Credits to h.kopdelaney

The image of integration is the unio mystica, the fusion of opposites. This is a time of communication between the previously experienced dualities of life. Rather than night opposing day, dark suppressing light, they work together to create a unified whole, turning endlessly one into the other, each containing in its deepest core the seed of the opposite. Integration as the symbol of self-creation and new life. Mystical union also known as alchemy.

~Osho~

Shalom!

Integration:  the main theme of Ans’ journey to Israel.

Parts of himself feel strongly connected to this ancient country with a rich history.  It is a time of communication between those different aspects.   Communication and integration.  Time to welcome them back. Time to let them know it’s safe to let go of their energy structure. Time to set them free. To unify.

On the camino to Santiago he experienced that there is no better way to discover a country than by walking.

That’s why he first hikes the Jesus trail from Nazareth to Tiberias.  This recently marked trail is an alternative for travelers and pilgrims to experience the steps of Jesus in a way that is authentic, adventurous and educational. The hike is a fun way to explore the rugged and beautiful landscape of the Galilee.

From Tiberias on he will hike part of the Israel National Trail (INT) to Netanya. The INT  is a footpath that winds its way nearly 1000 kilometers across Israel, from the Lebanese border in the north to the Red Sea in the south. In Netanya he will celebrate Pesach with Israeli friends on April, 18.

Subsequently  he will hike the Jerusalem trail to be on time in Jerusalem to celebrate Easter in the old city on April, 24.

You can follow Ans in Israel on this Google map and Google spreadsheet. The data are daily recorded and uploaded with the Android app MyTracks. Pictures will be added on facebook and picasa. Visit tripit for journey details and this preparation map for GPS tracks and markers of important places.

Tobias’ Aspectology School by the Crimson Circle is highly recommended to people who want to know more about integrating different aspects of yourself.

Let’s the re-union begin!

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

“Il Mare” is a good example of how our choices create reality.  This Korean movie portrays beautifully different potentials based on different levels of awareness of the main characters. The story is the following:

The present (1998) Sung-hyun (male) communicate with the future (2000) Eun-joo (female). Her future self is more aware than the present (1998) about what she really wants in life.

The present Eun-joo is in love with another man.  She chooses the potential to marry him.  Therefore there is no time and space to start something with Sung-hyun.  After she finds out that he has an affair while working abroad, she has a hard time.  But it is through this break-up experience that she opens up to Sung-hyun.  Her future self start communicating with his present self. They develop a deep friendship which could turn into a relationship if they both choose so.  Sung-hyun present self is clear about his choice, he wants to meet Eun-joo in the future.  They have a date one week ahead of Eun-joo future self. He does not show.

Eun-joo is disappointed. But she herself turns out to be the reason why he did not show.  After the appointment with Sung-hyun, she meets the other man again. She still clings to the old potential of them getting married.  A potential that once upon a time looked very promising but has no real future because of all that happened.  That’s why her future self asks Sung-hyun to interfere in the past and prevent the other man from leaving aboard.  After a big inner struggle, Sung-hyun respects her choice.  But while he tries to make the other man change his mind, he is hit by a car and dies.  That’s why he did not show up.

When Eun-joo finds out, this tragic experience opens up her awareness a little more. She clearly sees and chooses now the potential of a relationship with Sung-hyun. But is it to late?  Did she discover her deep love for him to late to make the relationship a reality?  Her future self hurries to let him know her feelings and she cancels her request to interfere in the past.

The movie ends with a changed reality. Sung-hyun did not try to interfere, he did not die and they finally meet face to face.

The movie is an artistic depiction of wisdom about day-to-day life. The reality we live in is indeed of our own choosing. Choices evolve because awareness expand. Awareness expands because experiences we go through.

Difficult experiences (broken heart, death of a loved one, …) are only “difficult” because it’s hard to let go. We cling to old believes and expectations because they are so comfortable and familiar.  Difficult experiences are in fact hidden blessings. They help us to open up.  They are telling us that the potentials we chose in the past, are not valid any longer.

Open up and be aware of all the other beautiful potentials out there. Potentials you never could imagine.  Potentials your future self will prefer better than the old ones.

So let’s open up!  Let’s evolve. Let’s create reality upon reality, more and more true to our deepest choosing. Let’s be free.

PS: Apart from the story, the movie is worthwhile to watch for the beautiful cinematography and skillful acting. It’s my first encounter with Korean cinema and it will definitely not be my last. Here is the trailer:

Ola!

