thatszenbro

I sit in a taxi to the airport. On the road, again. It’s 3am and the driver is playing sweet sad gospel music. I will miss this place. I always hate this part, goodbye.

I’ve spent the last 2 and a bit months living in Ghana, West Africa. 2 months is kinda long enough to start to sink into a place – get a feel for the topography of the land, the spirit of the people. Everything is different here, and yet my life continues just the same. There are good moments, and bad moments – thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, people, things. And yet things feel the same, as if the very conditions of life are eternally unchanging. It’s all so ordinary. When you get a common cold, you curse your sleeping bag on the floor and long for home and Mumma’s cooking; when you dance the life-creating dance of Lord Shiva in eternal bliss, you feel the same sun that rises at home kiss your skin. The guests come and go, but the host remains eternal: I have travelled very far, and yet I’ve never left my home.

 

Yep. The majority of my time in Ghana I’ve been living in a village about 2.5 hours outside of the capital city, Accra. I would catch a local minibus – hot, sweaty and overloaded – to the stop nearest my home. I’d then walk along the muddy and often treacherous path, all the village kids lovingly calling ‘obroni!’ (white man) and giggling as I walked past. I could go a whole week without seeing another white person, and I couldn’t help but goggle a bit when I saw one too. When the rains were heavy, the paths would flood, making getting in/out of the village near impossible. When I got to my house, I would be greeted by my lovely neighbor and the two small boys she raises single-handedly. The boys would ask about my time in the city, and suss out if I had brought them any gifts. We’d play games on my phone for a while. When I opened the door to my room, I’d be confronted by the brutal realities of the third-world inchoate: the room was very simple, an unfinished concrete chamber. But I had the essentials: an outdoor dunny, a single cooking element on top of a gas bottle, an outdoor shower, a large bucket to store rain water for showering/washing dishes (water is a privilege – who knew?!), and two beautiful hand-crafted Ghanian Kpanlogo drums.

 

My landlord was my drum teacher’s dad. My teacher would come around three times a week and teach me the traditional drum pieces of the Ga people. Music is everything for the Ga tribe. Drums are everything. There is a rhythm, and a corresponding dance, for every event of cultural life: one for the marriage of a girl, one for courting a girl, one for passing away, one to heal a mental illness, one to bring rain, one to comfort the women as the men go to war. The huge traditional drums were used to send messages between tribes, back in the day. Nowadays they use whatsapp, but some can still understand the old language of the drums.

 

My drum teacher played in a drumming group that played most of the Ga cultural events. There is a traditional month of silence observed across the city of Accra – a time of ancestral remembrance and prayer for Ga people. When that month finishes, the various Ga chiefs hold huge celebrations in their palace courtyards. The drums thunder, and the elders take to the D-floor in turn to show their moves. It is a very spiritual thing, to see a very old woman suddenly come alive with the power of the drums, dancing like a 20 year old. Her ancestors have danced that same dance in an unbroken ancestral line for time immemorial. The Seat of Life is in Africa.

 

As I travelled
I learnt a thousand names for God.

 

But not all ancestral lines remain unbroken in Ghana. The family-tribes that exist today are the ones who survived untouched through the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Not many families did. For 400 grueling years, over 10 million men, women and children were shipped as slaves from West Africa to the New World by the Europeans (mainly the British and Dutch). I visited a slave castle on the Cape Coast; I’ve been to Auschwitz, I’ve been to Gallipoli – I’ve seen nothing like this.

 

Before the Europeans realised that there were resources they could exploit in Africa, there was no concept of nation or country on the continent. There were only a collection of kingdoms and tribes. When one king defeated another tribe, the victors would often kill the vanquished, or use them as slaves. The Europeans saw an opportunity to profit from a trade commodity; they would buy the vanquished as slaves, and in return arm the victors with guns. As such, the newly-armed kings would have more power, defeat more enemies, and provide more slaves to the Europeans. These enslaved people were transported from across West Africa to the Gold Coast (now Ghana, Togo, Cote D’Ivory etc), often walking a distance as large as Europe North-to-South in chains.

 

When they arrived at the coast, they were kept in the dungeons of the colonial slave castles. They could stay in these dungeons for up to 3 months. As I walked into the dungeon, I was told that up to 300 men were kept in one small room. There was only one small hole for light and ventilation high on the wall. It was so dark that the enslaved often went blind when they were finally taken into the sunlight. There was no toilet or space: they would shit, piss, bleed, live and die in the same area. The sludge was ankle deep across the floor. The enslavers would throw food to them twice a day from a high hatch. The enslaved would fight it out between themselves for the food, collected from the sludge. The enslaved women would be selected and raped by the British captains. When it was finally time for the men and women to leave the castle, they were taken through the ‘door of no return’, loaded onto ships like caged cattle, and sent across the treacherous sea into a life of slavery in the Americas.

 

What the white man did in Africa is beyond understanding. I cannot understand how humans could treat other humans in this way, worse than you would treat animals to be slaughtered. Overcome by greed and hatred, there was not a shred of compassion. Directly above the dungeons, the white men had a church where they would sing songs of saviors, heaven and hell. They would send a house slave to open the hatch directly outside the church to throw food into the dungeon below.

 

I walked away from the slave castle to some extent ashamed of the color of my skin, my ancestral karma. The paintings of the slave captains showed them wearing hats like the one I wear today. They died of the sub-Saharan diseases I take pills to prevent today. In some disturbing kinship, I share the same struggles in this foreign land as they did because of the color of our skin. And yet today, my village neighbor welcomes me, cooks me soup and teaches me her language with gentle kindness. What does this mean? The prosperity of my ancestors was built on the suffering of hers; my country is still rich, and her country is still poor. But simple human kindness overrides it all. What can I do with the karma of being born where I was?

 

I also took a roadtrip to the North with a friend during my time in Ghana, to the border of Burkina Faso. I met an Islamic holyman and traditional herbal doctor, who gave me tea after sharing a prayer. I met a rural tribal king who had 20 wives, and over 400 people in his family – the whole village connected to him by blood. He said we could see the shrine for his old Gods if we bought and sacrificed 3 chickens. We said no. I stood defenceless in the open-air, 50-metres away from a pissed off elephant, shitting myself. I saw a live chicken be bought, killed, plucked, cooked and eaten. The locals were confused about my discomfort, and refusal to do the honor of killing the chicken. I saw children be beaten, women bow down as they served their men, heard stories of lynched homosexuals. Rural Africa can be a severe and brutal place.

 

But on this same trip I went to a small village, and was touched by the kindness of a community. There were about 30 children in this community. They are very remote, and therefore very poor. Life is very tough for them. The women did a dance for me, and sang me their song, brought me some simple food. They gathered the children around me, who stared at me expecting a white man miracle. After a few awkward moments, I realized there were games you could play without language.

 

I realized that this is my chance to give something back. I cannot change the karma of my ancestors, but I can help a few people in big way. I started a crowdfunding campaign in the hope that you and I together, my Dearest Reader, can make the world a slightly better place.

 

You can find the crowdfunding page here:
https://pozible.com/project/funds-for-sherigu-village-ghana

 

In Buddhist analogy, the Bodhisattva does not enter the heaven of Nirvana until all beings are liberated from suffering. The stories say that the Bodhisattva choses to do this, but this is no choice. By our nature, when one being suffers, all beings suffer; as long as there is suffering in the world, no one can truly be free. You cannot be truly happy whilst Africa suffers. You, my Dearest Reader, are the Bodhisattva – with your perfect radiant heart and ten thousand compassionate ears turned towards the suffering of the Universe, deep within. Listen. You can hear the cries of African children, the beating of the African drums. They hear with your very eardrums, their eyelashes are entangled with yours. I realise now that it was this sound that carried me across this tiny planet: the beating of a single heart, the beating of ten thousand drums.

 

One Love,

Drew.

 

Right now, I can hear the ocean roaring. For reasons I don’t understand, I was born in Australia. I didn’t choose this, I didn’t do anything especially to deserve it. In Australia we are born free, and rich, and comfortable. Much of the world’s population is not born into a place where they are free, financially stable, or comfortable. What does this mean: that I was born where I was, despite the incredible suffering in this world? What can I do with this karma?

