Theravada Buddhist Meditation..one insight

I’ll tell you a bit about Theravada Buddhist retreats..they don’t work for all but did for me.

You are sensually deprived to a fault. No talking, no reading, radio, nothing, just meditation instruction and one talk in the evening by the teacher, oh yeah, then you can ask questions..

What they ask you to do is to try to be aware of all the nagging voices for the sensations that one is deprived of in this environment….after 3 days you’re crawling up the wall, but they ask you to persevere, seeing as you’ve made the effort to go there and commit.

In the meditation one is asked to just focus on the breath and every time the old inner dialogue kicks in, we are asked to try to arrest it as soon as you can and gently refocus on the breath..it took me one and a half 10 day retreats to get to the stage where I wasn’t paying much attention to all the thoughts and feelings….but the mind is seductive and being suddenly out of a job it tries to sneak in the back door by agreeing with you that this was a great idea and how we’re gonna do this for the rest of our lives bla bla

But then you see that one too and finally you get free of it all.. and then there’s nothing but space…………….then euphoria begins to rise and WOW biggest natural high on the planet, but that’s just the beginning..

Ok so with this euphoria, in my case I felt like I was made of crystal glass floating one foot off the ground, and it lasted a while, but guess what? You try to hang on to it of course, and it fades from that moment….time for a talk with the abbot….
He explained that the thing that was hanging on to this first taste of freedom was the same thing that was hanging on to all your thoughts and feelings in the beginning..ego, desire, I am, I want..and that all these graspings are suffering….yep I understood that bit…he said next time you get euphoria don’t get too clingy about it..so that’s what you do…so now you’re really passive about everything that’s thrown at you.

So now the real fun begins cos you’re in conrol, you see the wood from the trees, and by the way, they tell you that all thoughts, feelings, high and low are natural and not to be shunned, just seen..and by  now your standing in a different place and you can see the thought about your gas bill the microsecond it arrives..like a spark or colour..no big deal, just watch it and laugh..and the massive movements of our poor broken heart are like some brilliant movie…anything that arrives you can say “eh, what’s this then? and play with it and tell it to go and play out in the garden like a little kid.

Suddenly I imagined I was in an attic, this was new, like a dream within awareness, and I passed down through to the next floor and the next until I was in a dirty basement with rubbish and shit everywhere smelling bad. In the corner was a rat gnawing away at some crap.

He turned to me and said “Took your bloody time getting here, boy, didn’t ya?”

So there it was..I’d stood right beside the gut level anxiety that pervades the whole universe..and of course it was like fronting the school bully, game over, his power gone, it all disappeared. Then I felt very real… suffering had been understood, not banished you understand, but understood….it’s power diminished.

And that’s meditation, as taught by the best I’ve ever found..the real deal.

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Freeze to Death or Sleep with the Devil

Bank holiday week-end, nice weather. I wander into Sprog 4’s room and
leaf through a  Marvel comic. Batman. It’s in perfect condition with a £12.99 price tag. Sprog 4 comes in.
“What are you doing Dad?”
“These comics are in great condition, maybe you should keep them in plastic protectors or something, sell them on ebay when you’re older.”
“Dad, guys who do that will still be virgins living with their parents when they’re 30.”
“So that’s not your plan then.”
“Nah, I figured 18 to 20ish, travel a little like you did.”
“Joe, you haven’t been round the block yet and it’s a more dangerous world than when I hitch-hiked across it, best get the train.”
“Fuck that.”

So I told him of the time I first hitched across Europe in 1971. I was about to cross the Italian border.
A straggly haired young woman loomed up at me in a tatty long black dress, no shoes, and carrying her only possession, a huge American army sleeping bag.
“Have you got 40 dollars?”
“Well, yes.”
“Because you need to have 40 dollars if you wish to enter Italy, not to give just to have, can I come with you?”
“Um, OK”
As soon as we were over the border she took charge. There was a line of trans-continental haulage lorries parked in the lay-by and she called to the driver of the first one. They made their negotiations and we were set up for a lift into Italy.
We sat up in the high cab, her in the middle and me by the door. Within minutes she was fondling the driver’s crotch and if he thought I was her boyfriend he certainly didn’t mind. I became intensely interested in the Italian countryside and embarrassed as hell.
So we finally got out in the middle of nowhere. I glanced around for signs of a youth hostel. We trudged across a couple of fields until she chose our spot for the night somewhere between a hedge and a tree.
She was warm as toast in her sleeping bag but mine was totally inadequate for the cold night, I was freezing.
"You can get in with me if you want."
I pretended to be asleep. She terrified me.

Women, you think you can cope with them but they are another force so never underestimate them. It takes a kind of superman and I ain’t quite one of them yet.

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Kidnapped!

Sprog 4 and I watched ‘Ross Kemp in Afghanistan’ which a 15 year old boy is bound to love.  I can’t really form an opinion as to whether we should have troops there or not. Would we be there if America hadn’t said so? I dunno. I could only tell my boy that I had a great time out there on the hippy trail in 1973 and met some lovely Afghan people and Sprog 4 replied “Dad, you would make friends wherever you go.” (He’s seen me in action on holiday.) It was a nice thing to say anyway.

