That original face

i came here to write and now i’m stuck, unable to find the words. Perhaps its because my topic of choice is that which is beyond words. i wish to speak of that reality of dao or the teachings of Ch’an and as such what i wish to convey cannot be spoken of or maybe its just that standard writers block we all may face. Whatever the case may be this is a strange world we live in. I always found it hard to understand whats going on, hard to interact with my fellow travelers in this collective dream of karmic interaction we all seem helplessly trapped within. Until of course i came across that wonderful poetry we call the tao te ching which clearly explains or rather metaphorically points towards the inability to understand anything especially the true nature of reality. Until i learned that Socrates, the first western smart guy who started the whole academic quest for knowledge in the first place, held the idea that he knew absolutely nothing and that everyone else regardless of what they think does not know anything either. Until i began reading of Ch’an and Zen masters who struggled to transmit intuitive experience of spontaneous enlightenment upon their disciples of a mind corrupted by thought. Who all developed various techniques from beatings to shouts to the all mighty paradoxical koan. This made sense i understood this, that i cannot understand. Now how the fuck does that work? i understand that i cannot understand anything, that i know i know absolutely nothing. Nothing makes any sense at all its all nonsense, but i find sense in the nonsense. And that’s where i fall short i’m not in a place of non-understanding, i understand that i don’t understand and therefore i fall just short of the truth. Still stuck in an intellectualization of non-understanding but not actual non-understanding.  How funny is that?

Now the task that falls before me is to express through words that which cannot be expressed through words. How else do i demonstrate an understanding if i cannot communicate said understanding to another. The only tools i have are these very words on a white page that by definition cannot reach the motif i wish to express or demonstrate my understanding thereof. Do i fall into logical paradox or delve into utter nonsense? Neither seem to satisfy my desire fully. It simply cannot be done. Ha! see i did it just there, i can feel accomplished now under the admittance of defeat relinquishing that desire that should never be, for searching accomplishes nothing; there is nothing to seek.

Before enlightenment rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains, during the process of reaching the state defined by that arbitrary word, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. They are illusions, nothing more than concepts created by sensation and then defined by language into rational labels to distinguish one from another. Merely perceptions created by mind. But hey guess what! After enlightenment mountains are in fact mountains and rivers are in fact rivers. It just is what it is there is nothing to it, nothing to seek, nothing to realize, no where to get to, your already there and so am i. We already have everything within. There is no need to move, to run to jump. Just sit and imagine the same experience can be had from within. There is no need to walk out your front door or even open a window. The entire universe can be experienced without moving a muscle. one can experience the movement of a frog by getting on all fours and springing up in that leaping frog pose, or one can simply sit there smoking some ganj and imagine the exact same experience without moving one bit.

Ok sure this may be the case, but that would distinguish movement from non-movement, imagination of experience from actual experience. And almost seemingly mind from body which is utter bullshit, Descartes got that so wrong its not even funny. Especially when you consider the ramifications of such thinking.(i.e. a world of the head, governement, the sit down and shut up teaching method… etc. ) To me there is no and can be no distinction of mind and body they are one in the same. There is nothing to do but dress, eat, poop, relieve water, and sleep when tired. That’s all there is to it and guess what? All of which are bodily functions requiring no thought whatsoever at the command of no-mind.  Dancing has proved this to me and i feel there can be no enlightenment no understanding of dao without the dance-full integration of mind and body. ( i need to invent a new word for this) Dance seems to be at least for myself the only way to integrate flawlessly into the flow, the only way to communicate without words. Watch me and you may understand what i mean. We’ll have a conversation that neither of us will be sure actually happened or not. A mind-to-mind transmission no? or rather a mind-body to mind-body. Actually getting down on the ground and mimicking that action of the frog brings your entire neural network into the process rather than just the workings of that secluded organ typical seen as the seat of mind. Mind encompasses the entire body, everywhere there is a neuron the mind has a seat. So i would rather not say its all mind unless that mind includes the vessel that holds the mind within, the vessel being a container within the larger container that is that unutterable void of existence and nonexistence.

