Lila & Sands @ Louwrien's

My friend, the beggar of Manju Ka Tilla, Delhi, India

In December and January I spent three weeks in Delhi and Bodhgaya, India. These were three of the most wonderful weeks of my life. I really love India, and I felt so at home there.

The first week I stayed at the New Peace House in Manju Ka Tilla, the Tibetan enclave in Delhi.

Manju Ka Tilla is an enclosed series of narrow streets, and alleyways, with apartment buildings, and one square, where there are two temples.

It's such a magical place.

On my first day there, I met a beggar. He had very thin legs, supported by a plastic contraption, probably the result of polio, which hasn't been eradicated in India. This man started walking beside me at one point. He was mumbling something, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. It took me a minute or so, and then I realized that he was asking me to buy him a blanket.

When I understood what he was saying, there was no choice for me. I was so overwhelmed, and on the verge of sobbing.

Along the main street in Manju Ka Tilla, there is a long row of vendors. Many of them sell colorful blankets. He and I and stood side by side, right next to the stalls of women with stacks of blankets piled onto wooden tables.

So I said, yes, I'll buy you a blanket, and we walked over to one of the women. I asked her how much the blankets were. She said, 300 rupees, and I told her that I'd like to buy one. She asked me which one I liked, and I said, oh no, it's not for me. It's for him. Gesturing to the beggar, I asked him which blanket he liked. He picked one out, and I paid.

The next two days, I saw him a few times. Each time, he was so happy when he saw me. One of the times he was sitting on the walking bridge that connects Manju Ka Tilla with the neighborhood across the busy road, Punjabi Basti. He smiled, and reached his hand out. My friend! I was also very happy to see him, smiled back, and shook his hand. That was the last I saw him.

He told me he had a wife and two children. The day after I bought him the blanket, I noticed that he was wearing a new jacket that looked like leather, and I wondered if he'd traded the blanket for a jacket. But I didn't care. He must've needed a jacket. I wondered if he really had a family, or if he was just saying this so that I would buy him a blanket. But I didn't mind.

There are always beggars sitting on the bridge from Manju Ka Tilla to Punjabi Basti, many of them in worse condition than the man I met. Some of the people have open sores. There are children, mothers, men, all of them rather dirty, and genuinely in need. In fact, Delhi must have hundreds of thousands of beggars.

Whenever I gave a child a coin, a package of cookies, or a bunch of bananas, he or she was always so happy. The child would skip, or trot off in joy. It was really satisfying giving something to children in India, just to see the joy on their faces. It made me happy, too.

There are a surprising number of people in India with deformed legs, many of them beggars. It didn't occur to me while I was there that they had polio. Now I realize this to be the case. I couldn't understand how there could be so many people with emaciated and deformed legs. Someone told me that they'd all been maimed by a kind of mafia that then coerces them into a life of beggary. I'm not sure about this, but there certainly are many people with polio.

The people in India are really beautiful, though. It's a wonderful country.

I am looking for a job now, and I hope to find one soon so that I can start saving up for my next trip to India.

You Can Be Happy, too.

Here I am again, though I've nothing to write about.

In the past I used this blog as an occasional outlet when I was feeling rather down. But now it seems like—on the odd occasion that I do write something—I am here because I am really fine.

So anyway, I am still not too sure what the purpose of keeping this blog is, but I guess I'll just keep it for now.

When people in the United States have nothing special to discuss, they often talk about the weather.

The weather in Holland is very misty today. It's been misty and nearly freezing many days of late. It also hasn't rained at all the month. Not a drop. So I guess the dikes are at a low level, and there's a drought.

I'm happy with the drought though because we need a new ceiling in our kitchen. It leaks when it rains.

It's just as easy to be happy as it is to be unhappy. Happiness is really only a state of mind, and so is unhappiness. In order to be happy, you have to change your way of seeing. Nothing external can lead to happiness. You can feel a temporary sense of happiness from something outside of yourself, but that sense of happiness won't last unless you have a sense of overall contentment about your life situation.

We think we need all kinds of things in order to be happy, but really, this is not the case at all, since happiness lies within the mind.

If you want to be happy, it's also very important not to harm yourself or others. Harmful actions stem from the mind, so take a look at what's in your mind. Remember that if you harm yourself or others, you will be miserable, so try to avoid harm at all costs. This is very important for a happy life.

