FAREWELL TO THE LOW LANDS

It took me a while to figure out how to write a spiritual post about my recent visit to the Netherlands. This is my conclusion: the universe decided that Holland must be too cold to be comfortable for 11 months out of a year. Also, the country has so many people living on such a small space that you only feel alone when you’re inside a toilet. Even when you’re walking in the middle of a forest with a friend you still need to raise your voice to be heard over the noise of a nearby motorway. You think India is crowed? Think again. I read that Holland is the most crowded country in the world. I guess that observation is true. It’s also one of the most expensive countries in the world. One small bag of Dutch grass has doubled in price over the past 9 years.

According to the editor of the gay krant (gay newspaper) the best days for LGBT-people in the Netherlands are behind us; more gays are being beaten up again and discriminated against compared to the 1990s and more gays are secretive about their sexual orientation.
The only celebrity transsexual in Holland (a stunning looking young girl whom I met at her house in 2004) has been ridiculed for years to such extend that a popular Dutch band decided to release a love-song for her, hoping to change things around for transsexuals. Yet, she is still the subject of ridicule. Poor Dutch transsexuals!
Dutch people appear to be stressed and tense and things have changed so much for the worse that I didn’t feel anything nostalgic. I didn’t miss my country.
Although I unregistered myself as a Dutch resident in 2000, last week I went to the town hall to pay 10 Euros in order to receive an official document stating that I am no longer a Dutch resident. With this statement I can now apply for a new drivers’ license in Bangkok (or get a new passport in any country other than the Netherlands).
“If you leave our country, you are in the hands of God,” said the Dutch-Moroccan employee working at my old town hall.
In the hands of God? Finally something spiritual, I thought.
“Which God? The Christian God or Allah?” I wanted to reply, but I remained silent and paid the 10 Euros and got the document.

I am a Buddhist. Buddhists don’t believe in a God-creator, thus technically I shouldn’t believe in God either. Regarding this I am a little bit of a rebel too, as I love to talk about God to Buddhist monks in Asia.

My visit to my parents place was lovely. They are very sick and in the process of dying (aren’t we all) and I fear this was the last time I saw them alive. Their penthouse is so big, it has a domestic phone system and it takes 5 minutes to reach the nearest toilet from the living room. Finding my father anywhere in his home was easy, as I just needed to follow the trail of urine on the parquet floor. His adult diapers seemed not very effective. In order to find my mother, I just needed to use my nose, as she is still a chain smoker.
I was surprised they both have the energy to still stuff themselves with candy and other fatty fibreless factory produced food items, and they are so angry with the lack of health that they tend to bicker with each other all the time in a most unpleasant manner.
I spent most of my time at their home in the freezing cold of their palatial outdoor rooftop terrace smoking Dutch laboratory grown government approved cannabis in order to speed up my connection to the root of the universe. I had to smoke outdoors as my father didn’t allow me to smoke in the west wing.

The real highlights of my visit had all to do with being reunited with my old Dutch friends. I never realized I never said goodbye to any of them when I left for Asia in 2000. My friends learned about my immigration by reading about it in the media a few years later. Nine years on I thought of reigniting our friendships, but I soon realized they were more interested in experiencing a proper goodbye from me, rather than a proper hello again. Their lives are so different from mine that they no longer feel a connection to me. After saying farewell to all of them, I felt I was ready to go back to Asia.

Another highlight was my visit to my old rowing club in Utrecht. When I walked into the club house I got recognized by all club members and was warmly welcomed. It was here that I agreed to meet with a former junior world champion with whom I had a six-year relationship. I spent an entire chapter on him in my book Pholomolo called “My Loyal Lover Lars”. We never officially broke up our relationship, which we finally did in a very elegant manner in the west wing of my parents’ penthouse. There were plans for him and me to row in a double sculls competition boat a few days later, but the weather changed for the worse and I decided to cancel. My reasoning was that if I enjoyed our rowing session, I would feel bad when realizing that I would not be able to row again, as Thailand has no rowing clubs. If I wouldn’t enjoy the rowing session, I would feel bad too. So I said goodbye to the man I called Lars in my book, and wished him and his new girlfriend, his two cats and his mortgage all the best.

There was a lot to do about the Dalai Lama and his 50 years of living in exile in India around the 10th of March. I had hoped to be invited by the Dutch media to share my thoughts on the matter, but nobody was interested in my ideas either. I received one email from a journalist who wrote extensively about me in the past years. She was interested in meeting me but she finally decided that she was too busy with more urgent matters. My God-fearing Christian Dutch publisher didn’t return my email with my request to meet him. Since I offered him my proposal for my book Pholomolo in 2004, he appears not to be interested in talking to me anymore. I hope he has a good time when he’s visiting church on Sunday mornings. I also hope he realizes he hasn’t been paying my royalties for 5 years now.

I wonder how long it will take before some famous Dutch band writes a love song for me…

So I guess I spent 32.000 baht and 36 hours of traveling just to say goodbye to my country of birth and the people I used to be friendly with, including my parents. I couldn’t wait to travel back to Asia to be reunited with my family.
Last Thursday, 26 March, I travelled from Amsterdam to Hong Kong dressed in a Free Tibet T-Shirt. You should have seen the faces of the Chinese transfer employees at Hong Kong Airport. After a few hours I got on a plane to Bangkok. I showed my passport to the nice Thai gentleman at passport control at Suvarnabumi Airport. The moment he saw my non-tourist visa he said to me: “Welcome home, Miss Renard.”
I nodded. “Kap khun kha. Thank you. It certainly feels that way.”

GOD AND THE PYRAMID OF AUSTERLITZ

A little over 9 years ago I had a life altering experience. It was weeks before I got on a plane and started a new life in Asia. It was a cold, windy, rainy day in February 2000 when I visited the Pyramid of Austerlitz. I even decided to write a little about it in my book Pantau in India.

This is what I wrote:

The next day I drove over to Austerlitz to sit on top of Napoleon’s Pyramid. They had made a start to restore the Pyramid to its former glory. It was Wednesday, February 2nd, 2000. I had made an important decision. I had decided to make this day the Day of my Death.
I climbed up to the top of the pyramid, climbed the ladder that gave access to the plateau and the obelisk. The sun had just come up over the forestry horizon of the Utrecht Hill Ridge and she shone tender yellow bundles of rays through small openings in a dark grey blanket of clouds. I sat in lotus position, rocking and shaking like an oriental monk, staring at the rapidly passing clouds. Like Napoleon, I had stuck my hand in my coat, feeling my heartbeat in the palm of my hand.
Throughout my life I hadn’t met anyone who was truly happy. I had never met anyone who could show me the way to happiness. I was tired of taking my Prozac three times daily. I was tired of not knowing what kind of future I should have. I wanted to end the misery, the pain, the restlessness, the anxiety. I wanted to end my life. Today was the day of my death. Tonight. In the waterbed. I had already switched off the heating system in order to let the water cool down. Sleeping pills. Collected over a period of five months. Enough to kill all the residents of my apartment building. The CD-player switched on. Streisand in random and repeat-mode.
I directed my face to the sky and saw a blue opening in the clouds. I was caught in a bundle of light. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was as if I received a positive message from the ether. As if lightning struck me from a clear sky, a divine voice seemed to talk to me. I could hear it very clearly.
‘A soldier ought to know how to overcome his grief and the melancholy of his passions; that there is as much true courage in bearing mental affliction manfully as in remaining unmoved under the fire of a battery. To abandon oneself to grief without resisting, and to kill oneself in order to escape from it, is like abandoning the field of battle before being conquered.
‘Napoleon Bonaparte once spoke those historic words, my dear Véronique. It was Me who inspired him to say them. There is no need for you to kill yourself. When you listen to your heart, the stars in the universe will conspire to make your dreams come true. Go. Véronique. Go! GO! Travel through the world and find your destiny! It’s out there for you. You can experience everything you want as long as you listen to your heart and do what it tells you to do.
‘Listen to your feelings. They’re the language I communicate in. As I take an interest in your happiness, I have been trying to send you messages of wisdom, but for years you’ve been ignoring me. And as I fly above you like a crow, my view is much better than yours. I can see good and bad things coming your way. If you listen to your heart, I can let you know in advance what choices to make and which path to take. I know the outcome of every decision you make. Ye be warned. Let me help you, so I can promise you a happy ending. Walk with Me and Thou shalt find happiness. Amen!’
I shook my head. Many people had gone mad after taking drugs and I had been smoking my butt off as well as pumping professionally prescribed chemicals into my brain for almost half a year now. I couldn’t trust my own brain or these strange voices from the sky, no matter whether the voices had good intentions.
I shook my head again as I had felt the strange feeling and hearing the divine voice to be the combined effects of the high amounts of THC and anti-depressants in my blood. I denied hearing the voice.
‘You’re not real. It’s my brain that’s gone mad!’ I shouted at the sky.
The voice disappeared and it immediately started to rain. I descended the pyramid, went back to my car and drove home. I agreed that my life was like the Chinese circus act with the white porcelain plates rotating on flexible sticks. It was meant to fail at some point. My life was like a house of cards that was doomed to collapse. I didn’t need anyone anymore. It was the day of my death.

