Leaf floats by
On the slow river
Going home
Still on the haiku kick obviously.
So today Ji, Wolfgang, Ingrid and myself (on our first full day off) went to do some sightseeing at the Chateau de Beynac and Roque a Jacque (check the spelling on that second one...) two lovely spots along the Dordogne river about 2 hours from the farm. We also went to a traditional French restaurant for lunch which was nice except for the whole eating 3 times more than any human being should be eating thing. Five courses is at least two too many. That and there was of course something dead which once had an individuated consciousness on my plate. From the first (chicken) dinner I was offered after arriving on this continent in Paris (forgot to mention that in Part 1) I decided that I would essentially follow the eating guidelines of a beggar monk while on this trip since I will be surviving largely on the dana (generosity) of others...which means I will eat whatever is put into my figurative begging bowl as long as it doesn´t endanger my life. The host/waiter at the French restaurant today was at least nice enough to upgrade us from pork to whitefish. Since coming to the farm a week ago now, I have been obliged to reevaluate my reasons for vegetarianism...that is not to say that I am going to start eating meat other than in these special circumstances while traveling...but its not as simple as it was before. Even organic farming requires the killing of thousands upon thousands of insects and other little life forms during weeding, mowing, and just walking around the farm. I´ve asked questions of myself about the value of different kinds of life from different species of plants to bugs to cattle and other larger life forms to humans...I haven´t come to any definitive answers, but as it stands right now I do think that there is a difference between killing without the intention to kill in the process of cultivating and growing and killing a creature solely for the purpose of eating that creature...but I couldn´t make a very strong argument at present. I still think that most meat has so much misery and poison in it that its just not worth eating for the simple reason that it transfers misery into one´s body and thus into one´s state of mind.
Moving on, the farm has brought some challenges. Until today I was a little concerned about my place here..I won´t go into all the details but I was perceiving a little bit of tension in Ingrid. That biting German sense of humor which steers more toward the sarcastic and judgmental side than the funny one was not bringing about any genuine laughter from me. That and I´ve discovered that the two of them are pretty severely sectarian, which is a little difficult for me. Everything is whispered lineage this and magical secret deity that. Everything they know of Therevada ("teaching of the elders") Buddhism, which they refer to as Hinayana ("lesser vehicle"), has clearly been learned from Tibetan teachers and Tibetan books which have their own agenda, even with regard to other Tibetan schools. They seem to manufacture differences that aren´t there in order to increase a sense of exclusivity and that is of no interest to me. I had enough of that in the theistic traditions thank you very much. I don´t remember so much of this from when I studied Tibetan Buddhism at UCSB but I didn´t really have any practice under my belt either at that point. I will say that the various uncomfortable situation have given me an opportunity to make some mini breakthroughs in my practice regarding equanimity and compassion. I have learned and contemplated a good deal and like talking to Wolfgang...he is wise abut many things and soft spoken and has a hilarious laugh. But after Ingrid got in my face about my inability to further define vibration without using scientific terms before telling me to change teachers when I told her I had only made a little progress on the path (implying that I thought I had a long way to go and not that I didn´t see any changes in myself) I have decided to bring up the practice less in conversation and to simply do the practice. There also seems to be a general bias against Americans in the house....but I don´t really blame them for that since they´ve had some less than good experiences with the American wwoofers...that and our country hasn´t really made a great name for itself in terms of international relations. Regardless, we all had a meeting tonight, standard with the wwoofers after a week if they want to stay on longer than the min 2 weeks and they decided they liked both of us and that we can stay until the 12th when we have to be out of here in order to make room for the next two wwoofers coming in on the 13th. I have to figure out now whether I´m going right back to Paris (and where I will stay since I don´t particularly want to overstay my welcome with the Mafodahs) or to Luxembourg where a friend of the family, who invited me to stay with him for a bit lives...but thats kind of out of the way. I´m checking out the couchsurfing situation too. Oh, and Wolfgang showed Ji and me this video called Farming for the Future or something like that on youtube...its very interesting and its only 48 minutes if you are curious about the coming energy crisis and the future of food production and forest gardens what not...its a BBC documentary. Wow...I managed not to even get to most of the stuff I wanted to talk about...(most of my brainpower while at this computer goes into trying to get the keyboard to do my bidding...I´m getting used to it though) and I´m tired after a day of travelling but so I will go to sleep soon.
