10th Dec '08 - Auschwitz

5am -

Yesterday took the bus to Auschwitz and took a guided tour. 330 000 Jews from England were designated to be killed by the Nazis, once they took that land. The list was on display showing where the eleven million Jews they planned to exterminate came from. It was all terrible. 400 000 official prisoners at Auschwitz and Birkenau. 200 000 died there, often recorded as from natural causes. Though many unregistered were also killed. For example, at Birkenau they were sorted straight from the train. Those who were fit to work (approx 25%) and those who went straight to the chambers of death. 1.1 million Jews and a total of 1.6 million people were killed at these camps. There was a wall at which bullets were put in the back of prisoners heads, with pistols... the wall of death. Too much to write about. Hair and teeth removed from the dead. Hair for textiles. Shoes, clothes, suit cases, utensils, piled up ready for export.

The development of it all. First the Polish elite were prisoners at Auschwitz. Remove the identity of the people. It was on 20th Jan 1942 that the "final solution" for the Jews was decided upon. 1940 they planned on shipping them to Madagascar. 1941 to Siberia. Extermination was easier. 1944 seemed to be the most efficient time of the killing, particularly of Hungarian Jews - off the train in Birkenau and sorted like cattle. Going to the gas-chambers not fearful of what awaited them. They were being given new land to live on. First they needed to be disinfected/showered etc. Naked they went into the rooms, where shower nozzles hung and motors ran outside to drown out any noise of those before being killed.

The death was an internal asphyxiation, the gas preventing the passage of oxygen (I think) from the lungs to the blood, or the blood onwards. Twenty-three minutes all in the chamber would be dead. After thirty minutes they opened the doors.

Bikenau, purpose built (Auschwitz was an old Polish army barracks), had sections for women, Jews, Gypsies etc Triangles showed your reason for condemnation. I remember pink was for homosexuals, two triangles forming the star of David for Jews, and another for those of the resistance...

One hundred and forty-four prisoners escaped in total, out of about eight hundred who attempted. Those that made it, by being out of the camp working, or stealing an SS uniform, helped get the news out about what was happening. If prisoners escaped others were punished, not just those who aided the act.

Most prisoners of war could not be taken to places like Auschwitz and Birkenau because their motherlands had signed the Geneva convention. They went to other camps. Colditz, for example. However, the Russians had not signed this convention and I believe three million of their captives were killed (or is that the total number of Russian soldiers that died during this war?). They were the only soldiers at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Well, I cannot get emotionally involved with it all. Horrible. Shocking. But a part of what humans do... perform a task and shut out the affect on others. It goes on now in different guises. The Americans go to war in Iraq and (whether for "greater good" motives or not) the commanders shut out the killing and pain they have to cause. Oil companies side with Burmese Generals to get a contract, somewhat supporting the regime and its ruthless government. They say if they didn't less scrupulous companies would be in the country. My point is that in life many a blind-eye is turned and that these atrocities were more concentrated examples. I'm not saying oil companies shouldn't be in Burma (not for oil though!)... I'm largely ignorant...

8th Dec '08 - Catholic Kindness

740am - Wandered Krakow and got bored yesterday. But found Empik. Great bookshop with a coffee shop. Bought Haruki Murakami's After Dark, which I enjoyed reading over two large lattes... whiling the time away.

Two young women sat on the same counter, a little down and opposite me. Finally I plucked up the courage to speak a little with them. One had sensuous lips and wanted to engage with me. She spoke good English. They were, perhaps, young nineteen year olds.

Later, I went to Kitsch to look for some night-life. It was dingy, liberal, air of the night type of place. But few people. All these bars and clubs but little activity, other than I'm told at the weekend. Some lesbians fondled each other and danced, between bouts on the sofa. A couple pairs of girls danced, heterosexual looking and classy. A few guys sat or stood.

Walking back to my bed I was met by some Norwegian guys looking for somewhere to go. I took them to Carpe Diem Klub and we danced a little. Krakow has some great and confident young dancing folk. But I ended going back to bed feeling despondent.


330pm - Hitched a ride from a woman called Annetta, who I'd met at breakfast, and a guy called Paul, to the Salt mines. A nice day. Good to be in the company of wholesome people. The old time religion in me does spark a connection with "godly" people. They were devout Catholics.