I mentioned the Dao… and right there by the utterance of that very name i’m already far off from what i wish to discuss. That famous first line, “the dao that can be named is not the eternal dao” spells this out in plain language, designating a term, the dao, for that which has no label. A label for that which cannot be labeled… wtf its so backwards and yet is the only way in this world of concepts. Even a non-concept is still a concept. Do you see the trap these words i write fall into? Cause i certainly do(do-not) yet still find no other way besides silence, but then how would you know i understand what i’m attempting to communicate? Only if you already understand is it possible, but then there would be no way to know. But that’s just it, one cannot actually know and i find comfort perhaps satisfaction in this being unable to understand, but its still fun to play the word game. It makes everything much more simple and decomplicates every interaction, allows me to interact without thought. But all to often i run away instead of continuing to play… i’m working on it, as always i’m still a work in progress.

Furthermore what with this “I” being capitalized while “you” is not? Why am i so much more important that you? Its like talking and writing this way automatically boosts the ego of the one speaking giving them more importance over everyone else. This is a terrible mistake of the English language. “i” refuse to play along and fuck your correct grammar i will not capitalize “i”. To take a line from a Shpongle song,  i am you and you are me, so fuck it, we are one in the same there is no difference. When i say “you” i am speaking to you, to him, to her, and myself. There is no distinction when i use that word, to me its a universal utterance of all that is even the trees and the rocks. So there is no need to capitalize it, to give it proper importance elevating myself over the other. (or maybe i’m just to lazy to hit “shift” every time i type “i”… lols)

Thanks for reading remember that i’ll always love you!

telepathy???

So rather than update my travels, i feel like writing about other things on my mind as the title points out. These thoughts come from reading dune and my own experiences contemplating and interacting with the people around me in my travels. first up as its the most interesting to me at this moment, falls somewhere along the lines of telepathy or mind-to-mind connections but neither distinctly one or the other and i really haven’t had a chance to fully confirm the experience. Well i have, just not the confidence to follow through, i almost did once but talked to the wrong people about it. This trip is nowhere near the first time i’ve had these experiences and they happen most commonly when i’m dancing, its almost as if i’m communicating through movement without even needing to try. It stalls me from actually communicating through words and direct interaction because theres this tension that builds that keeps me away sadly and no one has a confirmation that the interaction happened. but i almost like it better that way, even though my heart screams to fully connect, keeping it in the void of maybe it happened maybe it didn’t feels more comfortable. When i’m dancing people talk about me from afar and it seems no matter what language they speak in i hear them in distinct English, translated for me to understand. With this i react instantaneously without thinking about it. It becomes pure communication not lost in the translation into words. Even when not dancing its started to happen as long as i’m just out of earshot, its like i’m reading their minds or picking up off the energy their sending out in my direction. Its like a reflection, i only receive what is about me though and i can’t tell if im sending anything back unless its a turn in their direction and smile to which they always reply “see he knows were talking about him.” With the Psytrance family i’m starting to wonder if they’ve all been here before and know whats going on and are just waiting for me to realize it. They’ve definitely been waiting for me to talk to them.
In the last week back here on gili air its happened fully at least twice, both with groups of people speaking french, which seems easier for me to pick up. The first one was when the big group that came back here from dance for peace were all chilling for happy hour at the 7 seas lounge on the beach. i came to join them a little late and sat down at the far end on the sand with a group of people that i would “hear” as they talked about me. ” oo this one looks a little different. as i started doing yoga on my spot on the sand. they commented on how we all shared water and whatever we were smoking. they were surprised as i did some yoga poses while smoking a joint handed to me. there were talking about some others and i couldn’t make it out but then their conversation returned to me and i could hear it clearly or so i thought. it was just in my head. When i stood up and got a little closer to stretch better they were distinctly speaking french… Wtf was i just making this up, were their words i heard so clearly in English just a fragment of my imagination — a paranoia of some-sorts inspired by the ganja or was i telepathically translating their meanings into english? who really knows i didn’t confirm it, but they kept talking about me noting my differences from the others, how i wasn’t drinking like the others, refusing a beer and that they got the “monk vibe” from me the way i was holding myself with the sarong in its usual place over my head.  They said this monk thing multiple times and i felt great about it, finding the need to meditate somewhere later as i’m so out of practice. I only looked at these people once and they immediately looked away not giving me a confirmation of anything and so i’m left to question if i really understood anything they said amongst  themselves or not.

