Bienvenue, folks. Especially folks from Facebook who came here hoping for nudie pictures on the beach! (My stat count shot up like three times the normal hits after I posted that picture of my bare back.) Hope you’re all doing well.
Just a coupl’a quick announcements. First, I’ve added a Friendly User Guide with a few tips on interacting with the site, so check that out and let me know what you think!
Also, for the next two weeks or so, starting tomorrow, I’ll be serving at another Vipassana Center (this one in France). Which means no internet for this little dhamma elf. However, thanks to the wonders of technology, I can set up posts to publish themselves automatically — so every other day there’ll be a new batch of photos or a snippet of email. (We’re almost all caught up, by the way!) So stop in while I’m gone, have a look around, and we’ll reconnect when the month changes over.
Ok, I think that’s it. Je suis très fatuigée après d’un voyage de 15 heures en bus de la nuit, de Barcelone á Paris. I am thinking of the African couple and the South Asian man who were taken off the bus by the police in the middle of the night, when we stopped for checks at the French border. I hope they are doing all right. The whole episode, difficult to watch under any circumstances, seemed especially surreal at 3 in the morning, after having being quasi-awakened by a grim-faced officer demanding my passport.
It’s a crazy world, friends. I’m grateful to be going to the meditation center, to keep learning how to handle the craziness, and to help others learn how to deal, too.
My friend Nuria grew up in Catalunya, so she knows where to find the quiet beaches here. No screaming babies, squawking vendors, or complaining tourists. (Though those scenes have their own charm, too).
This Sunday she took me to a tiny one, 45 minutes by train outside of Barcelona. Maybe two dozen people in the little nook we picked.
We had a simple day, enjoying the sun and sand and water on our skin. (Bathing suits: unnecessary. Ya feel me?)
But even the simple days are also, inevitably, complex. When you escape the crowds, sometimes you find the loners.
First there was the white guy crouching in the rocks above the beach. Nuria’s eyes narrowed. “Qué hace?” she hissed, hackles visibly raised. She stood up to get a better look. When she was reassured that he had left, we talked about the violence of voyeurs. Men who spy on naturist beaches to ogle and masturbate. A couple of shady characters I encountered on The Camino. Nuria is one of the most loving people I know, toward everyone she meets, but she also has a temper, and this behavior is a big trigger. She has been known to throw stones.
So we talked about the ways in which these men are suffering from addiction, lost deep in their own pain and ignorance, and doing such harm to others because of it. How almost everyone on Earth, including ourselves, at times, is addicted to pleasure in some form or another.
And how, fortunately, most of the time, the collective, family vibe among nude beachgoers (who tend to have a higher level of comfort with their own bodies, and less sexual neurosis about nudity) overwhelms the negativity of predatory intruders. As we talked, Nuria opened up about her past, her own painful histories. Even on the simple days, these things tend to resurface.
Then there was the long-haired argentino dude who sat down next to us, asking for rolling papers and tobacco. His speech was so rapid and his accent so heavily Italian that I gave up trying to follow. One thing I did catch: “. . .parejas?” “Partners?” Pointing to both of us. Well, we are in Spain, a country that recognizes same-sex marriages. Maybe assumptions here are different. Maybe this was a heartwarming break from heteronormativity. Except that…it clearly wasn’t. I didn’t have to understand this guy’s words in order to see his intentions. Just the same old sexist fantasy: girl-on-girl action. And even better — a white girl with a brown girl.
Oh, dear.
Why does a day at the beach have to be so complicated?
Except that…it doesn’t.
There’s a lovely saying I’ve heard a couple of times recently, in different contexts. Just as darkness cannot survive the arrival of light, suffering cannot survive the arrival of equanimity. When you become equanimous — that is, fully present and accepting — toward something that is bothering you, it stops bothering you. You just see it for what it is. Someone is acting out their insecurity. Someone is doing harm. If the harm occurring is severe, requiring action to stop it, take action. If not, let it be. Let it pass. Either way, the first step is to observe, without a knee-jerk reaction.
Eventually, not finding the response he wanted from us, the long-haired dude left.
Did racist patriarchy spoil our day at the beach?
Well, we took some photos. You tell me.
——— [Heads-up: nothing explicit, but maybe not the safest for work]
Tomorrow I’ll take a bus from Barcelona north to Pamplona, and after resting for the night I’m going to take a walk. The walk will take me 30 days, more or less.
Back in the day, El Camino de Santiago (The Path/Way of Santiago) was a pilgrimage route to the city of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest corner of Spain. The most famous route of the pilgrimage, El Camino Francés, begins inside France itself and stretches east-to-west all the way to Santiago, paralleling the northern Iberian coast. Since the camino’s transformation into a tourism thing (some people still do it for religious reasons, but most don’t), kind souls and entrepreneurs have established pilgrims’ hostels along the route, where folks can eat and sleep cheaply, then move on at dawn.