Whatever you have, wherever you are, you can be happy, as long as your mind is happy. You don't need anything other than what you have right now. The past is gone, so forget about it. Move on with your life from the present moment. Be kind to others, and kindness will come back to you.

If someone does something to you, try not to retaliate. Retaliation will only make matters worse. Instead, realize that that person also has his or her own problems that led him/her to commit such an action. Remember that harmful actions stem from the mind alone, so then you can go back and think, well, that person must be experiencing pain or unhappiness in his/her mind, and that's why he/she did that. This way you can feel a sense of love for that person, along with the wish that he/she will be able to experience happiness in the future.

Try to remember that we are all essentially the same. We all want to be happy, and we want to avoid suffering. Everyone wants happiness, but rather than creating the causes of happiness, we continually create causes for unhappiness, and that is harm, pain, negativity. So it's better to just stop all of this.

Try to realize your own value as a human being. We all have the same potential for good, and that includes you. So there's no need to put yourself down, or to see yourself in a bad light. You are a valuable person, and you have good qualities, so be happy about that. In order to increase your sense of worthiness, try to think of little things you can do to help someone else, or to help yourself. This doesn't have to involve spending money.

If you mess up, or make a mistake, try to forgive yourself. Forgiveness goes a long way. You can forgive others, and you can forgive yourself. Forgiveness is a form of love. You'll be doing yourself a big favor if you can really learn to forgive. Holding grudges only harms your mind, and since happiness is in the mind, you'll just be unhappy, so whatever it is or was, accept it, forgive, forget.

We can all make small contributions, and it all begins in the mind. You can do it.

The Infrequent Blogger is Happy

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Like many bloggers out there, I have neglected my blog. There are times when I think, well, perhaps it would be better to just delete all of my blogs from the blogosphere. After all, does anyone really read my blog? And do I have the dedication to continue posting. I'll leave these questions open.

The other issue is, at times, well, what IF someone read this blog, and realized that they knew me. I might become embarrassed at my candidness, and occasional willingness to reveal details of the struggles I face as a woman in a foreign country, separated from family, lacking the usual support system most people take for granted.

But then I ponder, isn't that what many blogs are about? We all have our personal challenges, and some of us choose to blog about them. There might just be other people out there who could benefit from our posts, or there might even possibly be kindred souls out there who could share in our struggle in a virtual way. We may not ever meet each other, our paths might never cross. But at least we can feel the support of knowing that someone, or a multitude perhaps, are sympathetic to us. There might even be a few caring souls out there who actually wish us well. Imagine that there are people out there who DO really genuinely wish us the best. People who want us to succeed, and to lead satisfactory, fulfilling lives. These people might exist.

Let us say you are one of the few people who actually read this blog. Just pretend. Okay, I am imagining that there's someone reading this blog.

What I would like to tell you, dear reader, is this. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I wish you happiness. That is all.

When I say happiness, I mean in a very simple way. This has nothing to do with material wealth, or with meeting your dream person, or landing a fabulous job, or anything that exists outside of your own mind. It has to do with finding satisfaction right now, in the moment. Wherever you are, whatever situation you're in, try not to make any value judgements for the moment. Just say to yourself, life is happiness. I live, therefore I am happy. I am breathing now. Breath is happiness.

Happiness does not exist beyond this.

Earth Day Meditation

Today is Earth Day. The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa gave a teaching this morning from India. At the end of the teaching, he told everyone to go out and sit on the earth and do some meditation, so I went out with my kids and sat in the courtyard of a local Schiedam church on the grass.

Actually, everyday is Earth Day, the Karmapa explained. We are dependent upon the Earth for our very survival. If it weren't for the Earth, and the complex set of interdependent circumstances that allows Earth to sustain life, none of us would be here.

As I was biking home this evening from a rather disappointing meeting, I started to feel a sense of gratitude for being here on this planet. It was a small moment of joy and gratitude. The sun was setting over a river in Rotterdam. It was a huge, firey ball reflecting off of the water. There were Egyptian ducks walking along the river bank, and I biked alongside them, taking in all of this remarkable beauty. It had rained earlier, so the sky was clear blue with a few scattered clouds, and the grass and trees were imbued with fresh green dampness.

