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Hey, Readers
I dropped out of society in 1990 for ten years pretty much doing a Kerouac gig around California and Arizona and twice around the world but hitting monasteries and holy spots and meeting big masters of all denominations. Not boozing and tripping out. It was just my car, snail mail, and collect calls on pay phones. No internet for the most part until the late nineties. In many ways I miss this slower paced era. Well, it was fast at times, but I had more control of the pace.
Since 1999 after I gave up my car I started cruising the internet full-time and having all kinds of virtual travels and projects. Mind travel replaced bod travel. I did not bother to get a cell phone until three years ago. My how things have changed! Not always for the best.
Last Thursday, I did a fast spiritual marathon with one of my production assistants. It was great. We first left San Francisco to go to Stockton to look at my storage unit which I had not opened up for over three years. Old books, pictures, and archives from as far back as 1907. Looking at old diaries made me less nostalgic than I thought I would be. Writing on paper is important. But now I write mostly on my laptop.
Many files and photos got lost in other locations in the last three years and certain people had to be given the boot swiftly for this. But enough remains on the net and in a few other material storage places to still have a crucial memory bin for later creative projects. But it hurt to lose what was lost.
Anyway....
Stockton was hot. Steaming, unlike SF. Also going into gas station convenience stores made me completely cringe. All that crappy junk food and and popular magazines filled with these junk thoughts. Yuk! Hello America! Eat crap and feel like crap in both mind and body.
I am on a relatively strict vegetarian diet and feel much better for it. Stockton because of its central geographic location also has tons of imposing corporate warehouses and we visited the main storage depot for Trader Joe's. Vast rows of low-priced and exotic food goods for demanding yuppies and frantic forklifts going around the storage vaults, non-stop---like crazed scary ants.
Stockton is also the foreclosure capital of America. Banks have failed like crazy here and homes have been foreclosed in huge numbers as America continues to sink into recession now. Sorry for bursting your bubbles, my cyber-friends. The worst is still to come!
So it was an improbable scene to go to this unknown Cambodian monastery on the outskirts of Stockton. But that's where we went. It was Bhante's monastery. A Cambodian master I had met in 1992 and who died at the end of my pilgrimage years in 1999. I had met Bhante almost as a fluke and there had been just one crappy building on his property at the time.
Now it was covered with buildings and temples and a weird Buddhist Disneyland was being constructed on the property. Colorful bigger than life statues of Buddhist and Hindu figures could be seen everywhere. It was surreal. In 1992 it had been just an empty field.
Bhante died at age 111 and was a master healer. He had been George Lucas' inspiration for Yoda and I felt very privileged to know Bhante. After tangling with western doctors this year with their meds it was a relief to be in a holy energy field that healed the mind directly, because it's the mind indeed that's the ground ZERO of all illness. The more it gets stressed out, the more the body gets whacked and America is indeed stress-ville USA.
It was also instructive to know that unlike my acupuncturist who needed needles to tap and unblock the meridians of subtle energy in my body. Bhante could do this simply with his powerful mind. Look, Ma! No hands! No physical anything!
The Cambodian monks were generous in letting us stay the night, to soak in the good vibes. Indeed any meditation practice is uplifted and boosted in this kind of holy environment. The food was pretty good too. Tasty and non-fattening. Some old Cambodian nuns remembered me fondly too, even after nine years of absence on my part and they fed us well.
Hooray!
We then furiously drove on to Boulder Creek near the Santa Cruz Mountains. To feel the vibes of the great Burmese master Tangpulu Sawyada. More words tomorrow and also cool pics next week.
Cheers,
Michael
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Movies and the internet: the fusion of psychic and digital capital