I’ll be bringing just a trekking backpack with a sleeping bag, change of clothes, some good boots, a map, money and sunscreen. I expect cold mornings, hot afternoons, blisters, fellow travelers, exhaustion, elation, and of course, the unexpected. Needless to say, I’m ridiculously excited.
This phrase has stuck with me like a kind of melody. I hum it every now and then. And it totally captures the spirit of my time serving at the Dhamma Neru meditation center. Especially during the last course, when they put me in the garden in order to spare me from kitchen burnout, I felt such a peaceful rhythm in the work. Lacing up my new boots; pulling on jeans still earth-caked from the day before; lugging shovels and buckets across the silent field; uncovering hypnotic centipedes, an ant nest with eggs like seed pearls, and giant, iridescent earthworms. Making friends with the flies that dive-bombed my ears the whole time, hehe. Turns out that instead of jerking your neck and swatting frantically, you can pull up the hood of your sweatshirt to block their targets. Then they just give you soft buzzing background music, sweet li’l thangs.
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
–Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
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Querid@s maravillos@s amig@s y familia,
I am so happy to be in this plain, because you are the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. As always, I hope this note finds you happy, healthy, positive, and peaceful. And maybe enjoying some springtime weather, because lord is it ever gorgeous here in Barcelona. I’d forgotten what perfect sunshine can be like.
Thank you so much, again, for your wonderful mail — electronic and postal. I love hearing how things are going in *your* adventures, and I truly appreciate all your support as I continue mine.
And speaking of mail, since my friends the Parks have upgraded to a cheaper but cozier apartment right by the beach (um, score…), the new address for mail to get to me is
[Redacted :) ].
I hope the letter, card, notebook and postcard writing has been fun for you, and maybe even inspired you to write some additional old-fashioned mail to loved ones in other cities, states, countries. (Or, you know, down the block!) For me, putting my love on paper and sending it out has definitely been a welcome anchor and a deep pleasure. Even if the note gets lost and never reaches its destination, the good wishes are there. Besides, this is the main post office in Barcelona:
photo found onlinephoto found online
So it’s not such a bad errand to run, you know?
Ok, so updates. Again, for your convenience, a breakdown by topic. In keeping with the subject line (and my dorkiness), the Miles Davis theme continues, mostly[*].
I haven’t said a whole lot about what Vipassana actually entails. It’s not because I’m try’na be all mystical, but because I think there’s a danger of overanalyzing it. Personally, I spent years thinking about meditation, reading about meditation, wishing I were meditating, and never actually doing the damn thing, hehe. Much of the philosophy is so fascinating that it’s easy to neglect the application, the ‘swimology.’ But for the sake of transparency and non-cultishness, here’s my own quick personal take on what I do, exactly, in Vipassana.
I was amazed to learn that the entire operation budget for Dhamma Neru comes directly from student donations. No grant proposals, no NGOs, nada. To me, this is wonderfully inspiring as an example of compassion in economy — compassion based on direct, personal experience. Nobody pressures or shames you into giving, and nobody rewards you by putting your name on a building. Funding isn’t subject to nonprofit fads, nor contingent upon the program’s success in producing X number of enlightened beings per year. Always, the best motivation to give is born of direct, continued experience. Of course, in life we should help distribute resources that we don’t use directly (like sponsoring a soup kitchen that doesn’t feed us, or an accompanier for threatened organizers in Guatemala). Still, it’s quite special when the impetus to give comes from thinking, I have personally benefited from this, I continue to reap its benefits to this day, and I wish to share its benefits with other people who want to learn. Solid. Besides, I like the fact that “dana,” or donation in Pali language, can come in many forms, not just money: from a handful of fertile soil for the garden, to an afternoon of scrubbing toilets and sinks.
After a 5- or 6-day work period of center maintenance (much of which I spent lugging and laying huge slate stones for an outdoor walkway in the men’s area — literally ‘making a path,’ hehe), I reported for kitchen duty for the next 10-day course, along with a dozen brand-new volunteers. During introductions, we were told that since the position of kitchen manager involves a lot of intense responsibility, the job would be split, 5 days apiece, between two people: Anjel, a long-term server; and Natalia, who had run the kitchen when I served at the end of February. Okay, cool.
Less than 24 hours later, Natalia and Anjel have both backed out. And guess who is named the new, sole kitchen manager? That’s right, the only one who doesn’t speak Spanish. Yo.
Popping up during a quick visit to Barcelona; heading back to Dhamma Neru meditation center tomorrow.
Today, in an email, I sent this story to a friend, paraphrased from one of Goenka’s lectures in the ten-day course I sat in February. I think it’s adorable and useful, particularly for the overanalyzers among us, so I thought I’d share.
There is a poor, old boatman who is working on a passenger ship. On one voyage, the ship carries a very distinguished scholar and professor — one of the most famous in the world. A whole alphapet of degrees following his last name. And the old boatman is curious to learn from this great man, so every night he comes to his cabin and the professor offers him dazzling lectures on all kinds of fascinating subjects.
Kloncke 