The sun shines on everyone without discrimination. We can all enjoy the beauty of the sun, the sweetness of birds singing, and the greenness of trees, grass, and plants. We can all appreciate these things on a very basic level. It's a very simple and joyful thing to do.

Lately I have a heightened sense of birds singing everywhere I go. There are little white balls of plant fuzz floating through the air all over town. The days are beginning to get a little hotter. Disappointment slides away as easily as it comes these days.

Leaving Fear Behind

Leaving Fear Behind is a beautiful film by Dondup Wangchen. He interviewed Tibetans in Tibet on their feelings approaching the Olympic games in 2008. Some of the responses are quite emotional. Several people start to cry when they say that their greatest wish is that His Holiness the Dalai Lama be allowed to return to Tibet.

It's tragic that Tibetans are facing the decimation of their culture, and I think this film is an important document in that it allows Tibetans to express their own ideas about what their lives are like.

In the past several months I've had the great fortune of meeting several Tibetans. Whenever I meet a Tibetan I am always amazed by their warmth and sincerity. I truly love the Tibetan people. They are such kind, warm hearted people. To me they represent the ideal that I am striving to fulfill for myself. If it weren't for the Tibetan's dedication in preserving the Buddha's teachings, I myself would be totally at a loss. By extension, if I make an effort to become a better person through contact with Tibetan people, then I can inspire other people in turn.

The Buddha's teachings tell us that everything we view as a misfortune is actually a teaching in disguise. Whenever we endure mental hardship we become stronger. We can use it as a form of mind training. As an example, if I think that my life is difficult or lonely, I can think about the Tibetans, and see that actually my life isn't difficult at all. Either that or I can think, I am suffering now, but I am going to use my suffering, and mentally take on the suffering of others', thereby relieving them of their burden. In developing an altruistic attitude, my mind becomes joyful because I am able to assist other beings in finding happiness.

Dondup Wangchen is still imprisoned, and is probably being tortured for making a simple film.

Several months ago I met a man who was arrested and tortured in a prison in Lhasa. He recounted his story. It was a horrific one. Yet, despite the suffering he'd obviously endured, he told his story with a smile. I wish I could retell it here, but I haven't asked his permission. Even though he was telling a very difficult and sad story, he was still able to make it positive. After enduring weeks of starvation, he explained that the food he finally was allowed to eat was the most delicious food he'd ever eaten. And then he also said that after being denied water, when he finally did get something to drink, the water he drank was the sweetest water he'd ever tasted.

In actuality, I feel my own pain as a great burden at times, and I bemoan my lot. But my pain is non-existent. And my life is a happy and lucky one. Even the slight discomfort I feel, my shyness, and inability to make friends here, is really not bad at all. I can see this in comparison to many of the lives of people I read about and meet. And I can also see that if it weren't for the perception of suffering that I've experienced throughout my life, I would never have been led to study the Buddha dharma. If I hadn't felt a great sense of loss, and of being lost in the world, of failure, loneliness, what have you, I wouldn't have felt the sense of desperation that was the driving force behind my great thirst for the Buddhist teachings.

Alternately, I can train myself to rejoice in my own qualities, to really look at what I have as valuable, and to view my life as valuable. However small my contribution is, whatever good thought I have, or small kindness I bestow on another being, I can rejoice in that small virtue. Little by little, drop by drop, I can slowly transform my attitude, so that I no longer feel anguished. As my own attitude changes, I will become more a capable, and I will be able to reach out to others in more meaningful ways. I can also aid others in their quest to become relieved of their own suffering.

So it is through my own pain that I have come to discover greater truths, and that I have come into contact with Tibetan people. My fortune is truly great, indeed.

Windmills in Schiedam

In Schiedam they're these big old windmills that're supposed to be the biggest the world. I guess you have to leave out the new modern ones to make such a claim. The mills in Schiedam were used to mill the grains to make the alcoholic drink, Jenever, a grain alcohol made with juniper berries.

There's a mill here where you can buy freshly milled flour the old fashioned way. It's wholesome stuff I use to make our pizzas, pancakes, cookies, brownies, cakes, and other things. Plus, the people working at the mill are helpful and friendly. Every May they hold an open day when you can go visit the miller for a demonstration. There's a mill that's been turned into a restaurant, and one that's a museum, a visit that includes a ride around the canals of Schiedam.

