Gardens, stories, stillness and more bananas

This morning I went to the garden again and finished a pineapple row. I paced off the length of it and was somewhat dismayed to discover that’s it only about 110 meters long, and not the 200 or 300 meters that I had estimated before. I guess distances are longer when they’re full of weeds. That’s probably a part of the theory of relativity somewhere. Einstein got around to figuring out E = mc² and the special and general theories of relativity, where time, velocity and distance all affect each other. However, he didn’t know about some of the other strange interactions that can happen with distance. For instance, I’ve derived the formula  d = W/cm²  x  (I³/P²)  x  MM/ 2   (That’s distance = weeds per square centimeter times the cube of one’s impatience or irritation level (they are interchangeable) divided by the square of one’s inner peacefulness, times the distance you’d get if you actually measured it with a meter stick while not doing any weeding, divided by 2. I’m not sure why it’s divided by two, but it needed to be divided by something somewhere, and 2 seemed like a good number. As an aside, “I” (for impatience and/or irritation level) is measured in a unit somewhat like the erg, but it’s measured in “irks” instead. The more irked you are, the longer your row to hoe, so to speak. Note that impatience grows faster than peacefulness. However, if peacefulness is larger than impatience or irritation, the quotient becomes less than one and the row actually gets shorter. Doesn’t math always just make things a lot clearer?  J

Anyway, I haven’t been writing as much lately and it’s been a couple of days already since I started this post. Being here is a bit like soaking in a solvent that dissolves stuff that has been accumulated inside and floats it off somewhere. Or maybe it’s like being a jar of turbid water that’s put down on a shelf and left to sit quietly for a while so that the sediment settles and the water is clearer. Or maybe it’s not like either of those things. The point is, I’m feeling my mind quieting a bit and it’s harder to get it focused on computer things. I’m a little bit worried that it’s going to start getting harder to describe the experiences again soon as well.

When I came last time it was like this too. At first it feels kind of like a quiet retreat somewhere. It’s a bit less comfortable than a resort in Cancun or something, but it’s restful and renewing in its own way. As you sink into it more, however, you start to notice changes inside. I should say “I”, maybe. Perhaps other people experience it differently. In any case, thoughts begin to quiet down a bit and there are times when there is more stillness inside. They talk about “letting go” in many ways here, and a lot of this has to do with just not paying attention to or holding onto thoughts and emotions as they pass by. The “solvent” effect helps this along, so that things that used to stick don’t so much anymore. Another image is that we’re all covered in Velcro and through the day all kinds of stuff gets thrown at us that sticks to the Velcro until we’re buried in stuff sticking to us. It feels like the being slowly de-velcroed, so that not only are you not carrying as much stuff, new stuff doesn’t stick as much or as long.

When I used to meditate, I was taught that when we allow the mind to become still and we stop taking in so much new “stuff” then old “stuff” that we’ve stored inside starts to rise to the surface and come out. This is a healthy process, like cleaning the cupboards and sweeping under the stove – or so I’m told. It’s also what happens with good therapy, using Western psychology, or at least with psychotherapeutic and/or body based therapy. The thing is, the mind has many layers and who we are is such a mystery. The longer one is here, the more it feels like the scene in the Matrix where Neo is asked to choose between the blue pill and the red pill. “How deep does the rabbit hole go?” And if you go there, can you talk about it or communicate it in any intelligible way?

So, outside, life goes on as normal. Some monks were welding a support for some solar panels today, everyone is busy getting ready for Khaitin (pronounced like Gateen I think) – a big festival that every monastery holds once a year – the sun comes up and goes down, people sleep and eat and work. Inside, there’s a kind of openness that is growing and more times when I sit and don’t think about anything at all for a moment or two – just kind of feel the world around me. I’ve felt that in the garden mostly, though it’s also so hot working in the sun that people remark about how red my face is and my clothes are soaked with sweat. Part of me sinks into the feeling with a kind of grateful relief, and part of me looks at it suspiciously. A friend wrote in an email the other day about a feeling of “Now I’ve got you exactly where you want me.”  This suspicious part is worried about being too still I think. It is also the part that frets about things and needs to be entertained, or that gets uncomfortable after sitting still and gets up with a list of things that need to be done. It’s useful, but sometimes too insistent.

It’s a kind of Zen Buddhist approach here, where there are lots of paradoxes and things can get topsy turvy. Don’t focus or concentrate, don’t pay attention to the mind and what it does, don’t try to get things done but don’t not try to do anything. You don’t have to do nothing, just don’t try to do something…  Ning described holding on with an example of hands. Generally they are relaxed and open. If you want to pick something up and hold onto it, it takes intention and energy. To keep holding continues to take energy. The same is true of thoughts and emotions. To hold onto them takes energy, but it’s such a habit that we don’t know we’re doing it. We keep holding on and tire or stress ourselves out.

It makes sense. But things have a way of turning inside out all the time – like one of Douglas Adam’s Characters in his book “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish”. This character, “Wonko the Sane” built his house inside out so that the inside walls, furniture and things were on the outside, and the outside walls were on the inside. That way, the world was “inside” his insane asylum house, and he lived outside – which is why he thought he was sane. Everyone else was in the asylum.

And… around and about all of this is the subject of stories. It’s all about stories – the stories on the inside and the stories on the outside. The stories that we tell ourselves so that we can think we understand the world a little bit. The stories that can change as we grow or understand differently, and the stories that we hold onto for dear life because without them we feel lost.  Oh the stories...  J

Tomorrow, I’ve been asked to go and help cut bananas and bring them back here. I’m not sure what that will entail – I assume a bit of hacking with knives and carrying banana bunches while hopefully avoiding large spiders. Guess I’ll see tomorrow…

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Just posting this and will quickly add that the banana cutting turned out to involve lots of driving, a very little bit of cutting and carrying, lots of bumping along on back roads lined with rice fields and rubber tree plantations, and no big spiders.