On the 5th of June 2010 Theresa and I will start a new adventure.  The Mystery Pilgrimage is a combination of walking the Camino in Spain and attending a Mystery school in Austria.  It is a combination of a traditional pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and a contemporary spiritual event in Salzburg.

The aim is the same: inner freedom.

Although I expect not to write to much while going through the personal experience, the new technology (in the form of a smart and wonderful Android Nexus one)  makes it possible to share the Mystery Camino experience almost in real time. You can follow our journey from day to day on these websites:

1. Pictures on a map: While making a picture on the Mystery Pilgrimage, the phone registers the location.  While uploaded to the webalbum, the pics are automatically mapped. You can view them as a slideshow or directly on the map.  Pictures can be uploaded immediately after making them, so it’s a quick and visual way to follow our progress on the camino.

2. Mapping our tracks: Every day “My Tracks“, an android app by Google, is recording our walking position every 100m (or 10m if the battery allows so). Stages will be uploaded to this map on the evening of every stage. A simple and easy way to literally see where we are going.

3. Statistics about the journey: The same app uploads all the data (distances, speed, elevation,… ) to a published Google spreadsheet. On the “log” sheet you find data for every stage while the “stats” gives an overview for the whole journey.  Only for data lovers.

We will walk from St. Jean Pied de Port (France) to Santiago, from the 5th of June till the 7th of July 2010. With the help of Godesalco we could plan the different stages ahead. This plan is not carved in stone. We made up our mind not to hurry and listen inside when and where to go.  It is even possible we will take sometimes a bus.

With the data available at Godesalco I could create an overview map of the complete camino. Because Google maps does not represent all the data at once, the map looks nicer in Google Earth.  Just open this .kml file to fly over the Camino.

You can also open the other maps mentioned above directly in Google Earth:

• For the picture map save this text in a file with .kml extension and open the file.
• For the tracks map open this .kml file in Earth.

After the camino we attend a Mystery School in Salzburg.  This event is organised by the Crimson Circle.  The main goal of the Crimson Circle is to open up and inspire consciousness.  We are looking forward to meet and share our energies with fellow Shaumbra.

Buen (virtual) Camino!

1. Register at vPost.  This service provides you a free personalized address in UK, USA and Japan, which you can use to ship to from the merchants website.  When the package arrives, vPost informs you and after paying shippingcost they send the package to your home address.  It is possible to  register a home address in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Australia.  Borderlinx and Comgateway offer similar services but Borderlinx does not ship to Thailand yet.  After reading reviews on the different services I would have chosen Comgateway in stead of vPost.

The “how to shop and ship guide” explains clearly what to do  next.

2. Shop online from any USA, Japan or European merchant.
Buying a Google nexus one is only possible online if the site recognize your IP as a USA IP.  There are several ways to change your IP address into a USA one.  I used the free-to-trial hide-my-ip software. Download, install and choose the option to use always a USA IP. Click “hide my IP “and it will be possible to order the Google phone.

Other ways to change IP are foxyproxy, a firefox add-on or hotspotshield software.

Use your vPost address as shipping address.  Because you vPost-address is located in Oregon, no extra taxes are involved.  Google ships the Nexus for free.  Provide vPost the shippingdetails by e-mail.

Total cost 529 USD (387 EUR)

3.  When the package arrives, vPost informs you.  After paying the shippingcosts and cutoms GST they ship the package to your home address.  The shipping cost to Thailand will be an estimated 37 USD (27 EUR).  Singapore Customs only imposes GST on individual packages, with VS shipment numbers, imported into Singapore for which the CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) amount exceeds SGD 400.  Not sure if you have to pay the GST for an import into Thailand.

21

Let’s shine
strong and straight
like the sun

Ceaselessly emanating rays
nourishing  life

Not afraid
to burn others

They ‘ll find shadow
in the heat of the day

The gift of truth excels all other gifts.
The flavor of truth excels all other flavors.
The pleasure in truth excels all other pleasures.
DH. 354

Ans likes to share this little gem of a Buddhist Chantingbook.  The book is based upon the standard Thai chantingbook used in Wat Pacharoenrat, a Buddhist temple in Thailand.  This version adds the English translation of the chants and transliterates the Pali and Thai into readable English.

