Where in the robes is Waldo

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triple think, modified 15 Years ago at 3/10/09 6:25 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/10/09 6:25 PM

Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 362 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

I'm planning on uprooting myself from my precious rainforest, bidding goodbye to my mountain lion, bear, elk, deer, squirrel, wildfowl, et al friends and moving to Thailand. I plan to leave early in April. I want to become a bhikkhu, just because I want to live like that I think from now on. I have been preparing for that transition consciously for about a decade especially since taking it on in a preliminary way once before. I find it entirely appealing and I would like to start out in Thailand. I have been learning the language some and trying to find out the best places and people to see about receiving the going forth, ordination and training of various kinds. Any insightful experience, suggestions or contacts from anyone here would be welcomed.
Trent S H, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 10:23 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 10:23 AM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 0 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Good luck on your journey, man. I wish you ze best.
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triple think, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 2:02 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 2:02 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 362 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Thanks for the support. Posting the thread had a very counter-revolutionary feel to it. As it stands Thailand looks like a nightmare scenario in terms of actually getting this done, so I am going to give it my best shot and if it can't be made to work I will probably be back in some forest or on some mountain somewhere communing with more civilized wildlife again. I really think sitting in the woods is a highly underrated traditional practice. Sitting still in the woods has taught me more about arising and passing in a comprehensive way than any other technique I know of. Harsh and remote wilderness is even better in some ways, more emptiness, but less communal.
Trent S H, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 3:53 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 3:53 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 0 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Hell yeah. I am very jealous at even the thought of living in a forest. I grew up in Kansas near some woodlands and use to go out and sit in my father's tree stands for hours and hours. Some of those experiences were of the most profound of my life. There's just something about sitting still, being completely unnoticed by the world...unseen, unheard, not smelled, tasted, touched. It's as if one's own becoming is paused and yet all manner of life continues on.

The most subtle of sparrow conversations seems to be a symphony of delicate interconnectivity. A whitetail fawn playfully crunching acorns like there's no tomorrow. A change in the direction of the wind sometimes seems to change the entire world. There's just something profound about the whole thing.

I definitely dig it! Do you have any stories that really stick out from your woodland sits?
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triple think, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 5:19 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 5:19 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 362 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Waldo's Backstory (actual name NathanM): I made conscious choices early in life; time, relative liberty and solitude were/are priority items. I wasn't interested in much else than peace and quiet to unpack my head. I was a wage slave for as long as that was necessary and rather than work my way into everything I worked my way always further out. I've been far away now for many years from the blazing fast pace and dense press of human masses that is any of the concrete and poison gas graveyards most everyone one has confined themselves to. But I feel your pain, I do, so I am coming down from the mountain to get some smog on at a dying planet near you.

Urban jungle puts my meditation in overdrive. After this long in the woods finding original calm, the suffering I note in bold relief everywhere when I mix it up with the 'worldly beings' is intense by comparison. I just want to hand everyone a margarita or something. A pillow.

So, story... some years back, the last time I migrated to the ghetto... I got myself a dirt cheap apartment in the middle of the worst part of town and took on a full load of paper routes. I would get up at 4 am and walk around for 4 hours in the almost stillness of it. At 8 I would be home having my toast while the morning rush went forth. After stretching I would sit in 3 hour blocks for about 9 hours. Two small houses from a busy corner, high school across the street. Screaming neighbors, dogs, relentless SUV's relentlessly revving engines and squealing tires non-stop until just about 4 am. The daily slack tide.

It took about a year of really nasty mostly vipassana cycling and after that I could get the harder than hard jhanas. You could fire a gun next to my head and man, not a chance I would hear it. I stayed and did some more predominantly long hard jhanas for another year within the sirens and gunshots of my zen garden. I'll try a nature hike in our next episode.
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triple think, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:39 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:39 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 362 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
I could add that I did brahmavihara practices while I hiked around dropping the day's news into everyone's slot. It really took the edge off of the neighborhood but it didn't appear to do much to tone down the colony of heroin addicts in my building.

So after two years of this I came back to the forest. It is always fair on the eyes. The space is so big, the tiniest sounds travel so far, the trees loom so high and there is the press of the mists and moist coastal scents of life. I don't really understand how cities can ever 'feel right' for a human being next to this. In those cubist mazes I always feel like I have stepped onto a vast factory floor. Everyone continually readying for all out war. They even look like the 'deathstar' when you drive down into them from the hills. It is at least as much of a reality check as the old school world that offered a more balanced meal of life and death. A world made only for humans which by convention won't affirm a human form of existence.

The forest acknowledges my being. In all my modes. That is in many ways all that any being really wants from another being, simply to be appreciated for what it is. Most any being is entirely satisfied with that. The wildest things can tell if you are noting them, appreciating them. It saddens me, more than anything to watch the last of that world being slowly scratched away, beaten down and rubbed out.
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triple think, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:39 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:39 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 362 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
I see deep organic attachments in these contrasts, vain sorrows. Empty, impersonal, temporary, suffering. See that too. Sometimes I want to prolong the agony, stay in the game, do something about something somehow. Then settle into mute resignation knowing that there is nothing else is to be done and press forward towards that highly spoken of freedom from this beautiful nightmare.

You can overcome a lot of fear in the wilderness, human or otherwise. Depending on how you approach it. It is quite astounding how deep the fear goes and how immediate it can be. Cougars have good concentration and are both quiet and fast as lightning. I am surrounded by them but I never worry about it. Most people out in the forest are armed to the teeth. I spray on my appreciation and sprinkle in a little compassion. Set for a walk in the park.

For all it's skills a cougar can't just walk into a herd of elk or deer but I can. I can sit and watch a doe nurse her fawn. The buck grazing over my shoulder. I have had all manner of birds more or less drop down in my lap and look me over. Magnificent birds, hard to see. Endless exotic insects. I watched a black widow spin a web in the top of my tent one night. Well, I promised some relief from the post modern apocalypse. I would suggest not settling for someone else's fond memories. Have a taste of the natural world while it still has a taste. See what is satisfying and unsatisfying about the wilds while these still hover at the periphery of the new world that we are wresting from the ashes of the one that is being discarded. All that arises, also ceases.

That brown robe is gonna be the greatest thing ever in deer hunting season!
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tarin greco, modified 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:56 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/13/09 8:56 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 658 Join Date: 5/14/09 Recent Posts
lol! delightful reflections and stories
beta wave, modified 15 Years ago at 3/14/09 1:36 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/14/09 1:36 AM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 5 Join Date: 8/30/09 Recent Posts
Wow, thanks for this Triplethink!

The sad thing about this world is people bring the city with them to the forest and sometimes can't even experience the space. Nature is an awesome teacher to me because it is nothing about me and let's me be. Any suffering is probably my own creation. Same is ultimately true in the city, but it can feel like a impersonal downward spiral instead of an impersonal cycle.

Jealous of your experiences, but happy that you've had them!
Trent S H, modified 15 Years ago at 3/14/09 4:27 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/14/09 4:27 AM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 0 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Awesome, thank you for sharing. I am actually at my parent's home right now, I may end up spending the afternoon in the woods!
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 3/15/09 3:26 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/15/09 3:26 PM

RE: Where in the robes is Waldo

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: garyrh

Triplethink this is inspiring stuff. Thanks for this.

Consider putting it in your profile for those in the future who will miss this thread.

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