Sightseeing, Overeating and Thoughts on Judgement

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.