Halloumi and Tea

It was a dinner party with a variety of amazing food e.g. pizza made by an Englishman and complimented by an Italian (that's how good it was!) and a choice of red vines and white wines and what not. So everyone was walking around with a glass or had it deposited it in an arm’s reach.  

I was talking to a Cypriot guy in the kitchen who was frying Halloumi and explaining me how it is a Cypriot dish with protected origin like Champagne. While I was fascinated by this new information his eyes zoomed in on a teamug on the table “There is a teacup on the table, it makes me nervous!”  That was said so innocently, yet sincerely, I had to smile “Yes, it’s my teacup. I’m on an alcohol-free month”.

“Alcohol free month!?!” a shadow of disbelief ran over his face as his nose took a shape of a raisin.

“Yes!” I smiled and took a big sip of the wonderful Korean tea.   

Words of wisdom

Yesterday I happened to watch on YouTube a lecture by The Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro at Georgetown University in Qatar, on the topic of Happiness. He is a Buddhist monk and an author of many books and so on. One simile he gave to explain the point of meditation really struck a chord. Just the day before I had to try to explain it to rather skeptic audience. It's like, when I say I do yoga, I get an answer "Oh, so you are into relaxation then".  Strong assumptions with little basis. And I don't know much myself.

So this is to say that I don't plan to go around spreading yoga bliss or try to convince others to meditate, but I will write down the simile I heard yesterday. For your contemplation :)

The Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro:

"Let's suppose that someone is incredible self confident and that self confidence is based on their ability to walk on the straight line. Let's say its me. So I believe I can walk in a completely straight line for 8 hours, for the whole day. I fly out into a desert where there are no  identifying marks, no buildings, no trees, no anything and I walk for 8 hours in a completely straight line. I know, I can feel it, I have walked absolutely straight, even though there are no landmarks to prove it. And someone is monitoring me and he uses a compass and sees, wow, this is really incredible, Jayasaro has walked 8 hours in a straight line and he has only deviated 1 degree from true north in 8 hours, amazing. So next day I prove that I can do it again. And I walk in a completely straight line, subjectively absolutely sure. And 1 degree in 8 hours walking is pretty amazing. But if I keep doing this, you see, after 90 days, from true North, I'm maybe walking in a westerly direction.And in a 180 days I could be walking to South.

So the analogy here is that I believe so many of us wake up to a certain extent, maybe in cold sweat, 2AM in the morning, 40 years old: How did I get here? I thought I was walking true north, but I'm walking south. How am I doing the same kind of things that I thought I would never do? All the things that as a young man or a young woman that I thought I don't wanna be like that, I don't wanna do that ... and here I am doing it. Here I am just like that.

And I think it is like this, you are just deviating. It's not like you are doing this big, huge mistakes in life when you should go left, but you go right or you do some really stupid, dumb things. It's more just this generally, little by little deviating from the path that you set for yourself in life.

One of the advantages of the daily periods of meditation or reflection is resetting the compass. And when you stop, just for a while, suddenly you just can come to a thought "Why am I making such a fuss about such a stupid thing, com'n!? Just put it down" or sometimes else "Oh, this is not a small matter. I really need to do something about this."

So it's like we have all this wisdom, just basic wisdom, but we can't hear it. It's like we have this radio on and it's really loud blaring music and this quiet voice of wisdom is completely obstructed, obscured by this loud noise. So if we can make time every day just to turn off the noise - to learn how to turn off the noise, because it is not too easy - and then to listen to this voice. And often we do, often we really do know what is what, but we have lost that faculty of communication with ourselves."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IHpwKa0E2Q  

Zelka

While walking up the street from Slivnica Beach (Prespa Lake, Macedonia) Astrid, Reid and I saw a big tortoise. Tortoise was coming from the opposite direction walking steadily.  It’s fascinating to see wildlife in their own element. Astrid taught perhaps we should put the tortoise away from the street as it might get crushed by a passing car. Reid and I forbid it. 

I have once before moved a tortoise, named zelka, from one place to another. That was in Montenegro at Skadar lake. Now I wonder how is it for this animal, who is going about his own business, to be airlifted and then placed in a new place? Be it 25m or 250m away. Does the tortoise now know where to go? Do they need to find their way back? From our perspective the new spot might look better, but how is it for them? I don't know.

Perhaps we assume too much too often.