ORPHANAGE

For many years I didn’t like children. Not that I hated them, just felt uncomfortable in their presence and I used to say that the only child I like is my own… But even this was not the whole truth. The knot in my heart disturbed me to love my own son as he deserved. Then I discovered the term ‘inner child’ and what’s behind it and started to work with my own hurt and sad little girl. It has been hard work and probably not finished yet, because when Irene asked me if I want to go with her to one of the Chiang Mai orphanages she often volunteers in, I was both scared and delighted by the idea… And yet not sure will I go there to heal my own traumas or to volunteer for children?

So one Sunday afternoon I entered the orphanage on Wu Lai Road wondering where is Irene and what I’m gonna do with all those children… The moment I approached the doorway few kids run towards me with their hands up to hold them. So I did. And then I had a thought which almost made me cry that there is not many such wonderful things in this world like a child’s hug… Then immediately my heart opened up, I stepped down from my adult pedestal and was trying to be there for them. I sat or lay down on the floor and let them pull me, embrace me, crawl over me, spit chewed rice with meat on me… Watching their smiling, frowning, crying, sleepy or energetic, but always true faces made me want to take them all home ☺

Having in my head all those cliche pictures of poor children in orphanages which TV usually shows on news, I had thought that this might’ve been sad experience. It wasn’t. Even when kids cry it’s temporary or it’s just the way they seek for attention, but anyway it’s much more smiles than tears there. I had thought the kids might’ve been treated badly. Not at all. Women from the staff are lovely and cheerful and they take care of kids with a sweet tenderness. I had also thought that after some time with kids I might be tired, but I was leaving the orphanage with a feeling that it was another way around, that there were kids who overwhelmed me with their wonderful energy…

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LIKE WAVES

For A.

like waves
like breaths

things come and go

not to last
just to feel

over and over again

tides of love
breezes of peace


28/04/2009

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DAVID SAID: YOU’RE A BUDDHIST

“‘Normally we are so identified with our thoughts and emotions, that we are them. We are the happiness, we are the anger, we are the fear. We have to learn to step back and know our thoughts emotions are just thoughts and emotions. They’re just mental states. They’re not solid, they’re transparent.’

‘Once we realize that the nature of our existence is beyond thoughts and emotions, that it is incredibly vast and interconnected with other beings, then the sense of isolation, separation, fear and hopes fall away.’

‘What we need to do is to learn to come down into the heart, the seat of our true self. It’s not a theory, an idea. It’s something you feel. The heart opening up is real.’

[And...]

And what is a difference between detachment and being cut off from your emotions anyway?

‘One goes into a retreat to understand who one really is and what the situation truly is. When one begins to understand oneself then one can truly understand others. (..) That understanding naturally arises love and compassion. It’s not based on sentiment. It’s not based on emotion. Sentimental love is very unstable, because it’s based on feedback and how good it makes you feel. That is not real love at all.’”

Vicki Mackenzie, "Cave in the Snow. Tenzin Palmo Quest for Enlightenment"

I don’t know David is right or not, but that’s what I’m learning at the moment. To help me understand I was given a great lesson of love and detachment from a teacher, who had briefly came into my life... So now I feel like it’s the time to do retreat. No, not like Tenzin Palmo for 12 years in cave in Himalaya, but maybe just 10 days in one of the temples of Thailand ☺

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HMONG, MEANS FREE PEOPLE

Laos, Plain of Jars, amazing place with hundreds of ancient stone jars, nobody knows where from and what’s the story behind. Scattered here and there around Phonsavan, the ugliest city I’ve ever seen.
This is also the place, where Americans dropped 2 milion ton of bombs (spending 2 mln dolars a day for 9 years during Vietnamese war). Nobody knows how many people lost their lives. And still huge amount of UXO wound or kill 300 people every year...

Me and Jane, American girl I met in bus from Luang Prabang (and my roommate in Phonsavan), booked the trip to Plain of Jars. Three more people joined making our trip cheaper, 80 000 kip instead of 120 000 each. Team occured to be very international, there were Australian-French couple, German guy, Jane, American, me, Polish, and – last but not least – our driver, a round-faced Lao with the great nice smile. We agreed to visit Hmong village first.

Hmongs are perceived as the proudest of Northern hill tribes people. Hmong means free people. They came to Laos from China in XIX century where they had suffered atrocities. They settled down in high parts of mountains in Northern Burma, Thailand and Laos and started their jungle-burning and planting opium agriculture life style. In XX century they were offered citizenships and land ownerships from Thai government, but of course they were smart enough not to take it. First, there was no point to expose themselves for a quick recognition, second not to loose identity and freedom. The land was theirs anyway, as long as they were living high enough, hidden deeply in jungle, not speaking any official languages, and yet every 3 or 4 years changing the place of living according to soil impoverishing.
They had been doing it for years untill the 70-ies when international community was horrified by a huge amount of Southeast-Asian opium which flooded Europe and America. (Yeah, really it’s not that nice to smoke opium ☺) So they decided to do something. That didn’t change much apart from the opium prices went highier and highier as the thing were getting harder to get, increasing opium kings’ profits and deteriorating hill tribes’ life conditions. That also meant brutal wars for power between kings, Kuomintang and corrupted officials. As Hmongs were well-known for being good fighters, they were often used as soldiers in those wars, as well as earlier in 60-ies by CIA in a “Secret War” to fight the communists, being vaguely promised an autonomy.
They paid the biggest price for their freedom-loving nature, either in Laos, as well as in Burma and Thailand. They were used and then persecuted, many people lost their lives. Governments, doesn’t matter, monarchist, communist or democratic, don’t wish to have any free people in „their” countries… From Laos a lot of them managed to escape to USA, but the soul of the nation was destroyed forever...

So we entered the village, sad and miserable remains of the proud and free nation they once had been...

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