Puppet Masters in Tibet

The endless Tibetan knot is the cycle of existence, said a monk.

Existence is attachment, loss and suffering. Grasping is suffering. Suffering is an illusion.

You either let go or get dragged along.

Regrets and fears are monkey mind movies.

Pure joy, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness are clear.

Easy to say, hard to do be do be do.

Work like you don’t need the money. Dance like nobody’s looking. Love like your heart’s never been broken.

Nothing behind. Everything ahead, said Meditation.

Chinese puppet leaders in Lhasa informed monks they would increase patriotic re-education classes in monasteries. Re-education Through Reform, ideology, propaganda and fear-based thought control is the way comrades. We have Power and Control using fear and intimidation.

We wash your brain daily.

The Chinese, after looting and destroying 2,700 monasteries and killing millions in Tibet before, during and after the Cultural Revolution restricted the number of monks at the three major Lhasa monasteries, Sera, Drepung and Ganden. They recruited Tibetans as spies to live and work in monasteries.

This system proved effective from 1966-1976 when family members reported on each other neighbors and capitalist running dogs. It was a practical peoples’ campaign of fear and suspicion creating paranoia and ideological control.

Monks and nuns in monasteries who resisted or questioned this form of subtle or overt patriotic brainwashing risked imprisonment, torture and death. They knew what happened to monks and nuns at the notorious Drapchi Prison outside Lhasa.

“There are two kinds of suffering,” said a girl weaving wool carpets outside her yurt on the Tibetan plateau hearing wild blue rivers sing below mountains. “Suffering you run away from and suffering you face.”

Inside Drapchi, Chinese guards beat nuns and monks with rubber hoses filled with sand. They applied electric cattle prods to genitals, sending wire-cranked juice into skeletons, extracting screams.

“Denounce the Dalai Lama,” ordered an illiterate PLA soldier from Human Province. He tightened metal around a nun’s wrists until she screamed.

“Never.”

He wiped her blood off his broken glasses and increased pressure. Someone had to do this dull job.

“Save my face,” sang a Fujian university student, an innocent ignorant invisible victim of the one-child genocide policy. She wrung out a mop of spider webs creating water rainbows before swabbing a classroom.

15,001 students had failed higher-level exams for more prestigious institutions. They settled for this. No choice. She washed uneven crumbling cement floors with strands.

Operatic actors offstage fashioned animist death masks for a performance with a funeral formula.

“This is not a fucking rehearsal,” directed Altman. “Get to the verb.”

“Arrive on time, know your lines and wait for the check,” said the Tibetan weaver as radioactive light shafted mountains.

Rational speaking animals mumbled sounds, words, coalescing consonants, vowels and syllables.

Etyms dancing with atoms made up everything with axioms of choice. 

Gratitude

A forest outside my new room.

Evergreens towering into sky. Crow calls at 6. Wake up! Wake up!

Sunburst over the Black Sea.

The flat is high in hills.

Fresh sea air.

Trabzon lies near the sea. On the sea. Greek, Roma life, ancient fort, walls, steps.

People share curious greetings, ah, so you know Turkey from 2007?

Dancing spoon glass

Wandering old roman stone streets early light,

Fruits, veggies, 28 olive varieties, raisins, tomatoes, cheeses, fish in food heaven.

Feels great being anonymous, ghost, blessed to be here now

Hospitality is slow.

Imagine the day.

Gestures.

Time machine.

See through eyes, not with eyes.

Zen way Tao.

Acceptance and gratitude.

The Temple of Complete Reality - TLC 85

Zeynep showed Lucky how to swim with gigantic sea turtles off Gili Air is-land. They did a sitting mediation deep in clear blue water reflecting surface sunbeams.

They practiced a slow walking meditation in soft sand.

They took three slow steps with “in” breath - arrived.

Three steps with “out” breath - home.

If your legs get heavy walk with your heart, she said. Everything we do is a meditation. One is one’s own refuge, who else could be the refuge?

They meditated on the process of their death.

Practice 10,000 times until you’ve got it, she said. Dive deep exploring underwater life below the surface of appearances.

Let’s have a little adventure.

I wove a magic carpet, Z said. Show me a place you remember. Let’s go.

They flew to The Temple of Complete Reality on Qinchengshan Mountain in Sichuan. It was a series of 2,000-year old Taoist temples in red orange yellow green autumn foliage.

Taoism’s home in China personified balance and harmony. They climbed for 2.5 hours. Cold winds on a clear day. They scampered up mossy stone steps and steep angled dirt paths through primal forests.  

They met Mountain Girl, ten, selling tea where a trail forked into forests. When you come to a fork in the path take it, she said. She joined them. She didn’t want anything. She wasn’t hustling. She lived in the mountain.

She diverted them away from whining obnoxious Han tourists.

She described medicinal plants and herbs. She fed them delicious yellow and red berries. Babbling tales about plants, trees, rivers and animals she shared a story about mountain spirits.

Once three men chased me through the forest. I met a snake. “Please help me escape from men chasing me,” I said to the snake. “It turned into a slim beautiful woman and said, ‘don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ 

“She took me down the mountain, saving me from the bad men. Then she turned back into a snake and disappeared into the forest.”  