By clicking on the front-page you can see for yourself and browse through the book. You ‘ll find more information on the benefits of chanting, the meditation practice, the rules and regulations in a temple, the daily schedule and the eight precepts.  The chants themselves are grouped in the morning, evening and special chant section.  Every chant is in Pali followed by the Thai and English translation.

The daily schedule in a Thai temple has often a morning and evening chanting.  The monks, nuns and laypeople chant the teachings of the Buddha in Pali and Thai.  The purpose of this book is to encourage the foreign students of the temple to join the chanting sessions. While chanting in itself can be useful to calm the mind, it is much more encouraging to do so when you know what you are chanting.

While staying in a Buddhist temple a couple years ago, Ans experienced the benefits of chanting for himself.  He truly enjoyed the (short version) of the morning and evening chants. That’s why he happily provided technical support to his friend Dani to create the English version of this book.  As a long term foreign student of Wat Pacharoenrat, she understands firsthand the need for an English version.  That’s why she compiled the different chantings, searched for English translations and corrected the previous version. Now she is looking for resources to publish the second version of the book.  Donations are warmly welcome.

May this gift of Dhamma help to find truth in our own lives.
Many blessings!

An updated version of this chantingbook is available thanks to my friend Phra Adhicitto (aka Frank Newbold). Thank you for the hard work.

Copyrighted by Doug Mills/The New York Times

Ans never really was into politics, especially not into the politics of the USA.  All of this changed the first time he heard Obama speaking as a candidate for the presidency of the USA. He could feel that there was something different.  Obama is different. Expressing an energy the world is waiting for.  Politics on a higher level.  Politics as politics should be.

Talking about energy is difficult.  The only way to know is to feel.  Through the reader comments below and the picture above, both belonging to an article in the NY times, it is easy to feel the energy behind Obama.  Just take a deep breath, let go of all the worries and feel.

That feeling is Why Obama.

To heck with the dry cleaning. What matters is that Obama stood in the rain with us, his own shirt soaked through, inspired us with a powerful speech, and slogged in the mud to clasp hands with people who had waited all day to hear him. Look at the face of that young man in the picture. That was the emotion that I saw this evening at this rally. I was there. I am still soaked to the skin and my 55-year old feet will hurt for days from standing for six hours in mud. But how moving it was to be surrounded by Americans of all races and ages. . . especially the students who have been inspired and engaged by Obama. After years of feeling disenfranchised and discouraged myself, I am so excited by the prospect that we will soon have a president who believes in all of us and brings out our best nature. What I saw and heard tonight was not just the exuberance of college students at an historic event, but full-throated support of the idea that this is a country where we care about each other. These young people are registered to vote, enthusiastic about being involved in the process, and generous in spirit. Obama is exactly the right man to help them lead us into our future.

— Charlotte from Fredericksburg

I was there today, soaked through and muddy to my ankles, surrounded by people of many different ethnicities and ages. I’m a 44 year old mother of 3 who has always been an Independent; I’ve always voted the person. Barack Obama is more than just intelligent and insightful. There is something about him that inspires hope and the courage to take action. I am voting for him because he represents all the things I want my country to be for my children.

— loudounmom

Today’s heavy rains and light showers didn’t stop the publics support for Change. I was one of the 14 thousand Virginians denied access to the main area; nevertheless we 14 thousand: young, old, white,black, brown, gay, straight, poor, middle class and elites, packed like vienna sausage, didn’t complain. We had a ball – singing, dancing, laughing, and conversing in the rain with total strangers united for one common purpose: to embrace Barack Obama’s message of Change! Wow, that was GREAT!

— marlon

Wow, What a way to demonstrate it’s about the people and not Obama. ….. I wish I had been there as well.

— Vikki

Kudos to photographer Doug Mills of the Times. Love that pic. Would like to see it enlarged. That frame sums up Campaign 2008. We have not seen a candidate who can bring out such enthusiasm for many, many years. Barack gives us such hope and we need a downpour of it now.

— Felix

Oh, what a beautiful picture. Thank you, New York Times. You’ve captured the Obama campaign’s historic momentum and enthusiasm perfectly. I feel even more hopeful after seeing that picture than I did after last night’s debate, when I watched the commentary and realized that America saw what I saw last night: that graceful and dignified Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States!

— julie

Nice report, and what a great photo of people reaching out in the rain to shake Obama’s hand…what terrific symbolism, hands stretched out—there are rainbows in the camera lights, for goodness sake—you can’t make that up. Maybe that’s why even an old guy like me has begun to hope once again that we can reconnect with our highest ideals.

