As promised I finally manage to sit down and write
an e-mail to give few news on my whereabouts.
I’m currently in Rome, in Leo’s house.
10 DAYS MEDITATION:
I left Venice the 26 of September and I went to the
meditation course to learn the Vipassana technique:
MY DAY AND FEELINGS THERE:
As you all know I had to keep in silence for 10
days, couldn’t talk, smoke, use phones or computers.
Initially I thought it would have been super hard
for me, but it turned out to be one of the easiest things I ever did.
They assigned me a volunteer, her name is Christel
(or whatever the way you spell this name); I spent the first 4/5 days of the
meditation singing in my head a childhood song about crystal-ball (a kind of
game); she helped me the first day to learn how to go from the meditation hall
(on the top of a hill), to the dining room, to the bedrooms (3 different
buildings). But it took me really no time to learn to move around. Then I
learned to go to a “circular” path where we could walk to move a bit after long
sitting hours. It was so funny for me, I was walking everywhere with my blind
stick (never used my cane as much as in those 10 days); the path was very
narrow and there was a cliff, so I knew everyone was scared to see me walking
up there, but they couldn’t talk to me, and I was loving it! Hahahaha! I kept
on thinking we were all little cars, sort of bumper cars, and I had to avoid
the other cars while walking with the stick, so I kept on smiling and laughing
to myself! I was running up and down the corridors, as I can do! Only later on
when they could talk, they started calling me “tank”! J I was bumping into people, hitting them (by mistake obviously...);
one of the rules was no sunbathing, but it was sunny and I couldn’t resist
so... I kept on sitting in the sun and trying to catch the sun with my face. Of
course I could feel people looking at me, and that made me laugh even more!
So while the majority of people felt sad, were
aching from sitting for too long or for their mental difficulties, I kept on
smiling and singing happy songs. I even went to the facilitator to ask if I was
doing something wrong... but she reassured me: you are doing well, don’t worry,
stay as you are!
SCHEDULE OF THE DAY
We were waking up at 4, at 4,30 the meditation
started till 6,30; from 6 till 6,30 there were some “songs”; the guru was
singing some Pali songs (old Indian language), but to me it sounded more like a
belsh, someone ranting than a real song; in theory the idea was to stimulate
vibration inside you... buh! The biggest difficulty I encountered was with the
guru (by the way, his voice was recorded and they played his recordings in
English and then the Italian translation). I actually had to go to the teacher
and tell her: “I can’t stand this man, he is driving me crazy; he keeps on talking
about this technique as something which is not a religion, which is not
imposing anything, but I feel extremely patronised, I feel like smashing the
speaker of the stereo!” After venting my frustration things got better and I
decided he was free to belsh and sing in whatever way he wanted, and I was free
to ignore him.
At 6,30
we had breakfast; at 8 the meditation started till 9 (this hour was obligatory,
we had to be in the meditation hall, for other session we could meditate also
in our rooms... which for me would have meant: SLEEP J).
From 9 till 11 again meditation, either room or
hall; from 11 till 1, lunch and eventually we had 5 minutes each to talk to the
facilitator; from 1 to 2,20 meditation (room or hall); 2,30 till 3,30 group
meditation in the hall; 3,30 meditation either in the room or the hall; 5: tea
break; the new students (first time) could eat some fruit and drink tea; the
old students could only drink ginger and lemon tea; at 6 obligatory group
meditation; from 7 to 8,30 discourse from the guru (they told us: new students
must listen to the discourses in their own mother tongue... of course... little
rebel here went and listened to the discourses in English); from 8,30 till 9,15
more meditation, then... sleep!
TEACHING:
The meditation course started with a discourse
where the guru said: “smiling is the art of living”! I couldn’t agree more and
feel more in tune with him!
I will only summarise here some of the things that I
found more important and that stuck to my mind and helped me through these 10
days:
LIFE IS MISERY, IS FULL OF MISERY; when we are
borne we have no choice but cry to ask for food, to be helped, we have no other
means but to cry. It seems all we can do is to run towards death. We have to
accept this reality without getting angry, frustrated, without hating it. We
just have to learn to accept whatever happens, feel the sensations of our body
and know that “THIS WILL ALSO CHANGE”; everything changes, nothing ever stays
the same. During another course I did few months back I learned something the aborigines
always say or said: “everything is just a temporary node in a process of flow”:
and I loved this saying too! One of the main concepts of Vipassana is:
“universal law of impermanence”, which again goes back to “THIS WILL ALSO
CHANGE”; nothing ever stays the same, ever! So one of the most important things
is to understand and realise that even if something goes wrong today; if
someone willingly or unwillingly hurts you, there is no reason why you should
keep the grudge; let it go, situations keep on changing, feelings keep on
changing, life keep on changing! Every moment, everything is nothing more than
an ARISING AND PASSING AWAY”. And what I loved the most, or one of the things I
loved the most: “god is love, compassion, being there for others, smiling,
accepting; praying, calling god’s name, going to church, temples etc... why
would a God ever care about this? What difference would that make to any God!
AFTER
The last day of my staying at the Vipassana centre I
could talk to the other participants who kept on looking at me for 9 days, but I
had no clue who they were! Obviously they had lots of questions for me! And
there... I realised there was a person I knew, I normally never thought about
this guy, but during those 10 days he came so often into my mind, I wondered
why... well, he was there! And many other similar things happened: being
detached from the normal daily life, computers, little stupid things that make
you angry, sorry, frustrated... frees your mind and you can be much more
connected to what really matters: YOURSELF!
I had no cravings for cigarettes, and I’m still
good without smoking; I like smoking so I decided not to give up completely
(hope I won’t regret this decision), but I decided to smoke 2/3 cigarettes per
day and keep it for social occasions! I can’t say these 10 days changed my
life, but they surely did me good and I’m super happy to know that silence after
all didn’t scare me (I realised though that in Dublin I spent big part of my
day alone and in silence, so this was nothing new); addictions are often
nothing more than our dependency on a sensation rather than a real physical
addiction; that communication is possible also without talking and seeing, as
long as there is the will to communicate and understand each other!!
NEXT MOVE
After the Vipassana I went to Florence for a day,
after that to Rome where I met up with an old friend, then I went to the sea
side to meet a guy who works in permaculture and plants vegetable on his
balcony; I learned lots of things about seeds, how to plant things... we also
went to the beach and I went swimming.... well I can’t swim, but the 11 of
October I was in the sea! Brilliant.
Now I’m in Rome and... In the next couple of days I
will move toward Umbria where another guys is planning to set up an ecovillage
and I will help him with the developing of the
projects, maybe some fundraising ideas; some ideas... some more experience!
Well, here you go, this is all for now! Hope you
are all keeping well, enjoying whatever you are doing and feeling good with
yourself and your fellow sheeple!
Real love, real harmony, real peace, real happiness
to you all!
Genny
Here it's where it all started: 24/28 March 2012
Here is a short documentary
(home made) about permaculture,
unfortunately only in italian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8_n7EF970list=UUXjpge5Cu4oEI64k3FK_XRw&index=1feature
unfortunately only in italian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8_n7EF970list=UUXjpge5Cu4oEI64k3FK_XRw&index=1feature
Ps: I’m sure some of you will be laughing at this post, thinking I’m crazy, naive, hippy... but I couldn’t care less about what
whoever is thinking: I’m who I am, happy to be the way I am, as long as my
smile stays in and with me, so take the piss as much as you want! :p
No comments:
Post a Comment