Trees

I love trees. Whenever I'm out walking in the woods, or in the city, I'm drawn to trees. They're so beautiful and solid.

Dukkha as continual state....

Dukkha is the Sanskrit word for the afflictive state of pain we find ourselves in.

Living in the Netherlands is a form of masochism for me. What else, how else can I put it. Constantly being sort of used up. Where is my energy. I don't know. Better to accept the inevitability of it all, and thereby undermine its influence.

The only way "out," or should I say "in," is a strict regimine of meditation. Tomorrow I will begin to box myself in to the discipline that brings a clausterphobic sense of relief. How else can I put it? Whenever I loose my discipline, I can feel it welling up again, the sharpness of dukkha. When I think of doing something else, there is no choice. There's nothing left for me to do but dedicate myself to refuge in the Buddha dharma.

Waking up early, prayers, hour-long meditation. Late night, the same. Otherwise, the unbearable sharpness of the pain simply won't relent. Over and over again I say to myself, my family is not here. Friends, supporters are few and far between. Stop complaining. So many people don't have their families. Untold numbers of people have less support, and live in destitution, which I do not. I can immediately think of many Tibetan friends whose families are locked away in Tibet. They risked their lives to leave Tibet; they'd be risking them again in re-entering. No way in. No way out for the aging parents, small children. My thought, the pain of separation, the loneliness I face. This, I dedicate to those who are also separated from their families. They too have felt the sharpness of this so acutely. And yet, the beauty, the genuineness of their laughter surpasses mine.

Here's the definition of one form of dukkha I found on a website:

"And what is the stress of separation from the loved? There is the case where desirable, pleasing, attractive sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, or tactile sensations do not occur to one; or one has no connection, no contact, no relationship, no interaction with those who wish one well, who wish for one's benefit, who wish for one's comfort, who wish one security from the yoke, nor with one's mother, father, brother, sister, friends, companions, or relatives. This is called the stress of separation from the loved."

You, the Living

Two years ago in Rotterdam, before I started studying Buddhism, I saw this film. The girl in this scene is in love with the guitarist, and fantasizes their wedding. After a one-night-stand he's no where to be found. She goes searching for them, thinking they're an item, to no avail.

The Swedish director Andersson is really right on in his social commentary. You, the Living is a beautiful film. People are looking for kindness everywhere, but only running into people looking out for themselves.

I'm not cynical enough to think that everyone on the planet is too selfish to care about anyone else but themselves, because I don't think it's true.

On the other hand, Andersson's vision does speak the truth to me quite accurately. Even genuine people who'd like to express their kindness often end up missing each other. Too many people are stuck in their own narrow and problematic world to make an overture to someone else. So that even if they'd genuinely like to express kindness, they're too afraid of the "other's" unkindness to make the first step. It becomes a process of pre-emptiveness; a means of self-protection. It's a complicated mess of people out there. People are all mixed in together radiating neurosis. Almost no one is brave enough to be consistently kind to everyone he comes across. The Christian ethic of brotherly love has been watered down by one-upmanship.

The Ground Under my Feet

Whenever I get an idea for writing these days I let it go. Maybe it's a laxity on my part. Letting go is a good practice that I need to work more on. There isn't anything we can hold onto, so it's a good idea not to try.

I don't particularly like the feeling of having no ground under my feet, but it's a feeling that comes and goes. I have almost learned to accept it completely, so that when it comes, I don't start to panic. There isn't anything wrong with being groundless, so there's no judgment involved. I can't describe it. It just is that way sometimes.

My ego would like to think that when I'm feeling groundless, I'm loosing my sense of ego, which isn't really true. My ego is still there.

When I was 15 I used to sometimes feel walking down the hallway at school in Orem, Utah, that I was walking through a tunnel. Some people might call it a feeling of being disassociated. It could have been related to all the marijuana I was smoking at the time, the acid and mushroom trips. All of that is long since gone from my system.