At the salt mines the English speaking tour guide was incredibly adept in his role. After the tour of two and a half hours and another hour tour of the museum I sat outside and he came out to smoke and we chatted a little. Pleasant and decent chap.

Annetta and Paul dropped me off to get a minibus back to Krakow, as they were going to see a shrine.

"What more happiness can a man have than to be healthy, debt free, and with a clear conscience?" - Adam Smith

7th Dec '08 - Memories and musing

4am - Up again before the crack of dawn. The disco beats have finally stopped and the young drunks ended their shouts. In the corridor one lad is sleeping with his bottle. And I'm listening to snores of my fellow dorm occupants. It smells rough in here - all men!

The fear up on the snow yesterday made me look to "God" and wonder why I want danger. It was a glorious view and exhilarating but I thought, "I want to live". My heart went upwards. And all my foolish pretence of knowledge was insignificant.

Back in town, Damien Rice on my MP3 bringing me in the last few miles, I felt good. The happy tourists to look at. Almost all Polish. Healthy women in their shiny boots - high-heeled power symbols but practical in cold Poland. Some dancers in a shop window, advertising Puma and trying to seduce costumers. I sat in the low afternoon sun before walking up the street and settling on a bar to spend a few hours. Time to drink 19zl worth of Zywiec, yet again the foreigner without the wonderful hospitality of Asia that I've come to expect when I travel.

Many memories come to mind on this lonely holiday... of Aon, Fon, Dad and much more. My sins and failings and longings and happy times. Glorious memories, some.

Read some more of Suzuki's informal talks on Zen while I was drinking in the afternoon. Never quite seems to add-up. Sitting in the correct position is enlightenment, or Buddha mind. Well, I suppose I can kinda grasp it. The focus required means that to do it right brings you in that state - to be one-hundred percent doing something. Wonderful! To be lost in a moment, a task. I like that. Though Buddhism requires faith in it's karmic rebirths and what not. The practice of presence of mind, Buddha mind, if that's the same thing, seems blessed. I love the calm acceptance of it - the joy and resignation.


10am - On the bus, soon to depart for Krakow. The snow falling gently passed my eyes and onto the wet ground. It settles in parts. Branches, roofs, crooks and crannies, car windows. An artist walked with me from the hostel on his way to get coffee. He shook my hand heartily as I walked onto the station. Calm pleasant morning. Looking forward to the city.

6th Dec '08 - Mount Geiwont

330 am -

The sailing instructor came in drunk and talking of Polish people... "So many people around me, they don't understand... only one hundred and fifty bears... ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!!!... ****ing Polish people... our country is dying... they don't care about rubbish... I'm smelly, I know, but I don't care..." and he rambled on.


5pm -

Got out on the mountains (Geiwont), up to the snow line and beyond, to where it came up to my waist and I was fearful of an avalanche, as the sign had warned me. I didn't give into fear until sense told me too... sloping deep snow and me taking hold of the tops of buried bushes. I'd pushed myself upwards for two and a quarter hours of serious exertion.

Sat in the high snow and drank lemon tea and ate bread rolls, a doughnut, on top of the lion bar on the way up. Well stocked with carbs. At my acme I looked out and smoked. Beautiful, glorious, alpine scenery. I felt good stomping back into town, exhausted but having achieved something.

5th Dec '08 - Life's Canvas

4pm -

Whiled away the day, watching the mountains and the people. Reading Kerouac's Big Sur - the madman he. It's an advert to warn against the dangers of prolonged drinking - days on end.

Then I moved to Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Suzuki. I liked the idea of the waterfall... the separated droplets will join again with the body of water at the bottom.

Death will be the end of suffering. But while alive use the time. For no purpose other than experience, which will vanish away, memories and all. It's not that anything is gained or not. The insignificance of life... it's a blip, a twitch. We all reach nirvana whether we try or not.

I'll live now. Use the moment, the canvass. The paint dries. The sun sets. The river doesn't think. Lao Tzu my teacher.

A dred-l0ck beard baldy once told me that the enlightened monk leaves the monastery.

