The way of the monastic life is not simply an escape from ‘reality’. It can be a genuine attempt to remove the bricks and dismantle the walls that exist between us, for the truest form of connection between sentient beings does not occur through any expression of self.
No sound, no movement, no glance, no gesture is as powerful as the presence of silence.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
So I didn’t know what the time was this morning, it could have been officially 4.15, 3.15 or 5.15 when I rose. It didn’t seem to matter. I had left my time untouched. The only connection I had with time outside of my own schedule was with Caroline, and as it was I knew we were 12 hours apart. I thought it best to leave it that way, it was easy to remember.
There is a new sound this morning, I cocked my head and listened. Rain. By the time I had rolled a smoke and stepped outside it had gone. Not enough to break the drought. Not enough to heal the cracks in the earth.
Around 6.00 I start up my laptop and after about 20 minutes realize that the time on the screen is now an hour earlier than the time on my cell phone. One of them has changed automatically and I have no idea which – this is just getting more confusing by the minute (or should that be hour), and less meaningful.
Caroline texted me and wanted to know where the charger for the drill was. I was a bit gutted that I couldn’t remember. Then she asked whether I was still enjoying my own company. Good question darling. The answer I guess is yes. However it made me think about how long that could last, and what the point would be. How long would I stay here, or somewhere like here? I realize that I am fulfilling a dream I now remember. The dream of being a hermit. It has been 5 days now with only the occasional unsolicited contact with humanity and I feel no real sense of isolation. I feel no longing to communicate, to connect, to have human contact. How long would this last?
I think perhaps until I had caught up with myself, until I had expelled all of this and much more from inside me. Until I had spewed out all that seems trapped inside. It has been this way for such a long time. As a teenage I fantasized about a machine that I could plug into my head and let it all out and free me from the madness inside. That machine has never been made, instead I found meditation as a type of release valve. I learnt to let go of so many of my thoughts and in doing so I added less to the cluttered mess already inside. Still it builds up, I can’t let go of everything, particularly when there is so much going on around me. Here there is less happening, here the output is greater than the input and over time this would increase. Over time I would eventually clear out the attic, get into the corners on my hands and knees and sweep it clean. Over time I would come to be completely empty. Now that would be something.
The rain returns. The tricking of water from the guttering into a bucket near the front door sounds gentle and sweet. The tapping and sliding of the rain on the windows is an undertone to the rustling trees as another squall sweeps through. Again it does not last and soon I am left with just the trickling and a dampness waiting for me outside the door.
Late this morning I let go of my schedule, of my routines. I veered and lost my way and it was 11.30 (or was it 10.30?) at night before I realized just how far off the beaten track I’d become. I am out in the wild, lost but safe with only an amateur detective with Tourette’s syndrome as my companion. He is a big friendly bear of a man, but his compulsions scare me. My fear is not of him, but of myself. I wish I had his outlet, his open valve (although he claims it releases nothing) rather than this impenetrable layer of skin within which I live a cluttered and confused existence.
Isn’t it interesting how it can all turn so quickly, in the space of 24 hours or less, our lives can be changed forever. How it seems that one minute we are on the straight and wide and the next we are through the narrow gate and on the crooked path. Through the narrow gate that hides itself from view beside the busy highway down which we all rush. Never noticed, never even known about as we slip along in a frenzied stream of cold, bold and beautiful motorized bodies that we try to ensure never collide. To find the gate we need to stop and leave our bodies, something we seldom do as we travel along life’s motorway. We need to stop, for relief perhaps, or repair and even then we need to choose to stop in exactly the right spot. In this exact spot, and as we unzip or squat or go about opening the hood, maybe just maybe we will catch a glimpse of it. Then should our curiosity be perked, should our sense of adventure be strong enough, should our attachment to our existing journey and the beautiful body we travel in be weak enough, we may pass through the gate.
Me I wasn’t in need of repair or relief, I wasn’t even in a car or on a bike. I was simply walking along on the edge of the road. I was that lone out-of-place figure that you whisk past as you speed along, the one the evokes questions, such as what is he doing there, how did he get there, where is he going, questions that last only as long as the next beat of the window wipers.
