Residency
In Florence I visited five restaurants for simple meals like a bowl of noodle or wonton.
So when asked about local cuisine after the trip I didn't have much to offer.
Pleasure that is temporarily foreign sits outside of my immediate thoughts, ironically due to sensorial capacities. I guess as a practitioner, one could count that as a lucky double gate of dharma, or just a temporary drift to one side of the story.
I revealed my environmental sensitivity as I spoke to a group about ideas for a new work.
And then it was made known to me that empathy and projection are divided by the many lines of awareness too, and that the lack there of -- the 'I'm so sorry' and 'poor thing' could also be revealing our shared scarcity in skilfulness of relationship building.
If without fuel there would still be fire, if without you there would still be me, nothing would need anyone to come and set it alight.
The sounds in the room for sleep never ceased, it has joined hands with the energy of the bar, and the unstoppable traffic of the city. I allowed the natural bodily reaction to take place when I was able to extend for myself. And in the gaps of time, I thought rolling tears are a wonder too, elementally.
I tried to visualise, at 3am, the voices that are heard from the street as the voices of family members moving about a Chinese new year's gathering. The reconstruction of safety was encouraging for the one who was sleepless, hence panics and sonic attacks were not held in condemnation, but simply accepted as habitual manifestations. The power of compassion is transformative in how pain is recognised in relation.
Sitting in a Chinese restaurant alone when it just opened for the evening, I read an email carefully, looking for the details of a course that would take me on a journey in Nalanda fundamentals. Putting down my phone, I noticed that beyond the transparent glass I sat next to, was the kitchen that had just started to incorporate movements. I wondered about the visibility of my phone via the eyes of the kitchen staff, and in wondering whether they saw the repetition of certain leader's image, I thought about the manifested relativity in our shared reality, that one could first be thought of as a spy.
People's heads nod with great effort when the wealth of Asian students in UK education system was brought up in a conversation, I wondered about projected wealth, can it be obtained as if it's a piece of clothing?
Not very often was I able to walk behind someone who wasn't smoking. When those moments occur, the sweetness in the soured air, smoke lingers with warmth, and a slice of addition flashes in the form of heat. When addiction mends, one applies the mind in avoiding coming into contact with the temperature of what's familiar.
The mind looks for objects to be conditioned, in people and situations. And I'm starting to see, everywhere around me, addictions are as pervasive as ways of life.
Airport
Focusing on the person in front of me, he ceases to be an image.
While he chats with his friend, I visualises the tug of joy and suffering in his life.
Following the teaching, I wish for him happiness and riddance of suffering, after which I let go of my focus.
Quick paced sounds from rubber, leather, and plastic, are transmitted via the heat of bodies gathered in the conjunctions to concourses.
What is made of wool and cotton, of flesh and water, of fruit and wheat, of speech and illusion, gather to dance the elemental display, as my vision zooms out of the focus, attempting to be one with the unscalable in an airport.
When I'm made aware of the projected solidness of myself, I try to focus, and to see another walking in alignment to my vision.
If one is hungry, how does one follow a map?
The EU gates' have dimmed lighting at night, and I had a terrible so called Japanese noodle soup for dinner.
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