I walk Bella the dog, smoking my second cigarette of the day. The sky is fresh and clean, and though I can now see a few clouds near the horizon, they waft, rather than scud across the sky. The smoke from the distant coal-fueled power plant rises at a 30 degree angle from the ground, and a few of the wind turbines turn in the light but steady breeze.
Where long piles of sugar beets had formed ridges along the country roads just yesterday, there is now a dark chocolate, freshly plowed, field. Two large tractors plow in the distance, producing more dark chocolate, and the adjacent field, a bright, Springtime-like, fluorescent green, provides contrast to make these fields beautiful. Would Allied bombardiers have noticed any such beauty in these fields in the autumn of 1944 before they released their bombs? It must have been difficult to see any beauty in anything when being shot at from the ground, and when focusing on completely destroying the town just ahead.
In these fields, a lifetime ago, where men tried so hard to cut short the lives of others, swords have long since been turned into plowshares.
Sigh.
Ja, I can be maudlin at times, which leads me to something I was previously almost led into, in my last post, i.e., walking with three Buddhists, with whom I walked out of Istanbul. But it is not the walking we will talk about, (Ja, I know, 'we' won't be talking, you won't even be able to get a word in edgewise) but 'speaking from the heart'.
What made me think of them in my last post was that I was writing about my involuntary, inexplicable urge to gush like a geyser, while my right knee was being oiled and stroked by a Danish woman in Elche, Spain.
Hmmm.
... an involuntary, inexplicable urge to become very emotional, while my right knee was being healed with shiatsu and reiki and other therapies of that sort, I should say.
And this recollection of becoming very emotional made me think of the act of 'speaking from the heart,' which was done after meditation while I was with my Buddhist friends. I first experienced this while still in Istanbul. Thomas was the only one of the three there at the time, though he is more accurately Buddhist-oriented than Buddhist. He was staying with several Turkish university students, and he invited me, and the two friends I was staying with in another outlying part of the city, to join him and his hosts. We did join them, and before we ate, all sitting in a circle on the floor, with lots of delicious food set in front of us... mmmmm, delicious food...
I will now break for lunch.
*********************************************************************************
Now returned from lunch.
I made spaghetti with tomato sauce and sliced wieners. I could easily eat spaghetti every day, though not always with tomato sauce and sliced wieners. While in the north of Italy, where sliced wieners in the tomato sauce would be vehemently shunned, I came to really appreciate pasta of all sorts, even more than before, when I had already appreciated pasta of all sorts.
But we'll save this culinary discussion for another time.
Sigh.
So there we were, Thomas, his Turkish hosts, all university students, and my friends, with me, in a small apartment in Sisli, north of Istanbul, near Trump Towers (yes, really, Trump Towers, in Istanbul) though the neighborhood was far enough away from that monstrosity to still preserve its soul.
The food was spread out on a carpet on the floor, and we all sat around it, and Thomas rang a bell, actually a brass bowl, which resonated like a Buddhist eternal moment, and we sat silently, giving thanks, before devouring the food that lay before us.
Afterwards, once the floor had been cleared by the students, we meditated for a bit, which many of the students, all young men, had a difficult time doing, squirming around, stifling laughs, opening one eye to have a look around, which I noticed with my own one open eye-- but they meditated anyway out of their great respect for Thomas.
I also have a hard time meditating, though I've done quite a lot of it, because there is a chimp on a bicycle cycling around in my head.
Anyway, once we had finished meditation, at the sound of the brass bowl's pleasant reverberation, it was time for all of us to speak from the heart.
Our instructions were, first to give a 'weather report' about how we felt at the moment, then to say whatever else we wanted to say, as long as it came from the heart.
However, I did not want to give a weather report, or speak from my heart. And even if I had wanted to give an emotional weather report, I wouldn't have wanted to speak about it in terms of the weather.
"I feel kinda cloudy and rainy."
or,
"It's really sunny inside of me."
Barf.
The students, though many of them also may not have felt like speaking from the heart or giving emotional weather reports, did anyway, again, out of respect for Thomas, I think. And when they spoke, most of them spoke in the manner of gracious hosts.
For example: 'I am very happy that Thomas and his friends are here...'
Of course, this was sincere, no doubt, yet not spontaneous, and spontaneity, I believe, is truly 'from the heart.'