I found the hidden gate leading down the narrow path late this morning. It is now nearly midnight and Lionel and I are done with walking in circles, we’ve had enough of browsing the ‘Mad’ and ‘Heavy Metal’ magazines he keeps in his rucksack and we are off to sleep, the campfire smoking away between us.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
I had a disturbed sleep again last night, which is very unusual for me. Last night I woke with a start from a dream. It was 11.15 (I had been asleep at 9.00), my mouth was dry and moonlight from the window above my head again threw a blanket over me. I feel as if it is the light that wakes me, that causes me to toss and turn in my sleep. In my dream I was searching for a place to meditate. I came upon this house, a huge beautiful, grand looking place with wide pale plaster walls. Inside the entranceway, stuck against the wall there is a piece of A4 paper with a handwritten note and an arrow pointing to the right. It looks completely out of place and when I look away and back it has disappeared. I can’t make it out, and before I start worrying I take the stairs on the right descending in a broad spiral fashion into a vast room below.
The room is empty and immaculately clean. The walls are smooth and creamy and the floor as far as I can see is covered in lush soft white carpet like a field of newly fallen snow, across which there are one set of footprints leading away from the stairwell where I stand.
I venture through the room and veer left into a broad corridor. I can hear voices: people talking, chatting, laughing together. There is a room to my right with people in it, I recognize no one and no one speaks to me, yet nor does anyone question my presence. I feel slightly uncomfortable, out of place, yet not so much that I am afraid. I walk further past another room, also inhabited with the same relaxed looking people, I continue on to the end of the corridor and step out into a vast outdoor area. I take a few steps and looking to my right I realize that the corridor I have walked down and the rooms I have passed form the left-hand wing of a huge U shape. From where I stand I look into the courtyard at a massive pool, tastefully and immaculately surrounded by stucco and small palms. Just visible at the other end of the pool is a small group of people, seated at a table. Their eyes turn towards me and I feel as if I am not meant to be here, outside like this, in their space.
I return inside and enter the first room I previously passed. Now a ragged queue has formed snaking its way around the edge of the room to a small rostrum where a woman stands taking money. I understand that people are preparing to pay for the meditation session. I join the queue, feeling less conspicuous and more comfortable in doing so. I ask a young man standing near me how much is expected. I am unsure of his answer, but think he says nine dollars, or perhaps nine pounds. I rummage in my pockets and withdraw some change which on a quick count amounts to perhaps five or six dollars or pounds (the currency is unclear).I realize I do not have enough and as I begin to become worried about this someone else in the queue tells me that I can pay whatever I can afford. I am relieved and the queue moves amazingly quickly towards the woman and the makeshift counter.
As it comes my turn to pay I pay more attention to the woman. She is slight, perhaps 5’ 8’ tall with full auburn hair in tight curls that frame her face. She is standing in front of the rostrum, in front of me, talking with another woman of the same build who has just paid. The red-haired woman turns towards me and puts her arm around my waist and rests her head gently upon my chest. I am startled but do not pull away as I do not feel threatened. The women are smiling, happy and the other woman says repeatedly in broken English ‘tall…very tall’ and smiles knowingly at the red haired woman. The red haired woman snuggles against me, it is as if she knows me.
And then I woke, suddenly. The dream, it’s vividness and my sudden awaking remind me of the dreams I have when I am on Vipassana retreat. It is another reminder of the nature of my time here.
I still managed to rise just after 4am and meditate and do some work on my grammar. I think though I will definitely be having a nana nap later in the day. I am also aware that I am starting to smell and will probably light a fire in the wetback so as to heat up some water for a bath.
Caroline contacts me and I wish her a good nights sleep and sweet dreams. We have come to text each other each morning and evening, as one rises the other gets ready to sleep. It is nice to have this, particularly as yesterday I came to realize the completeness of my silence (I spoke to no one all day). It is sweetly ironic and yet wonderfully appropriate that the only person I am in any communication with is Cari, on the other side of the world. It feels good that in this moment she is closer to me, in all ways, than anyone else.
This morning’s routine is similar to yesterday, except for my bath which is no small thing requiring as it does the lighting of the fire in the wetback oven to heat the water. It didn’t go particularly well and after over an hour or so of fire the water was still only lukewarm. I made do and had a shallow bath, at least I felt a lot cleaner.
