July 19, 2009 at 10:04 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: environment, nature, spain
There is a horrible thing going on in Spain. The government is going to allow a foreign company to mine for uranium, thus destroying a beautiful natural areas in Guadalajara and Zaragoza contaminating rivers and lakes and habitats of people and animals in dozens of towns in one of my favorite countries. The website, which is featured under important websites on the sidebar of this blog page now has an english language version, which my Wednesday night language group, The Bilingual Association of McMinnville has provided. Please click here and check it out and sign the petition to help put an end to this environmental threat.
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April 12, 2009 at 3:13 pm (Spirituality)
Tags: buddhism, cooking, dreams, OSeling, retreat, spain
I have just completed a full week retreat up here in the mountains of the Alpujarras. The retreat was very interesting. We started at 7.30 with meditation and then 8.30 breakfast. A typical Spanish timetable I suppose. At 10.00 the teachings and then 12.00 more teachings and throughout the afternoon until 10.00 at night. So perhaps six hours a day plus an hour of questions and answers and chai tea and biscuits prepared by your chef. Besides that I spent about five hours a day in the kitchen. So you could say I only had time to sleep and do a bit of reading. I have been taking advantage of this time to the best of my ability. I am currently reading a book about the Yoga of dreams, the Tibeten way. In this type of practice you can live and do whatever you want in your sleep just as you do in your daily life, the difference starts to blur and really you can do more things in your dreams than you thought were possible in your life. You can learn things, conquer demons, travel to exotic places or whatever. Well I dont know if I will get to that level but we will see. Most of my dreams are intense and always have been, many fearful and I am often caught by someone chasing me. So I suppose these are karmically created, but last night I decided I was sick of hiding from whatever deranged squadron was searching for me and I changed myself and my friend into dragonflies and flew out the door right after they broke it down. Now these types of dreams are easier to be aware in and know that you are dreaming, what is really difficult is to lucidly dream and be fully aware in calm relaxing dreams that have more to do with reality but where we can really play with all the events and switch things around. What is real anyway? The first thing to do is to sleep on your side like the Buddha, with your hand under your head and relax!
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February 25, 2009 at 1:49 pm (Thoughts, Uncategorized)
Tags: darshan, madrid, spain, travel, work
So I’ve been in madrid for three weeks now. The city of the fast walkers, and nervousness! I never realized how nervous everyone is here, or maybe it just seems that way after being in a bit of a peaceful state, physically and mentally. People also are not in the moment, they walk rapidly not really paying attention to anything but their own thoughts and what’s directly infront of them. No one meets your eye, I suppose that’s just the way of this concrete world. People hate their jobs yet they are scared to travel anywhere for fear of losing them! Everyone is caught up in this daily grind and though I’m not there, I feel guilty for not wanting to live out my days like this. I suppose the office is an intriguing place for some, the thrill of accomplishment gotten from achieving a project or difficult assignment and the applaud and envy of boss and co-workers. It’s like its own little gladiator stadium, you do or you die. And now with the crisis and lost jobs many feel like they might as well sacrifice themselves to the lions, if only this was ancient Rome. I feel now more aligned with the spiritual path rather than the worldly one. As Amma, “the hugging saint,” said in Darshan:
Because there are two types of education: “Living,” meaning your job and “life” which the gurus teach. In the materialistic world teachers teach practical things. In the spiritual world some things aren’t clear.”
So I was taught to be practical and make a decent “living.” But I don’t really want that type of life, so instead I’m an impractical vagrant. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, I’m happy, but at the same time it makes me difficult to understand, which is fine with me. Others argue that I’m sloppy, I much prefered the Indian way of sitting and sleeping on little more than the bare dirty floor. People live in a world of fear I think. Scared of being poor or attacked by terrorists or their families and of dust, of the unknown and of other people’s thoughts. I wish we could live without fences, that there was no worry of thievery and of the sun burning us and of bad intentions. I suppose I am an over-trusting person, I don’t assume anyone would want to take anything from me, but like with everyone it’s happened a fair share of times – from my jacket to a mcdonald’s transformer to my purse – people have taken many things and I’ve also witnessed the grief of those who’ve had more than possessions, but irreplaceable journals and photographs, the remains of memories lost in time, so to speak. And so we have to be vigilant, even the tent in Bolonia had to be shut and tied up to keep the cats out. But I suppose I’d rather have less expensive possesions and less worry, less money and less choices of how to spend it, less drama with relationships and jobs and less chances of wasting my precious time on this earth. This life I feel truly is a gift, as the old Buddhist saying goes, we have less chance of being born as humans than a dolphin has of coming to the ocean’s surface through a ring. Now I want to embrace this life and be thankful for all the wonderful people I’ve encountered and so many unique experiences. I could write a thousand books about it. And not one would be boring. I don’t think boredom can exist, not when you realize the unlimited potential of this moment.
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