 They explored a series of temples. Statues, incense, prayers and spirit energies. Inner and outer visions extended in four directions.

They shared rice, chicken, bread and water near the summit. Stone carved twin turtles and dragons guarded the entrance. The main temple was a reddish brown ornate rising sculpture. Crimson incense smoke curled into sky.

Four Chinese characters read:

Clouds circle this temple

Clouds know us by now, said Mountain Girl. 

They circumnavigated rising levels of experience on narrow wooden steps. Below them a golden statue of Lao Tzu rode a wild ox. Yin/Yang.

An old woman offered medallions of the cosmic symbol on red thread. Mountain Girl and Zeynep selected one to wear around their necks. They descended. Mountain girl fingered her threaded talisman.

They stopped at a temple for tea. A young nun washed teacups. “I’ve been here fifteen years. I clean, pray, read, meditate, talk with monks and travelers and do my work. I am focused on my goal.  My goal is to reach the root below the surface.”

 Her path was direct with heart-mind intention.

 They bought Mountain Girl food to take home and walked to her bike. He gifted her a white khata scarf from Tibet.

Zeynep gave her a hug. “Here’s a poem by Rumi.”

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

“Thanks,” said Mountain Girl. “Every heartbeat is an eternal rhythm of universal possibilities. May you enjoy wonder, health, abundance, gratitude, and contentment.”

Nomad writer - Sichuan, China 

Fear, Amazing Uncertainty & Healthy Doubt - TLC 84

 “What happens when totalitarian governments devolve so-called security programs?” Zeynep asked her mother - the mother of all answers.

“Don’t worry my sweet,” said neurotic mama-san living her worst nightmare with bliss, “media, politicians and bankers will invent new improved fake fears.

“They will create problems, spin them for ADD sheep and try to sell us solutions. Ha, ha, ha.

“The joke is on them. They play us for fools and idiots. Fools speak the truth. Anyone questioning authority is imprisoned for life, gassed, hauls Gobi shit, stoned to death, exiled or beheaded with jeweled swords. No worries my sweet. The manufacturing sector will rebound when shelves are empty. We’ll always have sugar and we can always go shopping. We shop to reduce our anxiety. We buy things to make us feel better. It's a temporary drug fix like religion or Xanax. Take two and call me in the morning.”

“How long will it take until people wake up and pay attention?” said Zeynep.

“Hard to say. Some will some won’t.”

“Self-awareness and authenticity is a funny thing. Letting go scares the shit out of people.”

“They suffer from FUD,” mother said twisting her hair until it caught fire.

“What is FUD?”

“Fear, amazing uncertainty and healthy doubt. They are internal psychological gyroscopes. A human’s first quest-ion is, is it safe? FUD is back with a hungry vengeance. They are hunger angels. Vociferous.”

“How long has FUD been going on?”

“You ask many quest-ions child,” fanning her daughter’s flame. “A long time. A Century is Nothing.”

“That’s the title of Omar's non-linear book, more like a jazz poem. Few read it. Fewer understood it. So it goes. It’s essential to cultivate humor and curiosity.” said Z. “What about adventure and surprise?”

“Adventure and surprise is a beautiful dangerous thing. You see the BIG picture. Talk is cheap. Character is motivation and action. Senses and language cannot be trusted. Let’s get to the verb from the get go.”

“I want to know the truth mother. Living safely is dangerous.”

“The truth,” she said, “is that life is an absurd comic process. If you laugh you last. Our illusionary insecurities and real authenticities evolve. Life is a celebration, a dance and process of becoming. It is a beautiful harsh short messy dream come true. It’s magic. We adapt, adjust and evolve. There’s no rhyme or reason. Life is meaningless. Existence precedes essence. We are flukes of the universe. We have a one-way ticket. It’s about feeling peace in your heart-mind with gratitude. Wonder, abundance, health and contentment. Help others realize their higher self.”

“I see the seed and smell the lily. Let’s go and play now. Take the day off and be creative.”

“Yes, let’s invent a game theory my darling daughter. It’s called mindfulness. Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don’t have to be swept away by your feelings. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.”

“I shared your wisdom earlier in this wandering tale.”

“So you did. Telepathy. Reading about mindfulness it is one thing. Living it is something else.”

Holding hands they entered the world without being of it.

Ma Hlaing Family Boarding School, Burma

Babble Fish - TLC 51

A Bursa schoolgirl waiting to be grilled maternal fish bait stood at a bus stop with a cell phone implanted in her cerebral cortex. Her mom connected, “Are you alive?”

“I dream I am a free person in a free country. I've escaped the tyranny of what if’s and maybes. I have grit.”

“Enough babble fish jack-o-lama-trauma,” said Zeynep. “Cut to the chase singing songs with abundance, wonder and gratitude."

Ms. Linguist picked Mr. I Love History up. They screwed. She dropped him off. He never paid now. He always paid later.

“Life gives you test first and the lessons later,” said Zeynep. “Blind love with a little luck is a never ending adventure.”

Stressed out over-medicated Turkish kids carried bags of fresh brown bread, black olives and poisoned red apples home to mommy dearest here’s something from my secret garden.