So, now 9 years on I can look back to that day and conclude that I didn’t kill myself. That night I decided that it was the first day of the rest of my life. Last Saturday, I visited the Pyramid for the first time in 9 years. Now fully restored, it was an interesting experience. I even decided to take a picture of the thing. Goodbye Pyramid of Austerlitz. And thank you God.

IK HOU VAN HOLLAND

I love Holland. That is: it isn’t a bad place to spend a 3-week holiday, despite prices that shock the bloody Jesus out of anyone who’s used to Indian Rupees and Thai Baht. As a former resident of a farming village located only a cow-spit away from the city of Utrecht, I had a wonderful day in that most beautiful city of Holland. The sun was shining lovely, the air was crisp and near freezing point, and the people of Utrecht appeared happy and welcoming. Some of them actually recognized me as that woman who (used to) live/s(d) next door to the Dalai Lama. My immigration from India to Thailand was never headline news in Tulip-country and they still think I live in the Himalayas.
My head protected from the cold by my English bowler hat, I walked through the city centre as a tourist with my digital camera. Interestingly, people don’t tend to take photos of their hometown. When I lived in Utrecht I never bothered to document my city. I had zero photos to show my Asian friends of my hometown. Today I took a hundred of them and I took many photos of stuff Dutch people wouldn’t take photos of: bicycles and tulips.
Completely strange Utrecht-folks invited me into their homes, they offered me joints, coffee, gevulde Koeken, sauzijsenbroodjes and so on, and welcomed me back as if I were a celebrity they had been missing for years. Thanks to all those nice people that were so friendly to me. (Ralf, I wish you well and good luck with your music career.)

The Old Canal in Utrecht City (Oude Gracht, Utrecht)

Something you don't see much outside Holland or China.

Real Dutch tulips, on the Utrecht flower market.

I guess I am the only Dutch passport holder who takes pictures of bicyle parkings. I miss bicycles. It is a Dutch thing I guess, and I miss cycling. Everybody in Holland owns at least one or two bicyles and it's the first choice of transportation in the country. Bless the Dutch and their bicyles.

.

Yesterday was a sad day for me and my parents. Papa needs some more tests and a few weeks of waiting before he finally knows how bad his body has been affected by cancer. I don’t think my mother handles her aorta-problem very well. She requires a lifestyle with healthy food and little stress and that lifestyle doesn’t appeal to her. I fear that my next and last trip to Holland will be one to say my final goodbyes to them.

Also, it’s been 50 years that the Dalai Lama fled into exile. The European media are covering the plight of the Tibetans 24/7 which gives me a good feeling. My heart broke when I saw His Holiness speaking firm words about the mistreatment of his people inside Tibet. I recognised most Tibetan faces that appeared on NOS-News. Dharamsala has been my home for 7 years, the Tibetan refugees have been my friends ever since and they never left my heart. I had the intention to be in Dharamsala on the 10th of March 2009. Unfortunately, because of my parents absence of health, I chose to travel to Holland instead. But the 10th of March is special day for the Tibetans, as on this day, 50 years ago, the Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation occurred. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans were killed (some believe over 1 million), and still they need to fear for their lives. Last year, as we all remember vividly, on the 10th of March 2008, the young Tibetans in Lhasa started burning down Chinese businesses and fighting the Chinese security police and armed forces. It all started with a peaceful demonstration by a few monks. Lhasa was on fire and ever since, the Chinese government has closed down Tibet for the media, travellers and tourists. Chinese troops march the streets and Tibet has become one big prison where people cannot go in, nor go out.
Though still holding on to his non-violence policy, I hope that one day Tibet will be free, preferably by means of sincere negotiations with Beijing. In Holland we have an expression: Wie niet luisteren wil, zal het moeten voelen. In English: If they don’t want to talk and listen, they will need to feel it. In other words: If you don't listen to me, I'll smack you in the face. I believe in karma. Beijing will one day get a big smack in the face.

MONKEY BUSINESS (KIND OF)

I woke up at 10.30 this morning after a night of not sleeping well. I left the guestroom in the west wing and walked to the living room in the south wing where I found my mother behind her computer playing a digital card game.
“Good morning, Mama.”
“Good evening. Jesus Holy Christ Veer, it’s half past ten.”
“Yeah, I know. Papa and I drank too much last night and combined with the Valium and the Dutch grass that I was smoking with my head out of your guestroom window, I just sank into a coma. Where’s Papa?”
“He went to the hospital to get the result of the cancer radiation treatment.”
“So today he’ll find out whether he’ll live or die? I mean, whether he’ll live a little longer, as we all die some day, whether we like it or not. Tomorrow I could get hit by a tuktuk and die at 44.”
“For Christ sake, Veer, there are no tuktuks in Holland. It’s more likely that you’ll get hit on the head with a hammer by one of those Muslim foreigners who rob old people from their money at ATM machines. Or those other immigrants from Romania and Yugoslavia and that trash from Morocco.”
“I am not old and I am strong enough to beat up a guy of any nation. Well, I can’t believe Papa didn’t ask me to come with him to the hospital. I could have driven him in his Mercedes. If he gets the bad news, someone needs to be with him. Why aren’t you with him?”
“Jesus Holy Christ, Veer, I just got out of the bloody hospital myself. I am not allowed to strain myself or stress myself out of my life.”
Mother stuck a cigarette in her mouth while another one was still burning in her ashtray.
“If you want breakfast you can get it yourself, Veer. There’s still coffee in the pot, but it's two hours old.”
“I drank 4 glasses of hot water already and I don’t eat before I do my yoga. I’ll have something later. Do you have any healthy food in the house? I can’t eat junk food after yoga.”
“O. Yoga. Is that the reason why you’re not dressed yet, walking around in your underwear in my penthouse?”
“Mother Fucking Christ, you pulled me yourself out of your vagina, and now you have a problem with me walking around in my underwear? We’re in Holland, not Thailand.”

