back from the other side

Well it has been a while since I have written, catching up with myself after New Year. Having said goodbye to close friends and lovers for a while I headed for Sydney for a few days before disappearing on another retreat for 6 days.

I went to Sydney last time I was here; staying in the rather lovely if not slightly pretentious Bondi. This time a friend from the Dharma gathering Simon invited me to stay in his pad he shared with his flatmate Rose and the old handsome dog Aslan in Glebe; a bohemian suburb close to the city. I had an amazing four poster bed for 4 days which I spent mostly catching up with sleep from the upside-down love story I had found myself involved in the previous week. It should be mentioned that the apartment was part of a large table shop and overlooked it from the inside. It had great furniture in and Simon and Rose were the most lovely hosts. Needless to say I returned after my retreat and behaved myself to such an extent I have even been invited back.

On the 16th of Jan I took myself, my busy mind and heart to a silent retreat setting in Kootumba, next to the Blue Mountains, 2 hours inland from Sydney. The Blue Mountains are very lovely. Beautiful, stunning, peaceful, epic, touristy in the day, deserted in the evening. While I was meant to be meditating, watching the breath and walking mindfully at times I could be found joyfully trotting round the mountain paths like a true antipodean goat. It was blissful, with sunsets and sunrises (missed them mostly) to die for.

So, the retreat was unique also. It was lead by two Sri-Lankan monks and I joined on day 14 of a 20 day retreat. Most of my 12 colleagues had been quiet for the best part of that time although there was a sharing session every other day after lunch and a service with some pali chanting in the morning and evenings. As ever I found the experience a challenge. When I cut out the chitchat I tend to notice how busy and chatty the mind is without even having another to share with. The peaceful setting, sitting observing the breath and generally slowing down does, eventually, calm the mind down and there were some moments of real peace. They were sparodic and if I am honest I only really started to touch the ground of my being by the very end on the six days by which time I was planning my exit strategy and itching to check my emails! However, it is and was worth it. I read and started to understand an inspiring and very accessible book by Tich Knat Hanh, ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings’ and I am afraid David Copperfield lay untouched still wadding through on page 460.

The main joy of the retreat, aside from the mountains and the brief interludes of real peace, was the food. The area seems to host a plethora of Sri-Lankan families who take it in turns to offer dana (donations or offerings) to the monks in the form of a meal every lunch time (a tradition they would have practiced too in Sri-Lanka). As a result us lucky ones also got gorgeous and tasty vegetarian Sri-Lankan food every lunch time where the whole family, elders and kids included, would come and prepare and set up this feast. It was like being back in South India again except I did not feel free enough to eat with my hands (as the monks did). The food, the peace, the relentless mosquitos and the deepening of my understanding were the main joys I took from that time. I have pretty much not shut up though ever since!

On returning back to Sydney I had been in two minds on where to stay and try and get some work and somewhere to live. The peace clarified some of this so I returned to Sydney for 3 days before heading to Melbourne to set up for a while, via Canberra and a visit to Amy and Adam. I had a real blast in Sydney. Katy (a friend from London) is there, Keith whom I travelled with also is now there and we partied (I had at least one tequila and a glass of wine!). The Sydney festival was just finishing up and Keith suggested we visit the ‘Speigel tent’ whom he had seen in Brighton, which was hosting a human circus/caberet show called ‘La Clique’. To cut a longer story short we went after hours to this beautiful mirrored 1930’s circus-like tent to hear the music and dance a little. While there I recognised a woman who looked very similar to my mate Naomi’s cousin Amy who is a sword swollower in the circus…..I stalked her a bit and then when she went to leave ran after her and eyeballed her (looked her in the eye not poke her eye out!). So, it was her, it is a small world, and I did get two free tickets to the show the next night which was great fun and a real adventure. Very strange the people you bump into 12,000 miles away!

Having left the whirlwind beauty of Sydney and the beautiful souls of Simon and Rose I left for the 4 hour train trip to the nations capitol, the home of parliament and where all the great decisions are made – Canberra – Australia’s equivalent of Milton Keynes! Wow, it was an experience. Amy wanted me to change her name here so instead of Amy and Adam I will refer to them as Shelia and Bruce.