— Martin J

The picture speaks volumes! Beautiful, really.

Obama isn’t “the One” but he is aware of how much this country yearns to tap into our historic legacy. We are a nation of dreamers who like to imagine a better, more just and free people. The fact that he can channel this passion infuriates the petty haters. I must admit that I enjoy their rage and revel in watching a new generation learn to laugh at their anger.

Bubba Tex (yup, that Texas)
A “Hopeful” Republican for Obama

— Bubba Tex

That is one heck of a picture there – true joy in orange.

— Billy

I love it. I wish I was there. I don’t mind at all if it was for Obama. Here at home, I read and followed the news every minutes, hours…Definitely, after over 18 mths watching these 2 men marketting themselves, myself and my friends have come to the decision to vote for Obama. Obama has dignity and integrity. Of course no one is perfect. Of course he has his weakness. So do we. He cannot please everyone. But he would be the best person to fix this mess of the economy and the less respect for America issue from the world. Mr Mc Cain cn run for president again but not at this time.

— amt7799@msn.com

What a genuine great guy! He so inspires and impresses…Last night he was everything in that debate we need him to be. He wasn’t bullied into responding in like and stayed above the fray, almost like he was destined to be here at this time and place. I am so thankful for his willingness to be a public servant and his family’s sacrifice to run for this highest office in our land. Ibid for Joe Biden…They both could have gained more wealth, power and status much easier elsewhere, but they were looking out for us – the little guy- We needed them on our side and they were specially crafted! We are so proud of them and their families and all that they will be for our country. God bless you all!

— GraceNeeded

Image by premasagar via Flickr

Choices are important. They determine what you choose to create in your life. Ans experiences that choices he made seems not longer true or relevant. For this, he doubted himself.  He doubted because his choices did not become reality.  He felt like he wasted a lot of time.

Working through this inner struggle to get his choices clear, helped him to understand the creation process better:  choices are simply changing.  When you evolve and open up, your choices are evolving as well.  They reflect in a way your state of being in the now moment. He understands now that he can make choices on different levels.  He understands that it is necessary to let go of old ones to make space for new ones. New choices coming from a deeper soul level.

The next quote from a Tobias Q&A describes this understanding:

QUESTION FROM SHAUMBRA 6 (a woman at the microphone): Hi Tobias. For the last few months, I have had a lot of trouble making decisions. I make them (…) and the next day, the next week, it’s like, “Well no, that wasn’t the right choice.” I change my mind. I make another definite choice, and it keeps going around and around and around. And I talked to people today who are going through the same thing. Why can’t I make a decision and make it stick?

TOBIAS: Indeed. Excellent question (…)

Interesting phenomena. All Shaumbra are in a change energy. Your essence knows that there is constant state of flux. Your human self doesn’t really understand that yet. It’s uncomfortable with tremendous change taking place. You’re allowing yourself to practice conscious choice at the human mental level, and it’s wonderful because at least it’s showing you the flexibility that you have, showing you that you can indeed make choices. But it’s also showing you that you don’t have to get locked into anything. You’re not living on a linear path anymore.

You made a very interesting choice, for instance, about retirement, but you look at retirement as something that happens at a certain point in time and in a very linear calendar time. You change your mind, and it’s actually not your mind, but you change your perspective later because a part of you realizes that, in a sense, that was so yesterday, very old. And now with all of the rapid changes you realize that maybe there’s something else you want to do. You’re giving yourself the wisdom of the freedom of choice and change, which is very, very important. You’re taking off all the old restrictions.

But it’s also now at a different level forcing … not forcing, but encouraging you to make choices of what you would call the heart or the spirit rather than choices of the mind and just the human. There’s a tendency to focus first on choices that are very tangible and very much applied to the comfort of the human – choices about abundance or choices about health and very, very three-dimensional things. But then as you play with choices, you move up a level and then you start making choices of consciousness and spirit. At that point you realize you no longer really have to make choices of the human nature – the feeding, clothing and maintenance and protection of your human self – because those become quite incidental. The choices you make on a higher level will automatically take care of what we call the lower level needs.

All of this is trying to boost you up or move you up to very broad consciousness choices now. You’re actually on the right path, so to speak.

SHAUMBRA 6: Thank you.