In the end back with the mother waters and the twinkling of the stars and the slurping of the deer at the rivers edge. We will be the river, the deer, the slurp.


8pm -

A blue whirlwind had started up spinning in Deeds Grove front room and Jert was nonchalantly doing something... "Look Jert a ****ing whirlwind"... and I woke up to the wind howling outside.

5th Dec '08 - Hiker's Haiku

530am-

Got some kip and write now in darkness, with my blue mini torch, feeling coldified. Me thinks not much walking today. Yesterday the acme was reached of my altitude seeking view lust. Got up Krapowy in the double legged cable-car, along with the throngs (and thongs), up to 1900 metres plus, and walked out across the snow, laughing at the sight of the mountain peaks, snow covered range of the Tatras, looking out to Slovakia, seeking mount Ryssy, the highest in Poland at 2400 metres but not sure for definite which one it was, and getting up on a rock and then down in a wind-shielded groove looking out alone, me and the sun reflecting snow and jet crossed sky. I did some standing and staring and wandering and went into the restaurant for coffee and french fries. Two hours up there and then down to Kuznice. From there I went along the track I'd done my first day here but in the opposite direction. I planned to go further but the aching and fatigue grew until I thought the two hours hard pounding, feet and foot hold picking walk was enough.

I'm now in a hostel. Two guys are in my dorm. One speaks good English and arrived about 9pm last night, a little drunk and talking of wanting to climb Giewont and of his art... he wants to draw the scene of a fish swimming up river, jumping, but exchange them for bottles, refuse etc. He said he's here for the winter.


Haiku by Natsume Soseki

Morning chill
Evening chill
Human warmth

Morning chill
Evening chill
Alone I travel

No sake
No poem
Silence of the moon!

Small amount of sake
Remains in the bottle:
Chill of the night.

Family and world left behind,
No-mindedness myself: nevertheless
This severe blizzard!



1140am-


Cappuccino Massimo

Gosh, it's hard
Easing my way through Cappuccino Massimo
Double Handled
Kerouac's gloom mingling and dancing with mine
Swirls on the eyes from the written word
Outside's cold
I'm lonely
My sick body may not want the booze medecine

4th Dec - Naked Skies

4am -

Slept one-thirty till eight in the evening yesterday, before finding a slow drawn Murphy's stout, in the lonely self-conscious bar, followed by McDonald's (all the while looking on the screen at cocoa Rihanna and her ilk... beauties, temptresses... moulds of art!). On to Prestige Music Bar. Techno. Lost in my tabled partition, with expensive JD and coke and then a pint of Lech. All the while trying to overcome. Angry, self-interested, cold. Hungry for sex and touch and love. Without direction... all the others have been here before. Too many stories. Too many people. You in your own backyard... unknown.

Slept again from midnight till two. So up to read Kerouac and stand naked on the veranda, looking down on the town and up to the clear skies now ("I might be able to get up the mountains later"). Down on my bed to write and hope words formulate and that I grow child-like and tender and that one day I help the beggar or give glory to something, someone. Reasons reasons. And I think I don't need reasons. Only strength of body and mind to climb and sing and get drunk and caress. To sink down one day with thoughts of my beloveds. And our memories.

Memories of bike rides through the jungles back from Burma, talking to Long Necks and surveying smouldering vegetations, the smoke rising with the hot air and Bob my brother waxing lyrical. Hysterical laugher. Explorers. Bikers, in the warm muddy air. Hard as Fuke. Or out on the east stretching Himalayas, with my buddy of a week or so, getting high in the good air. True sages of the moment because everything was concentrated down to walking, breathing, surveying. Onwards. Zen.

4pm-

Got up the old mountain and a walk around. Then a sit in McDonalds perusing Zen Haiku by Soseki. Oh aching legs, feet, back, and brain. Feeling better though.

2nd Dec '08 (715pm) - Mountain Joy

On the factory hill, overlooking Slate House I seem to have an abode... door like the double glazed balcony one I have now. A car is being parked by what seems a push on the slippery ice ground (not driven). It slips down the hill and into the cars parked at Slate House, though the drive is the one from Deeds Grove. A new curvaceous lady car, sporty and pink, is hit among others (it's Hazel's). Hazel, Rachel and I are at the top of the hill, outside my door, and I put my arms around them, one over each of their shoulders, as we crouch and take it in. At least I'm getting R.E.M. sleep.

