself through. I should not seek for comfort, support or approval outside myself. I am alone but I am not.
The fear of death
Every plunge in the unknown without a safety net confronts us consciously or unconsciously with our fear of death. When you are really honest with yourself you will almost always end up there. That’s why it is so hard to leave our comfort zone and that’s why we don’t like to be in a vulnerable position. I saw this for the first time in 2004, just after my awakening experience. I was still fighting for the relationship that was falling apart. My heart had opened, I had changed tremendously overnight and I could ‘see’ all my previous ignorance. In my eyes this was a very good reason to take me back but for my girlfriend at the time this change in behavior was suspect and creepy enough to threaten to call the police if I would ever talk to her again. I was devastated. I friend of mine told me to stop fighting. I told him I couldn’t. He asked me why. I told him that I had been fighting all my life. Then I said “when I stop “they” will beat me to death”. This was the underlying fear. This was the first time I saw that fear of death was under my behavior. All my behavior was fear driven and under all my fears was fear of death. I was not just fighting for my relationship; I was fighting for survival.