Work on my dharma course progresses well, though as with yesterday it does so in an amorphous manner with ideas, associations and concepts coming to me more often when I am walking away than when I am seated with the writing pad in front of me. This afternoon I began unexpectedly to write a dharma book rather than the course, something that I have started and discarded numerous times before. This time however I felt no concern, rather it seems now more than ever that I am in the right place at the right time to do this. I sat at the table outside and wrote a postcard to Scott and in doing so was reminded of the short videos he took just prior to my leaving, and the script he wrote for me, in which I declare that I am writing a book.
It was this moment that drew me once again to the question that has plagued me since leaving the UK. There have been so many mornings, both here in Aotearoa and in Australia that I have woken with the thought “what am I doing here?” Today I felt as if I had an answer other than “I don’t know” (which itself is an answer I am completely ok with). Today standing under the fruit trees in Jim’s front yard, alone now for two days, a book of scribblings and notations on the table in front of me, I knew another answer. This is what I am here for. Just to be here. In this place, in this space. In this way.
Today has been overcast, the sun resting behind clouds of differing shades of grey. I do not mind I have had no urge to venture out. My routines have seemed less so today, perhaps I am already becoming accustomed to them. I nap around midday and wake just before 2.30 completely disoriented. For a moment I do not know what country I am in and am relieved once I finally grasp where I am in the world even though I am still unsure of exactly where I am. My sleeping and waking are definitely different here, I am interested to see how this continues.
The lack of orientation returns later this evening when it takes me some time to understand that today is Thursday. I have come to think that my departure from here will be determined by how long my stocks last, in particular my food and cigarettes. I think I will probably be walking out on Wednesday morning next week.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
I woke at 4.00am and even though I woke a couple of times in the night (once at just after two o’clock bathed in the gentle blue moonlight that streamed through the window above me) I feel, after a quick cold face wash and a cup of tea, ready for the day.
Before going to bed last night I made a meditation posy using seat cushions and a rug. So it is only a matter of adopting the position. It felt familiar thankfully. And I just let my mind wander freely, allowing it to settle of its own accord. I knew that it would be pointless trying to enforce some focus to my mind at this time, so I just let it ramble through this and that: ideas, associations, events, plans, dreams, recollections that it deemed so very important that they needed to be dwelt on or dealt with right now. After some time (and it is always difficult, perhaps impossible to put an exact length to time during meditation) I felt the agitation ease, as if my mind, without my collaboration to energize it, was wearing itself out.
I began drawing my attention to my breath. Over and over again I gently refocused my attention on my in-breath and out-breath. Over and over again I drifted away, not so rapidly or so rabidly as before but away nevertheless, and then once I noticed my departure I would let go of whatever had my attention and refocus.
I sat for just under an hour with very little physical discomfort. My urge to rise at the end coming more from my mind’s restlessness than my body’s. The thought that I had been here long enough, that I had other things to do became so dominant that in the end I just gave in and got up.
Less than an hour later I had finished a breakfast of eggs, tomato, baked beans, mushrooms and toast. A hearty meal which I was pleased to notice I had eaten rather mindlessly. Previously I am sure I have eaten such meals in exactly the same way and not noticed. So this observation heralded a potentially greater mindfulness as the week progressed. I looked forward to becoming more aware of the food I ate, its tastes and textures.
By 7.00am I had done over an hour’s grammar study and was now well aware that there was a lot I did not know about grammar. I had also rediscovered how unnerving it is to be doing something and abstracting myself to analyze it at the same time I am doing it. After just an hour of study I found that I was now trying, almost unwillingly, to identify the different parts of speech, verb clauses, tenses, adverbials etc in every sentence I wrote.
Next I sat down to start planning my dharma course. I did this with some trepidation, I have invested it in my mind with some weight, and dare I say it, attachment. One of the first notions to surface is that of mindfulness. How appropriate this is, for just like my experience with the grammar, mindfulness requires us to be present in something/anything/everything fully and yet simultaneously being conscious of the rules, structures, discourses, beliefs, values etc that we reference in all that we think, say and do.