I did a five hour walk today, up into the snowy mountains, along mostly National Park tracks or those imprinted in the snow by those before me. In a valley between two bluffs the wind picked up and the dry snow was whipped up like sand in a desert storm and I turned my back to its force. Then when the gusts died down I trudged a path up in some parts up to my knees and I laughed at the joy of feeling like a mountaineer in the austere conditions. I turned around because visibility was poor higher up and I wasn't sure of changing conditions at, I'm guessing, 1300 metres plus. Made the walk back down to Zakapane at 800 metres plus.

In town I bought a pork steak in toasted bread, with salad, and Polish beer, sitting near the crackling open fire... pop pip fzzz... I read some of Kerouac's Big Sur and listened to Gypsy sounding music from the speakers. I was trying to not look overcome with tiredness, haggard face and eyes. Bleary drunken stair. Tiresome. Lonesome. Satisfied. It was a good walk.

2nd Dec '08 - Zakapane Stars

The bearers of the "pojke" signs at Zakapane train station didn't get too much of my attention. I'm used to walking away from those reception areas when in Asia. I regretted this, because the hostel I walked to was shut. Around the streets again, in the fine fecund rain, and my weighty old clothes making my pack sore. The old vagabond me. A thin brown haired woman in tight jeans responded to my query of where I might find a hostel, with pointing me in the direction of the Panorama Hotel. "Up by the blue lights on the slope a little." She phoned them and I trudged on. The receptionist barely spoke with me. She took my passport and gave me a key, wrote down the price and the time for breakfast, and rushed off. I went to follow but then realized no... I was to find my own way... or was she about to come back... After some pausing I climbed the stairs, passed some friendly young Polish guys who after my "Hi" asked me what I was looking for. "My room", I replied with a sarcastic smile.

Out in the rain I found a small supermarket and bought crisps, chocolate wafer and water. Sickened by the food I went in for some more grease at MacDonald's on the main paved street. A guy came in asking for money or food, in Polish. After he'd sat with me a while I offered the remains of my fries. He turned them down. My impression was that he wanted fresh, untouched food, or just wanted money for drink. A guy on a table a little way off ordered some food and gave it to him. The beggar said something to me but I kept my eyes on the TV screen hung from the roof. I thought it was a rebuke from him.

I'm quite hardened. How can I draw a line of where I should start or stop charity? If I'm going to give shouldn't I give everything away that's superfluous? Don't travel. Work, eat, sleep and give the rest away. Because I'm not doing that guess I'm quite the conservative. This is old hat talk anyway. I hope my giving will start one day. Wealth creates wealth. Clearly better to give from such a standing, rather than to create one's own poverty too, I justified.

I had a pint in two different bars. There weren't many people about. Lonesome. In the second one a drunk woman spoke to me in English. She'd been in London eight years ago. Did I want to buy her a shot so that she could continue speaking English with me? I sputtered some some words of "I'm only finishing this pint and then going" and in my embarrassment was strengthened to further say no when I looked up to see the friendly faced female bar tender shaking her head slowly. When the woman who called herself a clown left, after telling me to try different Polish drinks, including honeyed tea and that she'd be back at 7pm tomorrow, the others laughed together and the woman behind the bar said, "Now you know everything about Poland". I laughed with her and the other three people in this tiny kitchen sized bar, including the woman who moved to sit away from where I'd taken my place. I guess she didn't want to be seen sitting next to a single man or was just being utterly honest about not wanting male attention. I respected that. I listened to the music wired from an MP3 player to the speakers and drank my medicine in silence, looking at the glimmering glasses and alcohol bottles that became art for me in their little alcoves and me in mine, trying to break out.

Six in the morning and I haven't slept apart from the two hours between 12 and 2am. Bearing up under the onslaught of negative thoughts. One thing I know... my passion and love for China and Thailand and the other oriental countries I plan to visit is strong. Beautiful people, fiery food, vehement vistas. It's where my hearts at when I work in England and even now during this pain inflicting holiday, which will add to me.