Dunno ay. But, I tell you what, traveling in the developing world certainly gives you a constant, moment-to-moment reminder of your privilege. Often you’re seen as a walking ATM, which often makes trusting people hard. I find I actually have to emotionally close myself off to the poverty sometimes, because no-one can save all beings. Thich Nhat Han – Vietnamese Zen master and one of the most compassionate human beings I’ve ever encountered – says it’s easy to realize the value of health when you’re in pain. Facing the realities of economic disadvantage makes you realize how good you have it. We should be thankful all the time though. How can we – you and I both, my dearest reader – more fully appreciate our gifts in life? Listen – hear that? Life and the World are the Great Miracles.

The Universe is pervaded by 12/8 grooves and always-stopping local buses.

– Long trip on a local bus, Ethiopia, 24/5/17

So I’ve traveled lots since I last wrote. Good lesson in impermanence, traveling quickly. After India I flew to Dubai for a quick one-night stay over. Wow that was weird after India. And then I flew straight onto Zanzibar – a tropical island paradise off the coast of Tanzania where I lived in a village with some young Rasta musician dudes. They had nothing, but what they had they shared with anyone and everyone. I would eat rice and beans with them from one communal plate. They would say ‘Go!’ and then it was a race to grab as many handfuls of food as possible. Sometimes they only ate one meal a day in down season, so sometimes they get a bit hungry. They said they were poor but they lived like millionaires: happiness has nothing to do with money. Sharing is caring, and caring for others is caring for yourself. Let that sand-dune eat a hearty meal – not separate not separate!

But yeah, then onto mainland Tanzania where I went on a Safari in Serengetti and Ngorogoro. Truly an amazing, breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime experience. I stayed with some incredible people, camped amongst the lions, saw hundreds of zebra and wildebeast run away as two lions strolled to the drinking hole. By chance the river was too swollen for our jeep to cross one morning, so I got to spend half an hour chatting with some Massai. The Massai are the traditional people of Western Tanzania who fight lions with machetes, drink animal blood for super-powers, and live nomadically moving their settlements every 4 months. I talked with one young Massai guy who completed primary schooling, and so knew some English. I stood there, dazed and in awe of this skinny, tall, deep-black warrior, with an incredible machete poking from the side of his red tartan shawl, a long spear in hand and huge spacers in his ears. He gave me a bracelet that his wife made. I felt giddish like a school-boy talking to one of his music heroes, and I don’t know why. These guys live a pretty serious life, with some pretty heavy juju.

Then after Tanzania I travelled to Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt. I helped one couchsurfing host to retrieve 20 street kids she cares for from the slums and take them to the library to study. May the kids be delivered from their suffering and live lives full of joy. I saw ancient Christian Coptic churches carved out of stone in Ethiopia, meditating in the underground cavities. The locals believe it was the angels of the Old Testament that helped to build them, but it was probably just slave labor (probably). I danced in traditional music bars, trying not to be the whitest guy in the room (I was the whitest guy in the room). I had my breath taken by the Pyramids of Giza, evidence of other worlds. I got my sunglasses stolen by an abusive tuktuk driver: hate the roadworks, not the road. I saw 200 men beautifully and peacefully pray in an ancient mosque during Ramadan. I went to church and heard the gospel sung by the sweet voice of Mother Africa herself. Christ lived with his Mum in Egypt for a while, and I went to the place where he lived. But don’t mistake the moon for the pond; Christ lives in your house too. If you don’t believe me, invite your neighbor in for a cup of tea and ask them about it.

The village women cackle in Sawahli. I’m a severely lost Muzungo [white person]. They help me out of course; they are kind and jolly like your grandmother’s bookclub. I’ve got no wifi and no idea where I’m meant to be. They give me the only chair in their small shop as they sit on the ground, kneading doe and playing with the beautiful children. I smile in thanks: it’s all you can do when you only know how to say ‘hello’ and ‘brother’. A young village guy rides his bike through the puddles on the dirt road in front of me. He wears a shirt that says ‘cool story bro….’ in English. I wonder if he knows what that means. He waves and I reply in Swahili ‘hello, brother’.

– Stone Town, Zanzibar, 3/5/17

This whole time, I’ve been couchsurfing and airbnbing – staying with locals. It is seriously the only way to travel. I feel sorry for people who stay couped up in their hotels, with air-conditioned luxury and maid-service (although a few of my couchsurfing experiences have, by chance, had those things too – for free). The way I travel means that I rely on the kindness of others: that I am at the mercy of the elements, walking along a thin mountain passage. But, without fail, always the Great Compassion of others carries me to where I need to be – writing these words right now, forever and eternal. But I don’t intend to take take take; regardless of your economic-politic, taking without giving ain’t sustainable. I’ve gotta give every last bit of kindness back. What do I do with my privilege, with this burning feeling in my chest, with the knowledge that you and I and the trees and stars and poor children of the slums of Kenya are all one, not two? Their suffering is our own, and yet, and yet. If you are reading these words, you have been given a precious gift: to be born where you are. Do with it what you will, but please, realize how precious it is. ‘Life and Death are a grave matter, all things pass quickly away. Each of you must be completely alert, never neglectful, never indulgent.’

But, how can you be indulgent with a heart like that my dearest reader? No way not possible. Pay attention: Feel your breath slow, your mind fade and your heart radiate from the centre of you and everything. The beginning and the end.

One Love,
Drew.

My Dearest Reader,

A blank word document. So much potential. Like our Original Mind. Vast desolate snowy mountains, ready to bloom with flowers in Spring.

The fire crinkles softly
in the night-time jungle.
That leopard could get me at any moment
At least I think.

Better listen, stay alert, listen.
Get off your phone.

But I am in the Great Womb of Mother Nature –
Hear Her song!
She keeps me safe,
and sings sweet lullaby.

–  Tapovan, 16 April 2017 (late night)

I’ve been blissing out in the Himalayas for the last few weeks. I often feel this pull when I’m travelling – the urge to retreat and spend time alone, to meditate. I don’t really seek teachers: I will teach anyone I can, even if they are 105, and I will learn from anyone who can teach me something, even if they are 5 years old. But I do seek Nature, the Great Teacher. So in Rishikesh, I packed my tent and hiked into the mountains seeking seclusion.

As luck would have it, at the top of a grand waterfall I found a small camping ground. It had a mud hut and some level clearings on the side of the mountain. It was directly across the valley from a small Shiva shrine. I went to the camp and set up my tent; straight away I was given a cup of chai in a stainless steel camping mug. Amazing.

I learnt that one guy had been living in the mountain hut for 2 months straight – and had been living in the greater Himalayas for about 6 years, moving up and down with the seasons. His name was Sonu. He was a holy man, living ‘for the Nature, by the Nature’. He would sing ‘Sita Ram!’ across the valley – the name of God-as-Nature. I spent 3 weeks camping with Sonu-ji, who became my teacher in lots of things, and dear friend in the rest. He taught me how to live off the land, inside and out. We would cook Ayurvedic food, drink mineral water straight from the stream, offer incense to the Gods. Lots of yoga and lots of meditation. Always small offerings before meals. Daily we had to scare off big groups of monkeys who tried to steal food from the hut, throwing rocks and yelling. Food is precious in the jungle. The sound of the birds and the Ganges stream savored the taste of spiced chickpea soup. Bush marijuana grows wild across the mountain. I scrape the leftover rice out of the pot, offering easy digestion to the nearby birds, singing ‘Om Hare Prasad’ (God’s food). In the morning they sing an extra sweet song for us.

A bit down the mountain was a popular tourist waterfall, so for certain hours every day we could hear the distant murmur of screaming tourists. Some of these tourists would make the extra hike to the Shiva shrine, where Sonu and I would wave them down, or run across the valley and show them the way to our camp. We would offer them food or tea, ask if they would like to sit under the powerful tree with us, or bathe in the river. I would greet them ‘Hello, Namaste, welcome. Here, we call the World ‘downside’ – this is mountain-side. Stress is downside. Time is downside. Here Nature provides everything we need.’ Then Sonu would give Satsang – religious story sharing or I’d show them the 200-year-old Grandfather tree, or the waterfall you could rest your head on and have the water hit you on the forehead between the eyes. People from all around the world would come and join us there, as if drawn by some grand magnet. We would play music together, share our stories, bathe in the river together, meditate together, do qigong and yoga together. We had visits from wandering Sadhus (holy men), who would bathe and wash their clothes in the river, accept our food and give us blessings. We shared food with one 80-year-old village man with 2 teeth who was hauling a huge bundle of wood on his head up the mountain (superhuman strength these mountain villagers!!). Saying goodbye to all our guests, Sonu and I would say ‘I love you, stay blessed always’ and they’d always wish it back.