Anyway, I'd just like to report that life is good. In my last post I was feeling a little sorry for myself, but that's past. I have some good friends here, and I'm grateful. Sometimes I do like to pull out my violin, and think 'woe is me'. But when I do that it isn't an accurate depiction at all. Something I need to make clear. Negativity or depression is a habit that takes a long time to change, but it is possible, and I'm a testament to that. I'm still in the process of breaking that habit, which does go back more than half my life, so I think it's okay if it doesn't get turned around in one year.

Now here I am patting myself on the back for doing such a good job.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I've been considering shutting this blog down lately, since I hardly ever write any posts, and a lot of it is negative.

It's true, though. I usually keep my birthday very quiet, informing random people, never wanting to draw attention to myself. Once, while still living in NY, I invited some friends to have drinks at a bar, and was surprised at how many people showed up.

Now that I live in the Netherlands, I approach my birthday with a growing sense of confusion every year. I never know what to do, if I should be happy, if I should plan anything, thinking, no one would come. Who would I invite, anyway.

Some people throw big bashes.

I still have a strong urge to leave the Netherlands, asap. My family is so warm and hospitable. They're so helpful and kind. And I'm so lonely here with the kids, taking them to school, and picking them up everyday, almost never having a conversation with anyone. What is the point. I'd rather be an outsider in my own culture, if I have to be an outsider, at all.

I realize there's a lot of virtue in being alone, and I should find some comfort and dignity in that.

Then, I'd really rather be successful at something, and I know I have it in me, but I came to the wrong place for that, and it still burns in me. I have to admit.

I could give up all of these things, the desire for acceptance, success, friendship, and set it out to sea in a flimsy, make shift raft.

It's quite possible that I'd be saying goodbye to the inner conflict that causes me, and people who bear the brunt of it, so much anguish.

What is the point in causing myself this misery.

If something's not there, some perceived wish or want, it simply isn't there, and then let it be, dear.

And of course, happy birthday.

Metta Sutta

The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta)

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

Klaus Nomi - The Cold Song - EQ Filtered

How to Recover from a Psychosis without Medicine

The Story of Joris van Huijstee (42)
How to Recover from a Psychosis without Medicine
Translated from the NRC Handelsblad (http://www.nrc.nl)
14/15 February 2009

After a psychosis it’s as if you rise from the dead. You have to be re-born emotionally. Someone who’s never had a psychosis doesn’t understand what that means. There’s little empathy in society for psychiatric patients. If you break your legs, someone holds the door open for you, even ten years later, but for a psychiatric patient, the door is slammed shut. It’s an unbelievably hard existence. Even so, a psychosis isn’t the end of the world. You can even recover using your own strength.

At a certain point, when I had a psychosis, I took things into my own hands. I didn’t go in for treatment. I decided to address the problem itself: I stopped taking medicine, and took the long road toward independence. You take medicine for your surroundings; you look like you fit in, but that’s only on the outside.

The pharmaceuticals have a lot of influence in psychiatric healthcare. It’s slowly become this way over the past twenty years. Psychiatrists used to look at the symptoms of an illness, and then they’d give a diagnosis. These days, they mostly ask themselves: What can I prescribe? I think it’s important that people who experience the same things that I have realize that you can also recover naturally. I think that many patients yearn for a life without medication. The majority of the psychiatrists will say that you can’t recover, but I haven’t taken medication in 15 years, and I also haven’t been depressed in 15 years.

The psychosis manifested itself in 1990 during a period of heavy drug and alcohol use. For years I blackened my lungs with cigarettes and marijuana. I got drunk when I was 15 for the first time. I drank more than the others, and I always stayed longer at parties, instead of going home to study for my exams. When I was 24 it was as if my brain slowly opened a door to a past that I’d always kept closed. As a child I experienced trauma that I repressed for years that came back then like a boomerang.

I was thrown into the grow-up world early on. I lived in a foster home for five years, from the time I was six-years-old, because my parents had relationship problems. I was abused there by the teenage son of the family and his friend. For a long time it seemed like a taboo subject. I came to a still-stand emotionally when I was six. When I was 24 I started to re-experience the trauma. I had an identity crisis. There were times when I didn’t know my own name anymore.

A psychosis is a degenerative process. Your mind actually walks off, separates from the body. You think irrationally, fantasy and reality are no longer separable. My mind couldn’t bear the physical re-experiencing, and that manifested itself in angst. I was scared of everything all day long. I’d never experienced that before.