I looked at the stars over the last hours and saw familiar Orion and recognizable patterns. They comforted me...

Poland - 1st Dec '08

Yesterday I stepped out into the blackness and walked the thrilling walk, backpack looking for its rightful resting place after nearly a year under the bed, to the train station. I thought I was better than the few I passed that morning. A few teenagers walking home. A cleaner on his drive around the paved undercover streets.

The flight touched down at Balice airport, eleven kilometres outside of Krakow centre, to applause. It had been a rocky descent. The English speaker on the microphone said, "No need for applause, I do this everyday". A nice joke from the steward who had earlier jovially danced with a female passenger, as he helped her to stow away her hand luggage.

I walked with my heavy backpack for over an hour, looking for a hostel. It had been easy finding the market square but I intended to find one a little cheaper further out. I gave up and found a lovely one, with an equally lovely receptionist, on the corner of the old town square. Tired I decided to push myself and walked the streets, beer in hand. On my second can a car pulled up and some young guys spoke to me in Polish. When I said I only spoke English they told me to come over and one jumped out. They were policemen.

"You are not allowed to drink oouside of the restaurant"

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know"

"Fine... you give fine... one hundred... you have?"

"No, I don't have", I looked subservient and chastened.

"I'll put it in the bin", I said, and unsure if he'd let me get away with it walked towards my redemptive vessell ten metres away. I wandered without looking back.

I drank in the Carpe Diem Klub, where Harleys hung from the ceiling and were parked on tables. The youngsters danced jive and rock'n'roll, like it was a long standing trend in these parts. They were great. I thought it hard for me to carpe diem on my first night and wandered to another basement club.

I sat at the bar and watched the two young female tenders chat with the young couple sitting at the bar. The girl looked into my eyes, demonstrating to the tender the point at which an erotic photo on the wall had been taken in relation to the body, putting her hand up to her breast and turning her body. Drunkenly looking into her eyes at that moment, she took my gaze, looking back and pausing a little as she spoke.

Touch - 24th Nov '08

Sometimes I just want to be. Why push myself out of that slumber... that cozy slumber. Always, my biggest longing... a hug! Will this loss last forever? I want the love of my mother and brothers and sisters... and for intimacy a lover.

Oh messed up racing mind
It seems I chose to be alone
Heaven is a sound mind
I can't untangle it all
Pointless words... where is touch?

Woman - 22nd Nov '08

The reward of home and early morning stillness, after a night on the road. My thoughts are on the pert breasts of a woman. Her open legs for me. It's been a while - her wetness my sucker. These are the ecstacies of heaven. The working or battling man's comfort... when she chooses to give her femininity. Cuts my toe-nails on the floor in a room in Chiang Mai. Washes my hair and scrubs my back. I do the same for her, turning and smoothing her fruit. We kiss as the water cascades. "Do my hair one more time", she confidently says, handing me the shampoo. I love her close skin and the water. We go outside, then, on the veranda, share a nicotine fix. We're both happy at that moment. I feel like I've found enlightenment. A smiling Zen monk, caught by the glint in your eye... and your tenderness... woman... I love that word... WOMAN.

Russian Relatives - 16th Nov '08

While playing Absolute Balderdash this afternoon, Mum told me the following;

During the Russian revolution the father of her Gran's husband fled and bought a house on Jersey, called Lashasse House (?). At a later date this place took in unmarried mothers (some kind of workhouse?). The son - Mums grans husband - frightened of the Russians, changed his name from Sweitoslovsky (?) to Ward. The former name related to the Russian ancestry (though there was once a photo of the family in Poland). He was a taylor and had nine children with Mum's gran.

Mr Ward was afraid to leave his house and would get his children to deliver his tayloring. One day none were available and so he left his refuge and at some point, through nerves and a weak constitution perhaps, collapsed and ended up in hospital. On coming to consciousness he feared he'd been captured by the Russians and had a heart attack, and died.

Mad Uncle Ted (?), who got himself discharged from the army by feigning insanity (he faked hanging attempts on repeated occasions until they decided he was a liability) spent a few years, in his later life, researching this history and the fortune supposedly attached to it. Somewhere there may be some unclaimed wealth. Mum isn't sure where his research ended up after he died.