The next incidence was after i ate a small dose of mushrooms at the trance bar. I started to do my usual dancing after walking by the people at the bar. and some of them of course watched me. i knew two of the women, Marcella and her sister as they were on nanggu and were living right on the other side of the fence. I’d almost been avoiding talking to them, not really on purpose i’m just awkward and they didn’t really want me staying there so i felt their energy and fell into indecision about the whole thing which sucks because that just makes everything worse. the first night here they were at the bar wondering if i was going to talk to them or not. when they saw me make a move closer to them, i was going for my water, they noticed. saying is he coming o wait no he’s going for that water. i stopped a little confused not knowing what to do, i continued to the water sadly, but at least i made a move to talk to them after. just a few sentences so they could go to bed. Its so hard for me to talk to people sometimes especially when i can feel built up expectations from them.

But this night some other french people at the bar commented on my movements and a little conversation was struck up about me. I swear i heard it loud and clear in English, but again there was no way this could be. Marcella said to the other french guys something like, ” i mean i wouldn’t really call him my friend we haven’t talked much. idk how he still has energy he danced alot last night. the way he moves though its so trippy he does spinning too it looks quite spiritual.” Of course my memory lost the specifics of the order and what exactly was said at this point, but at this i turned and smiled to which they said, ” see he knows we’re talking about him.” A little while later i walked over to them and due to my social awkwardness instead of talking to Marcella which i should have done, i stopped at the group of guys before them and asked if they were speaking in french the whole time cause i swear i heard English. no they replied just french. this was my moment to connect and confirm but i failed once again…

Later that night two women from somewhere else in Indonesia sat down at the bar and i played with this telepathy thing sending thoughts over in their direction explaining i was playing with telepathy. and when i heard them fidget i thought to them not to be uncomfortable with me in their head. i didn’t get anything back until they said something about me amongst themselves to which i replied immediately quieting them up. o well i just need more practice with this.

More to come later, my thoughts need to be more controlled if im actually sending everything out for the other person to recieve. If only the whole human species comunicated this way. honesty would be absolute, lies would be impossible, but we are no where near ready for it. I think its time we evolve, perhaps i’m one of the starting points.

everything up to the good part

Wow so much has past after my last post i have no idea where to start or what is even worth writing down. This keyboard in the internet cafe makes every third letter lost in some sticky nightmare. I lost my phone in Ubud immediately the night after that last post and as bad as that sounds it still seems to be a good thing; an obstacle that needed to be removed as it were. Ganesha is the main deity worshiped in the area and that’s what he does–removes obstacles from ones path. Why am i looking at it in this way? Because I needed to stay in Ubud longer and i would have left if i still had my phone. Its a town where a few days is not enough and i was planning on leaving way too soon, in all likley hood i probably needed more. I was given a bed half off in the other hostel that the owners had and it was a much better atmosphere with better people i needed to meet. The first clue to this happened when i walked out of my room the first night and found some kids drinking, having a good time and blasting psytrance rather than the same shit music played everywhere in this country.

Not actual psytrance people sadly, just one Scottish fellow found it traveling through Europe and so i showed them all how i danced.  Such a great time and i finally got to loosen up a bit and people got to see some of the real me. The Scottish are such a riot and have such a large energy, and i actually had a few beers for once. Drunk as they were one of the girls came up to me after a spin and mentioned some nonsense like, “OK now come back to reality,” in that drunken Scottish dialect. Its like trance music and spinning propels me into other worlds so obviously to other people i dont even have to explain it, well i guess i still do. I just laughed it off and actually drank a beer for once.  It was just a simple spin i don’t go anywhere like that. i just lose my ability to see, as you can probably guess, the world in front of me is moving quite too fast to make out anything. After mentioning my lights they begged for a show, but i just couldn’t find the pocket i left them in and resolved into the supposed fact that i left them at home.