Mark Zuckerberg explains what facebook is all about:

5:57
Kara: Define Facebook
Z: FB is about helping people share info about themselves. And open up. In a way they are comfortable with.

K: What differentiates it?

Z: How it’s tied together.   People share info and parts of themselves. And we have really good privacy settings, and everyone’s friends are there.

6:10
Z: (…) There are a lot of ways to help people share information about them.   You give people control, and they will share more.   That’s how people are able to open up and communicate.

Courtesy to Webware

He is talking about one of the many ways to open up.  Opening up to the outside world by sharing oneself. Sharing experiences is the new way of learning and growing.

The quality of the sharing depends on an opening up to the inside.  Breaking through rigid believesystems, integrating all the different aspects of oneself to connect to the essence beyond. Sharing from this essence makes life worthwile.

Global voice online reports: “The past few weeks have seen YouTube blocked again as well as Prachatai, Thailand’s foremost independent news portal and Same Sky, a journal of social criticism. Both sites have popular public Web discussion boards. In the past, both sites have been warned by MICT to self-censor “sensitive” public comments.

The difference between Internet censorship in Thailand and that in the Middle East, Myanmar and China is that Thailand is famously a Constitutional monarchy. Thailand claims to be a democracy but operate government-in-secret, above the law.

Now Thailand’s newly-elected government and its new ICT Minister are using lèse majesté as its ongoing excuse to block freedom of opinion and expression by Thais on issues vital to Thai society.”

Ans is testing direct automatic blogging from his Digg account. Censorship is old. People who try to use power to suppress free speech have to learn that the good old times are gone. Internet offers many ways to express and share your opinion. There is no way stopping people from doing so. Bypassing a block on websites is easy by going through a proxy server. Ans has access to youtube and is even uploading a movie using  Youtubeproxy.

read more | digg story

27 – 3 – 2008:

29 – 3 – 2008:

5 – 4 – 2008:

9 – 4 – 2008:

There appears a hole in the golden cocoon. It seems like the butterflies left their cocoons through the little hole.  Flying towards freedom.

~~ Click here for a Flickr slideshow of the rooms. ~~

Ans lives now already for a couple of months in a room close to Wat Sanghatan (1, 2), a Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand.

He rent this room from his friend Kun Puky. She is responsible for the ‘Buddha Raksa rooms’. Ans recommends these rooms to anybody who is interested in learning about the temple life, without having to follow all the strict rules involved.

The temple offers an inspiring environment and strong energy. Some great spiritual teachers like Long Po Sanong Katapunyo are readily available to answer questions when asked for. He is the abbot of the temple and when he is in the temple you can visit him while he is eating.

The ‘Buddha Raksa rooms’ are also convenient if you only want some quite time for yourself in a green area just outside downtown Bangkok. Banglampu, the place where many foreigners connect, is easily accessible through a 30 minutes taxi boatride.

Kun Puky offers three newly build, private rooms for rent. Every room has its own private bathroom, terrace and balcony. There is no kitchen, but delicious food is cheap and easily available in the local restaurant. ‘Buddha Raksa’ is Thai and means something like ‘under the proctection of the Buddha’. In these rooms the Buddha will take care for you. Everbody is welcome!

For information about the price, checking vacancy or booking a room please call Kun Puky at +66 (0) 890 5000 52 or +66 (0) 8400 660 80. You also can email her at vimokkha@hotmail.com

People who know this area and the ‘Buddha Raksa rooms’ are invited to share their own experiences with potential guests through the comment section of this blog.

By coming into this world, Jesuah gives us the most precious gift a human ever can give: pure love. He loves to share his pure heart with all of us.

He is nevertheless limited by the ‘law of free will’ to do so. It is up to us if we allow his gift to be received. Receiving is only possible when we open ourselves completely. Allowing the giver to come close, allowing him to be intimate with us. Showing him our nakedness, our vulnerability.

May 2008 brings us the courage and the braveness to receive, to allow the love to flow. May we all learn to receive with an open heart. May we gladly and joyfully accept the gifts bestowed upon us.

Closed bud waiting patiently in the dark,
open lotus shining bright in the light.

As a roof is unfinished until the last hole is covered,
so hides a flower her full beauty until the last petal unfolds.

The covering and the unfolding
happens by itself.

Forcing hinders. Patience allows.

Accomplished at the appropriate time.

What he truly chooses in life is to deepen this connection and to share with everybody who also wants to open up to his or her own essence.

