Very good articles written by George Monbiot here: www.monbiot.com
Cat and I decided to break up today. For so many reasons, we can’t be together, but we still love each other so much, and have so much affection for each other. Finally, we managed to talk to each other truthfully and deeply, no issues getting in the way, we revealed ourselves fully and without fear. It is crazy, by deciding to break up and to feel free from the relationship we opened ourselves up to each other, and both, I think, felt love between us like we never had before.
Breaking up while kissing each other deeply and having beautiful sex
Knowing that despite the beauty of our experiences in the moment, today, we do not work. There is so much love between us, but we are not excited any more with each other, I do not appreciate her fully, she holds some of herself back in order to not be hurt by someone she rightly suspected of not truly valuing her.
So sad, yet so clear and beautiful. Two souls finally becoming one, no-one to blame, no-one to impress, no-need to pretend anything, because there are no longer any ties of a relationship.
Two people finally saying, who are you? What do you think? I am a person too, and we are equal you and I, there is no fear because there is no longer anything to lose.
Such beauty and innocence, both humbled, and what freedom and laughter comes from it, and such sadness too.
No more fear, find someone, ask them how they are, and listen, and learn.
I love her so much
I have just arrived back from a week away with Cat at a place called chisholme. It would describe itself as a school of esoteric education, and it is, but much more broadly it is a positive place of friendliness and tranquility, somewhere you can go to feel comfortable with your self and relatively at peace with the world. I have come back inspired by the people i have met there, and hopefully I can extend some of these feelings i have got from people into the rest of life.
One thing which I have become more aware of is how good it is to only say what you mean, there are many israeli’s, and a spanish girl, at chisholme, and to totally generalise they are more direct in there way of speaking. One may be offended at first, at the lack of pleasantries and common british introductory ways of speaking. How nice to speak only when you are inspired and what you say is interesting, funny, positive. How nice to feel comfortable in the inevitable silences between these good words. One can say that this is what the Buddha told us about right speech, he said to not gossip, lie, steal other peoples times with pointless words, and generally to speak compassionately and intelligently. I’m not saying that it is not good to gibber on in an amusing way to someone, but to do so only if the gibbering is full of passion and fun.
I sat in on a study sessions (they run courses), and the basic style of study is to read a text, or hear a reading or a teaching, and then to discuss this with your fellow students, helped along by a (wise?) supervisor who is there to lead the conversation in a good direction if needs be, but not to Teach anything.
and the food is spectacular
www.beshara.org
Observed today how its always good to take a bit of time out of your self-predetermined path and have a random chat with people, respond to the moment and get excited about people yeh!
Had a lovely chat with a little kid “5 and a half” years old I was told in no uncertain terms. He watched me climb up rocks and I even got a round of appluase at the top, I was VERY chuffed.
Encouraging everyone to try and engage with kids, its a pity so many kids grow up in a world where people turn a blind eye to communicating with them in a fun way. Subconciously, it must teach these young thing to feel individual and ostracised from feeling connected to everyone. Yeh! ask them how old they are, which school they went to and when their birthday is, I promise they will get you excited and smiling, man, my cheeks were all red and achy from smiling, aint that a great feeling darn it!
University. A funny place. Currently i feel my mind is rather cluttered and disordered by the whole experience. Although i do not believe for a second this is something thrust upon me, things happen to us, it is up to us to decide how to react.
A slightly depressing place though.. Droves of students get out of bed as late as possible, wander into lectures, lend half an ear, go back, get pissed, it goes on. For me, it is amazing to observe how agitated i am so much of the time. Just getting up in the morning is not the most relaxing experience. It is certainly a place where I feel (possibly wrongly) that very few people, myself included take time to really THINK, to really be in the moment, to feel strongly about things they really believe in. The process of actually thinking in a real sense is one I find fascinating, joyful even. How often is it, that you actually think about a situation you find yourself in. When one actually sits down and really thinks something through, becomes humble and really asks a question to oneself (or to God?), the answers can be very bountiful indeed.
Inspirational people have showed me how clear it is possible to be. Intuition and gut feeling become more and more prevalent, and more and more true.
The concept of monkey mind is talked about in zen buddhism, that the mind is like a monkey, crashing around, manically breaking things, looking for quick satisfaction, generally, well, monkeying around really. Rather be like a still pool of water, calm, equanimous. Always able to take the right action
Enforced meditation for students, maybe? or free shots half price yeh wicked lets drink tequila 2 for 1 at poo na na yeh life isn’t it great?
or perhaps there is a middle way?