I work at this course outline for ½ hour and then wander outside and begin snipping away at a stack of small branches that Jim indicated needed cutting, or as he put it I could get stuck into “if I got an urge to chop wood and carry water”. And of course I do, enjoying it as I stand in the sun snipping away repeatedly one branch after another, making little obvious dent in the pile.
As with all things, after a while when I wander back inside to my work, I take with me the realization of mindfulness in all tasks (like chopping wood) and I recall Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of doing the dishes in a mindful way. This then becomes part of my dharma course.
Soon after I sit in a chair placed by the old wetback stove. As I eat muesli, the morning sun streams through the front window and bathes me in its warmth. I am reminded of how everything ties together and thoughts of Caroline come to me. I let them go, focusing on the food before me and in my mouth. Already I am becoming more mindful. I stop eating and add another note to my course plan.
After my meal the sun proves too enticing and I sleep where I sit by the stove. I had wondered on the way here whether the rest that comes with a Vipassana retreat would also prevail here. It seems it might. I wake after an hour or so and at 12.30 I eat again, a lunch of spaghetti on toast with cottage cheese. I am drinking a lot of water, and it is passes through me quickly. I have a small sense of detoxification.
In the afternoon I started on my CELTA pre-course task, which itself is a bit of a misuse of the English language. The ‘task’ is a 30 page document comprising 50 separate tasks (yes 50!). Interestingly I received the task only after having paid my deposit for the course. I guess they think that the ‘task’ might put some people off, and best grab some of their dosh first.
I am fortunate to be in this physical space. I am grateful to Jim for being so generous, so giving - for being such an amazing provider. It is a blessing to be so free of distractions, and have quiet and solitude in which to work. I am enjoying this time and already feel that it has been beneficial. I am confident that over the time here I will steadily work through all that I want to do.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
I can’t recall exactly where and when I first learnt this practice. I’ve googled it and have come up with this – tonglen. I’ve read a number of Pema Chodron books, and have had some read to me while at Shambhala meditation sessions. It is very likely that it is from Pema that I first learnt this practice.
I think of this practice as ‘black and yellow’. I practice tonglen with one of the men I visit. Mr Singh is an old frail Indian man. He speaks English well, and says very little. His wife however hardly speaks any English and talks with me all the time. I love them both to bits. Mrs Singh is always (and I mean always – ever time I open the door) smiling and laughing. She finds me enormously funny. Don’t ask me why, perhaps it is because I don’t understand a word she says, although I do now know that ‘tikka’ means something akin to ‘ok’ or ‘correct/right’. Something like that. And every morning we say ‘Co-naa’ (that’s what it sounds like anyway) to each other through the glass of the front door. This sends her into fits of laughter.
I am coming to recognise Mr. Singh as one of my gurus. He sure looks the part. I wash him every morning. This has always been a meditative and spiritual moment, one that at first I was a little slow to recognise. Now, every morning, I am well aware of how palpable the calmness, quiet and presence is that pervades the time and space we share together.
Large blisters will rise up and pass away upon Mr. Singh’s body. I saw these as I washed him. At first I just started trying to be as present as I could when I was with him. He made this easy as he sat very still, hardly moving other than to help me as I undressed and dressed him. The few movements he makes are graceful and economical. I’d focus on each button of his shirt intently as I did them up, being mindful of my breath as I did so.
I guess that was akin to Anapanna Sati I learnt on the Goenka retreats. It wasn’t long before I started practising ‘black and yellow’ – trying to match my inbreath with a sense of congealed blackness entering me, and my outbreath as one with a brilliant translucent yellow light. I tried to do this without attachment. I tried to consider these moments as an opportunity for me to practice, nothing else.
I added something else, something that for me is a mish-mash of many things I have learnt, heard and read. As I slowly and systemtically washed Mr. Singh’s body, from head to foot I started to add blessings, such things as:
May your head be clear so you can be still and at peace
May your arms be strong and healthy so that you can hug those you love and keep them safe
May you chest be clear so you can breathe deeply and sleep soundly
May your stomach be healthy so you can eat well
May your legs be strong so that they can carry you whereever you may want to go
May you feet be strong and hearty, so you can stand firmly
So this is what I do ever morning. I am privileged to have such an opportunity. And here I was, just the other day, thinking I would like to meditate more. I think at this stage I just need to continue practising while I am with Mr. Singh.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