In a sense it feels special, cause he used to live his life most of the time disconnected. But in the end it feels normal. Just a natural state of being.

Opening up. That’s what life is all about.

For more then two years now, he was a member of the Yahoo 360° community.  When he started, he had no experiences whatsoever in blogging and sharing his life with the outside world.  He learned a lot at 360° and is very grateful.  360° was also a platform where he met great new friends. 

But recenlty he decided to leave 360° for the simple reason that 360° is not offering a sufficent service anylonger. The blog is slow, pictures are not updating, profile pics not working, messages send late, … On top of this the communication about the problems and the future of 360° is very limited. In this post they announce that 360° will transition into a new profile thingie. Mash is one of the possibilities. Ans chooses not to transition to mash, cause it is still to messy.

Time to look for alternatives for some services he used at Yahoo.  The services are: webmail, blogtool, social networking, photo sharing.

He keeps his Yahoo account because their webmail is one of the best. Especially the integrated messenger, the RSS feeds, the unlimited storage space, the integration in the Yahoo messenger and the overall experience is just great.

Here at wordpress.com he found a neat bloggingtool.  He likes wordpress a lot.  The energy behind the community feels great.  This is also the reason why he chose facebook for social networking. The overall feeling is for him the most important reason to choose a webservice.  The only minus here at WordPress is the disabled feature of embedding flash because of security reasons.  Although adding music, video’s and slideshows to a blog is possible it would be nice if embedding flash was allowed (for example for greetingcards, and other stuff).  At the other hand, he loves the simple style.  Flash at times, make a page to chaotic.
He prefers facebook above other webservices as Hi5! and myspace because it is just great.  The site is highly adjustable, they have good privacy policy, and people tend to be real.  Flickr is still very nice for sharing pictures. It is simply the best. Easy to upload, organise, share and archive your pictures. 

These three services are well integrated into each other by means of widgets and applications.  The openess towards other platforms and integration is another advantage WordPress, facebook and Flickr share. 

Ans would appreciate it if you share which services you prefer and why. 

After visiting some friends in Germany, this wisdom becomes so obvious. I met Guido for the first time in Thailand a couple of years ago. He wrote this quote in my diary. Since then this wisdom was a guidance in my life. While visiting him in Bonn, I saw he got the quote from this poster hanging on his wall. The quote together with the beauty pic, make me even better understand.

In Berlin, Damaris, my lovely host, gave me the song. I just love the calm songs from Live and while hearing this one, things become more clear.

We create our own life. Our destiny does not depend on outer chances we just follow. It depends on the choices we make deep inside. It is not easy to let go of chances which look attractive. But if they are not 100% in line with our inner knowing, they are leading to nothing but suffering.

We like our daily environment, even if we feel stuck. Because we know it and it feels familiar. We are afraid to let go. Let go of the stuckness, the numbness.

All we have to do, is to choose. We are free. Free to choose the life we want.

Very appropriate in my own life. I am in a phase of choosing. The choices I make now, will create my life in the future. That’s why I wish myself clarity. Clarity but also braveness to bring my choices to reality. That means that I wanna be free enough to find as well. Brave enough to let go of the past. To be free to do what is necessary to be done.

Ans

even now
the world is bleedin’
but feelin’ just fine
all numb in our castle
we’re always free to choose
never free enough to find

I wish somethin’ would break
cause we’re runnin’ out of time

“Overcome” by Live

Hurt heart.
Let it be.
The hurt.
Yes there, a little bit to the left, a little higher.

Heart.
Feel hurt.
OK no prob.
You are allowed.
You have good reason.
You are allowed.
OK no prob.
Feel hurt.
Heart.

Wounded.
By arrows.
Sharpened by ignorance.
Sharpened by unfulfilled expectation.
Sharpened by attachment.

Hurt heart.
Never forget.
The light beyond.
The light behind.

The light that makes you soft again.
The light that cares for you and let you shine.
The light that colours you golden.
and makes your hurt seems olden.

Hurt heart.
Never forget.
To be golden.
Again.

Ans

The need to be loved by others is the Mother of all other needs.
Needs make you dependent on outside energies.
You are not free.

Drop the need to be loved by others to discover the energy-source within.
It is an infinite well of wellbeing that makes it easy
to love yourself and others as they truly are.
This discovery will set you free.