But before I do that...the whole getting stressed out about the "meeting" tonight and all the negative thought cycles regarding judgment (both mine of others and that of me from others) that have occured in my mind this week made me want to share something I wrote this week in my little journal thing. Its just a little idea based on Ajahn Thanasanti´s response to when I asked her a question about judgment in general and the root of my tendency to judge others at a daylong the first time we met in Santa Barbara.
Its not an issue of "judge not less ye be judged"...it´s meditate, look closely and when you see that the criteria by which you judge others are illusory and essence-less, you won´t have the motivation to judge any longer. There is no place for judgment in a non-dual reality...there is no place for judgment even in a relativistic reality. Judgment stems from the idea that there is a way things are supposed to be. We build our mind states around this artificial reality and become dependent on it for our concept of normalcy. When reality strays from this, which it inevitably does, the pain of withdrawl is experienced and our response is to judge. "I don´t like this, it makes me feel small so I will demean it to make myself bigger." We judge as an untrained swimmer would violently flail about while drowning, carelessly taking someone else down with him, maybe even his potential savior, because he is unmindful and afraid. The problem beyond this is that the more we judge , the more we fear judgment because we hear our own voice coming from the imagined thoughts of others and this in turn causes us to become smaller due to an increase in fear, anger and loneliness. Judge not, because it is not reality that needs changing, it is your mind.
So do good work...and if my writing tonight is littered with errors, please forgive me for I am very tired now. Goodnight...tomorrow is a Metta day so send goodwill and loving kindness out in the ten directions...and most importantly to yourself.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Paris Days: Part 1
Empty me
Every moment
Is so full
I have taken up haiku writing for some reason and thought I would share one today...oh and for those people who think "every" is only two syllables...keep it to yourself
So life on the farm is slow and good and full of work. There have been a few reality checks, for which I am grateful, though it usually takes a little while to appreciate the gift that has been presented. There have been frustrations and miscommunications and discomforts and loneliness and negative cycles of thought ...but after a little time and practice I recover my senses. Before I left a teacher of mine, who considers me something of an idealist, told me that this trip held for me a few wake up calls...and I am sure he is right. I have been thinking that I am glad that I have this time in Europe before heading to India and Nepal to adjust a little to a few things on the road and to bring a more sober set of eyes to, what will surely be, a new world. In any case, because certain aspects of life here are in the works and I would rather wait to see how they pan out a little more before exposing them to the eyes of my readership, I have decided to take this opportunity to cover at least some of my time in Paris...so here we go
I arrived in Paris super tired since there was no sleeping to be done on the plane (who could sleep when there was Letters To Juliet and Prince of Persia to watch). After some hustle and bustle I got to where I was supposed to get picked up and eventually was by my "house brother" Jeremy (Rabbi in training...not really but you´d think so). As I arrived on erev Yom Kippur, from 7 to 10 pm I was in a 10-20 ft room in the back of a house filled to the brim with extremely religious French Jews racing through their prayer books at 100 miles per hour as though the Messiah was on his way. I understood a little and was able to participate in even less since any prayers I did know were in melodies and at speeds to which I was totally unaccustomed. There was a section of the room separated from us by a cloth divide for the women. There were two Torahs present on a table in the center of the room...both were of course on the mens (the apostrophe is not working for me so please excuse the plural/possessive mix up from time to time) side since women are inferior or impure for whatever arcane nonsensical Bible-backed reason. The constant movement of each individual in the room during prayer was something both beautiful and odd for me since in my practice nowadays I seek an internal stillness beginning with an external manifestation of that stillness vis-a-vis my quarter lotus meditative posture. For those of you who have never been to a religious Jewish ceremony, most orthodox Jews sway back and forth or do what looks like high speed bowing when they pray. This is supposed to represent or to illustrate the presence of the flame of God in each of his chosen...they burn with divine light and move as a flame on a candle wick, its derived from Psalms or I dont remember where exactly. Dont get me wrong, its not like I felt totally divorced from the religion in which I was raised, it brought up a lot of history and all that jazz, but its not like I felt like I totally belonged there either. I suppose everyone has their own way of finding stillness...I found myself moving after not too long in part because it was the only way in which I felt I could participate externally. That and because there is something to be said for feeling subtle vibrations in the body and there is something to be said for creating a spiritual frequency with a room full of people. (And Ive had a soft spot for Judaism in Paris since I read My Name is Asher Lev a little while before I embarked on this adventure...more on that later). But when they started auctioning off Torah presentations for mitzvah points I had had enough.