I started with 44 sun greetings, some seated twists, low lunges, hero virasana, my favourite pigeon kapotasana, followed by pashchimottanasana and a bunch of half prayer twists. I ended with a left and right tree vrikshasana, balancing myself on one leg with the other one in an intricate position placed against my inner thigh, and hands in Namaste.”
“You’re too skinny,” Mama said while watching me.
“Well, if I looked like a pig I wouldn’t be able to put both feet in my neck at age 44, Mama.”
“I know. At your age I was already fat like a…. well…”
“Pig.”
“I don’t understand why you are torturing yourself by doing all those exercises every day and denying yourself tasty food.”
Still balancing in tree-position, I said, “Tasty food? Junk food you mean, Mama. Papa and you have been fat as long as I can remember. I don’t want to be like you two. I can do things with my body girls half my age can’t even do. My husband is much younger than I am and he looks like a movie star so I need to work my arse off because he can get any girl he wants. Until now he hasn’t found anyone better than me. That is why I am working my arse off and eating healthy food. Capice?”
“I can see your pussy when you position yourself like that!”
“Jesus Holy Christ on the cross, Mama, can you please just remain in silent position behind your computer so that I can finish my yoga, please?”
“But I can see your pussy.”
I looked down. “You can’t see my vagina; I am wearing underwear. I think you see things that aren’t there. Well, I take that back. It’s there, but I am wearing underwear.”
“Jesus Christ Veer, I saw your pussy, for Christ sake.”
“So what? The day after tomorrow I am going to the Family Spa Sauna in Houten with my girlfriends so everyone can see my pussy; men, women and children. I don’t give a shit if people see my pussy. It’s beautiful enough to be seen.”
One minute silence.
“Well, at least you don’t have to feel embarrassed about your body. You look good. Like a model. By the way, how is your pussy doing? Still happy?”
“Very well, Mama. Very happy.”
“So you’re happy with it?”
“Yes Mama. I am happy with her.”
“So it was worth the operation and the pain?”
“Jesus Mama, it’s been 30 years ago, for Christ sake. I don’t even remember. And yes, I am very happy with my pussy and my young flexible husband and my skinny flexible yoga body and you can’t begin to imagine what kind of fun we have with our bodies. Do you know that we can do every position of the Kama Sutra without the need to be hospitalized afterwards? Tantric yoga is absolutely fabulous.”
“Well, I am happy for your Tantra. I can’t remember the last time I had had sex with your father.”
“Yeah, must have been years before I was born.”
“O shut up, Veer, for Christ sake, Jesus on the cross. I have never cheated on your father. Stupid, I know, but true. Could have had so much more fun. I only had your father inside me and now he doesn’t even have balls anymore because they castrated him. Prostate cancer, bladder cancer, testicle cancer, tumor in leg, they took everything away. Not that it matters because we hadn’t had sex in ages anyway, and actually I never enjoyed it. Not with your father. Do you enjoy it?”
“Yah. Very much. I spend 4 hours a day doing it. For free.”
“Four hours, for Christ sake?”
“Three hours at night for my sake, and an additional one hour when I wake up. I like sex in the morning. It recharges my battery. And my dearest little heart is like a 17-year-old boy. Insatiable. Oy!”
“You could have made some serious money with that activity if you’d been a prostitute.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Those Thai Kathoey earn more money per hour than I do. I need to sell an awful lot of books to get the same kind of money they do in only one evening. And they just have to lay on their backs staring at the ceiling.”
“Veer?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Is it possible for men to see the difference between your pussy and those of other women?”
“No, mine looks better. I had a great surgeon. At 44, my pussy still looks like that of a 16 year old girl. I have shown my pussy to some befriended top surgeons in Thailand and they all thought that my Dutch doctor has done a great job in 1984. It was my surgeon who taught many Thai surgeons in later years.”
“I have never seen your pussy.”
“Mama, Jesus Fucking Christ on the cross, Maria, Joseph and all the apostles, you’re not going to ask me to show you my pussy.”
“Well, I am just curious what it looks like. You’re my daughter. I gave birth to you. I pulled you out of my womb myself because nobody was home because your father was getting the doctor out of his bed, for Christ sake. You are my own flesh and blood. I want to see your pussy.”
I unpositioned myself out of my half warrior position and walked towards mother and her laptop computer. Standing in front of her, I pulled down my underwear.”
“Holy bloody Jesus, that looks so real.”
“Beautiful, huh?" I demonstrated my private parts. "And see this, I have a clitoris and a clitoral hood as well.”
“And does it hurt when you have sex? Do you get wet or do you need lube?”
“I have a mucous membrane, so my vaginal lining is very much like vaginas of other healthy sexual active women. It gets wet when it gets stimulated. And believe me, I get a lot of stimulation in Thailand.”
“Is that guy of yours good for you? Is he cheating on you?”
“No mother. He loves me, believe it or not. I adore my man. I always tell him how beautiful he is, I adore his penis, I never nag and complain, I am always nice and respectful and I never fight with him. I make him laugh, I dance for him naked, I make him feel proud of himself and me. If I were a grumpy old fat pig of a complaining bitch like so many other women, I wouldn’t have such a great relationship and my husband would be sticking his penis into young Thai concubines. But I know how to make a relationship work and I work on it every day. It doesn't happen all by magic; it is hard work. But I love my job of loving my man. And that is why you have a happy daughter and a happy son-in-law and happy grandchildren.”
“Well, that’s nice. I need to rest now. You know, my aorta is still not okay and I need to lie down on my bed in the afternoon. You can use my computer if you want. Are you going to write something today?”
“Yeah, I thought of writing something about monkeys. I used to have a lot of monkeys in and around my home in India.”
“Monkeys. I see.”
“How’s your English, Mama?”
“Pretty good but I don’t read it very well.”
“Do you sometimes read my stories on my weblog?”
“Nah, too difficult. My English is not that good. I tend to fall asleep after reading one sentence in English. And why would I read your weblog, you always tell me what you experience anyway, in Dutch.”
“Good. You won't miss a thing, honey. My weblog stories are all boring, I only write about religion and the 8-fold Buddhist path. Nothing you would be interested in.”
“Jesus Christ, Veertje, thank you for showing me your pussy. You know I love you. Pussy or not, but I love you. I hope you know that.”
“Yeah. I love you too, and the Holy Goddamn Christ knows it too, for fuck sake.”
“And your father loves you too. Maybe he doesn’t always tell you that he does, but he does love you.”
“That’s nice to hear. Have a nice rest, Mama. And please wake up, because I am not ready to have a dead mother yet. I will wait for father to get home and hear him out about his cancer-thing.”
“I hope he doesn’t piss on the floor like yesterday. He can’t hold up his pee anymore and he refuses to wear diapers.”
“Mama, I'd rather pee on the floor too rather than in a diaper. Just ask the domestic help to follow him in his wake with a sponge and latex gloves.”

I am not sure how my mother would react if she would be reading my cliterature, but what the fuck, I am old enough now to decide what to put on my weblog or not.

I am planning to write something about monkeys tomorrow.

SOME THINGS LIKE GOD ARE JUST INEXPLICABLE

Since Friday I am in the Netherlands to visit my very terribly sick and very aging parents. This morning my mother decided to run over a tiny spider with her walker in the kitchen, complaining about those bastards son of a bitch-spiders that find the outside too cold and manage their way into their million dollar penthouse. I was shocked. Killing an innocent spider with the wheels of your walker? Mother! So I had a conversation with my Mama about Indian wildlife before lunch. I think it wasn’t very beneficial to Mama’s recovery and she said she needed a few hours of solitary rest in her deluxe bedroom in the east wing, which gave me the opportunity to sit behind her laptop with internet connection to type up this story.

Last night I already shocked the Bloody Jesus out of my parents by eating Dutch Hutspot with chopsticks and by verbally offering them Reiki treatments in order to scare the cancer out of them. Reiki? Are you going to touch us? With your hands?
“Veer, no thank you. You’re not going to touch us in any way, we’ve got a nurse for that.”
“Who’s Veer?” I thought. O ya, I used to be called Veertje by the Dutch (short for Veronique). It means Little Feather. A lovely Native American Cherokee or Apache name (I guess) for a Dutch girl. My last name “Renard” is French for Fox, so Little Feather Fox sounds pretty exotic for someone who's surrounded by cows, tulips, cheese, windmills and wooden shoes.
For the past nine years people call me Pantau or Tau or Tao and these days Veer sounds like a different person to me. To make a long story short, I was talking to my mother about my wildlife in India. I told her that, once, I lived together in my room with Jimmy; a large female spider, the size of a Dutch male hand. She lived behind a tin trunk opposite of my mattress. In my trunk I kept my traditional Tibetan costume, boots, shirt and hat, one of those with four fur flaps, which I would wear on special occasions, thus little need for me to open the trunk every day and disturb Jimmy.
I called her Jimmy, not because she was a female-to-male transgender cross-dressing spider, but because she was a very large spider that never revealed her true gender to me until she popped out a thousand or so petit mini-spiderlettes. Anyway, Jimmy and I bonded. Am I not scared of spiders the size of hands? O hell Jesus, I surely am. But after living in India for a while you get used to things, including spiders and other wildlife. When you see a scorpion in your bathroom you don’t call 911, you just observe the scorpion, you arrange for a piece of cardboard and a bowl, catch the scorpion and release him in nature, which was only one foot away in my situation. I also believe there is no 911 in India. 911 in India comes in the form of a bucket of sand near a stove or an auto rickshaw to the nearest hospital.
I was surrounded by nature on my mountain top-town of Dharamsala, India, the hometown of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Jimmy would spend the entire day behind the tin trunk and not show her face until I would switch on my little television to watch one of 45 satellite channels provided to me by the local Himalayan cable-television project for 150 rupees (a few dollars) per month. I enjoyed watching a Chinese-type version of MTV, watching lovely Chinese singers of the female and male variety sing pop ballads, but I also enjoyed watching V Channel Asia that tends to focus on Japanese and Korean singers and pop groups such as Super Junior, Ken Hirai, Angela Aki, An Café, F.T. Island, and Howl.
If I would not use my TV as a music producing device, I would watch American Idols on Star World. And I must say, I love American Idols, and so did Jimmy. Every evening we watched television together, and when we were done, Jimmy would hide behind the tin trunk and I would blow out my candle stick or switch off my Tibetan lamp. I can’t believe we lived together for over 6 months.
One day she suddenly had a lot of children sitting on the back of her hairy back (her back was the size of a Dutch egg) so it could hold a lot of spiderlings. And then, one day, she was gone. She had disappeared from my petit room. Rather rude; she didn’t even shake hands, she had 8 of them; she didn’t Namaste me, or thanked me for accommodating her for such a long period of time for free. I always wondered where she got her food from, because there was little to eat in my room. What do spiders eat? And is it possible for a pregnant spider to go without food and drink for such a long time? Perhaps something for me to Google up.
Interestingly, that day I discovered she had accidentally left behind two of her children. Accidentally I say, because I don’t think she was a bitch of a spider. The two little spiders were the size of fleas and they found their way to my little washroom/bathroom. It had a sink with a little metal thing above it to put my toothbrush on. Against the wall was a very unusable mirror as well as a water heater and shower-thingy. Very luxurious for Indian standards. There was even a device to pee and poo in.
Anyway, two of Jimmy’s children had found a new place to stay in that little bathroom, in the right upper corner very close to the ceiling. I noticed one time that they actually drank water. They would come down from the ceiling at night and go to the metal thing above the sink that always had some drops of water on it. They would drink from the water droplets and then climb back to their right upper corner and stay there in a very little web-like housing.