On my travels in india, i came across a type of meditation called vipassana, and I was inspired enough by a fellow traveller (a lovable canadian called xaaq who was full of inspiration) to give it a try. It consisted of silent meditation, about 10 hours a day, this is an email i wrote about my experiences. Written in a moment of clarity:
“The idea of it is that life is full of suffering, this happens because when something happens we either like it or dislike it, and then develop craving or aversion towards it. Vipassana is about learning this through direct experience, and not intellectualising. Compared to other types of meditation (the teacher said), your not in a relaxed state of peace, it is quite painful and horrendous at times. They say that it is like opening a deep wound in the body to perform an operation.
Firstly you spend three days concentrating on your breath in order to concentrate the mind. Then you do the vipassana technique. This means that you scan your body from head to foot, and notice any sensations that crop up, pleasant or unpleasant. Sometimes a very painful back or a strong itch, or subtle pleasant buzzing over the whole body. The teaching is that when we experience something in life, this creates a sensation on the body, and changes the breath, and it is our reaction of craving or aversion to these sensations that cause us suffering (if you dont have what you crave your unhappy, if you crave for pain to go away and it doesn’t your unhappy). So you have to feel sensations and then not to react to them at all, just to observe them. The idea is this stops the mind forming habitual patterns of craving and aversion to situations. By doing this your old habit patterns, past reactions (reacting to situations with aversion i.e anger, fear etc etc), come up in the form of unpleasant situations, and habit patterns of craving happiness etc come up in the form of pleasant sensations, and you observe all these with equanimity.
Its not about being unemotional at all, I chatted to the teacher, and i’ve experienced myself slightly already, you just have more space to react with the correct emotion and not just react, oh this situation is unpleasant i’ll be angry. If anger is the correct emotion to have, then get angry!
It’s very much about grappling with deep down emotions in a very real way, and not at all about being serene and placid, and no intellectualising at all. They have some theoretical teachings, but it is irrelevant whether you believe these or not. It is very nice because there are not rites or rituals, no god to rely on, and the teaching is based on other peoples experiences. There is nothing to worship, and it is very much about finding things out for yourself and not relying on false feelings of religiosity, rituals, moral codes, communities etc. Although it is also fine to be a strong christian or muslim for example and also practise vipassana.
For me it is very refreshing. When I think about it if I read a book about something or have intellectual chats (which I will continue to do both as they’re very interesting), you might learn about how to live a good way of life and thats good. It doesn’t really register deep down though, maybe I change a few minor things but it is not learning through experience. One way they put it is that if you read a book, it is like reading a menu in a restaurant. You get excited about the food and chat about the food but you dont really know the food. You just like the idea and superficially feel good and learned. You have not actually eaten the food (so in life swap food for truth), and you need to do something to directly experience it. They are always saying not to believe what they are saying, that you need to find out for yourself.
I hope I dont sound like a tape recorder! It was very hard, you dont talk or communicate with anyone but you are eating together, sleeping together, meditating together, although males and females are segregrated. It was quite odd but you get used to it and it is funny how familiar you become with people through just being with them and not communicating. On the 10th day you break the noble silence, and then meditation is much harder because you have so many thoughts, you irrationally crave for other peoples more heightened deep experiences for instance, which is not the point at all!
You can chat to the teacher throughout the course which I did a few times, he is very warm and jolly, and made me feel much more tranquil when I was freaking out and wanting to leave (it doesn’t matter what you feel, just concentrate on it and observe!) I do love the main teaching which to me is, it doesn’t matter whether good or bad things happen, just observe them, do not worry or crave or hate etc, and so become at peace with any experience that happens to you. It’s also emphasised to help others and love all beings. If someone is attacking you for instance, OK you will need to defend yourself, but throughout that instead of hating the person you feel great compassion and love and act out of compassion towards them instead of creating negative emotions of hate.
I feel much more at peace with things after the course. Being able to not get into silly pointless loops, to disconnect yourself for a second, step back, observe what is happening and then act in a much more positive and loving way. I am trying to meditate twice a day, an hour each time, which is what they reconmmend.
It was very brilliant, and no silly philosophy and mind games, direct experience, you very much grapple with things, gritting ones teeth is integral to the meditation.”
Since then, i have ceased to do the meditation, someday I will try to get back into it, I feel it is a good way, not THE way, but a way to navigate through life, and quite a good one at that. The buddha said that there are two mistakes one can take on the spiritual path, not starting it, and not finishing it. One day, one day…