There was a fear and hence a desire to cover things up in the past, because Russian powers could reach beyond boarders and apparently some felt that the Sweitoslovsky history would make them a target.

Li Bai and Sogdians - 9th Nov '08

The moonlight through the window
I thought it was frost on the floor
I looked up at the moon, then lowered my head
remembering my home town

Li Bai


The path to Sichuan was hard
Harder than climbing up to heaven

Li Bai


'Regarding the land of Samarkand and the inhabitants, the Sogdians, the Tang Annals say, "Mothers give their infants sugar to eat and put paste on the palms of their hands in the hope that they grow, they talk sweetly and that precious objects will stick to their hands...'

Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud, by Sun Shuyun.

Thoughts - (8th November '08)

A thousand books; a thousand miles... or
read a thousand books; walk a thousand miles.
Like an equation; this Chinese saying.

I'm reading Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud by Sun Shuyun. Her walking in the steps of Xuanzang, the monk who is the inspiration for the tale of the Monkey King.

Rare is birth as a human-being
Hard is the life of mortals
Do not let slip this opportunity.

The Buddha


The crescent moon
hung in the void
Is all that can be seen
in this wild desert
Where the dew crystallizes
on the polished steel
Of swords and breastplates
Many a day will pass
before the men will return

Do not sigh young women
For you would have to sigh too long

unknown (a chinese poem)


From attachment springs grief
From attachment springs fear
For him who is totally free
There is no grief, and where is fear?

From the Dhammapada

Watching One's Life

Cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it - Dylan

I've tried to resign myself, in the Buddhist way, to life and all that comes in this nigh on - or absolutely on - fated life. Sue Blackmore on Radio 3 gave a lecture about our lack of free will, which I obviously agree with. She said this doesn't have to result in negativity if we allow our choices to play themselves out with our Zen minds of consciousness "watching". Enjoy the beauty.

A Jesuit priest psychologist once said we normally don't burn-out from having too much on but from not allowing ourselves to love ourselves. Guilt may be the cause. Tackle this by removing present causes of that regulatory emotion and allowing self-love and healing. What was chosen in the past can't be changed.

hysterical naked

'The best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themsleves through negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix'

Ginsberg

In Tibet, Tibet French quotes this line, which comes from to mind when he thinks of the Tibetans living in Dharamsala, in their weak state... and even weaker when the Dalai Lama dies.

Waxing lyrical - 30th Oct '08

I want the soft skin and sweet breath of a lover.

The reason my happy moments have been in Thailand is because I've had intimacy there. It should be a given in your home country and within your own family. But sometimes I think I lost that around six years old.

Independent lifestyles - not requiring others so much - seems to lesson the value we put on others. I've pretty much surrendered to our psyche being wholly self-centred, self serving, but please don't take away those old good feelings of being valued. Even if, contrary to the moral talkings and delusions of the mind, it's a value of utility.

There I am, being self-centred about wanting to feel those sensations of being valued - that warmth and cushioning. Certain kinds of self-seeking also help the majority and if everything is Self motivated then let the motives that do this prevail.

Now it seems that I am concerned about others, which brings me back to a drunken and stoned conversation I once had with a Russian Canadian girl. I said that my moral framework of Utilitarianism is a tool for personal well-being within my Existentialism. I need to understand these things better.

On Russel Brand's BBC 2 broadcast Oliver Stone, the film director, said that a man normally forms himself in his thirties. That's something I've been feeling.

Two or three nights ago I had a dream in which my brother (Bob) and I were on a hill and then running downwards we came under gun-fire and dived for cover. There were no injuries to us during the scene which continued a little, though I don't remember the details. It seemed to be rural Cornwall with other non-specific people around. It felt like we were in an area occupied by an invading force.

Ah, give me a lover of the mind
Like Ginsberg who wanted to buy things
In the supermarket with his good looks
And send eggs to India

My good buddy who taught me to walk
And shared those days in the mountains
Eating white rice and tomatoes
Drinking white alcohol - Baijiu

We got drunk and danced on the street
I tried to make it with a mountain girl
It didn't work out with her
So we walked the short stumbling walk

Towards the Tibetan farmers house
My buddy fell off the step
Away from the ferocious tied dog
Towards the pig-pen roof... huuuph!