We would never charge guests, it worked almost entirely on a donation basis. Money is also downside, mountainside we practice karma yoga. Karma yoga is doing service for others (and at the same time doing service for God if that’s ya cuppa). It is helping out. As you scrub that pot in the stream, you scrub away the immeasurable crimes of this life and many others. There is not so much of this in the West: it’s commonplace in India to help other people for no self-return, only to work on your karma. Karma is the most valuable thing in the universe, with limitless value.

So, there are 3 main Gods in Hinduism, or 3 parts of the same Godhead. Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the operator and Shiva the destroyer. (Krishna is a manifestation of Vishnu as an in-world manager). Together they are Rama (Hare Ram!). Two days into camping, we had a big 3-day monsoon pass through. Both Sonu and I stayed in the hut, and shouted the name of God, hoping He would hold down the roof made of tree logs, mud and plastic. He did. After that I slept with my tent open, ending the day with the sight of abundant stars, and starting the day early with the rising sun and the sounds of the birds.

 ‘Sleeping inside seems strange’ – iPhone note, 22 April 2017

After a few weeks Sonu and I made plans to go further into the Himalayas to a remote village where his friends lived. It was the first time I had ever felt altitude sickness as I hiked up (big vom). Walking from one side of the camp to the other would make me strangely breathless. The villagers lived in small huts and worked hard on their farms in the cold thin air. About 30 mins hike from the village was snow. Snowy peaks surrounded us, standing majestically against an every-changing sky of very close clouds. The village was truly like another world, one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been.

 

 

And now I’m lower in the mountains in a small town called Kasol. It’s really beautiful (big flowing river, distant snowy peaks, hippy vibes for days). But psytrance plays at all hours of the day (if yaknowwhatimsaying). I just did some meditation on the edge of the river. The perfect maturation of karma springs forth sometimes in meditation – to inhabit the Great Heart of All Things. Perfect compassion Kanzeon! Here you hold in the palms of your hands the karma of 10000 beggars and 10000 kings. Treat this like the most precious jewel in any universe, and life is no worries Hakuna Matata. No mantra, no tantra, no asana – only your Heart. Do whatever you want!

Ok – now to make my way to Nepal before heading to Africa. Eeep!

Stay blessed always,

Drew (Druv Das).

My Dearest Reader,

 

So many things happen, how can I capture them all?

 

When you stand in the desert, and you see the uninhibited horizon, you see the curvature of the sky. The sky is the roof of your mind, each star a unique synaptic connection as large as Life itself. A deep breath, you momentarily gain focus and fall in, face-first. Nothing but the infinite starry sky of your mind, no-one even seeing it. The guy working at the restaurant I’m sitting at just asked me if I want chai.

So, yeah, I’m in Jaisalmer – a desert city not far from the Pakistani border. There is a massive fort here – like a castle city. Inside it is a small town, with cobble stone pathways, temples and rooftop restaurants. Higher castes have lived in the fort for 800 years. Outside the fort there are incredible houses called Havelis – intricately hand-carved houses. Beyond that is the vast desert.

I went on a camel safari to the desert with some found friends a couple nights ago. 7 peeps in our group. A jeep takes you a few hours into to the desert, then you mount a camel caravan and go for a few more hours. You end up at these sanddunes where they have a camp. We were joined by other tour groups, so about 25 of us sleep on mattresses under the stars. Amazing right. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain. Wait, are those dark clouds coming this way? Shit.

 

The drought-breaker has arrived – a “biblical thunderstorm”. We huddle the mattresses together in a panicked effort, and unravel a thin piece of plastic across the top. It has as many holes as India’s economy. I found a stick, and held that across-ways in the centre while others held the bottom of the tarp against the rain and wind. Needless to say, everything got soaked. People are truly scared. I was pretty much at the point of prayer, last resort shit (even though it fun!)

 

But, as that old gospel tune reminds us, the storm always passes. And it did. And everyone fell asleep, except a few of us who ventured to see the stars from the middle of the dunes. The first shower had passed, but the mother thunder-lightening storm was approaching. The lightning flashes light up the entire sky, our only roof. Shit, what do you do, you’re in the goddamn desert in India?!

 

Well as soon as it started raining, everyone obviously woke up. We bolted for the jeep. A lucky few (maybe 12 people myself included) piled into a jeep, not knowing if there was somewhere we could go. A panicked guide comes to the driver’s seat and says there is a village with a dry place we can stay. Our over-packed jeep zooms through the desert in a heavy storm. Life-or-death feeling stuff. Again with the bloody praying. We made it safe. The others made it there too in the end. Now we have stories to tell. Priceless.

 

But, yeah, all this bloody praying right. I spent a couple of weeks in a Hare Krishna (ISKCON) ashram in Mumbai. I dressed in traditional dress, painted a tilak on my forehead, and lived with the devotees. I woke up at 3:30am every morning, and started singing and dancing in devotion at 4:30am. These guys get seriously pumped about God. It’s nightclub-jump-as-high-as-you-can blissout at the stonecold sober time of 4:30am. Then they do a couple hours meditation chanting, then lessons from the Bhagavard Gita etc. Their practices are great.

 

I had a hard time philosophically though. Like lots of religious puritan-fundamentalist types, they love to rant at you about how theirs is the Truth. I don’t believe nor disbelieve in truth, capitalised or otherwise. I believe in drinking plenty of water on a hot day. For the first week I grinned when they ranted at me and said nothing; I was, afterall, getting free accommodation and food for a couple weeks. But I took all I could bare and I started to ask questions which turned into philosophical refutations. At one stage I pulled a copy of Charles Darwin’s On Natural Selection out of my bag. It happened to be there. Heathen literature. Whoops.

 

But, man, I dig pretty much all genuine religious practices, Hare Krishna included. I can do any bodily movement as an act of spiritual devotion. Any movement, like my body, the Universe and These Very Words, is eternally empty. My philosophy is silent, my practice is Life itself.

 

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

— Ludwig Wittenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 7.1

 

Silent and talking, simultaneously. Who is writing these words?

Ok, my Dearly Beloved Reader, I am off to survive in the desert heat. There is music all around in India. It rings in rich layers throughout the sonic landscape, along with incessant beeping and the barking of dogs. Imma try find some music, and play along if I can. I’ll find some people to befriend, and learn about their lives. I’ll love across distance, and blink my eyes in the hope that upon opening I can absorb more light from that what I see before me. Right now, we see these words, together. Slow down, slow down, we are very close, my Dearest Reader.

 

Hare Krishna,

Drew.

My Dearest Reader,

 

“Nothing behind me,
nothing ahead of me,
as is ever so on the Great Road.”

In case you didn’t know, I’m in India. Plan is to stay in India for a while, and then after a few months head on to Ghana, West Africa. I’m making it up as I go along, again. I should have done more research, but the best prep is being here. I was thinking the other day – reflecting on a friend who reads lots of books, and knows lots of things – that I’m not really especially heavy with knowing things, information. My only strength seems to be being in the right place at the right time. Incredible shit happens despite me. Lucky huh?

 

But man, India is wild! Completely unlike anything else. I find it hard to even communicate how I feel about it. Everything is constantly in motion. There is no safe ground. A soon-to-be teacher of mine said India is ‘everything at once’. It’s the most crowded place I’ve ever seen. Everywhere you look at any time of the day or night, there are crowds of people. In the day time, they will be trying to get money out of you. In the night time, they will probably be sleeping on the sidewalk. Roads and dirt and construction sites and cows and slums flow into one chaotic unity. There is constant beeping on the laneless roads. The poverty messes with you. I don’t know what to do. I play cricket with the kids in the streets.

 

I remember saying in my last blog post from my last trip that you are always where you are meant to be – you can’t be anywhere else. Hippy days for sure. But, as much as I try my best to refuse it in thought, The Road – in all its capitalized divinity – keeps giving me hard evidence that this is the case. Jung was definitely onto something.