Dear reader, I have been meditating a lot on what goes on in the minds of insects, whether they enjoy their lives, how they find their fulfilment, or if they are just happy by doing nothing for 6 months behind a tin trunk, be happy with a little slurplette of water every evening or watching American Idols on television. Life behind a tin trunk doesn’t sound appealing to me, but having said that; living in India with a monster-spider in your room doesn’t sound very appealing to most people in the West either. Yet I am a happy person, still. I was never bothered by the two children of Jimmy. They grew up in my bathroom, catching little fly-thingies from the air, and drinking water from the area around my toothbrush. I have never seen them in my sleeping area, and they never bothered to watch TV together with me. One day, when they were about 6 months old they left my home. They were the size of a peanut and probably had had a look through the little air vent at the wonderful pine trees that surrounded the building I lived in and thought: that would make a better and more exciting accommodation, perhaps we can find some girlfriends in one of those trees and catch some food in our spider webs to offer to our spider chicks.

For some inexplicable reason I always thought that the two little spiders were male; two brothers. I don’t know why, there were no spider penises visible to the naked eye and believe me, I had better things to do than looking for penises on very small spiders. Nevertheless, they always occurred to me as males, but I can’t explain why. Some things, like God, are just inexplicable.

Next time I am going to tell you a little more about Indian wildlife. I have a few monkey-stories that will blow your mind.

For now, greetings from a freezing cold Holland. Oy vey.

WHAT IS NEXT?

Dear Pantau

Next question: If one reaches God, what does one do after that? My whole life has been the journey, the travail to seek God, to seek peace, to convince myself that I am truly worthy of accepting this peace if I do find it. Is that the end? Isn't there more? Seems sort of like the end of the Kubrik film 2001: A Space Odyssey where, after returning to earth with almost god-like powers, the astronaut gazes down upon the planet earth, he doesn't know what he is going to do but is sure he'll think of something.

Joel.


Dear Joel,

Be in a state of Enlightenment. Start teaching others the way to Nirvana. After death, choose to stay in the realm of the gods (as one need no longer be reborn in a human body) or decide to return to Earth. This is what the soul of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been doing for 14 lifetimes. He has the ultimate power to choose.

As the Tibetan astrologers in Dharamsala observed in my case, my previous god-being existence decided to return to Earth after two years and reincarnate in my human body, obviously to become a teacher and showing others the way. (please note I do not write this with an attitude of arrogance, it is merely an observation of the Tibetan astrologers of the Mentsekhang, see previous post with the statement of the Tbetan astrologers regarding my existance).

Those who die after finding Enlightenment have a choice; the choice to stay in the realm of gods, or return to earth to help others. The final goal: for all of us to reach Enlightenment and leave this planet in order not to return.

.

Pantau

PS

Joel, this is an answer to the question/remark you posted in your comment:

So you’re saying that you consider it more beneficial if an enlightened being would return in a human body to help others. Many do. The 14th Dalai Lama is one of many. Let me explain the difference between reincarnation and rebirth. Everybody is affected by Karma, the law of cause and effect. They will be reborn and their rebirth will be affected by karma. Thus if your previous body has done a lot of bad stuff, your next life might be full of trouble, however, you get a chance to improve, create good merit and hopefully do better this time, making your next rebirth a better one. Only enlightened beings are exempt from karma. They can choose to stay in the realms of the gods or return to earth. They reincarnate. So there is a difference between rebirth and reincarnation.
So regarding your opinion that it might be a wise decision to reincarnate, I kind of agree. Why stay up in the sky while there is so much good to do on Earth. That is why there are plenty enlightened Tibetan lamas, among many other western reincarnations that return to Earth (probably they are the people that make most sense to us when speaking....and are often ignored). The Dalai Lama recently asked his people whether they desire him to reincarnate into a human body after he passes away. He doesn’t have to. It has been known to Tibetans that the 14th reincarnation of Chenresig, the Buddha of Compassion (The Dalai Lama) would stop reincarnating after his 14th human body. But with the current situation in Tibet (respectively Tibet not having genuine autonomy), his people feel there is a need for him to come back. He stated that he is seriously considering coming back after his death as the 15th Dalai Lama.
The 17th Karmapa Lama, the boy who fled to Dharamsala at 14 in 2000, is an even older reincarnated being. He is now in his early 20th and it would make sense that he will play an important part in taking over many of the current Dalai’s tasks as a teacher, may the latter pass away. And of course, the Dalai confirmed he won’t be reincarnate in Tibet, but in a free country where he can grow up to adulthood without any problems. He will be found by his people, recognised and return to his people living in exile. He may not even reincarnate into a body of the Tibetan race. As you know, my previous body was Tibetan. The Tibetan astrologers like to believe that I have taken on a spiritual body for about two Earth years, perhaps some sort of deity-like being, and then returned to Earth in the Netherlands in a caucasion body. FYI, I do not myself believe I have been an Enlightened being exempt from Karma, just a deity that was reborn. It explains why the Tibetans added "Lhamo" to my new name Pantau Lhamo, meaning Helpful Deity, rather than Pantau Lama II. My previous Tibetan body wasn't a lama in the fist place, but a nobleman and freedom fighter. He never had a monastic lifestyle.

An awakened teacher will shared his insights to help sentient beings end their suffering by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth (samsara), that is, achieving Nirvana.

His attitude will be one of ethical conduct and altruistic behaviour, devotional practices, ceremonies and the invocation of bodhisattvas, renunciation of worldly matters, meditation, physical exercises, study, and the cultivation of wisdom.

You ask: Is there time enough? Please elaborate on that question. I don’t really understand want you mean, only guess.

GOD IN A NUTSHELL

Image of God

Pantau,

As far as free will goes, it may in and of itself be totally illusory. But if I think everything is predestined and foreordained then I take no responsibility for any decision nor do I even feel I need to actually make a decision about anything. So regardless of the religion, if God knows what I am going to do then She knows if I'm going to be saved or earn good Kharma before I do anything. Therefore why do anything at all? In order to act, I must at least believe that I have free will and that my decision matters. I have to believe myself to be more than a marionette.
Viewing it from another angle, how can we believe God to be fair and just if She has consigned so many to lives of abject misery? Poverty, disease are still so rife in this world. If everything is foreordained then what kind of a god have we created when so many people suffer? Why create so many to merely wail in suffering? Did God decree that so and so be born into a life of wealth and ease while this other person would know only poverty, hunger, and disease?
I guess the crux of the matter to me is that lack of free will must mean that God is cruel and thus is nothing more than the child who pulls wings off flies. I would rather see a benevolent God who has given Her people free will and then waits with open arms to comfort those who seek shelter from the misery created by the clashing and interaction of individual human free will. As a child is never free from a parent so we are never truly free from God. We may wander astray, deny Her, etc. but ultimately must return to Her to find peace. It is, I feel, what we have done to the world, each other, and to ourselves that makes this so arduous.
Thus the question of free will is moot. It may not truly exist but to find any peace, I have to behave as if it does just as I must believe that I am of some worth and my life of some value.