I was committed for a year to a psychiatric hospital. Everyone in such a hospital has a damaged child inside of himself. I didn’t want to acknowledge the memories of the fearful boy in the crevices of my memory. My treatment consisted of talk-therapy, working with clay, and painting. I also got anti-psychotics. The intention is that you gradually go off the medicine, but they usually have side effects that need to be counter-acted with more medicine, so that, after half a year, you’re swallowing five pills in the morning, and five at night.

I read that 10 percent of the people on these medicines are chemically “happy.” They lead a so-called happy life, but in reality the chemicals paralyze part of your nervous system. It’s not a cure. The side effects bring new suffering with them. Medicine makes you cynical, bitter, and paranoid. You can become depressed from them, and even become psychotic. On top of it all, the medicines always come with a warning that if you stop taking them, your symptoms will return even worse than before. Nine out of ten patients relapse sooner or later. They have a subscription to the institution, and are dependent on medicine.

You can ask yourself if medicine serves the patient or the pharmaceuticals. Their interests are at odds with each other. I’m not suggesting that everyone should stop taking his medicine, but that once you're in its clutches, it’s difficult to break free. If people know about your psychiatric background, and you have bags under your eyes, then they think it’s from the medicine, but with someone else they think, he just didn’t get enough sleep.

One of the reasons I stopped singing the institutional song is that, I think, I choose instinctively for hormone therapy. I asked the therapist for it because I had the feeling that I wouldn’t make it without some extra power. Life in an institution is no walk in the park. It’s a hell. In prison, at least the prisoners have the idea that they can escape. That gives them hope. Pharmaceuticals take the hope away that it’s possible to live without medicine. Some patients can’t cope with reality. It would be good if they added hormone therapy to the medicine to give the patients strength. They could derive some hope from it, and the feeling that there’s been a stay of execution.

During therapy I learned to talk about my fears. You get a handle on them so that you can register and analyze them, but re-living them comes later. But I wasn’t cured when I came out of the hospital. I got the idea that I had Aspergers-syndrome, a form of autism. There were many signals that pointed in that direction. The conclusion was that they couldn’t rule Aspergers out, but the therapists weren’t interested in the diagnosis since there wasn’t much they could do for me as an adult, they said. They only wanted to give me chemical medicines. I avoided this. I left and decided to pave my own way.

It was a road with thousands of incremental steps. I sometimes say, I didn’t cry a thousand tears at once, but cried one tear a thousand times. It was a question of perseverance. My theory is that mental illness stems from diseased organs. The mental health sector sees things the other way around. The brain controls the body. I think that, for example, if the lungs, liver or kidneys are diseased that the blood pressure changes, and that’s how psychosis occur.

If you can ensure that blackened lungs, and kidneys damaged by alcohol abuse, function normally, then it will have a positive effect on the diseased brain. That’s why I stopped smoking and drinking ten years ago. In order to cure the kidney damage, I drank four or five liters of liquids per day to keep my bladder functioning well. Everyday I walked five-ten kilometers. I have a tendency to shut off into myself, but I forced myself to look forward to tomorrow. In addition, I followed various alternative and homeopathic therapies.

If you don’t drink or smoke and you’re not dependent on medicine, then you’ll do what you need to do. You don’t stay in bed as easily. After a while I got a job as a telemarketer, and I was good at it. I even won tickets to the Champion League between Ajax and AC Milan in Venice because I was the top salesperson in our department. But at a certain point, I thought, if you choose for a life without medicine, and you’re critical of the influence of the pharmaceuticals on mental health, then you shouldn’t be sitting on the phone selling products. You should pick up a pencil ("pick up your gloves") and write down your story to help people with similar problems.

I’d already written detective novels. Time heals a psychosis. This time I wrote an autobiographical report. Of utmost importance was the message. I wanted to express a contrary opinion. In the chapter, “Mental Illness Stems from the Body,” I wrote about how I found my way toward recovery.

That’s cost me a lot of energy the past several years. I haven’t made it big in society, which is unfortunate. But, first things first. I live on government assistance, write books, give Dutch lessons to asylum seekers, and private Dutch lessons to foreigners. One day I’d like to generate my own income. If my book, now only available online, is downloaded a lot, perhaps I’ll find a publisher. I’m driven, and I would like to be successful in life. I’m not scared that the psychosis will come back. I know how to survive.