 

The first of these experiences of synchronous affirmation is that my friend Dave Sampson happened to be in India at the same time as I am. I found this out after I had booked my ticket to the south of India, so I decided to fly north and hang out with him for a few days. We met up in Aurangabad. He was planning to visit these sacred caves that were carved into the sides of mountains. They are like temple/monastery complexes, carved by hand into the side of a goddamn mountain. It was a British guy who first rediscovered them, hunting a tiger. But being in these caves was some life-changing shit. There were Hindu, Jain and Buddhist caves. Eerily heavy. This guy showed us that they tuned the pillars of a massive hall, so that when you hit the pillars with your fist, it makes a distinct musical tone that resonates throughout the entire cave hall. The fucking pillars, in the fucking temple, carved out of the side of a fucking mountain in ancient times are MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. I felt like I witnessed genuine magic.

 

On our visit to the second set of caves, Dave and I decided to do some meditation in one of the smaller monastic halls. We’re both into that stuff. This would have been where crazy mountain monks sat still everyday over a thousand years ago (I think they were dated 300 BCE). So we sat down in the coolness of the cave-temple, and as we sat, people began to join us, people from all around the world. At one stage, I opened my eyes, and there were 4 other people that had joined Dave and I in meditation. Insta-sangha. There is no such thing as sitting alone. How bow dah.

 

So Dave left yesterday – after a few sendoff beers in the streets of Mumbai. And today I went to a Hare Krishna temple in the North of Mumbai. Syncronicity #2: and proof that we can only ever right where we find ourselves – seeing these words on this very screen.

I went to the temple because they sing Kirtan. It’s Hindu devotional singing where everyone sings along, chanting the name of God, and it goes for a while until everyone looses their shit and starts dancing and singing like it’s 3am in da club. Stone cold sober though obvs. I’ve heard it happening in houses at 2am on weekends here in Mumbai. It’s a harmless release for a society that is in lots of ways very upright, and the music is rad. I have one previous Hare Krishna story from Sydney.

 

A couple years back, this guy walks up to me randomly in the streets of Sydney and says ‘Hey man, you play drums right?’. I was obviously a bit shocked (I play drums obvs). And then he gave me some book and invited me along to a thing. Being young and impressionable and naïve and interested in the possibility of genuine magic, I went to the Ashram. A young guy wearing orange robes greeted me. He had paint on his forehead showing his third eye. He invited me in, gave me a cuppa, and started preaching at me. Being a philosopher, and being pretty into Zen, I asked a few curly questions. That weird thing happens when you talk about religion, and people get defensive. I decided to sit in silence and hear him out, but I felt a bit like he wasn’t listening to me – it was one-way preaching. But he showed me this book, and in the front cover was a photo of the guru who started the whole Hare Krishna thing. I had this totally bizarre complete conviction that I had met this guy before, even though he was dead, and I told this to the guy. Anyway, it came time to do the mantra meditation. You take the beads and you chant this 4-line thing in your head, and flick to the next bead each time you do it. You chant God’s name over and over again; Hare and Krishna and Rama are all synonyms for Krishna. So it did it for a while. Ages, probably. I have the good fortune of some meditation training. My Hare friend stopped me after a bit and said that that was the longest he had ever seen someone do it on the first go, and it was quite possible that I had met this guru in a past life. Only then did he start to listen to me and take me seriously. He wanted me to stay and eat some food, but I felt weirded out by the whole thing, and decided to leave, never to return.

 

And then today, doing touristy shit in Mumbai going to see this random temple, I had some time to kill in the temple, so I sat quietly in the corner in meditation, looking at the beautifully ornate statue of Krishna. I’m approached by a swami of the temple – a resident monk. And he says I should stick around and he’ll take me to this other part of the temple if I was into meditation. He takes me to this lavish room which is where the big guru lived, and there, sitting directly across from me, is a life-size and eerily life-like statue of the same guru dude I had seen in that book all those years ago, that I was convinced I’d met before. The swami told me I could sit there in front of the Guru-statue and do some meditation, so I did the same mantra chanting-beads thing. I did it for a long long time – hours it felt like. I’m still a bit tripped out about the whole thing. I could hear this ecstatic kirtan chanting going on downstairs as I went over these words very very slowly in my mind, eventually keying each phrase to my breath until I was hardly saying anything at all. You can say words all you like in your mind, but God’s original name – my original name – is chirped daily by the bird and harvested daily in the fields of rice. Best to listen. The swami eventually came and got me, gave me a feed, and said that if I liked, he could probably arrange for me to stay at the temple for a while and practice. I might do it in a couple days, maybe. For the next few days I’m couchsurfing, and I’m going through my Indian rite of passage (spending lots of time on the toilet).

So there ya go. Another day, another country, another religious synchronicity clubbing this old skeptic right across the face like a wet fish. But I’m definitely not saying that this is the way things are. Knowing things is way above my pay-grade. I’m just making sure that I’m thankful for and mindful of the ordinary blessings of life as they manifest right where I am, right where you are. Together again, Dearest Reader. I’m thankful for this.

 

Namaste,

Drew.

Together again. Thank you for being here, Dearest Reader. Thank you for reading. In turning up to these words, you create them. You give them life. The tree doesn’t fall in the woods unless you read about it. And you’re not alone right now. We have a community right here, in these very words. Many eyes move with yours as you read right now. The same words resonate in many minds. Feel that. Right now we are together.

How’s it going? I’m back in Australia, if you didn’t already know. I’m working full-time, living out the upswing of a 7-month hippy Zen trip. Time to cultivate and hibernate, for a bit.

It’s so good to see family and friends though. I was sitting on a cushion in one of the monasteries, contemplating life and death and shit. And I realized that on your deathbed, you’re not likely to regret that day you didn’t work, that place you didn’t travel or even that symphony you didn’t write. You will probably care more about the time you spent with those you love – family and friends. Gah – you guys are such beautiful legends!

I reckon art is kind of an expression of this: we make it to connect with those we love. Good art reminds you that you’re not alone in the Universe – that you have a friend. You know when you’re sad, and you listen to sad music, and you realize that Jeff Buckley (or Joni or Coltrane or Shakespeare or Rothko or Thich Nhat Nahn or ) are there with you, that they know your suffering. They are friends singing you a song, letting you know they hurt too, that you’re not alone in your pain. Together we carry the Singular Burden of Universal Suffering.

But flip that coin, and it’s clear that together we are freed from this suffering. Don’t let yourself live behind the walls of your own mind’s making. Who is reading these words? We are together here: we as readers, as community, as ancestors and ghosts and mountains, oceans, stars. Right here the Universe manifests as you – as this very word. The Clouds see with your very eyes, the Mountains feel deeply confused. You are definitely not alone: not now, not ever. The clouds don’t give a shit about enlightenment (or that symphony)!

And yet, my Dearest Friends, for now we must say goodbye. I’ve got no more stories to tell. When I have more, I’ll write more. And yet, and yet…

It was the twenty-seventh day of the Third Month. There was a wan, thinning moon, and in the first pale light of dawn, the summit of Mount Fuji could be dimly seen. I wondered if I should ever see the cherry trees of Ueno and Yanaka again. My closest friends, who had gathered together the night before, got on the boat to see me off. We disembarked at Senju, and my heart was overwhelmed by the prospect of the vast journey ahead. Ephemeral though I know the world to be, when I stood at the crossroads of parting, I wept goodbye.

the spring is passing –
the birds all mourn and fishes’
eyes are wet with tears

I wrote this verse to begin my travel diary, and then we started off, though it was hard to proceed. Behind, my friends were standing in a row, as if to watch till we were lost to sight.

—

– Matsuo Basho, A Narrow Road to the Deep North.

My Dearest Friends, we need to make a transition. Now, like new friends or new lovers, we talk constantly and passionately to reassure ourselves that we are in Constant Communion. We are like a young tree who grows with unsustainable tunnel vision toward the Holy Sun. We could talk for hours, and I would enjoy every minute. But older trees conserve energy, rest in their cores – grow inward. Their faith in their Nature brings them deep rest. We must, for now, be together in silence. Like the elderly couple who no longer need to talk, we can rest in our fundamental Oneness. Coz we’re always together, my Dear Friend — I couldn’t leave you if I tried. When shit hits the fan, take a breath, and remember who’s with you.

The Chinese are mofos at just saying goodbye, dropping it like it’s hot. That’s Zen Bro.