So I went to stay with Shelia who is being the dutiful wife to Bruce while he completes his PhD in the nations capitol. I have known Shelia for 20 years now and we are old and comfortable friends. I was going to the nations capitol to see Shelia so it did not matter what Milton Keyes was really like. And this is true but…How do people live there????? Ok, I am a snob, I have seen and lived in beautiful places and Wood Green is not one of them but at least it has some personality. I felt like Lyra did (from the Pullman Trilogy) when she enters the land of the dead and all the harpies are trying to steal her and Will’s soul….anyway – you get the picture.

When people describe the cities in Australia they often describe them as ‘big country towns’. Bar Melbourne and Sydney I have heard this description for every major urban capital from Adelaide to Brisbane. Canberra is no exception. This ‘big country town’, however was not allowed to spring up organically but was created as a solution to the feud between Sydney and Melbourne as to who should be the nations capital. It is bit like deciding between Glasgow and Edinburgh and finding the solution in Motherwell. It just doesn’t really work! Don’t get me wrong. Shelia and I had a great time. We tried to go camping and she brought the broken tent but we went for a lovely walk and surveyed the parched landscape. We went for a swim in the local pool and a nice meal out; I watched lots of the episodes of Extras.....

To be continued - now in Melbourne

Inspired on the retreat:
On being a Bu…..

It’s so easy to be a jewdhist
So many of us about
Disillusioned with Yahweh
We turned east to
Explore our doubt

To seek the truth of our
Neurosis and to be at peace
With our pain
Yes life is truly suffering
(it’s not just our mothers fault)
And nothing is permanent
That’s what Rabbi Buddha taught

You see for the Buddha there was suffering
We know that from the start but there was
The end to it also
His teachings take us to our heart

Us Bu-jews like the end of
Suffering and we like that
The way out is a path
With eight-folds and it’s noble too
He described his teaching as a raft

So neurosis too is impermanent
Someone should really tell my dad!
But we need to work on observing it
When we feel happy, at peace or
Just plain sad
As all these states, they come and go
And that is the real
Truth
Perhaps if you look more closely
At Genesis to Exodus
You will find what I found in
Ruth

It’s true dad. This shit really works
This Bu-jism has lots to say
To mediate, to sit and watch
I perhaps similar as it is to pray?
Except that is the for the lack of
‘God’
Or that Buddha is within
But, (aside from that)
The Torah is the Dharma
And the Sangha represents our kin

So all religions that have this stuff
In common like…
The teacher, the teaching and the
Necessity of a group of friends
The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha
The ‘3 jewels’ at which the teaching starts
And ends

So it’s ok to be Bu-jew
To be curly and meditate
To obsess about small details
To sit and watch and wait til that thought and feeling pass me
and I do not jump up to their ‘truth’
as insight or ‘vipassana’
demand a more subtle type of sleuth

A Yiddish detective of the frum kind who is dedicated and sits in silence sometimes
Who is keen to investigate the nature of life and who loves to make things rhyme
With no reason but for growing real peace within, opening to love and joy and compassion
With balance and poise this spiritual sleuth will show that
Mediation cushions, incense and shawls
Will soon be all the fashion!

wild at woodford

Back from woodford with a bang
Or two
Heading back down south to
Retreat from view

Read poems, ate chocolate
Smoked pipes and drank wine
Making friends out of strangers
Enjoying our time

Keith (curly man) and I argued
And laughed and argued again
Yet a genuine friendship
Was formed in the end
He now returns to Brisbane to stay with
Hedi and Shane (see above)
And once again Australia has welcomed
With sunshine and love

So alone again, well almost...
I revisit old friends
Travelling south towards Sydney
Who knows where I will end
But upbeat, if not reflective,
The year starts in true
And I welcome experience,
Recupperation
The ever changing
View

Missing friends and family
Yet with no desire to return
I hope to attract what is
Right for me
Perhaps
Not necessarily
The same as
I yearn