But they weren’t all friendly there in ‘73. I had teamed up with a young American couple in the town of Herat and we were all invited for a meal at the shack of two Afghan brothers. After this indigestible feast they said we should visit the temple. We all spilled onto the road to find a taxi waiting outside. We should have known better but we got in. The taxi drove us miles into the desert as me and Jim discussed our probable mistake. We were met at a remote desert abode by another guy and they led us into a woodland area. Jim and I figured it was time to run, they were after raping his girl for sure, (or us?)
They caught us and roughly took us to the house and locked us in a room. The Americans were in complete panic but strangely enough I was cool. If you’re in trouble in England you are theoretically protected by the state, your mum and dad, whoever. But here I was sure they could kill you and get away with it. It made me fearless because I was totally alone.
We could hear them drinking and playing cards in the next room, savouring their prey. I had a Swiss army knife with me and used it to break the catch on the window and out we popped and ran for the main desert track.
We ran along the track for a minute of two and then Jim saw the headlights of the brother’s car leaving the house. “Jump into the ditch!” I told them. The car passed but after another 200 metres they realised we couldn’t have got that far and turned around.
Did you see Lord of the Rings when that dark rider was searching for the hobbits on the road?
After a couple more passes by the car I decided it was better to head into the desert in the direction of the village where we stayed. The Boy Scouts had taught me about star navigation and boy was I grateful.
The three of as stumbled across the desert scrub till we saw a strange light. As we approached we saw that it was two sets of headlights. There were figures milling around the two vehicles. I shouted a hello. The lights went off. Silence. Then a torch suddenly shone on us. “We’re lost” I said “Herat?”  The torchbearer shone the thing into his own face in a gesture on friendship I guessed. He was an old guy with several teeth missing and he was smiling. The lights came back on and they made a huge fuss of sitting the girl comfortably in one of the trucks. We were lucky that they were gents. They had other plans for Jim and I however.
It was loading crates of rifles from one truck to another. I knew this because one of the youngsters opened a crate to show me but was soon put back into place by an older guy. On completion of business they drove us back to our guesthouse and I thanked them profusely.
As we sat in the bar we saw the brothers car draw up outside and as we were pretty safe there I threw them a good old British V sign (fuck off.) Jim asked me what it meant and I told him so he had a go. He just couldn’t do it. It looked like Winston Churchill’s victory V. I guess it takes years of practise. Being British helps too.


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The Shack Out Back

It reminded me of a bamboo shelter I’d once built on a beach in Mykonos in that it had to lean on something to be of any use. In this case a sturdy coconut tree at the edge of the jungle. Only ten degrees to the left, give it a break.
My Amazonian partner had gone to a nearby island on yet another diving course, where she would meet Aussies who would give pet names to the more notable denizens and would ask her what her bloke actually did apart from swinging in a hammock all day with a beer. The virtual music studio that she’d helped me lug from London to Thailand was her probable reply.
I’m sitting at another studio as I write. It’s in the Algarve, all the latest gadgets, zipping my Moroccan synth-pop all over the planet, I used to be the same when I was a kid, any tunes, any technology. Big kid still.
Our house in Koh Samui was wooden and functional, but not immune to wildlife. I’ve never been that gooey about animals but I learned to respect them there, considering all the creatures that ran through the place all day.
And out back was this shack.
An educated Thai friend told me the score. Thai people move around a lot and would land on your doorstep.
‘Hi, long time no see. How long you staying?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Got any money?’
‘No.’
‘Shack is out back.’
It was getting dark, mossie alert. I burned a few green coils and waited on a friend as I dreamed away.
The latest occupants of the shack were a handsome young couple. They had seemed nice and quiet but suddenly exploded into life on that night. A massive row was afoot, with the lady of the manor creating most of the content.
I only understood the words ‘Nam’ and ‘Farang’. There was no doubt about this. These two words were the root source of her delivery.
Now this got me a little worried as I’d fixed the local water supply that very day, (nam) and I was the only foreigner in the village, (farang)
I went to the local beach bar to seek out another bright mate, Rat, and told him of my concerns.
He grabbed his torch and led us from the beach and back to the edge of the jungle. He silenced the rowing couple with a few quiet questions. They spoke back.
‘OK, Lolen, come back to bar for beer.’
‘Wassup man?’
‘I tell you in bar.’
But he didn’t tell me in bar. This playful little fella told the whole bar first and everyone collapsed into laughter.
So finally he put me out of my misery. The guy in the shack had only been there two days and had already sired another girl in the village and as his wife was so delicately suggesting, he could have been fixing the water instead of the rent-paying foreigner.
Game over. I’m normally a breezy and friendly guy, and I guess the locals had never seen me worried before.
Next morning I opened my door to see a perfectly lopped coconut on a china dish with a lotus flower beside it.
Everyone was saying “Mai Pen Rai” (never mind)
Boy, did I love those people.


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