It’s true. I just finished a 5-week retreat in my Korean mountain monastery, and now I’m nursing a pretty badly damaged eye and a large dose of medication. I went hiking on the mountain one day, and got stabbed in the eye by two pine-needles. The mountain really wanted me to see something (or not lol). Anyway, I’ll get to the eye thing after I tell some happy temple stories. Yin before yang plz.

I’ve had such an amazing 5 weeks in the monastery. I was doing 8 hours of sitting meditation per day: up at 2:40am, bed at 9ish, hour-long sits. I was also in a strict drum rudimental ritual which felt great. I was also honored to be able to ring the bigass temple bell twice everyday – 28 times at 3am and 33 times at 6pm. I could hear my mind echo in the mountain range, in the minds of the early-morning meditating monks. A woman took a video of me ringing it:

I also got into an exercise routine of hiking in the mountains every second day. Traditionally, Buddhist monks have an off-day every 15 days to shave their heads. On one off day we were only doing 4 hours of sitting, so I had the rest of the day free to go on a big day-hike across the mountain ridge. Maybe 20 minutes into the hike it started to rain. I mean rain. Storm. Buckets. Drenched from head to toe. I thought I would keep going though. I was walking up the mountain track as the water was running down it. Such an incredible experience. The track started to get pretty intense as well – like climbing up a pretty step cliff-face on a rope. Can’t go back, can’t go round it – better climb up a waterfall!

A few days later I did my standard shorter exercise course of walking really fast up the mountain and running down it. All barefoot. I had this beautiful amazing realization as I was running down the mountain barefoot, bouncing gently off rocks and flowing seamlessly around corners, feeling the mountain breathe into my feet. Chinese-ancestored countries talk about this qi thing right – a fundamental life energy that’s in everything. It’s the focus of all the martial arts, Chinese medicine, meditation, Chinese natural sciences etc. Well, when I was running down this mountain, I was completely in-sync with the flow of qi down this mountain. I was taking the path of water. I was water. I was the mountain qi. It wasn’t Drew that was running – I didn’t have time to think about it (I’d lose a toe) – I was just empty and going with the stream.

Think about how much energy is involved in creating a mountain: the Earth pushes molten rock from its core up into the sky – against gravity. Hard work man. Takes millions of years for the mountain energy to travel from the Earth Core into the sky. Likewise, when you walk up the mountain, you work so incredibly hard and engage all of your core muscles in deep breathing. But when you come down, you flow like water coming down the mountain. Easy peasy. Yin-and-yang. It was shiningly obvious to me, running barefoot down this rocky mountain trail, that in climbing a mountain, you become the mountain. You follow the same energy stream. Your effort in climbing up is exactly the mountain’s energy in piercing ever-higher. The force that pulls you downward is the force that makes the stream flow down the mountain to the ocean. There ya go, you’re actually a mountain moit.

So I was getting into this mountain trip. But I was also getting pretty into sitting down and doing nothing. The vanishing act. That deep relaxation that reveals that you are not bound by your skin nor defined by your thoughts. I don’t really have anything to say about my experiences. Here’s one note I took:

I could tell you stories for hours, my Dearest Reader, but none of it really happened. I didn’t even write these words. I have never read them. All of my memories are like foam bubbles on the sea, like a water droplet falling in a storm. Ungraspable, intangible, unknowable. A great pool of Nothing: Hyun Dam. I am like a man who lay dying, drawing his final breath; he falls into a deep dream and lives many lives. When will he be free from birth and death? What is true rest? Bob Dylan pleads ‘let me die in my footsteps before I go back under the ground’. But I have never even been born. What, what is this?

I know right – much deep, many spiritual, very existential. BUT: Hyun Dam, I’m proud to announce, is my totally official Buddhist Name. It was given to me by grandmaster Dae Won – the crazy old highly-revered head monk. I went to his room with a translator for a special little ceremony one afternoon. He handed me a piece of beautifully calligraphied paper and explained what he had just given me. He said my Buddhist Name was Cho Hyun Dam. Cho he said is his family name, which he gave to me because I didn’t have a Korean last name. He said Hyun Dam meant something like ‘Deep Pond’. But it meant a lot more than that.

The grandmaster asked ‘What is the name you had when you were first born, before your parents named you? Was it Hyun Dam?”
“No.” I replied.
“Was Andrew your name?”
“No.”
“Then what is your name?”
“The sound of the fan”. It was running in the corner. We listened for a moment.
“What about when the fan is not there?”
He wanted to show me something. He grabbed my hand and pinched it kinda hard. I could feel pain shoot up my arm. I thought he was doing some trippy acupressure qi gong shit, but he wasn’t.

“Where is the pain?’ he asks, ‘Show me the pain”.
I went to grab his hand and pinch him back, but he wouldn’t let me. Probably a big no no, like Paul Keating touching the Queen’s butt or something. Then I re-presented the pain as me pretending to be in pain by squinting. He shook his head. Another no-no: an abstraction, Zen is about concrete presentations of reality. Then the realization slapped me like a wet fish to the face: “I can’t.” And he nodded. The pain was gone – invisible. It never really existed. Like a flash of lightning.

Ah right, everything is completely insubstantial and empty. I get it. Not a single thing can be held onto. And when you let the thoughts fade away you see clearly that there is not an inch of ground on the Earth – there is nothing, at all. Zen is not this concept, it is the actualization of this in meditation and everything else. To see the world as nothing. To become Nothing. To see through your self, your concepts and your thoughts. To see the world as it really is – completely insubstantial. Keraouc says he can see straight through the ground. Quantum physics says it’s all a hologram (etc). But these are just thoughts (as are these very words). Meditation is making this real. I am Hyun Dam: within me is the Great Deep Pool of Unknowable, Ungraspable, Non-Existent Nothing. It is Everything in the manifest world, and it is also the Profound Pool of Emptiness that contains it all. Heavy name I reckon. That’s Zen bro.

I thanked him and I told the other people in the monastery about it. They were all chuffed and congratulatory. They all started to call me Hyun Dam from then on (before that they were calling me Andrew because Drew is way too much for the Korean tongue). I had a funny little thought sitting one day, something to do with this Drew character. I realized that name seemed, strangely and for the first time in my life, kinda distant and foreign. Like the answer to the question ‘who are you?’ wasn’t automatically ‘I’m Drew.’ Better snap out of that before I try to get through Australian airport security.

And so the end of my temple retreat came. I was about to exit the timeless vortex perfect circle that is a mountain monastery. And there happened to be a big ceremony on the day I was leaving. The grandmaster gave a Dharma talk (all in Korean; I sat and smiled). Much singing. The whole community came. Felt very communal and warm. And after everything finished, I was carrying my cushion feeling a bit of a sense of relief; in the monastery you never really let yourself fully relax. You always carry some sort of burden, some discipline, even whilst sleeping. And I thought I could finally put all of that down for a bit. The next second, no joke, all hell broke loose in the Buddha Hall. This woman started to SCREAM at and ATTACK the grandmaster really violently. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but she was hella passionate. She hit the grandmaster, and he threw the book at her. Literally. He was carrying some Buddhist book, and he threw it at her. She must’ve been pretty insulting. They called the police and there was so much screaming I couldn’t understand as I packed my bags and quietly snuck away. Such a bizarre ending to such a deeply peaceful experience. Someone told me the attackers were from another discipline of meditation and thought the grandmaster was preaching some evil shit. Religious thinking is such a dangerous thing. Chill out bro we all just humans, trying to figure it out. We have more in common than you think. Crazy!

ANYWAY – my eye sob-story! I was hiking with a guy from the monastery one day, and we went off-track for a bit looking for these mushrooms. Legend has it that back in the day a Chinese emperor thought this particular mushroom gave you life for 500 years. Well, it doesn’t. But it is good for you apparently. And we found lots of them. But, somehow I managed to spike my eye with some needle-like leaves. It was blurry at first, but I pushed through. The next morning, my eye was searing with pain. I mean searing. Any exposure to light made it sore. I flaked on early-morning meditation, and went to the eye clinic a bit later. The doctor gave me some medicine. I finished the course and went back, because it was still painful. He said it was a lot worse than expected (there was inflammation inside the eye, not just a problem on the surface) and gave me a heavy course of drugs. Now, 1-day from finishing the drugs, I’m in no more pain. No more red-eye. But my vision is blurry in my left eye. I’m not really worried, but it certainly is a challenge to my calmness sometimes.