We made our reasons for life
With good people and views we got our highs
Don't let me dwell on the smug
In their machinery... mechanical lives

It's easy real, waywardness, nonchalent zeal
"Cheers!" to the moon and all its happy faces
Upon children playing on the sand
And rum coloured monks of alcoholic breath

The cold air, the glare, the ware and tare
It's alright, we'll get drunk with the clergy

They told me kerouac was a "Mummies boy"
I don't doubt that, I love him for it
Sitting in the porch with the dogs
Mamma's cooking in the brain




POEM

I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bow out
I advise it

And as punishment and reward
for making this plea I know
I'll be reborn
the last human

Everybody else dead and I'm
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats

And sometimes I'll cackle, sometimes
pray, sometimes cry, eat and cook
at my little stove
in the corner

"I always knew it anyway"
I'll say

And one morning won't get up from
my mat

Jack Kerouac (1962)

few heroes - 26th Oct '08

Been reading Tibet, Tibet, by Patrick French. Interesting tales of his travels and the history of the nation.

Longing for the landlord's daughter
Blossoming in youthful beauty
Is like pining for peaches
Ripening on the tall peach trees

The 6th Dalai Lama

He is revered even though he refused to complete his monkhood vows and was a drinker and womaniser, amongst other things.

Tibet was under the emperor of China from 1720, though in name more than actual governance. China helped fund the restoration of the Potala in that century. The Panchen Rimpoche, in one of his incarnations went to Peking and, refusing to bow in obeisance, knelt before the ruler. Neither pleasing himself or the emperor. That was the thirteenth Panchen, I believe.

The British battled their way to Lhasa in 1904, under Colonel Younghusband, to find the embodiment of the government, the Dalai Lama, had fled. It seems they set up camp for the coming years and established good relations with the officials, Lamas and the Dalai himself.

Britain supplied Tibet with some weapons as defense against Sino aggression but never fully recognized them as a sovereign nation, instead using the region as a buffer zone against the Chinese and Russians potentially coming in through Xinjiang, Kham etc towards colonial India. The Simla treaty between the British and the Tibetans, which drew up the McMahon boarder line between India and Tibet, was not signed by China. Therefore leaving controversy to this day.

America also failed Tibet in seeming to support them and their cause, training fighters, only to forget them and this tool for stirring up strife for political gain, after 1972 when Nixon and Mao met. Support for Taiwan also diminished.

It was about politics, pragmatism... not an ethical cause. When it didn't aid British and US interests then the Tibetans were left to their own devices. That's the nature of politics and humanity in general. There are few heroes, sadly.

Looking Towards a Journey - 22nd Oct '08

Happily I now have a notebook to write in that has aesthetic value. So though this one misses out on a few adventures in this land of rain and misery and stress related illness, where my back aches from working in a well paid job - "Costa will cost ya" - and I feel my low esteem...

...I ache after nature, its serenity, honesty and feel anger at petty society and its drives to some optimum opulence, the facade of integrity... if you will kill me, look in my eyes and do it!

My anger may be partly aimed at myself. I've sensed a degree of healing from self-flagellation. To lose at cards and feel, "Yeah, I deserved that!". To feel the biting wind on my Jinlun 125cc motorbike, even the soggy rain. "I will endure... not like the others!".

Hmmm, so is it punishment or a degree of status seeking in the mind? Possibly more the latter. We all need to find our status somewhere, until, perhaps, we find enlightenment in Zen buddhism. I jest a little but I do have a romantic notion of the practice. It is possible to be removed from status seeking, a view of our place in the world, but isn't that non-existence? I guess that is what Buddhism seeks.

To live in the now... 'presence of mind', 'mindfulness', is a very worthy practice. The non-existence will come to us anyway, it seems to me.

Anyhow, I hope to be positive. To glory in nature and existence and phenomena of interest in the following pages - the ideas of one sentient being.

"My brother said to me... 'If you shut your eyes to a frightening sight, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.'" - Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography.

"White crane!
Lend me you wings,
I will not go far..." - 6th Dalai Lama, in Tibet, Tibet, by Patrick French.