Joel
(Pubished with permission of the author)

Dear Joel,

I think your questions and train of thought are as old as civilisation itself. And yet, nobody really has a clear cut answer or at least not an answer that can be scientifically explained.
Interestingly, most wise people who were the source of world religions believe in life before death and something after death, whether it be heaven, limbo, hell, reincarnation, Nirvana, whatever. Hence if so many smart men think that there is more to experience after death, there might be some truth in it.
I have no clear cut answer. I just don’t know. Yet in the past, I have been meditating often on this matter, questioning myself first: Is there a God, if so, Why, and What is God, and What is it all about?

On Happiness.

Nobody enjoys suffering, everybody desires happiness.
Though my personal happiness is being caused mostly by the fact that I do (to a large extend) have full control over my life, I don’t feel bothered by the fact whether or not I have free will. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I believe in God, but not as most people like to explain God. I see God more as the combined intelligence (and non-intelligence such as minerals, water, carbon, plastic, wood etc.) of everything in this Universe. In other words: we 6 billion souls make up a part of the entity we call God. Thus I am a small part of God. God created us in Her image: yes, I think that is a correct statement.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I don’t believe in God. I think it is all a bunch of crap.
On Sundays I take a rest.

Three days a week I like to see God as a chess game. She gave us a platform to play out a game. She created us a platform called Earth with the possibility to include all possible outcomes, all kinds of scenarios. Yes, She is like a writer who is in the process of writing and She doesn’t really know how the story will end. She makes things up whilst writing, creating.
The free will can be explained by the fact that we can do whatever we want, choose beneficial over non-beneficial, good over bad. She/We can choose to write about good things and bad things, enjoyable things or disturbing things.

Now, first I want something to explain why there is hunger and misery and violence and death in a nutshell. We wouldn’t understand happiness if there wasn’t the opposite of happiness. How can we feel happy if we never experienced grieve, sadness, boredom, pain?
It starts as a baby, feeling happy when being fed, crying when being hungry. So, obviously, human beings, have the ability to experience the entire spectrum of emotions (even my father). Even I am sometimes hungry, and not because I don’t have enough money to buy food. If I wouldn’t feel hungry, I would not enjoy the food presented to me.

I observe that my life is not all about happiness, there are periods of depression, loss, sadness, deprivation, followed by all good things. If I feel bad, I meditate on Elizabeth Taylor, and think: my life could have been worse. If I think I'd rather be a Hollywood star, I also think, well, they may have millions in the bank, but most of that money goes to their therapists and bodyguards, and they have problems holding on to their spouses. So perhaps not the greatest thing to be.
And when the good returns, I am grateful. For if I would never feel unhappy, I wouldn’t recognise and appreciate my fortune.

So God created Black and White and the entire spectrum of colours in between in order for us to experience everything possible on earth, and since the 1950s, even beyond.
If everything was White, we wouldn’t see it, recognise it. There’s a need for Black, for without Black we wouldn’t appreciate White.

Is everything predestined? No. I don’t think so. Things are happening now, created now. By us. And it is up to us what we want to experience. That I would call free will. There need not be wars and hunger. We decide to experience violence and hunger and wars and all the bad stuff. That is not something forced on us. We create global warming, not God. She probably shakes her head when observing the decisions we take and the way we live our lives. We just make bad decision. There are only few people who know exactly how we could live in a world with lives worth living, despite the fact that some unpleasant things such as disease and death are unavoidable. Rather than loving and playing with each other in beautiful, simple townships surrounded by agricultural lands with organic food, we create disturbing cities, dirty air and water, and plastic use-it-once-and-throw-it-away-products "Made in China". Rather than observing the beauty of nature and be part of it, we destroy it and sit in office cubicles. We have created a world like a one-room house containing a dysfunctional family that shits in it own kitchen. Some children get fed, others not, some children are loved, others raped, while the father and mother are fighting wars. But we know better, we don’t have to live like that. It is our choice what we experience. Thus, I say, yes, it is up to us what we want to experience, we have free will.

Every day I can decide what I want to experience. Pineapple with yoghurt for breakfast or an omelet with cheese. Do I want to stay home and watch TV or write on my 5 year old laptop, or do I want to walk on the beach, meet my friends, see the sunset, have dinner with my loved-ones, dress in Tintin-style shorts and a black poloshirt, or dress in white as a Yogini, have 4 hour sex at night or 1 hour sex before breakfast, or no sex at all. It’s up to me. I can beat my children for no reason and make them hate me, or I can teach them, stimulate them, help them, play with them, make them laugh. I can smile at people I do not know, or look angry at them. If I smile at them, they smile back, which in return gives me a nice feeling. I can shout, and people will feel disturbed by me, but I could also choose to speak softly and beautifully and people will take a liking for me. I can choose to eat like a pig and become a fat blob of human, or can choose healthy food, exercise, swim, practise yoga, walk on the beach and keep my aging body similar to what it was when I was a model at age 21. So, I have free will, and I can choose everything I want.

But now you can say: do people who live in certain countries where there is no freedom of speech, no human rights, can they experience the same freedom, the same ability to choose? You, Pantau, you have money and a passport that allows you to travel to any country in the world. But what about that little girl in Isaan, Thailand, that serves as a hooker for western pigs to provide money for her entire family? What about the Nepalese girls that are locked up in closests in Mumbay, India, to serve as vaginas for middle class Indian men? What about people who are born with birth defects, one leg, cerebral palsy, cancer at 6?
Yes, Joel, that is a tough one to answer. The 6 year old boy didn't choose to get cancer, but maybe his soul did, in order to experience cancer at 6. Perhaps his soul had a fabulous previous life and now the soul wants to experience pain and death at a young age. In his next life, the soul may choose to have the life of a happy wife of a doctor, or be a truck driver in Texas with a very nice wife and who lives a long and satisfying life. Here, I don't even consider the workings of Karma.

I know girls who were able to escape their predicaments. I know Tibetans who crossed the highest mountain passes in the world on foot, being shot at by Chinese border patrol, at night, in freezing conditions, to experience some sense of freedom in India. I think even in the worst cases, we have a choice, we can run away, go somewhere else, conquer our fear, say no. Perhaps not always easy, but everybody must have free will, the choice to experience what they want to experience, or change their lives, even if it were just a little, move on, choose something different, slightly better.
It may not be easy, perhaps it requires leaving behind family, friends and country (which I did), but everybody has a choice.

A person in a desert doesn’t dream of a Ferrari but a bottle of water. A Hollywood star with 200 million in the bank and 10 room house dreams about a 50-room mansion, an Oscar an Emmy and no longer a need for a therapist.

So why does God have some children born in poor starving families and others in rich business families? Well, as I said before, it’s up to us what we make of this world. God has given us the freedom to choose. So we need to take some distance from individual sad cases and look at the bigger picture, look at Governments and Companies, look at how we as a whole play the Game. We can change this world into a better place, provided that we understand what is beneficial, and what is not, and it also requires enough people to shift the balance, to change Back into White.

However, bare in mind the symbol of Yin and Yang. The White body contains a dot of Black and the Black body contains a dot of White. In Asia they refer to this symbol as Tao, or Nature, or God. Interestlingly, this is the name I am refered to in Thailand, an abbreviation of Pantau. And that is really how the game is set up for us. It’s not static, it can change. In the Yin Yang symbol, both bodies are equal, but we can choose to make it alive, to make it change, to alter the size of the White body, make it bigger, make the black dot smaller. But even when the White body of Yin is 99% it will still contain 1% of Black. We will still age, we will still die, we will still feel moments of sadness, depression and unhappiness. If we wouldn't and couldn't feel that way, we wouldn’t recognise our state of Contentment.

So, I hope I have proven to you with the above that even with all the sadness and hunger and war, We have free will and God is not cruel. Whatever we experience is being created by us, 6 billion people in this world. We have all the tools, the voices, and the brains to change things, choose things, choose White over Black, Good over Evil. It’s up to us as individuals, and as world at large.

Now, having said that, I have some of my own ideas that I want to present in a nutshell. Nothing is real. Earth doesn’t exist. The Universe doesn’t exist. There are no such things at atoms, neutrons, electrons, and photons. Everything within the confines of the Universe doesn’t exist. It’s all an idea. One big invisible brain made of non-matter. Everything is an idea. That is God at work.

