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.

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.

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.

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.