colorado tourists

Greetings,

Once upon a time five tourists from Colorado came to Cambodia for two weeks. 14 daze.

The leader was a dentist from the Rockies. He had been coming here for ten years offering his services in the capital and rural villages. Doing good work, considering the state of dental health care. He also wanted to see his part-time local girlfriend. She ran a dental clinic in the big city.

She was hot. They practiced oral hygiene whenever they could. It was a mutually satisfying orgasm experience with pliable tissue, lots of saliva and swimming body fluids. Drill me baby.

In the group was a female dental hygentist and three dazed and crazed rich high school kids. The woman was in her 50's, lived in a conservative rural mountain town and was new to Asia.

Someone asked her about life in America. "It's a mess. People on welfare have this sense of entitlement. They get cell phones, food stamps and have no incentive to work. The school systems are falling apart. Immigrants from Mexico keep flooding in. Who would have thought that Hispanics would be the majority in Dodge City, Kansas? Immigrants do all the work that other citizens avoid. Plain and simple."

They went to Angkor for a day. They went to health clinics and helped the local staff. They shopped. They left, filled with monumental anxiety about traveling in reverse.

Metta.

River

Greetings,

I flow a thick deep brown. Heavy wet season rains rinse my desire. I clean the world of perceptions.

I increase my fish productivity and cause havoc for low lying homes, flooding humans out. They swim in the mainstream. My current is strong. It has no boundaries. Water wears down stone. 

Joy is seeing endless green rice paddies waving for miles in every direction. White cumulus clouds dance in a blue sky. The green penetrates my eyes. Green releases me from the stone cold dead glass and brass cities trembling fear. 

Joy is a boy doing a perfect back flip off a hill into my river. Joy escapes gravity. Joy joins his friends laughing and swimming. His father casts a net as serene shimmering strands arch over water sailing into green. My river renews life.

Orange robed monks reflect my calm surface. Turbulent roaming charges may apply in the curious dimension of laughter's gratitude.

My awareness bliss flow is this transience. You can't swim in the same river twice.

Metta.

Mr. Liu dreams

Greetings,

Inside my solitary confinement cell 300 light years from freedom I was dreaming about fantasy baseball playoff games, international human rights and my wife when the starving destitute guards showed up.

It was dark. The bases were loaded in the top of the 9th.

1.6 million fans were standing, screaming and waving red star flags. It was a full count. The micro-managers in the Forbidden City were tearing their hair out. They'd exhausted their bullpens, bloody fountain pens and bullshit. 

A guard scratched on the iron bars. Let's go, he said, We're moving you out. Orders from the Noble Leadership. It's dynamite. Everyone's afraid for your safety. We need to get you to a safe undisclosed secret location.

They shackled me to Charter 08 and dragged me down a long and winding labyrinth. It smelled like yesterday's pig slop.

A white rabbit carrying a pocket watch ran past us. I'm late, I'm late, for a very impotent date. Farewell cruel world!

They put a bag over my head. I couldn't breathe. They stuffed me into a vehicle. They drove forever and a day. Years later we reached Oslo, Norway. I heard a familiar language.

They stopped, opened the door and threw me out. Don't come back! they screamed.

I hit the bricks. I rolled. I tumbled. A child found me. They removed my hood. I blinked, blinded by clear light. Another child cut off my chains. They led me to a castle. My wife was there. All my friends from human rights organizations, writers, artists and supporters were there.

I was free.

Metta.

sorrow

Greetings,

"People who cause you difficulties you should think of them as very, very valuable teachers because they provide us with the opportunity to develop patience."

I'm a mercenary of the false disguise inside poverty's domain.

The land of fairytales inside lost childhood contains historical perspectives. 

Forgiveness and trust dance with passionate ambivalence. 

People here practice saying the I'M SORRY syndrome in the present continuous sentence structure. They say I am sorry from morning to night. When you ask them, "Why are you sorry?" they have absolutely no answer. They stare at you in pure dumb amazement. They know three little words. Their eyes and heart are blinded by fear, doubt and uncertainty. 

They repeat. I'm sorry. Perhaps this sorrow, this feeling of regret and loss and contrition and sadness is history speaking. Does history have a voice? Does history whisper or shout? 

Do genetic structures speak? How do new generations adapt, adjust and evolve with their ingrained, deep rooted genetic and cultural and historical lives of suffering? 1.7 million humans suffered and died between 1975-1979. The older generation teaches, by example and action how to be silent. I am sorry is acceptable.

Nuth is 10. She has parents. The other young people at the NGO supported cafe are orphans. We are all orphans sooner or later. They have a safe place to stay with their friends and learn practical job skills like cooking, customer service and basic cafe operations.

Nuth and I hang out, drawing, practicing English and sharing food. One day, no matter what I said, Nuth said, "I am sorry." I asked her what she was sorry about. She couldn't or wouldn't say. There was no context.

In a sense she was merely miming the older girls. Someone taught her. She heard. She repeated. Everyone here has paid the price of sorrow. It is endemic. They wear their perpetual sadness like a shroud. Their eyes and heart cannot hide their deep fear.

They are easily distracted, unfocused and always looking over their shoulder.

Before someone kills you say I am sorry. I am sorry for everything. I am the cause of all suffering.

Metta.

forgiveness

Greetings,

Today is a good day to practice forgiveness. Forgive the thief with her quick stealth like skill. Bait & Switch. How her daring desperate hunger and your brief lapse of attention moment allowed her and her friend to complete her mission. Dream big, steal small.

Goodbye phone. 

How this powerful little lesson is an excellent reminder of people's desperate short term desire for quick easy money. Clear when the average person makes $2.00 a day.

We have the mark. He has a phone. I will distract him. My fat female accomplice pries the window. We switch out, I grab, she conceals and we leave smiling. We deal. In-out cat like stealth. Diversions and sleeping detectives.

Clouded vision. Dump the SIMplify card. Fence it for quick cold hard cash. Call you later.

Thank you for the lesson. Laughing forgiveness.

Metta.