Ans

~~~

Opening up.
slowly and gentle,
like a flower.

Sharing our inner beauty,
with the world around us.

Feeling the warm sunshine,
on our vibrant petals.

May 2007
gives us the courage
to open up to the magic of Life.

 

Hi hi high,

First of all I try this slide feature to share my experiences in Lumbini with you. Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha. It is a small town in Nepal, close to the border with India. The place feels remote and is surrounded by wetlands. A stone in the Mayadevi temple marks the exact birthplace of the Buddha. He was born, outside in the open. He came into this world when his mother was traveling from Kapilavastu, the kingdom of her husband, to her maternal home. 300 years after the Buddha’s death, king Asoka erected a pillar to show his respect and gratitude to the Buddha.

It is a very impressive place, not because of the big, beautiful buildings but because of the strong energy that is emanating from this area. When I visited the temple, I had just finished a 10day vipassana course. After such a course the mind is very sensitive and sharp. After 10 days of intense clearing my own mind, the peace at the birthsite was relieving. This inner peace, this quietness of mind, that is the aim of all the hard work.

Dhamma Janani is the name of the Vipassana center. The center is still under construction. It looks not really nice for the moment. But they start landscaping and it will be improving. The people are very friendly. I was the only foreigner and they take good care for me. The Dhamma hall has a capacity of 200 people. But the accommodationbuildings are not finished yet. That is why only small groups can attend the courses for the moment. We were with 12 males and 10 females. Good group, good food, almost no disturbance so the ideal place to do the inner work.

It is difficult to share what was going on at the inside of me. It is a very personal experience. Intense, not easy at times but clarifying. There are almost no doubts left about the core of Goenka’s (the Buddha’s) teaching. That’s y there is a lot of space to let the purifying process do its work. The aim is to liberate ourselves from the automatic habit patterns of our mind. Because they are automatic, we are not free. The liberating happens from itself. The only thing we have to do is to develop our awareness of the feelings in our body and training our equanimity. This is a difficult word that just means stopping reacting, fearlessly accepting what we are aware of.

Although the core of the teaching is very pure, I feel some resistance growing towards the format in which the Goenka centers are offering this courses. Especially towards the strict and forced discipline you have to follow. This discipline is a reminiscence of the Burmese Theravada tradition in which Goenka’s teaching originate. I start experiencing that the same depth of awareness is possible in normal life. The discipline is useful to intensify the awareness and equanimity but for me it feels not always in balance. The purifying process of the mind needs balance and relaxing the mind is part of this balance. 10 days in full discipline brings to much to the surface at once for me. It feels like forcing a natural process that needs her owntimeline. That’s why I decided that this will be my last course in this tradition.

At the other hand, it became very clear to me that keeping the five precepts as base for this purifyingprocess is very important. A good explanation by Tich Nhat Han of these five moral advices you find here in Dutch and in English. I discovered that by training concentration, the mind becomes really powerful. It is important to use this power in a good way, for triggering the impurities and purifying them. Without these precepts, the power of the mind is easily misused to gain ego purposes. This leads us in the opposite direction of purifying the mind.

In the past I tried to keep this precepts as good as possible. But while meditating it became clear that on the subtle levels, I was breaking some of the precepts.
Especially honesty (right speech) and sexual responsability. I made up my mind no longer to talk about others to others. Sometimes people tell me something and while it is not clear for me that these are private or secret things, for them they are. Telling these things to others will hurt them. That’s why it is better completely to be silent about others to others.
Sometimes I exaggerate parts of my life to others to look better then I am. This is also something I try to avoid from now on.
When attraction arises in my mind to a girl who is in a relationship, I will not follow that any longer. Not by thoughts, speech or action. This is not an easy one because attraction is so overwhelming sometimes. I made up my mind to train my awareness so that I can catch this attraction in the earliest state.

It is also important not to be to hard for yourself when you break these precepts. Guilt feelings will not help you, on the contrary. They make your ego even stronger. The only way forward is to train your awareness and making up your mind that in the future in a similar situation, you will react not in the same impure way. I learned that forgiving myself is very liberating and useful to get rid of the guilt.

This morality may seem a little bit out of time, but if you start seeing that your own thoughts, speech and actions create your own reality, then it becomes so obvious that it is important to plant the right seeds to have the right fruits. If you are dishonest, you will be treated dishonest. Simple rule, but diffcult to understand.

That’s why Hi5! Hi to the five precepts for a high moral and happy life!

Ans