Moving on...I slept the next day till three in the afternoon...It was fasting day anyways so I didnt miss much around the house. In the evening I went into Paris proper from Saint Cloud (where the Mafoda family lives) on the train...I love trains in Europe. Perfectly enough, a young man with a guitar and a very pretty voice started singing Bob Marley for spare change and I got all retarded happy that I was in Europe and staring my whole adventure and blah blah. So to balance out the previous evening the first thing I did was to go to mass in Notre Dame haha. How perfect is that? After mass I wandered down by the Seine since there were all kinds of people and booths and noise...(I thought of getting lost a few years ago in Rome along the Lungo Tevere with someone if you are reading this) little did I know that there was a whole row of booths of cheese, and bread and oil and all sorts of French goodness waiting for me down there. So I of course bought a baguette filled with Camambert and sat watching the Seine for a while surrounded by French youths drinking wine and eating bread, cheese and meat on the concrete. I took the metro and then train back to Saint Cloud after some more wandering about Paris a little more and went to sleep. Which I am going to do now since I pulled at a barbed wire fence and cut prickly bushes in the sun all day today and I am tired...that and this computer is annoying and I have had enough of its nonsense for tonight. Goodnight. Metta to you all.
Every moment
Is so full
I have taken up haiku writing for some reason and thought I would share one today...oh and for those people who think "every" is only two syllables...keep it to yourself
So life on the farm is slow and good and full of work. There have been a few reality checks, for which I am grateful, though it usually takes a little while to appreciate the gift that has been presented. There have been frustrations and miscommunications and discomforts and loneliness and negative cycles of thought ...but after a little time and practice I recover my senses. Before I left a teacher of mine, who considers me something of an idealist, told me that this trip held for me a few wake up calls...and I am sure he is right. I have been thinking that I am glad that I have this time in Europe before heading to India and Nepal to adjust a little to a few things on the road and to bring a more sober set of eyes to, what will surely be, a new world. In any case, because certain aspects of life here are in the works and I would rather wait to see how they pan out a little more before exposing them to the eyes of my readership, I have decided to take this opportunity to cover at least some of my time in Paris...so here we go
I arrived in Paris super tired since there was no sleeping to be done on the plane (who could sleep when there was Letters To Juliet and Prince of Persia to watch). After some hustle and bustle I got to where I was supposed to get picked up and eventually was by my "house brother" Jeremy (Rabbi in training...not really but you´d think so). As I arrived on erev Yom Kippur, from 7 to 10 pm I was in a 10-20 ft room in the back of a house filled to the brim with extremely religious French Jews racing through their prayer books at 100 miles per hour as though the Messiah was on his way. I understood a little and was able to participate in even less since any prayers I did know were in melodies and at speeds to which I was totally unaccustomed. There was a section of the room separated from us by a cloth divide for the women. There were two Torahs present on a table in the center of the room...both were of course on the mens (the apostrophe is not working for me so please excuse the plural/possessive mix up from time to time) side since women are inferior or impure for whatever arcane nonsensical Bible-backed reason. The constant movement of each individual in the room during prayer was something both beautiful and odd for me since in my practice nowadays I seek an internal stillness beginning with an external manifestation of that stillness vis-a-vis my quarter lotus meditative posture. For those of you who have never been to a religious Jewish ceremony, most orthodox Jews sway back and forth or do what looks like high speed bowing when they pray. This is supposed to represent or to illustrate the presence of the flame of God in each of his chosen...they burn with divine light and move as a flame on a candle wick, its derived from Psalms or I dont remember where exactly. Dont get me wrong, its not like I felt totally divorced from the religion in which I was raised, it brought up a lot of history and all that jazz, but its not like I felt like I totally belonged there either. I suppose everyone has their own way of finding stillness...I found myself moving after not too long in part because it was the only way in which I felt I could participate externally. That and because there is something to be said for feeling subtle vibrations in the body and there is something to be said for creating a spiritual frequency with a room full of people. (And Ive had a soft spot for Judaism in Paris since I read My Name is Asher Lev a little while before I embarked on this adventure...more on that later). But when they started auctioning off Torah presentations for mitzvah points I had had enough.