But partial blindness is not the least of what I’ll take away from that Monastery on that Mountain. I’ll take that warm-feeling that comes from encountering genuine selfless giving. I was constantly showered in gifts and kindness from the entire community. That’s what monastic Buddhism is all about at the end of the day – the community (maybe rather than the self). I was given special sweets everyday by a nun who had taken a liking to me (the other guys called her my ‘Buddha mumma’), was given a pair of brand-new hiking boots when I needed them (they happened to be sitting in the monastery still in the bag with no apparent owner), a pair of brand new thongs, a bag of traditional Korean gifts, a hat, free medical treatment, and one guy even drove me into the city and took me to a class in traditional Korean Salmunori percussion music (a room full of people playing awesome drums – so fun!). The grandmaster also gave me a very very special and elegant set of Dharma robes for training, which made me feel a big bit special. He said he hoped I would one day become a great teacher. Me too, bro, me too. (Teaching is bigger than ‘Zen’ though).

The thing about gifts is that in receiving them, you also receive a debt, in some funny way. That feeling of (almost) guilt. At one stage I thought I would have to become a monk to repay the debt of kindness – sit there all day, focusing my being on easing the suffering in the minds of others. But it’s not really guilt, that feeling you get when you receive gifts. It’s actually more of an inspiration – a push in the direction of selfless giving. All I wanna do now is give – to repay this debt, and the debt of the countless blessings I receive every day. To be born, at all, is a miracle. To be able to hear the birds, feel my heart swell in my chest or see – regardless of my fkd up eye – the graceful glow of some poetry on a computer screen: a single endless miracle. To be able to have you, my Dearest beloved Reader, wherever and whoever you are, read these words. To feel this connection right here. To come to this point, together, when there is an infinite raging storm outside. That is a blessing. This, this right here is a blessing. And I’m so eternally thankful. All I want to do is give.

Love,

Cho Hyun Dam (aka Bourgeois the Blind).

Woah. So much has happened since I last posted. The pace of life is quickening, as if the Earth is plummeting towards the sun and the cycles are getting shorter and shorter. A Kurt Vonnegut character says he has come unstuck in time. Yet here we are – again – reading these words together. Welcome Home.

I’ll try to condense my life over the last month into a sentence. A series of life-changing events expressed in single words. I’ve been to Tokyo, Mt. Fujisan, back to Tokyo, Seoul (South Korea!), Tong Yeong, an island off Tong Yeong, Mt. Gyeryeongsan and back to Seoul. Now I’m sitting on a bus heading back to Gyeryeongsan. I’ve jammed with hippies at a mountain lake, watched Mt. Fujisan emerge from behind a screen of mist in an outdoor hotspring, gone on a Korean family holiday, sung along at traditional Japanese folk gigs, sung along at traditional drunken karaoke. I also got to spend a week with Frank and Yanan, another two of my best mates from Australia, which was incredibly fun and homewarming.

I’ll tell you a recent story.

So a few weeks ago I spent a week staying in a fishing town in the South of Korea. I pretty much spent the whole week in bed, feeling a big bit rundown. You know that thing when all the soju (Korean alcohol) and friend chicken (Korean dietary staple) catches up to you. This was that. I just needed rest. But after a few days, I actually realized the physical problems had been fixed, but this was more a problem with my mind; you know when you just feel low, and you seek lots of external things to give you the nourishment you need, not knowing that it’s actually making it worse, coz you don’t need anything at all. Nature’s a bitch: wouldn’t it be great if icecream fixed a hangover – not a mountain run! – and alcohol fixed a broken heart – not time. Anyway I needed to swing the balance, so I decided to head to the mountains. Get ready, another Drew Bourgeois Mountain Zen Special coming right up.

I got off this bus at the wrong stop, I thought. I was lost. No wifi, no idea. What’s this mean? I was looking for a camping ground. The cliffs of Mt. Gyeryeongsan loomed overhead – I was in the right spot – but couldn’t find my camp.

I saw a sign for a temple. Ok, I’ll go do a bow, maybe ask them if they know where the camping ground is. I’m done with Zen, so I can’t go wrong, I thought. I walked into the office. They were mega friendly, mega kind. They got a monk who could speak a tiny bit of English and I explained who I was and what I was looking for (a camping ground). Then, in that fast-paced, confusing confusing confusing dream-whirl thing that happens sometimes, my message got mistranslated and next thing I know, I was sitting in front of the abbott of the temple. They told me he was one of the heaviest Zen guys in Korea – in the world. He had a mega vibe. I meet myself again, I thought.

He asked me who I was.
I told him “I’m Drew Bourgeois from Wollongong Australia. I play the drums and I study philosophy and I travel and I sit zazen occasionally.” A good answer I thought.
He asked if I had meditation experience.
I said ‘a little’.
He probes, ‘how do you do meditation?’.
‘Like this’, I said without moving. He asked if I wanted to stay at the temple.

So, I’m running out of money, right. And this search for Health is taking me to amazing places, so I’m trying to get lots of bang for my buck. Monasteries are cheap, bro. So, in the heat of the moment I said yes.
‘How long for?’ he asked.
‘Two months?’. A gasp from the people in the room (still dunno why). The translator said ‘Two months, you must want to be become Buddha! Do you want to become a Buddha’.
‘Nope!’. Between you and I, Buddha is bullshit bro.

The Heavy Abbott asks, ‘What is your religion?’
‘I have no religion, I just sit zazen’.
Then he offered the ultimatum: ‘you can stay here for as long as you like if you do 3000 bows tonight from 6:30pm. Will you do 3000 bows?’.
I said yes. Another gasp from the room. They tell me it will take me 8 hours.

I can remember, with an odd clarity, hearing a thought that thanked the master for the real challenge. As if I had met a teacher who really cared enough to really kick my ass. Some dude who’s thinking inside my head is slightly masochistic I think, coz the 3000 prostrations was the hardest thing I have ever done, ever. By far.

I started at 6:30pm. A prostration is that motion when you drop to your knees, lower your forehead to the ground, raise your hands above your head, and then get back up. I guess it is like a squat for your legs. I had a string of those prayer beads that was 1000 beads long. I had to do 3 sets of beads. They were about 2 metres each set.

I did 100 bows, and was pouring in sweat, could hardly deal with the leg pain, and was getting tired. I kept going though, thinking ‘oh, I’ll just do 1000 to start before a break’. I got to about 700 I reckon before I dropped in physical exhaustion. The beautiful nuns bought me energy foods: soy sauce water (for hydration), ginseng (for energy) and chocolate (for training your mind like a Pavlovian dog).

Anyway, I did it. But I wanted to quit about 100 times I reckon. It took 11 and a half hours. I finished at 5:45am, just before breakfast. I could hardly walk for 4 days. I realized this funny simple thing: that resting doesn’t actually get anything done. The only way to get things done is to shut up the thoughts of why you shouldn’t do it, and start doing it. Whether it is doing a prostration, doing a single stroke on the drums, writing an essay or running another metre – none of it happens without you doing it. So easy, so incredibly painstakingly hard. Life is such a trip!

Anyway all the monks and nuns were pretty chuffed with me doing that. They want me to become a monk. Gave me some beautiful gifts and things (so much kindness!) There is a jazz standard called ‘But not for me’.

So I spent a week training at the monastery. Don’t worry, I’m on my way back now. I wanna spend at least another month there – maybe a little more. But I left the monastery the other day to come to Seoul to meet up with my great friend and (drum) teacher Simon Barker. He was doing a tour with this band called Chiri (named after a heavy Korean mountain). An Aussie called Scott Tinkler is on trumpet, Simon on drums, Kim Don Won on traditional Korean percussion, and this Korean Pansori singer called Bae Il Dong sings traditional epic stories over the top. Il Dong spent 7-years studying at a waterfall and can make you cry everytime. This band is so fkn heavy man, shit.

So I hung out with the two Aussie musician legends and these two Korean musician legends. We ate food, talked about all the heavy shit (and even some non-heavy shit), drunk beer. Their gigs were incredible. Great inspiration for a young traveling drummer.