Joris van Huijstee’s books can be downloaded online for free (in Dutch) at http//:www.tijdgeneest.nl.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam

Yesterday afternoon at the International Film Festival Rotterdam I was reminded once again that I'd rather be at Sundance, which is a film festival in Utah that runs about the same time as Rotterdam. Can't be two places at once.

Last year I really enjoyed myself at the Rotterdam festival, seeing something like 25 films. It was pretty relaxed. I got my tickets on time, and didn't run into any problems.

This year I don't really have the drive to go there. There seem to be fewer films I really want to see. I wrote two different short articles for two English language publications here in the Netherlands in anticipation of a great time. But of course, you can never repeat anything. Life is in constant flux, so there's no going back to a better, happier time. Maybe my spirit will change, and I'll get excited about this year's festival.

It took me over an hour yesterday to get my tickets and collect my Tijgerpas, which gives you a discount on films. First I stood in the wrong line for twenty minutes before some nice old Dutch woman informed me that I needed to be in the other line. So then I went to that line and waited for another twenty minutes. Then I went back to the original line, and waited for another twenty minutes. The staff told me that I should've come earlier if I wanted to be on time for my film, and wouldn't refund my ticket.

By the time I got to the film I went there to see it was halfway finished.

"Everybody Dies but Me," is the title of the film by the 24-year-old Russian film maker, Valeria Gaïa Germanica.

Perhaps I missed all of the more humanistic, character building bits in the first 45 minutes. What I saw was an exercise in deflation.

My original motivation for going to the film was to reflect on my own early wild teenage years of drinking and getting into trouble. It made me realize that the rocky times I experienced as a teen were really quite sweet and quaint in comparison to what many girls are experiencing today.

The first word that pops into my head is "crass." The characters are harsh, hardened and mean at a very young age. The only tenderness or glimpse of vulnerability the film maker lets us see of the main protagonist is at the very end when she breaks down in sobs. Even here she draws away quickly, and the film ends.

I got the impression that the film maker was reflecting her own experience, and that it was probably too painful and confrontational for her to show the pain of her characters. That's one of the the problems with using your own unpolished material as the stuff of narrative. You can't face the pain yourself, and so you block it out, and that comes out in your work. There's always something missing that you intentionally leave out as a self-protective mechansim.

Perhaps it's the youth and inexperience of the film maker that prevents her from portraying any nuance in her characters. She strips them down to their base motivations. One of the actresses has a cute kind of vulnerability to her. She seems to be portraying herself in this case, and not to be playing a role. The other two girls are thin, young, and precocious in their short, tight pleated minis.

I did enjoy seeing shots of Russian youth walking down the hallways of their school in jeans. That was about all I enjoyed in this film. The young extras walking or racing past in their new clothes. It gave me a glimpse of what kids are like in Russia, just regular kids going to school.

When I walked into the film one of the girls (the one who cries at the end) is undergoing disciplinary measures by her parents, who are pushed to the brink of their neurosis by their only child. I'm pretty sure the father says something like, "Your not hanging out with those sluts anymore.... I'm not even going to hit you....," whereupon the girl starts banging the floor, "Daddy, don't hit me! Please!" she shouts.

In an attempt to save their daughter from becoming a single mother and a high school dropout with no future, her father starts escorting her to and from school. This is a source of mortification for the young woman, who's concerned that her image is being tarnished.

She isn't too far off the mark, since it is for this very reason that her two best friends dump her, and make plans to go to a disco on their own. The two girls are concerned with impressing a group of cool older girls, and don't want to be hampered in the process by their uncool friend. "They'll smash our faces in if we're seen with HER!" is their rational for dumping their girlfriend.

Under lock and key, the outcast girl is determined not to miss the festivities, and schemes to escape her father's watchful eye. To this end, she decides to use and abuse the kindness of a "nerdy fat girl."

The two are depicted in an empty high school lunchroom. "Why weren't we friends before?" asks the nerd, while finishing off her meal of gooey mashed potatoes and gravy and fried liverworst. "I've never eaten here," exclaims the other.