Moving on...I slept the next day till three in the afternoon...It was fasting day anyways so I didnt miss much around the house. In the evening I went into Paris proper from Saint Cloud (where the Mafoda family lives) on the train...I love trains in Europe. Perfectly enough, a young man with a guitar and a very pretty voice started singing Bob Marley for spare change and I got all retarded happy that I was in Europe and staring my whole adventure and blah blah. So to balance out the previous evening the first thing I did was to go to mass in Notre Dame haha. How perfect is that? After mass I wandered down by the Seine since there were all kinds of people and booths and noise...(I thought of getting lost a few years ago in Rome along the Lungo Tevere with someone if you are reading this) little did I know that there was a whole row of booths of cheese, and bread and oil and all sorts of French goodness waiting for me down there. So I of course bought a baguette filled with Camambert and sat watching the Seine for a while surrounded by French youths drinking wine and eating bread, cheese and meat on the concrete. I took the metro and then train back to Saint Cloud after some more wandering about Paris a little more and went to sleep. Which I am going to do now since I pulled at a barbed wire fence and cut prickly bushes in the sun all day today and I am tired...that and this computer is annoying and I have had enough of its nonsense for tonight. Goodnight. Metta to you all.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Hello, Bonjour and Gutentag from La Lombarde
Hello everyone...
I am working with a keyboard I don´t know very well so if the format and what not seem a little low rent...I apologize haha. I don´t really know how to go to the next line...Ill ask tomorrow. In any case, I am going to start at the present day and will cover my lovely time in Paris tomorrow or the next day. I just wanted to get this ball rolling so that I wouldn´t have it hanging over my head any longer. I am on a farm in southern France about 30 minutes or less from Boreaux called "La Lombarde." My plan is to be here until the 14th or 15th of October when I will head back to Paris for a day or two and fly to Berlin on the 17th. My host and hostess are Wolfgang and Ingrid, Austrian and a German respecitvely. They are awesome. They are both Dharma practitioners in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. We sit every morning and night (though I missed this morning due to playing a little sleep catch up) and Wolfgang and I often compare practices and philosophy. He has been studying the Dharma for almost 40 years so there is a lot I can learn from him. After we sit in the evening we/(they and I sort of get the hang of it by the last verse) sing songs of Milarepa and then we have a little discussion about the meaning...its pretty cool. Being surrounded by Tibetan Buddhism again after practicing and studying in the Therevada almost exclusively for the past couple years has brought up an interesting series of thoughts and emotions in me...a little nostalgia for lack of a better word. I have Tibetan prayer flags hanging from outside the window of the wonderful room in which I sleep and relax on the second floor of the house. My view includes beautiful green French countryside, skyscapes out of a John Constable painting, the neighboring farmer´s row of Monet Poplars and some donkeys haha. They are awesome and smelly... and I fed them apples the other day. I am accompanied by another Wwoofer here named Jee-Yeon, (yes like the name of Jin and Suns baby on Lost). She is a Korean girl in her first year of University and has been studying in London for the past 4 months. She is a singer in a band and plays drums and hates anything that crawls (as we found out today in the greenhouse). She is very polite and has been very easy to be around thus far. We work pretty hard here so its not all staring out at the beautiful countryside while drinking tea with whole leaves harvested from the greenhouse, or picking amazing organic figs from the tree outside the barn and munching on them, or sitting on the windowsill reading at sunset, or playing ping pong...no no no ...thats only part of it haha. Yesterday I seriously got on a tractor and mowed...LA boy on a tractor wearing a silly pink hat so I didn´t get sun burned anymore. My stomach turned a little at the thought of being like the farmer in The Secret of NIMH plowing through the field...but I got through it. I was avoiding the little baby Ash trees and only getting the weeds, which was not easy given that it was my first tractor ride. Then I spent the afternoon weeding in the greenhouse, which is no easy job let me tell you...but its been really amazing learning about organic farming from organic farmers with hands on experience. This morning I sanded down a friggin 10 foot wide opening of uneven plaster, for the house they are putting together next to the one Jee and I are currently staying in, with a one inch wide hand held sanding rod. One inch at a time, I told myself as I moved across the expanse "this one is attachment, this one anger , this one delusion." I try to bring my practice into the chores and jobs around the farm and when frustration arises...like now with this internet connection and delay on the typing on screen...I just try to observe without judgement...some moments are better than others. I have a lot more to write but I also have some reading and sleeping to do and we go to the market in the morning. Now that I actually managed to get on this blog successfully and write something down I think there will be a somewhat steady flow...at least as long as I have connection. Thank you all again for hanging out with me on this little blog...I hope each of you is doing well and that you are smiling and paying attention to your breath at least a couple times a day. Say hello when time permits, it will be good to hear from you.