Love… Pantau

THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

This is the centre panel of my three-panel cardboard travelling altar. In the centre (top) a young Dalai Lama XIV, shortly after arriving in India. On the right, the previous Panchen Lama of Thashilumpo monastery, Shigatse, Tibet, who was allegedly murdered by "Beijing". His reincarnation was abducted as a young boy in the mid-1990s by "Beijing", and replaced by their own Chinese version of Panchen Lama. On the top left, H.H. the 17th Karmapa Lama, shortly after fleeing from Tibet to India. On this picture he is 14 years old. I had the honour of meeting him and being blessed by him in 2000 as part of the first group of people allowed to meet him by the Indian authorities. Since then I have met him several times in his new monastery outside Dharamsala. He is considered the most important lama after H.H. the Dalai Lama, and the missing real Panchen Lama. In the centre, a picture of various Buddhas, given to me by a Tibetan lama whom I ran into at Singapore's International Airport in 2007. Centre left, an image of White Tara, given to me by my dear Chinese friend Chen Hao. Bottom left, a Chinese brush calligraphy of the Chinese version of my Tibetan name Pantau. The coin on the right is a Hong Kong Dollar I received as change at Starbucks at Hong Kong Airport, after being expelled from Mainland China in 2008.

Dear fellow sentient beings,

I received an email from a reader with the request as to whether I could explain a little about Buddhism to you American folks. I will try to do so in my very own words. Please note that I am just a simple Dutch girl and far from a Buddhist scholar. Let me start by telling you a little about the Buddha himself and his life (and how my life relates to his). In later posts I will elaborate on his teachings and how I implement them in my worldly life. I intend to start off seriously and try to end as secular as possible because I know that religious stuff can be quite boring, even to me.

Life of Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha).

Long time ago (when Europeans were still swinging from tree branch to tree branch), there was a guy called Prince Siddhartha Gautama. He was born in the city of Lumbini (near today’s border between Nepal and India) around the year 485 BC. (Just rereading this second sentence the Buddha’s predicament suddenly dawns when people asked him: ‘When were you born?’ He must have answered: ‘Yes indeed, I was born, and I predict I was born 485 years before the Jesus is expected to be.’).
Shortly after his birth, a wise man visited his father, King Śuddhodana. The wise man said that Siddhartha would either become a great king or a holy man, based on whether he saw life outside of the palace walls. Determined to make Siddhartha a king, his father shielded his son from the unpleasant realities of daily life. Years after this, Siddhartha married a woman, with whom he had a son who later became a monk. (So far so good nah?)
At the age of 29, Siddhartha ventured outside the palace complex several times, despite his father’s wishes not to. So as a result, he discovered the suffering of his people through encounters with an old man, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These are known among Buddhists as ‘The Four Sights’, one of the first contemplations of Siddhartha. The Four Sights eventually prompted the prince to abandon royal life and take up a spiritual quest to free himself from suffering by living the life of a begging ascetic (an ascetic is a person who doesn’t do the sex and alcohol-thing and walks around in skimpy clothes without shoes or something like that). Siddhartha found companions with similar spiritual goals and teachers who taught him various forms of meditation.
Ascetics practised many forms of self-denial, including severe under-eating. One day, after almost starving to death, Siddhartha concluded that ascetic practices such as fasting, holding one’s breath, and exposure to pain brought little spiritual benefit. He abandoned asceticism, concentrating instead on Awareness of Breathing, thereby discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, a path of moderation between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification (take note of this as it is a very important discovery, I must say).
After discovering the Middle Way, he sat under a sacred fig tree, also known as the Bodhi tree, in the Indian town of Bodh Gaya, and vowed not to rise before achieving Enlightenment. At age 35, after many days of meditation, he attained his goal of becoming a Buddha (One who is enlightened). After his spiritual awakening he attracted a band of followers and instituted a monastic order. He spent the rest of his life teaching and travelling throughout the north-eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. He died at the age of 80 (405 BC) in Kushinagar, India, from food poisoning. (Food poisoning? Oy vey, poor fellow!).

Okay, very interesting nah?

So where are the similarities of the Buddha’s life to mine? Here we go:
I was born 2450 years after the Buddha, not to a royal family but to a business family, consisting of a bunch of fallen Catholics (mother and her family, except one cousin who believes he’s the reincarnation of Jesus), and a bunch of atheists with allegedly a bit of Jewish blood (father and his family) in a small town of fine God-fearing Christian farmers in the Netherlands. No wise man ever visited my father at our brick house; instead we had a lot of business people coming over talking money, sales and marketing and other stuff. However, my mother always found me a precocious child, despite my dyslexia and disappointing marks at school, especially in Conduct and Social Etiquette (I assume because I was a brutally honest person who spoke her mind and still does). Mother was so totally xenophobic (still is) that she has never eaten a pizza, let alone travelling among very foreign cultures. There were initial ideas that I would take over Papa’s company, but I, as a child, showed more interest in smoking cigarettes, chatting with my girlfriends, and teenage sex with boys. My mother always hoped I would develop into a good girl with a respectable job and a fine husband, at least before the age of 34. Sorry Mama, but the Lord had other things in store for me, at least after the age of 34.
I ventured outside my parents’ home long before Siddhartha did at 29. I was already cruising at 14 in foreign countries. A wise man told Siddhartha’s father that his son would either become a king or a wise man; likewise, some smart friends of my parents told them I would either become a queen, a princess, a good office worker, a painter, a Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler-impersonator, or a novelist-cum-stand-up-comedian. And yes, I kind of became all of the above at one point in my life, though I only impersonated The Barbra in the confines of my own home standing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush in my hand.
Like Siddhartha, I travelled through India, not at 29 but at 34, despite my mother’s wishes not to do so. So as a result, like Siddhartha, I discovered the suffering of those Indian people through encounters with an old man, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. Thus I too had the ‘The Four Sights’, one of the first contemplations of Siddhartha. The Four Sights eventually prompted me to abandon my materialistic lifestyle in the West and take up a spiritual quest to free myself from suffering by living the life of an ascetic, and yes, I did a bit of begging in the process as well. I found companions with similar spiritual goals (a bunch of hippies in the Himalayas) and teachers (such as H.H. the Dalai Lama and other lamas) who taught me various forms of meditation among many things.
Now regarding living as an ascetic I can say I did deny myself sex and alcohol for over 4 years, practised many forms of self-denial, including severe under-eating (49 kg in 2002). Like the Buddha, one day, after almost starving to death, I concluded that ascetic practices such as fasting, holding one’s breath, and “exposure to pain” (by just being in India) brought little spiritual benefit. I abandoned asceticism (though I still refrained from sex and alcohol and remained living in India. I did smoke some pot, which is actually acceptable and legal behaviour for holy people in India when trying to get into a trance-like-meditation-state. FYI: I confess that I wrote my bestselling autobiography Pantau in India entirely on cannabis, and, thank you Jesus, when my publisher read it he said that it was my best work so far).
So I concentrated instead on Awareness of Breathing as a Yogini, thereby discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way (not bad; it really works if you avoid extremes); a path of moderation between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. I will elaborate on this in future posts.
After discovering the Middle Way, Siddhartha sat under a sacred fig tree, also known as the Bodhi tree in the town of Bodh Gaya, India, whilst I sat under a coconut tree until I realised that coconuts tend to drop from time to time and can fall on your head; causing not enlightenment but severe death or a very bad headache. I practised sitting under a coconut tree not in Bodh Gaya but Varkala and I wasn’t really sitting all the time, but more like in horizontal position in my hammock. I hate sitting. I like to believe that the human body didn’t evolve to do so. We should either walk or lay down.
Siddhartha vowed not to rise before achieving Enlightenment, while I vowed not to get out of my hammock until I would do so. At age 35, after many days of meditation, Siddhartha attained his goal of becoming a Buddha. At 36, I found some form of Enlightenment, because I have become a rather happy girl ever since. Now how to maintain that state of contentment or happiness is an important thing I will scribble more about in future posts.
After Siddhartha’s spiritual awakening he attracted a band of followers and instituted a monastic order. After my awakening I attracted a bunch of fans that enjoyed reading my books and I also founded the Pantau Foundation to help Tibetan children in need.
Siddhartha spent the rest of his life teaching, travelling throughout the north-eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, whilst I spent another 6 years in India doing pretty well spiritually, and then moved to Thailand to (incidentally) both live as a Yogini between sunrise and sunset and, at night, live a more worldly lifestyle. I do tend to teach people the way to happiness in various forms, some of them having a very secular character. I stick to a lifestyle of healthy food, 100 laps in the pool each day and one hour of yoga, as well as sexual intercourse twice daily (if possible and/or available).
Siddhartha died at the age of 80 (405 BCE) in Kushinagar, India, from food poisoning, whilst I am still alive and kick’n. Interestingly, I have a feeling I might die one day, not in Thailand but in India, and very likely after suffering from malnutrition (I am completely serious about this). If not, I may not wake up out of anaesthesia after a full facelift at 98 in Thailand, or I might get fatally hit by a tuktuk in Bangkok at 56 or die during my sleep after a beautiful life at 92, leaving behind my 3rd husband who will be 72 years my junior.