On the afternoon of the disco, she has the nerdy girl divert her father by ringing their doorbell. As the nerd is explaining that the errant young woman had forgotten her textbook, the girl, determined to leave the house, jumps out of the window of their ground floor apartment in her pajamas. Frantically, she changes into some tight, ripped jeans, and a T-shirt in between two large green garbage dumpsters, and runs off to the party.

There's a scene of the nerdy girl waiting for her at a street corner. Of course, she doesn't show.

Meanwhile, the two other girls are drinking and smoking, all dressed up and on their way to the disco in their silver car with a red interior. When they get there, they meet the cool older girls in a dingy school bathroom. The older girls encourage one of them to chug glasses of wine while taking drags from a joint. Predictably, one of them winds up passing out on the floor while the older girls jeer at her and take photos with their mobile phones. While her friend is in the process of getting hammered, the third girl goes off to find her stud.

She spots him in the hallway of the school disco going off with her jilted friend. We already know he's a rake, since we see him the hallway of their school biting the hair of a girl, while the third girl looks on longingly. He ignores her, but she is undeterred, he's so dreamy.

The conversation goes, "Would you like to go outside.... Would you like to smoke.... What is it like being alone.... Well, you know, it sucks.... Let's go to our place.... What if I don't like it?.... You can leave."

Our place turns out to be the dank basement of an abandoned warehouse. The young stud has a special place there where young girls let him see "their naked pussies." The rejected girl goes along with him. He undresses himself hastily, then pulls of her pants. Before she knows it, she's not a virgin anymore. "How was it?" "It was never like that before," she struggles to hold back her tears, but she's a real tough girl only looking for a little acceptance from the rake, and that's that.

Her parents intercept her at the disco, but she runs off anyway, only to get the shit beaten out of her by the rake's girlfriend. "Did you fuck that whore?" the girlfriend asks the prized youth. A group of teens standby, including the rake, jeering while the girlfriend repeatedly kicks the recently deflowered girl in the stomach. They take photos with their mobile phones, and shrug their shoulders and walk away when it's all over, "Come on. The fight's over."

The nerdy girl finds her fake friend beaten to a pulp on the ground, and tries to help, uttering kind words, and helping her up. It's a wonder she can walk after being so badly beaten, but she stands up anyway and she can walk. While the nerdy girl makes attempts at soothing her, she tells her to sod off and calls her a fat cow. This is the final scene for the nerdy girl in her tight green crochet dress.

There's a scene of third girl making friends, getting high, and then making out with a new guy. They're laughing and having a good 'ol time. In fact, with her curly blond hair, slightly paunched belly, little nose, sparkly eyes, and girlish laugh, she appears to be the one redeeming character in the original trio of friends. She might just have a future. In her last scene we see her making out rather innocently on a bench in a park.

There's another, earlier scene of the wasted girl being discovered by her friend, "Come on. I saw her with him. Let's go get her!" She throws up, and passes out, gets discovered by security guards, and is ultimately carried off by her father.

The jilted girl is shown at the dinner table, snorting and scarfing up her potato salad. Her parents "Daddy will take you to the shops tomorrow, and buy you something new.... Why don't you wash up those wounds with vodka, you could get an infection.... We still love you." The daughter: "I don't care about an infection.... I hate you...." She runs off. The mother, "I think we should board up her window tonight. Do we have any wood?" Then, a scene of her crouched down, crying on her bedroom floor closes the film.

Girls are in big trouble in the Russia, and I'm sorry for them.

Cascando

Cascando
by Samuel Beckett

1.

why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives

2.

saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

3.


unless they love you

Me

There is a general sense of discomfort when you refer to yourself as "me," which is a very subtle discomfort. We usually don't acknowledge or notice it, because it is so subtle, and since it is there all the time, we become immune to it. There is a certain basic ambivalence there. It is like dogs, who at a certain point begin to relate to their leaches as providing security rather than imprisonment. Animals in the zoo feel the same thing. At the beginning they experienced imprisonment, but at some point this became a sense of security. We have the same kind of attitude. We have imprisoned ourselves in a certain way, but at the same time we feel that this imprisonment is the most secure thing we have. This me-ness or my-ness has a painful quality of imprisonment, but at the same time it also represents security rather than just pure pain. That is the situation we are in at this point. Every one of us is in that situation.

The Path is the Goal
The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa

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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