The Group ended up leaving the hostel after two Canadian girls decided you cant just stay where your staying and got us to move out on the town to go party or clubbing or something. i didn’t really understand why as Ubud is not a party town at all, but at this point i was just going with the flow and walked on with them. We didn’t get very far but happened to wonder upon a practice session of a gambelan, the traditional Balinese orchestra. Ha! what a blessing that was and unlike any of their rituals i could dance to this, whereas its usually reserved just for them. As their gods only like one specific sort of dancing and nothing else. Such wonderful pinging music all blended together in weird rhythms, with always something to float on. And of course, I began to spin. Everyone loved it especially the locals, except for the scarf over my eyes. I was told to open up and let my eyes be shown in order to please the deity of the temple we were in. For the Balinese, the eyes hold great power, a magic if you will, especially when dancing as can be seen when watching the eyes of a performer in a dance. Their eyes only move in particular ways and creepy is an adjective i heard often from onlookers. If there is power in the eyes then there is also power when they are covered especially when that how i see better and on top of that it blocks all that noise from vision so one can truly hear. And fuck that, the deity can accept my dance my way or not. Sure its his specific temple and i may not receive his particular blessing, but they all eventually link up in someway or another and some deific entity is pleased by it. That’s how i give my particular blessing, there’s more magic in it for me and also i think, those who me when i cannot see. Any of this was beyond explanation and so i grudgingly complied, danced for a while longer, and said thanks and left as everyone else had already headed back.
Ended up meeting another wonderful fellow, Henry, who was also a religion major which is such a rarity we had a blast chatting it up. Both into the Asian and comparative sides but we had multiple different pieces it was nice to bounce stuff around.  But still couldn’t do any of my usual exploration into the unknown just recitals of knowns. Ended up doing some musical meditation that of course lept with minimalistic movement at what has to be one of the best locations for yoga, the yoga barn, if a tad bit expensive. Henry found us a temple to visit where a festival was happening, but at the last minute invited those Canadian girls… they joined us in our cab ride up the mountain and if only they hadn’t, i passed up and ecstatic dance at the barn for this… i should have went to the dance, not gone to see one. The temple was all decorated filled with altering s everywhere in that distinct Balinese style. I really don’t realize how any one can call this place Hindu. Its like yeah sure, Ganesha is everywhere, its who many pray to but there’s no way the rituals actions, ways of praying, making offerings, dancing, every action, behavior, words used even besides a few names can be called anything but Balinese. I see no Hinduism except in maybe in a key philosophical point or two. The oneness and the acceptance and tolerance of extreme multiplicity.  Everyone from village to village prays and performs rituals slightly distinct from their neighbor. Based on location, profession, time of year or various other reasons no stronger than thats just what we do here. they don’t learn their beliefs or religion by studying or reading anything in a book.  They .learn by doing, except in the case where one would need to explain something in English to a tourist, then it comes out as a general textbook definition. Its completely ridiculous even dialects grow separate incredibly fast here. I thought going to different islands would exemplify this process, but bali has to be the craziest of them all. Or at least the most acceptable touristic location of them all.

The Canadian girls got all uncomfortable being stared at and being asked if they were “menstruating” in broken English that they convinced us to leave immediately before anything interesting happened, as in no dancing at all… Henry and i spent the whole night trying to figure out if we were actually being offensive by being their and trying to play it off like it was ok and all that we left early. But it really wasn’t it was completely fine if we were there, most of them are very proud to share their culture. Menstruation in a temple is  a serious offense to a Balinese, bringing doom from terrible daemons if it occurs. It was perfectly reasonable for them to ask that. If only we didn’t bring them…

One of my last days I asked the hostel manager if she knew of dance class and she called her friend. A new friend Pia joined me and we ended up getting invited into the tour guides home for coffee and a quick visit to one of their villages traditional healers who worked on us with some magical oil applied with a knife tip. We ended up buying rings with some crystallized wood for protection which i still wear. A piece a wood that looks almost like quartz with a piece of amber running through and what could very well be a silver ring blessed by one with an established know-how in her own specific healing practices/ connections with her deities. she did also give us the usuak you need to change your life get a connection back with the gods, blah blah blah, and she had the nerve to tell us to wear shoes… I did see her point though, at least within the cities as its been getting quite hot, i already burned my foot once and this place is dirty as any other chaotic concrete Asian city. started wearing my sandals a little more after this, but only a little during the day.

The next day we were invited to their villages traditional cremation ceremony which was truly a sight to see. No sadness could be found only celebration and the casual digging up of two bodies from shallow graves, their placement into intricate alters, and the subsequent torching with huge propane burners for hours and hours and hours, well about four. The most important alter, the spirit that would take the dead to their final world of rest was a beautifully painted fish with an elephant head. No one could really explain their religion, why they did what it they did , as they explained to me this was just the spirit that did this and the cow over there was special too along with another. All of which were burned and given to the gods in the sky.
The most important reason for me to stay which i only realized just now as i write this, was that 3 german girls happened to show up the night i chose to leave. If only i stayed longer or even talked to them that night for a little longer than i did for i was set to leave at 7 am the next morning and only had a quick exchange of my name for one of theirs, a beautiful blonde.  I told them where to buy tickets for the gili nanggu psytrance party, DANCE FOR PEACE and pretty much headed off to be for reasons of needed or gotten sleep. Follow the wind man watch the signs and follow through. if only i knew then what i do now. What if i did know i just wasn’t paying attention in the right way. This  was the first step in the universe setting us up, but i failed to see it till just now. Why does anything related to love elude me till the last possible moment… Its like i wait until it wont happen unless i make it happen. make it happen earlier.