Metta,
Asher
I am working with a keyboard I don´t know very well so if the format and what not seem a little low rent...I apologize haha. I don´t really know how to go to the next line...Ill ask tomorrow. In any case, I am going to start at the present day and will cover my lovely time in Paris tomorrow or the next day. I just wanted to get this ball rolling so that I wouldn´t have it hanging over my head any longer. I am on a farm in southern France about 30 minutes or less from Boreaux called "La Lombarde." My plan is to be here until the 14th or 15th of October when I will head back to Paris for a day or two and fly to Berlin on the 17th. My host and hostess are Wolfgang and Ingrid, Austrian and a German respecitvely. They are awesome. They are both Dharma practitioners in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. We sit every morning and night (though I missed this morning due to playing a little sleep catch up) and Wolfgang and I often compare practices and philosophy. He has been studying the Dharma for almost 40 years so there is a lot I can learn from him. After we sit in the evening we/(they and I sort of get the hang of it by the last verse) sing songs of Milarepa and then we have a little discussion about the meaning...its pretty cool. Being surrounded by Tibetan Buddhism again after practicing and studying in the Therevada almost exclusively for the past couple years has brought up an interesting series of thoughts and emotions in me...a little nostalgia for lack of a better word. I have Tibetan prayer flags hanging from outside the window of the wonderful room in which I sleep and relax on the second floor of the house. My view includes beautiful green French countryside, skyscapes out of a John Constable painting, the neighboring farmer´s row of Monet Poplars and some donkeys haha. They are awesome and smelly... and I fed them apples the other day. I am accompanied by another Wwoofer here named Jee-Yeon, (yes like the name of Jin and Suns baby on Lost). She is a Korean girl in her first year of University and has been studying in London for the past 4 months. She is a singer in a band and plays drums and hates anything that crawls (as we found out today in the greenhouse). She is very polite and has been very easy to be around thus far. We work pretty hard here so its not all staring out at the beautiful countryside while drinking tea with whole leaves harvested from the greenhouse, or picking amazing organic figs from the tree outside the barn and munching on them, or sitting on the windowsill reading at sunset, or playing ping pong...no no no ...thats only part of it haha. Yesterday I seriously got on a tractor and mowed...LA boy on a tractor wearing a silly pink hat so I didn´t get sun burned anymore. My stomach turned a little at the thought of being like the farmer in The Secret of NIMH plowing through the field...but I got through it. I was avoiding the little baby Ash trees and only getting the weeds, which was not easy given that it was my first tractor ride. Then I spent the afternoon weeding in the greenhouse, which is no easy job let me tell you...but its been really amazing learning about organic farming from organic farmers with hands on experience. This morning I sanded down a friggin 10 foot wide opening of uneven plaster, for the house they are putting together next to the one Jee and I are currently staying in, with a one inch wide hand held sanding rod. One inch at a time, I told myself as I moved across the expanse "this one is attachment, this one anger , this one delusion." I try to bring my practice into the chores and jobs around the farm and when frustration arises...like now with this internet connection and delay on the typing on screen...I just try to observe without judgement...some moments are better than others. I have a lot more to write but I also have some reading and sleeping to do and we go to the market in the morning. Now that I actually managed to get on this blog successfully and write something down I think there will be a somewhat steady flow...at least as long as I have connection. Thank you all again for hanging out with me on this little blog...I hope each of you is doing well and that you are smiling and paying attention to your breath at least a couple times a day. Say hello when time permits, it will be good to hear from you.
Metta,
Asher
Thursday, September 23, 2010
a start at last
I juwt wanted to celebrate being able to get onto my blog. Woohoo! Trip stuff to come soon. But I have to mow for now. Hi everyone and thanks for checking in on me.
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