One of the friends I was with gushed quite a lot, as I thought she might. And she gave a weather report, sunny, I think. The other also gushed a bit, which I found incredible, perhaps lifting an eyebrow as she described her emotional state in terms of the weather. She was not one to gush, ever; at least not in my presence. And she was always way too cool to say she was feeling sunny or cloudy. Until that moment. I think she may have been partly cloudy.
Soon, everyone had shared from their hearts, though most of the students had failed to give their weather reports.
I was the only one left who hadn't shared.
There was a long silence, as Thomas waited for me to share from my heart.
I did not share.
There was no way I was gonna share.
I would share if I wanted to.
No one could make me.
Long, uncomfortable silence.
My eyes where downcast the whole time, gazing at where the food had been.
There were a few sighs.
I also sighed.
Sighs have a language all their own. There are happy sighs, and sorrowful sighs, and impatient sighs, and self-pitying sighs, and stressed out sighs.
Mine was of the stressed out variety.
I finally peeked at Thomas, who was staring at me.
I shook my head, no, in the tiniest way, just a millimeter each side.
He seemed displeased.
I believe I must have furrowed my brows.
I may have been trembling a bit, like a hungry dog that has been told to sit in front of a bowl of leftover hamburgers.
More sighs from the group, of the impatient variety.
Some shifting of weight.
Not gonna share.
Then, finally, the brass bowl sounded.
I was gone in a flash, and at the window designated for smoking, with the ashtray on the sill.
Let us jump forward in time now, to a point two weeks into the future.
Much has happened in that time.
Sigh.
After walking with Thomas, his friend, and a Buddhist monk named Phap Ki for the past three days, we sit together in the room of a pension near the Black Sea. A local commander of the paramilitary police has arranged two rooms for us there. As always, in the morning and the evening we meditate and share from the heart.
I had shared a bit at the end of our first day, but in the fashion of Thomas' student hosts.
"I am happy to be walking with you three..."
Etc.
I may have even given a weather report, having decided I would conform.
I'm pretty sure I had been cloudy.
"Yeah, feelin kinda cloudy I guess..."
But now, as we sit in this room, cross-legged, I'm really ready to share from the heart.
Much has happened.
I am ready.
I have a lot to share now.
I am primed.
I want to share.
First, Thomas shares, and it is very nice to hear what he has to share, and Phap Ki shares, and there's a subtle lesson in his sharing, which is not at all pedantic and, though it is a lesson, it is clearly from the heart. Thomas' friend shares too, telling about his mind's experience during the meditation, which is interesting.
Then, while Phap Ki continues to look forward, with the barely perceptible smile of equanimity, and as their friend sits with eyes closed, showing contentment, I see Thomas turn his head ever so slightly towards me. He is waiting for me to share.
Here it comes, yo.
And I share.
Yo.
And everything that I have kept inside me these past 16 months, as I, ahem, walked for peace, comes out. I rage, curse, tell my life story, sob, rant; I do not ramble though, as rambling is for calmer circumstances.
I experience a grand catharsis.
When I am finished, I see that the others are seated in exactly the same way, cross-legged, and Phap Ki still has a look of equanimity, and their friend is still content, it seems, though maybe there's just a hint of tension in his body, as if ready to bolt should I completely lose my mind. Thomas, however, seems a bit annoyed. I have shared from the heart, but it wasn't a pleasant kind of sharing. The weather was dark and stormy, a veritable tornado. The perfect storm.
Now that I think about it, that would have been a good weather report.
"So, Ken, weather report?"
"The perfect storm."
Yeah, that would have been good.
So, after my perfect storm, and after a little pause, Thomas says very calmly, "Thank you for sharing."
Then the little gong.
Then a smoke break, though I had publicly announced to my companions that I had quit smoking when I left with them from Istanbul three days earlier.
The next morning, I quit walking after having walked some 6000 kilometers, and I stick out my thumb, and start hitchhiking.
Hell wit dis walk, I'm sayin at the time, though I will walk again, from Port Said to Cairo, a few weeks later.
Meanwhile, as 'we speak', Thomas is in Lebanon, still making his walk for peace, which is a walk in which every step is a step for peace. And he has come a long way, and has a long way to go. While I'm having a little fun with him now, I greatly admire the man.
Phap Ki was a real mentor for me those three days. I believe he is back in France now, where he is a monk associated with Plum Village.
Ja. Okay.
Feelin just a little cloudy.
Sigh.
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