So far, so good nah?

Soon more on the teachings of the Buddha.

THE KING AND HIS WISE MINISTER

One day in 2003 I was having breakfast at the Om Hotel in McLeod when my dear friend Sacha Faller walked in. He was a young Swiss guy with a perfect American accent who took his Buddhism very seriously and attended classes on Buddhism at Kangchen Khishong every weekday. That morning he told me a story that I thought was so interesting, I asked him to type it down for me. Now, many years later, I have the pleasure to share it with you.

Sacha (L) and an unnamed Tibetan (C) looking fascinated at an unnamed "table illusionist" (R) in Rewalsar.

Hi there... I hope you are doing fine. So the deed is done. I've tried to put down in words my little story. I do hope you like it. Concerning copyright and bla bla - this is a story which was given freely to me. You may use the text at you discretion. If you want, you can quote the whole text verbatim in your book (although I'm not quite sure my literary style is all that good)...

Take care... Love

Sacha (February, 2004)

Sacha standing next to my Japanese friend Hiroshi near my home in McLeod

.

THE KING AND HIS WISE MINISTER

Once upon a time in a small kingdom not far from here there lived a king. Although his kingdom was small, the king and his subjects lived in peace and harmony. Their lives were simple and there had been no wars or famines for generations.

Even though the king wasn‘t very rich he was in possession of ‘a very precious jewel’ as he liked to call it. This jewel wasn‘t a stone or any other type of ornament. As a matter of fact; it wasn‘t a thing at all but a person. This person was his first minister. Having met this extraordinary wise person many years ago, the king had decided to make him his first minister and personal counsellor. Himself being quite experienced he nevertheless knew how important a wise counsel could be and over the years this decision proved to be one of the best the king had ever made. The minister was humble and loyal. In questions regarding state affairs as well as in more personal affairs he proved invaluable. He was trustworthy and completely confident about all things entrusted to him. Most astonishing; his advice, if properly followed, always led to the desired results without causing any harm or other kinds of disturbances.

As every year, so this year too the king gave the yearly celebrations commemorating his accession to the throne of the kingdom. One week of festivities and sporting events to which he invited all the nobles of the surrounding countries. As was tradition this week was ended by a great banquet in which the king served exquisite dishes to his guests.

After the king had given his annual speech and the main course had been served, the servants brought the dessert which consisted of various rare delicacies from far away countries.
As the king was trying to peel an exotic fruit with a small knife he unfortunately slipped and cut his hand. After having been taken care of by his physician he leaned over to his minister who was sitting to his right side and said: “What do you say?”
“What do you mean?” his minister inquired.
“Well I could have cut myself pretty badly. And even though it is not quite that bad, I do feel very uncomfortable with this accident,”
The minister answered. “Everything that happens happens for a reason and, therefore, is good.”
The king was completely taken aback with this reply. And even though he would have liked to continue his discussion with his minister, he had to put this off until a later time, since he was expected to take care of his guests.

After the festivities had ended and the king had retired to his quarters he had time to think about the minister’s words. ‘What did he mean with these words?’ he questioned himself. ‘Does he not care if harm is done to me? Is he still to be trusted? And if I were being attacked by an assassin would he still agree that this is a good thing? Might he himself harbour the idea to cause me harm?’
In all these years the minister had been most loyal and trustworthy to him, yet still, the king did not want to take any chances with a person that had such an important role in his kingdom and was always close by his side. Of course he did not want to ask his minister straight out if he had evil intentions towards him, for if he did, he would surely deny and on top of this, he would be warned about the king’s suspicions. Although he didn‘t quite know how, the king decided that he would have to test his minister on this issue. In time, was his reasoning, favourable conditions would surely present themselves for such a kind of test.

A few days later the king decided to go on a small excursion to the borders of his kingdom. Accompanied only by his minister he set out on horseback early in the morning. Towards noontime the small party had decided to rest in a village that had been abandoned for a long time. Most of the township had already fallen apart and therefore there wasn’t much to see. After eating lunch close to a dried out well in the centre of the place the king suddenly found a solution for how he could test his minister’s ‘odd’ views on what had previously happened during the festivities. The king called his minister over to the edge of the well and had him look down into it. As the minister was bent over the edge the king suddenly pushed his friend over into the hole.
Looking down upon his minister after his rather rough landing, the king said: “My dear friend, you seem to be in quite a predicament there. Without my help you will never be able to get out of this hole again. Tell me; do you still think that everything that happens, happens for a reason and, therefore, is good?”
Without hesitation the minister answered: “Yes my lord, that is still my opinion.” Irritated by the seemingly complete disregard of the seriousness of the situation on the side of his subject, the king voiced himself firmly: “You seem to need some time to think about your rather obscure thoughts about the matter at hand. I‘ll return back home now. Maybe I‘ll be back to save you, maybe I won’t.”
“I wish you a safe journey then my liege,” was the only reply coming from the minister.

The king took the horses and set out on his way home. As he was on his way back, the king thought: ‘I must say I give the man quite some credit for his reaction. He seems to act in conformity with his beliefs. Nevertheless, I want to know if his opinion will remain the same after having waited in that hole for some time. If he turns out to be in desperation upon my return I‘ll have him evicted from this country for the rest of his life; if he still has the same attitude he will have truly proven his worth and integrity to me once and for all.’

While reasoning in this way, being distracted, the king took a wrong path into unknown territories and subsequently got lost. Unfortunately he came into the territory of a primitive forest tribe and, being a trespasser, was arrested by a group of their soldiers. He was then taken before the pagan leader for questioning.
As it turned out the king had entered sacred grounds without permission. As this tribe was very superstitious it was decided that he would have to be sacrificed to their dark goddess whose sacred grounds he had desecrated with his presence in order to prevent her wrath, which in their belief, could destroy their whole tribe. He was then put into a cage where he was to await his death the next morning.

Needless to say the king didn‘t sleep that night. Just as the minister in the well, he now too had time to ponder upon his counsellor’s convictions.
How could a small journey end in such a disaster? From the time he left his minister things seemed to get worse. Although he was aware that all of this had nothing to do with what happened at the well, he couldn’t avoid the feeling that, in some way, all that happened seemed to be connected in a way he couldn‘t readily comprehend. Thinking about the minister’s viewpoint concerning bad circumstances and misfortunes he still failed to understand how such things could be seen as ‘good’.

After a dreadful night at last the king was taken out of his prison in the morning. He was then brought to the sacred grounds of the bloodthirsty goddess of the tribe. In the presence of the chief and the assembled tribe their high priest had prepared everything for the sacrifice. After having taken off the robes of the king, the priest proceeded to have a closer look at the king’s body. He seemed to notice the bandage on the king’s hand which covered his cut. Having removed it, he suddenly started to scream around: “This individual is unfit as an offering to our exalted goddess. He has a wound and is therefore impure. If we offer him to Her we all will surely come to regret this action. She will doubtlessly destroy us all for such blasphemy!”

After some deliberations it was decided that king was to be freed since he was of no use for their ritual of atonement. In his stead they offered another tribe’s member who had committed other sinful actions. The king was given back his robe and horses and was lead to the edge of the tribe’s territory. There he was told to consider his good fortune and to never come back for next time he would surely be put to death.

With an intense sense of relief the king went back to the deserted town in order to free his friend. After he arrived he went to the well and related the minister the story of his latter adventures.
Before getting his companion out of the well, the king still had a last question: “My friend you see I now understand the meaning of your reasoning. Yet, still, I feel some reluctance in freeing you. Tell me honestly; after having put your life into danger with my actions will you hold this against me? Will you still be loyal to such an unworthy patron?”
Astonished the minister answered: “What do you mean with putting my life in danger? As a matter of fact your actions put me out of harms way. If you hadn’t thrown me into this well and I would have been captured with you I would have surely died. There wouldn‘t have been a cut in my hand to save my life! You have saved my life and for this I‘ll be grateful until I die.”
Amazed with this answer the king uttered: “I think I now have my answer; you falling into the well happened for a very good reason and the outcome of this incident is indeed very fortunate.”
Then the minister said to him: “My king, before you help me out of this well, I have more good news. As I was waiting for you to come back I discovered a big treasure at the bottom of this well. Someone must have hidden it in here in former days. Failing to be reclaimed by its rightful owner, it has been here waiting for another to discover it. Let us get it up first.”
After the treasure and the minister had been taken up the two friends went on their journey back home.
From that time on the king and his minister lived happily ever after with all the new riches they had gained from their trip.