It was off to Gili Air as i heard of this place called the Space Bar and I need my Psytrance fix. I showed up almost a week before the party, way to early. i had so much time to stay in bali, but i just had this itch i needed to get out. Maybe it was just to get out of the city but i know i left that place way too early, i think im going back. Gilli air is as close to paradise as it gets. the trance bar was sadly moved off the beach, but it still exists, sorta. I walked straight there knowing i would need to stay close getting hassled to buy a room constantly along the way but i found it after a guy, pipi, led me there. instantly got handed a joint after saying high and introducing myself to the owner. Ha the one place in Indonesia without that problem of governmental enforces of thought control, turning a simple plant into a death sentence.

The ganja got me so blazzed haggling for my room with this pipi guy was so fucking difficult, but i pulled off a decent rate considering it is still the busy season and the place was on the beach. 175 a night if i stayed a whole week with breakfast included. it sounded good as everywhere else wanted 400, but the toilet needed to be filled everytime i wanted to use it. Did pretty much nothing but lounge around and blaze. this island is like the Jamaica of Indonesia where almost everyone wants to smoke you down or sell you weed. Ended up eating some fungus my second night, the night after the full moon.  I wanted to eat em on the full night of course, that was  particularly the cause for my rush to get to the lsland, but with the weed i bought i got lazy picking out the stems and seeds and said fuck it and smoked em anyway… this was bad idea. the weed was so shit almost all stems and seeds but hey it sure did the trick earlier, but this time i just felt horrible. sick with a terrible headache i had to eat some soup in turn in early. the next day however i got some and ate them way too late for this island without a party. I had a good time but the music shut down way to early. their was someone staying in the bungalow right next door to the trance bar and complained about the noise so it had to be shut down early 😦  there did happen to be another person at the bar though, a Japanese girl named Naomi whose dancing was so cute and had that distinctly that Japanese girl flair to it–peace sings included. she left earlier than me of course and so i ended up chilling with the barkeep Wan and the co owner Anna. We started talking about language and i got all interested in learning something of the local language finally. I’ve got a few words and phrases down, but i have to admit i’ve given up. i never gonna understand anything these people say beyond the basics.

The bar still had to close earlier than i would have like as i ate the shrooms not that long ago and so found found myself near the beach next to what has to be the mother tree of this island. The pattern i saw was so represented in this tree that if it could move this would be how. I talked with tree for a while, got naked and laid down with it to help the with communicative process. Couldn’t resit after reciveing somthing like “get naked young one”. After a while i got up and went to the beach for a swim. Got only part way in and started noticing a bug attached to me here and there, i started to freak out a bit not knowing if it was just a creation of my altered state or really a bug from the sea. One bit me and i jumped out of that water and got back on the shore. walking back to my sarong, i noticed something in the haze of my glasses-less mushroom vision. Was that a hammock? Words came to my thoughts. “can he see me? is he on shrooms? I kinda freaked out lost in the insecurity of strange gripping insects from the ocean and that someone had just seen me nakedly freak out on the beach… Eh whatever funny story yeah.

It most shrooms doses i wouldn’t care finding myself on auto pilot immersed in the sensations of nature and being that animal that i am. This would be the place to do it. can think of a safer haven for such activities. Back home its so much harder as the doses here were quite weak. Everything’s mellower and lazier out here. its just how it is. With nothing to keep such feelings at bay all those insecurities given to those who wish to be naked but cant swarmed me like those blasted insects and i had to get to my room.

An interesting flight but not that note worthy, but its always nice to feel refreshed into my self a little like i know who i am again. Well sorta, i’m still not fully there. The rest of the week was spent stretching around on that lovely beach for every dang sunset that rivals those from home. Nothing like seeing that giant red ball set between to volcanoes on a far off island that happens to be bali.

The next week was all lazy, its like the island is just so perfect for it. everyones lazy, its hot and weed is smoked all the  time, there’s a beach, no cops, no motor-vehicles of any kind. Its truly a paradise. And with t.hat added effect of a psytrance bar and family you just can’t beat gili air. I find it so hard to leave once im here. The party happened on Saturday and man what a party. And quite a strange night as usual.