This is the thing, right. Each of these guys do seriously hardcore practice. Whether it is 6-hours of music practice a day (everyday), 2 years of Zen training in a monastery or running 300km over a number of days, these guys do heavy, disciplined practice, and pretty much have every day for years and years. And that is why there stuff is so heavy. It actually has nothing at all to do with the notes – the 5:7’s or the dan tien screaming. It has everything to do with this practice time they’ve put in, and the vibe it brings, the presence it creates. It is exactly that thing of doing one prostration and moving one bead; the doing of practice makes it real, and changes your body, mind and Heart. Not only can your hands play 7:5, but from the core of your being – from the bottom up – you begin to change. Do enough, and you will inspire and help people from all around the world, like these guys do. They have done so much practice, in the form of music, running, meditation and everything else, that their music/life/being is no longer all about them. It sends ripples into the world, makes the world a better place. Monks are the same – it’s just that these guys are moving!

My life is changing. I gave up on Zen in Japan, I was sure. I’ve stopped searching for what I was when I left Australia. And yet, by crazy synchronous chance, by divine forces, by subconscious will, by WHATEVER, I ended up in another Zen monastery, doing 8-hours of serious disciplined sitting practice (plus a few hours of drumming practice) every day. I’m thankful for the opportunity to deepen my shit, even though it is often painfully hard in innumerable ways. As Simon Barker says, when you do really intense shit (he was talking about barefoot running for a week straight!), you go through some ‘deep dark shit’. But you do that for all beings of the Universe. John Coltrane said ‘there is evil in the world. I wanna be a force for good’. He also sent the late Ornette Coleman – his teacher – a letter at one stage saying ‘I got it!’. He practiced till there was nothing left to practice, and then he changed the world for the better.

I find myself floating through life, drifting from day to day, from bed to bed (most of the time I have a bed). I’m completely vulnerable and at the mercy of the forces of the Universe. But I have a calm faith that I will always be exactly where I need to be, even if it’s not too easy. My experiences have forced me to reconsider what it all means, and have given life to my practice of making the world a better place – one breath, one beat and one word at a time. In return, my practices carry me, confirming the joy of being alive: the joy of being here. It’s all just there, like a waterdroplet sliding down a bus window.

Yours in Practice,
Drew.

Alright, another post. Lots has happened, and I just drank a big coffee. Now’s the time to post. Charlie Parker wrote a tune called ‘Now’s the time’. What a genius. He wrote it about this post.

So, when we last spoke I was in Nara, hanging with the deer. Over the next few days I met some nice guys from the hostel – one Sweedish and one Israeli. The Sweed was massively into this Japanese martial art. Beautiful stuff. He told me all about the philosophy (which sounded very much like Zen to me), and showed me some Kata (forms). He was doing them in the streets. Beautiful.

Anyway, he was planning to go to this village where the original samurai who started his martial art came from. We went there on a day trip – deep into rural farming Japan. Got off 2 stops too early, so I showed them how to hitchhike. When we got to the village, there was a beautiful museum and temple enshrined to the samurai. In a quiet moment in the temple garden I played them some shakuhachi. We also went on a rainy bushwalk to see this giant rock; legend has it that a demon challenged this great samurai to a swordfight, and he couldn’t say no. Just as he was about to strike the demon, it vanished and he split a gigantic rock in two. I’m not saying it’s true, but it’s a pretty remarkable split in a rock.

The next day I got on a bus and headed for the mountains again. There is a small village in the mountains called Tenkawa that a friend told me about. It’s reknowned for hippy-types and musician types. No Joe Hockey’s in Tenkawa. I stayed there for about 5 days.

The mountains looked spectacular man. Breathtaking. It reminded me of one of those quintessential shots of an Alaskan mountain forest from a crappy children’s movie about a dog and a boy or something. Crystal clear water flowing in a rapid stream, pine trees extending into mountains as far as the eye could see. The Japanese village folk are mega friendly. They bow and say things I can’t understand as I say ‘Ohaiyo Gozaimasu’. That’s about all I know how to say in Japanese.

I stayed the first night in a cabin in a camping ground. It was freezing in the early morning, I thought, even though I was in a hut and in my sleeping bag. Damn, I must be in the mountains. It’s cold in the mountains. I can’t camp here, I’ll freeze my future children out of existence.

I woke up early the next day as I was going on a trek. I was told there was an 8-hour hike that goes deep into the mountains, and up there was a free hut available for pilgrims. I count as a pilgrim, I thought. Although I ain’t looking for nothing. I remember reading a quote about pilgrimages that said ‘Don’t search for the footsteps of earlier masters, search for what they were searching for’. Sweet, I get it, but I ain’t even looking for that anymore. I realized a little while ago that if you wanna find yourself or anything you better start by stopping. Coz their ain’t nothing. Not a god damn thing to be found. So I wasn’t looking for nothing, but I was hoping to use that mountain hut nonetheless. I wanted to get some peace and quiet to practice the drums. I don’t have the strength to do it in the city any more.

A local offered me a lift to the start of the track. I must’ve stuck out like dog’s balls – a white tourist with backpacks walking along a really small mountain road. He dropped me at a sort of clearing on the side of the forest. There was a sign written in Japanese characters I couldn’t understand, but he told me it was the name of the track. I saw the sign, but it was laying on the ground.

I walked up the hill a little bit trying to find the start of the track. From his car, the guy pointed left and told me to head that way. Alright, but I still can’t see no track. Must be here somewhere, I thought. So I walked through the forest, with no track. It was on a pretty steep incline, and I was walking across it. There were pine trees all around, yet lots of rotten trees closer to the ground.

As I kept walking, the track got more sketchy and sketchy. Now it was more like a mountain climb than a walk. Shit. But the track must be somewhere. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I kept looking, and it got sketchier and sketchier, until I tumbled. Shit. This is it. I might freaking-well die. I slid on my ass for a few good metres downhill, moving towards a pretty big cliff-face. I didn’t even have time to panic. It was a beautiful lesson in life, or Zen, or something. It happens. Are you paying attention? It happens, then it’s gone. Like that last sentence, where did that badboy go? And there is nothing special or mystical about it. The spiritual ain’t special, bro. Nope, I just fell, and I just slide, and it happened too quick for me to even be scared.

But before I slid off that cliff to my death, I snagged on a tree. Right between the legs. Ouch. Still, better than death, I suppose. Hallelujah, another chance at life. And, shit, I thought, I ain’t meant to find this track.

I had read some stuff about this mountain track a few days earlier. The tracks are well-known as ascetic pilgrim tracks. They’re meant to be hardcore. All that fasting, no comfort, screw-the-self stuff. It also said that, legend has it, that not everybody can make it up that mountain. Something will prevent them, whether it is illness or a missed bus or whatever. If you ain’t ready, you won’t make it up. Hence my stupid determination to find this goddamn track. Don’t go telling me I ain’t the chosen one, that I ain’t ready for this god damn hardcore mountain walk. I’m ready for this shit. But I still can’t find the track. I’m gunna go back to the start.

As I was going back to the start, I heard a car horn. Beeeeeeeeeep. What the hell? There, in his car, was a random old man at the clearing at the beginning of the track. And he was beeping at me and waving at me in a bit of a panic. Ok, shit. What’s this old guy on about? I hope I’m not on his property or something. Maybe I can ask him where the track is? I walk to the car, and via very broken English, he tells me that a landslide had taken out the whole track, and their ain’t no way up anymore. Cop that, ego.

This old guy offers me a lift, although I don’t know to where. At this stage in my travels, when I’m in a car and I don’t know where I’m going, I tend to end up right where I need to be. WHICH IS ALWAYS RIGHT HERE. Anyway, that’s another thing.

This guy drives me to a beautiful little log-cabin café in the village. Everything is made of wooden logs – the chairs, the tables, the walls. But it has a vibe man, holy moley. There is hippy art everywhere, dreamcatchers hanging on the walls, hemp foods for sale. There is also a collection of the most beautiful percussion instruments in the corner. Why do I feel so at home here?

