Clarity’s blog

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US army sacks gay Arabic experts

The United States Army has forced six linguists trained to speak Arabic to quit after they admitted that they were gay.

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hrmph… The land of freedom? Yeah, right.

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Quicktime VR movie of the land around Gampo Abbey

I’ve been looking at the web site for Gampo Abbey, looking if there are any new things posted, and become quite nostalgic. I’ve spend 2 years there, 1 year of that as a monk. They have been probably 2 of the most difficult years in my life and also probably 2 of the most enriching years as well. I miss being there, and am also glad I’m not there as well. It was like living in a pressure cooker, all my unresoved things were staring at me in living technicolor, my identity, sense of me and the world shattered again and again, and yet the glimpses of freedom, of life outside of this dark smelly cocoon most of us call life were also there, punctuating (puncturing?) the suffering.
I miss my teacher. I know in the end I am my own teacher, yet I miss her. She has shown me what true love really is. She has never given up on me, even when in my opinion everyone else would. She trusted in my abilities to wake up so I began trusting in them as well. She showed me who I am. And I am eternally grateful for that.
And I miss her.

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There seems to have been a lot of searches for buddhist poetry that end upon this site, so I thought, well, then I should put up some. Here is oneof the poems that I wrote during the Kosovo war.

 Who am I?

(inspired by Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh)

  I am my Kosovar friend Samir,
  lost somewhere,
  maybe dead, maybe alive,
  I am his fear, his terror, pain,
  I am his mother, father, sister, brother,
  running, running, running.

  I’m your smile, my friend,
  I’m your hospitality, your home,
  your family that welcomed me so warmly,
  your love and love and love.

  I’m your people, chased away from your homes,
  I’m your posessions left behind, your only home in flames,
  I’m your despair, your rage, your hatred,
  I’m your courage and courage and courage.

  I’m my Serbian friend Dejan,
  under attack in Novi Sad,
  I’m my niece running to shelter,
  fearing for her life, for her two children,
  I’m her children, one just born,
  born to this cruel world, where bombs fall from the sky,
  world where air raid sirens howl every night,
  I’m her love, her heart,
  her will to live,

  I’m the Serb people,
  proud and defiant,
  I’m your anger, your propaganda machine,
  your patriotic songs,
  I’m: “We’ll defend our homeland at every cost!”,
  blaring from TV screens every hour,
  I’m your leader, your generals,
  I’m your missiles, guns,
  your genocide, your ethnic cleansing,
  your hearts turned to stone,
  my heart turned to stone,
  Nato’s hearts turned to stone,
  world’s hearts turned to stone.

  I’m a NATO pilot dropping his deadly load,
  sitting silently in his cockpit,
  trying to forget,
  and forget and forget,
  forget that we are human,
  forget that bombs kill,
  forget, forget.

  I’m the 900kg bomb dropping from
  F117 stealth fighter,
  seeking its target,
  praying, praying “let me not kill too much, not too much”,
  dropping on my stone heart
  shattering it to thousand pieces.

  And I’m love, love that will not die,
  that does not look away,
  does not turn back on you, on me,
  on Serbs, Albanians, Nato,
  one that’s not gonna give up, not give up,
  give up on humanity.

  I’m the Buddha,
  the Buddha in you,
  the Buddha in the bomb, in the pilot, in the sky,
  in a spring bud
  and a child’s smile.

  I’m my friend Sonny Bears tribe in North Dakota,
  silent all day,
  praying for peace,
  praying for love, for understanding,
  praying, praying for all of us.

  And I’m compassion,
  compassion that flows from within,
  the wounded heart,
  the healer’s heart,
  the world’s heart.
  I’m the willow branch of bodhisattva Quan Te Am,
  her nectar of tears flowing down my cheeks,
  I am you.
                           Clarity of the Heart

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So, what have I been up to? Well, a lot. After I came back from Kalachakra I got myself a new job, which is quite nifty, at least so far. I work at a small company  working as a programmer,integrator, systems analyst, you name it. Got to work in a mostly open source environment, linux,perl,apache… I’ve always liked playing with those but most of the time worked in a windows environment. So now I got to join my hobby with my work and I quite like it. I also like scripting languages, small projects, network stuff and it looks like I’ll be doing a lot of those as well.
I’ve also enrolled in school again - College for Social Work and so far Ilike it quite a lot. This is the first time I am at a college and actually feel like I am getting something useful out of it, and also that I am contributing quite a bit. Lots of fun!
I’ve also started again a small meditation group here in Ljubljana, we’re mostly doing shamatha practice and tonglen practice, listening to teachings from Ani Pema Chodron. It’s small but nice, mostly new people, sometimes challenging,but also supportive and inspiring. I do wish we had a good teacher/meditation instructor here who could really lead these things.
I’m also working at a Hospice here, actually I’ll be doing my 2nd accompanying(hmm, this does not sound like a real word) on Monday. I’m looking forward to it, but also scared.
And right now I am reading Sophie’sWorld which is proving to be quite interesting - a look at the different philosophies being put in a novel from a perspective of a young girl.
And I’ll also be going to India soon! On Dec 25th I fly first to Amman, and then to Calcutta. I’ll be staying most of the time in Bodhgaya, listeningto teaching by HH the 17th Karmapa and HH the Dalai Lama. Sounds good, doesn’tit?

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In a Dark Time …: Why I Blog, Redux

Excellent description of why loren blogs…

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