Moral: Everything that happens happens for a reason and, therefore, is good.
We might not always understand the things that happen to us (the way they do) and why they do. Having faith we should understand that everything happens to us for a certain reason and no matter what, we should try to accept them as part of our path in this life.
Every occurrence in our lives helps us to progress on our path and although we might not understand its proper reason right away, we should trust it to have meaning for us (and our lives) and therefore we should make an effort, no matter how awful things might seem to be at the moment, to view them as positive for our own evolution.

Sacha Faller

Sacha preparing for meditation inside the cave of Padmasambhava above the Tso Pema lake in the Himalayan town of Rewalsar.

.

Dear Sacha,

This story never found its way into any of my books, but I hope you will be pleased to see it online. I have taken the liberty to do a little editing. Thank you once again for the time and energy you put into writing down this story for me.

With love… Pantau.

TEN THOUSAND FLIES OF PANIPAT P.P.

One day in 2001 a person came up to me when I was replacing a wheel of my jeep near the Indian town of Panipat. I recognised him vaguely and vice versa.
“Are you that Pantau-woman from Dharamsala?”
I looked at him and saw a dirty old hippie standing in an aura of visible smelly odour.
“No, it’s not me, you’re just seeing a spiritual apparition,” I replied.
Now in the west you cannot get away with such quips and you would only elicit strange looks, but (thank you Jesus) in India people immediately get it and have a good laugh.

I had been talking to this guy once before, and, if I remember correctly, it was at the Om Hotel in McLeod. We engaged in a conversation about Barbra Streisand. He told me he had been working as the personal cook of Barbra Streisand for a short period of time. It was somewhere in the early 90s; a period when The Barbra was eating nothing else but healthy food, and she and her body looked fabulous. One night, the hippie had told me, after a health-food dinner party at her Malibu mansion, he had woken up, as he heard some stumbling in the kitchen. Despite Streisand’s armed security personnel, he feared someone had broken into the house. Arriving in the kitchen, there he found Ms. Streisand on her knees on the floor in front of the double door fridge gobbling up leftovers; a bowl of greasy fruit-soup and some very fatty fibreless food products as if there was no tomorrow.

To be honest, I never believed he worked for Ms. Streisand, and he never found her on her knees in front of the fridge eating fruit-soup. Many foreigners in India are on drugs and many enjoy making up new histories, sometimes to impress people, other times because their past reality is so ugly, they can’t go back to their countries. They need to hide in places such as India, Thailand, Cambodia etcetera.
“What are you doing in Panipat?” he asked me.
Panipat is about the dirtiest place in India and famous for its flies. According to legend there are 10.000 flies for every Panipattian. Panipat is located along the highway N.H.1 between Delhi and Chandigarh. At Chandigarh the highway ends and for the next 8 hours you need something with four-wheel-drive in order to cross the Shiwalik Mountain Ranges before you get to the Himalayas. During the previous week I had had a few meetings with a Delhi publisher and was on my way back home. The driver-cum-bodyguard I had hired for the 16 hour trip had fallen ill when we were staying in a cheap hotel in the Tibetan refugee camp of Majnukatilla on the outskirts of Delhi. Rather than finding another driver, I decided to drive back home myself. I always observed I was the better driver when being driven by professional drivers in India, thus I would often have them sit next to me on the passenger seat anyway. Indian drivers are too lazy to use the stick-shift, trying to drive in second gear all the time, while I would change to the 5th gear already at 65km an hour on long straight highways, saving much on petrol.

After I finished replacing the flat tire with a new wheel, the hippie and I sat down in a little dhaba next to the road to take a breather. A nearby street vendor sold us some fresh pressed sugarcane juice with lemon for 10 rupees per pint, while I ordered a Coca Cola at the dhaba as well, as the drink tends to kill all stomach bacteria as effectively as the best pharmaceutically produced antibiotics.
The hippie, who was missing a few front teeth and one finger, told me he had converted to Buddhism. “What about you? You’ve been living in Dharamala for nearly a year; do you have any plans to become a Buddhist?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I am not a religious person really and I don't believe in GOD. I don’t want to be told by some other people what I can’t and can do. It’s always the same stuff with those religions. You get a whole list of things you cannot do anymore. Don’t do this, don’t do that and if you do you go to hell: that wouldn’t make me feel good, just deprived…and finally really hot in hell.”
“So why did you come to live in Dharamsala?”
“Well, I was depressed in the Netherlands and travelled to India to find a cure. Looking at all those poor Indian people that crossed my path, some dying right in front of me, I started to feel a lot better about my own life. Within weeks I didn’t feel depressed anymore. After some time I ended up in Dharamsala and I thought it was such a lovely little town surounded by a ghastly country that I thought that, if I would live there, I would feel pretty good every day. I would be able to see the beautiful Himalayan Mountains with snow on its peaks, breath in the clean crisp air, and gaze at the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetan monks that roam the few streets. I can sit in petit cafés talking to hippies and backpackers and other creatures that always have some interesting stories to tell, so I would never feel alone and lonely. I also met a Tantric Yoga-master who is teaching me to become a Yogini. As there is no gym in the Himalayas, I thought yoga is a good alternative to sports. I like to keep my body in good condition and shape. Also, I need to climb 200 rocky one-foot high steps to my room three times a day that lead from the road to my room higher up the mountain. Great work-out. I am fitter than when I was an athlete. A workout at an altitude of 10.000 feet is pretty good; my red bloodcell count is going off the charts.”
The hippie nodded.
“O, and I was able to write a little book about my first year in Dharamsala. It’s about to go to press and will be sold in India and Nepal.”
“Congratulations. But Buddhism is not really a religion. It’s more like a philosophy. The Dalai Lama and all the lamas and Buddhist scholars focus on teaching the path to happiness. Buddhism is all about Enlightenment. It is about learning how to overcome suffering. Because if you wouldn’t suffer anymore, you would feel good. The next step is about gathering wisdom, so you would get a greater understanding of the workings of the universe, and with the knowledge and wisdom you have discovered, you can start helping other people; and THAT is really fulfilling and it keeps you in a state of happiness.”
I nodded.
“Where are you headed?” I asked the hippie.
“I am going back to Dharamsala. I have no money and have been hitchhiking from Delhi to get to the Himalayas. The truck-driver who gave me a lift fell asleep behind the wheel between Sonipat and Panipat. The truck hit a buffalo that was about to cross the highway, then the truck and buffalo hit a tractor and then the truck, the buffalo and the tractor fell over on the other side of the meridian. Thank God we both survived, but the Buffalo is dead and the tractor driver broke his arm after flying through the air for 50 yards, landing in a heap of dirt. Poor bloke. About a million flies descended upon his open wounds. I fled the scene as you know that Indian police will arrest anyone involved in an accident and I have spent too many days in Indian prisons already. No fun.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Sitting in the back of your jeep with the windows open so you wouldn’t smell me.”
I turned into a salt pillar for a few moments. “Okay, but you need to sit on a plastic bag, because I don’t want you to shmutz the fabric of my seats. This jeep is practically brand new and looking at you, it appears that the rear end of your trousers is full of dried-up diarrhoea.”
“Fair enough.”
“And while I am driving I want you to keep me awake with some smart talk about Buddhism. Tell me more about it. If you can convince me that I should have a look at the teachings of the Buddha, I’ll offer to buy you some new clothes, a meal, and give you 5 rupees so you can have a good wash in the public bathroom in McLeod. You should also consider a haircut. I can see the lice falling out of your dreadlocks.”
“I am sorry. I can’t accept that offer,” the hippie told me.
I looked at him surprised.
“Why not?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind the new clothes, the meal, the wash and the haircut, but it is not the right thing to do for a Buddhist to force his believe onto someone else. Buddhists do not convert others, especially not by means of force. We’re not Christians.”
I took in his words.
“But I can ask you to tell me more about it and you would be allowed to give me some information, right?”
“If you phrase it that way, I think it is alright.”
I opened the backdoor of my hardtop jeep, put the plastic car cover over the backseat and offered the hippie to get in. I was looking forward to getting an explanation on Buddhism, despite the fact it would cost me 60 rupees to have my car seriously disinfected at the end of the journey. Perhaps one day in the future I would be able to talk to other people and tell them what I have learned about Buddhism.