The old man offers me a seat at a table, and orders me something. After a few moments, a younger guy joins our table. He speaks perfect English. The new guy tells me that he lived in Australia for a few years, and so the old guy called him to translate for me. The old guy, it turns out, is the master of the Shinto shrine. The whole village is all about this mystical Shinto shrine, right. It’s reknowned throughout Japan – in fact, the world I guess – as a sacred site for hippy-types and musician-types. There are these meteorites at the shrine. Three of them. People talk about how much energy they give off. I felt it, but it ain’t really anything special. More like it reveals something that was always there in more clarity. Wish I could describe it. And it’s a shrine to the Shinto god of performing arts, so musicians and dancers and performers come from all around the world to stand on this stage and play their music to the gods. I didn’t get on the stage, but played my shakuhachi from the corner.

Anyway, this old man was the retired master of this shrine – the top guy. The translator explains that the master went into the mountains just to ‘feel the vibe’ that morning. When he saw me was glad he could rescue me before I got hurt. Very dangerous. He didn’t have to tell me that twice, considering I tasted of the pool of ordinary death.

The master asked me what I was doing. I told him I was into Zen meditation, and drumming, and I wanted to go to the hut to be alone for a bit and practice. He did the most beautiful thing then: he said, ‘although I appreciate your desire to be surrounded by nature, meditation does not only exist when you sit in zazen. It is all the time. It is right now, at this dining table, drinking this coffee. I am the cedar trees, our friend is the maple trees and you are the pine trees. Together we make the forest, at this very table.’ Beautiful, huh? I didn’t need to go anywhere or do anything, right here is what I’m searching for – where it begins and ends. He then asked me if I wanted to join him for a ciggie. I declined, but he said that I should stick around in Tenkawa village for a while to really get the ‘feeling’ of the mountain.

Man, what even is my luck? Here I am, walking into the mountains to let my self disintegrate into the sun, and I’m rescued by a Shinto master who reminds me of exactly what I needed to hear. There’s no god damn me to begin with, so just ‘relax, relax, relax, relax!’. There is more to all of this than I will ever understand. But I’m eternally thankful.

The master left not long after. He snuck out without saying goodbye, and without me getting the chance to say thanks. Like the wind, a shadow, a dream. But the waitress brought me lunch, and the translator told me the master had fixed it up. Shadow with a credit card! (and a huge heart).

Anyway then the translator, who was a really nice guy, took me to a guesthouse on the property of the meteorite shrine, and told the owner my story. The owner asked me how much I could afford a night. He normally charged 3500 yen. I said ‘2500 yen?’. He said 2000 would be fine. What a legend. I’m blessed. I stayed there for a few nights, and practiced the drums more than I have since I left Australia. Dem mountain vibes.

I left Tenkawa with a heart full of mountain warmth and a mind full of mountain clarity. Hitched in ‘Tokyo direction’ and ended up at a city called Nagoya. I’ll stay here until I leave, I guess.

One more thing, Dearest Reader. Now’s the time! You’ll be dead before you can even realise it. Do what you need to do, start now. The energy is right here, right now! It can’t be anywhere else. Hesitate and you have no life! Run!

Big Hug,

Drew.

Last time we spoke I had just arrived in Kyoto after all the hitchhiking and pilgrimaging and stuff. Now I’m in Nara – a smaller city about an hour from Kyoto. I’ll fill you in. Kyoto is this beautiful old city full of Zen temples and Shinto shrines. I saw a stupid amount of temples and shrines (too many probs), went for walks in the hills. By divine chance I inherited a bike too, which made sight-seeing as easy as breathing on a cold early morning.

   

I also saw some incredible music/performances at this really awesome venue. One night I saw some traditional Japanese story telling with electro-acoustic accordion (I didn’t understand a thing!), another night Butoh dancing with improvised accompaniment. Man – Butoh is this totally crazy and disturbing and beautiful and breathtaking artform. They do the most subtle and physically crazy movements, with intensely minimal sections (where eye movement or muscular convulsion is the only thing to focus on). So incredible. Type of thing that could only emerge in modern Japan. Check the video (sorry it’s crappy quality).

Also this crazy thing happened in Kyoto: I was skyping my mum one morning, and she’s like ‘Oh, btw, my cousin is in Japan at the moment’. Him and I talked at Christmas about the fact we were both going to be in Japan. Mum gave me his email address, but said he doesn’t check it. Good one. I said, flippantly, ‘well, if I see him I see him, if I don’t, I don’t’. One hour later I walked past him sitting out the front of Starbucks – ‘Glen!’ No joke. What the hell. It’s like, less than a million. Impossible, right?! The world is so so so big, and yet, so incredibly inconceivably small. You can fit it in the palm of your goddamn hand. This kinda stuff trips you out so bad it makes you believe in miracles and gods, or syncronicities and cosmological parallels (the Chinese Taoists are particularly mofo at that). But somehow I don’t think it’s really any of that. To call it that is to give it a word, and think you understand how it works. It’s more complex that that. Infinitely complex. Keeps going and going and tripping you out until you don’t understand how your feet touch the ground anymore. Seriously, how is it that you can read these words? How is it that I can have some miracle noodles with my second cousin on the other side of the world? Why is there anything here at all?!

ANYWAY, then I hit up this American Zen priest who has lived in Kyoto for 34 years. He runs a Zen ‘hermitage’ in the city – a place where Zen practitioners from around the world can live and sit zazen in a beautiful Japanese apartment. I was there for about 6 days with one other girl from Hong Kong. I was sitting about 9-hours a day, lots on which was on my lonesome (whatever that is).We had one-on-one interviews with Jeff twice a day. He’s an intense guy in that interview room. First thing he asks when I walked in the first time was ‘Who walked through that door?’. Uh. How do you respond to that?! Say it was you, and you’re screwed. Say it wasn’t you and you’re screwed. Use words and you’re screwed. Stay silent, screwed. Think you’re screwed and you’re even more screwed! What do you say?

But it’s great. I learnt so much. I got a whole heap of Samadhi going again. Samadhi is that technical Buddhist word for being ‘deep into your shit’, in this case meditation. There ain’t nothing in that state, if you’re doing it right. Not a thing – not even nothing. But Samadhi ain’t Zen. You can’t get stuck in Samadhi (and sit on your ass all day). Nope, Zen is something else. Something more ordinary, maybe. It’s always right here, regardless of any state of mind you think you’re in. I asked Jeff ‘can there be a presentation of the fact (of Zen)?’ to which he replied ‘There can be nothing else!’.

But yeah, Jeff is also a local, so he showed us some incredible local sights. Zen gardens, Zen paintings (breathtaking quite literally). He even got us in to sit one evening in a serious Rinzai priest-training monastery called Tofukuji. Second oldest training monastery in Japan, I think. It was a beautiful place man, and it was a privilege to be there. Another day, another dojo.

And Jeff was a legend. He told stories about being 15 years old and hitchhiking to Woodstock, coming to Japan to become a monk, realizing there is nothing to being a monk (in fact, the monastic life is almost parasitical on society), getting ‘certified’ as a Zen priest, and becoming a professor of ‘Zen in the modern world’. Another Zen guy who travels the world spreading the good vibes, showing people their true selves (or selflessness) and easing suffering. Inspiration.

He took me to the uni he teaches at on the last day to give a presentation to his class. It’s a zen university, and the class is on comparative culture. The class consisted of about 10 20-year-old Japanese students, and one retired professor who turned up because he was interested. I talked about Australia, and drum-vocal ritual music from around the world. We listened to a shakuhachi-trumpet duo improvisation (Australia meets Japan) and some Japanese folk music (used to pray for good crops). Then something amazing happened. Japanese people tend to be pretty conservative and shy right; I somehow managed to get the whole class jamming by banging on the tables and percussion instruments and singing melodies. We all lost ourselves in the music. Completely Transcendental. Music is truly cross-cultural, universal. It’s as if, since the very beginning, when humans began to emerge from nature, we’ve used our hands (on drums) and our voices to make music together, to transcend ourselves in music. It even works with shy Japanese students and lost Australian travelers.

And so right now, as I said, I’m in Nara. I’m sitting in the grounds of a temple. Bells are ringing – rung by tourists and monks alike. And, wait for it, there are deer cruising about. Nara is famous for them. There are heaps of them that just walk free through the city parks. They’re so friendly and so beautiful. Graceful. They’re believed to be the messengers of Gods. That they are. They bow back when you bow to them. And they bite your shirt if they know you have food. They’re Zen as: can’t not be. Just like you, deerest reader (urgh).

Hey, in case you missed it, here’s my solo album. Strap yourself in:

Big Love, Drew.