The Retirement of a Cultural Dissident....

I've spent more than a few mornings on this balcony now. The smell of the air around me is invigorating and peaceful at the same time. The conversations with others have been flowing easily like a lazy river. The tea is wonderful! I love this place. I love everything about it.

And all that's good but part of the reason I took this trip is to make some decisions.

Just before leaving, my rage level was getting out of control. The slightest thing set me off. It seemed that ordinary irritations were amplified. I was haunted by memories that I'd rather forget.

I've been a warrior all my life. Injustice doesn't just bother me. It enrages me. The things I grew up with were too hard to simply accept as "human nature" and I mounted my wild pony, spear at the ready, and set out to right all the wrongs. I marched. I participated in social justice movements. I did all the things the civics teachers told us we should do.

I've come to realize there's a thin line between commitment and zealotry.

I fought and I fought hard. There have been negative consequences. I've been dismissed as a crackpot, kicked out of schools, put in jail and lost friends. I've been yelled at, shunned, called names and have had my life threatened. I became a zealot. Nothing could temper the fire in my belly.

People hold tight to their most cherished beliefs, even when they are not sure why they believe them.

I am included in that. This was never about fighting for Thai culture. Actually, it had nothing to do with Thai culture. The reality is that I fell in with a very traditional bunch of people here. Most Thais can't even handle the kind of "Thai culture" that I live. My dissidence started a long time before I knew anything about this place. I couldn't have found Thailand on a map.

But still, I had my cherished beliefs. The world was filled with corruption and conspiracy, ill-intent and brutality. And they had to be stopped. There was no exit strategy. No rebuilding plan. I pounded my fists against the prison walls until my hands bled. The chains rattled so hard that it was deafening.

I'm getting older now. The energy and vigor of youth is waining. I am older than my chronological age. I'm not as flexible and resilient as I once was and the bouncing back is much harder.

The reality is that it's time for me to lay the mantle down. It's time to pass it along to those who are younger and more energetic, those who aren't shell-shocked. In fact, that is what I am. Shell-shocked. Battle weary. I feel like I've been at war for 40 years.

I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to fight anymore. It's time to lay down arms.

It's time to relax into the life I have found here. Maybe there is some weird, cosmic system of punishment and reward and this place is my reward for all the years spent fighting in the belly of the beast. At this point, that is what I will do. Live here. Peacefully. Even though I do have to come back there for a while, I need to stay focused on this, my center. My foundation. Home.

I don't regret anything I've done. Maybe it has made a little bit of difference. Seeds planted. Watered and nurtured. Lives changed. Perhaps improved. It might have only been a scratch mark on the monolithic brick wall.. but it was my scratch mark.

There's still much that needs to be done. Carry on, warriors.

I've got your back.
~*

Ego, Ego, on the wall....

" Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but for the patience to win my freedom."
Shantideva

One of the greatest struggles I've had since I returned from Thailand is the ability to release ego. This doesn't mean, by the way, becoming a blob without identity. It means a willingness to give up the idea that we have to somehow be something special, that we have to be better than someone else to have significance.

I was trained, like most of us in the US and other western countries, to believe these things, that we have to be the best and the brightest. We have to be "popular" ... in demand by others. If we don't achieve that, we fall into the rank of "loser", those people who are socially invisible. No one wants to be invisible, unknown and unloved.

I know this makes me unhappy. It makes everyone unhappy. The constant attachment to every outcome is draining. We are never satisfied because we never feel as though we are enough. This makes the producers who want us to consume very happy. We are never enough, we have to have, be and do more. They have a product to help us do that.

Whether it is a tangible product or an ideology, it ultimately leads back to the same thing. "Let me help you be more than you are. I can help you get rid of those yellow teeth. I can help you lose that fat. I can make you desirable. Read my book. Buy my exercise video. Buy my ideology. I've packaged it for you. It's easy and you'll see fast results"

Because another thing is that we can't stand to wait for anything. It has to be right now!

So, we're trained to constantly crave. If that craving isn't satisfied, we become unhappy.

We become unhappy and want to be soothed. So we buy more products, intellectual or tangible, so that we'll feel better.

In the late 70s, I took a course called EST (Erhardt Seminars Training). We all sat in a big room, crammed together, and were told that all we had to do to "win" at "the game of life" was to be something which would in turn cause us to do the right things and then we would have what we want most.

It was based on the Law of Attraction which has been used over the years by plenty of shucksters in different packaging for the masses. If you want something badly enough, you can have it. Secular prosperity theology.

EST was just another spin on the same old thing. Be. Do. Have.

And the white male trainer would tell you in a booming voice that you were an "asshole" if you didn't "get it".

(I paid 4-figures in 70s money to be called an asshole and to be denied toilet access for hours on end. If we had to go to the bathroom, it wasn't a natural function. We were trying to avoid hearing what we needed to hear from the trainer. That was the philosophical backdrop.)

Dr Phil on steroids.

I tried many of these ideologies and seminars, thinking eventually I would find "It". I would find the "It" that would give my life purpose and meaning. I could be the best and the brightest.

When I spent so much time in Khon Kaen, I was introduced to an entirely different way of thinking. We are all in this together. I don't have to be better than anyone else. I don't have to compete in a social marketplace. I was accepted, just as I am ~ including flaws because we all have them. The objective in life was to know that all things are transient. Circumstances come and go. People come and go. It is all the natural ebb and flow of life itself. So just relax and enjoy.

I fit in so perfectly. No pressure.. to be more than I already am.

That was Khon Kaen.

Then I came back here. Came back to the old pressures, the old expectations... and it has never failed to make me unhappy.

I am still struggling through a lot of this. It's unlikely that I will ever achieve perfect Buddha consciousness in this lifetime. I'm a new soul. I'll cycle more. I accept that. It's difficult to purge a lifetime of training.

But I am trying. And will continue to try. Because the quote below is what I want to become.

"May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need."

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Be. Do. Have.


Peace,


~Chani