Solitude

Yesterday I translated a Dutch film of a woman from Curaçao who's been on welfare since coming here in the early nineties. She has three children, one of them a severely mentally disabled teenage boy, who is unable even to use the toilet.

It was an interesting job. In the process of doing it, I indentified with her as a mother trying to raise children in The Netherlands with virtually no support from the native population.

I've said before that coming here has helped me to better understand what it's like to be a minority, and what it's like to be discriminated against. I guess that's a valuable lesson in itself that I should be thankful for, but it still can never subtract all of the lonely hours I've spent here, or the depression that's been its result. I'm a lot stronger now, even though my strength hasn't translated into acceptance here on the "home" front.

There was an article last week in the NRC Handelsblad (the most reputable Dutch paper, that uses as its model the New York Times) about research done by an English expat. He found out that most people who come to Amsterdam to work leave after only a few years because they find the social climate too harsh and unaccepting. This goes even for people who do their utmost to speak the language, and to "fit in," and "integrate." Even people, unlike me, who earn a lot, live in Amsterdam in a nice house, and have respectable careers end up feeling shut out of the Dutch culture. It leaves me wondering if there's much hope at all. They all wind up in expat groups, like so many, complaining about the Dutch. How familiar.

About a year ago I decided to combat my isolation by becoming an acestic. I decided that there had to be another way of breaking through the boundaries of my life, and I knew that it wasn't going to come from the outside. In the end, I have to become responsible to an internal self that isn't reliant on other people's reactions or acceptance, which isn't very forthcoming at all. There are some very nice people out there, but the little time we spend together has never been enough to sustain the vastness of the loneliness I feel when the warmth of their presence has gone.

In Zen, solitude is wisdom. Solitude, loneliness and isolation aren't the same things. Solitude brings with it a sense of peace and tranquility. Isolation is turbulent and disparaging. Isolation is unbearably stressful and can lead to various psychological ailments.

I keep reminding myself that I am grateful to the pain I've experience because it led me to what I am doing now, which is following the vajrasattva path of Tibetan Buddhism, and it is a source of learning.

I haven't come that far on the path, but when I am meditating consistently, I am more positive, at peace with myself and the world around me.

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