today is the tomorrow you were worrying about yesterday

The meditationcentre. In the midst of fields, twohundred palmtrees, beautiful white birds, a sunrise that pushes herself through the early fog every morning (one advantage of having to get up at 4am is never missing this happening...), singings from here and there, a little cooking lady with a lot of inspiration, fifty co-meditators from here and there and far and not far, one teacher and some volunteers.
We will be silent for ten days en surrender ourselves to the meditationtechnique invented by Buddha himself. Vipassana.
The technique is simple. The story behind it logical. The application hard but wholesome. But above all, no fuss.
No `Om`s, honourings or rituals. Just clear and consistent and therefore at times so hard and confronting.
The story of vipassana in a few sentences.
If you want to know more : www.dhamma.org .
The goal of the technique is to purify your mind and change the habitpattern of it in order to find real happiness.
How do you do that?
You just sit on the floor. Everybody can. Is true.
During three days you don`t do anything but observing your breath. Sounds easy.
The little space between your upperlip and the bottom of your nostrils is the only thing you can put your attention to. It makes the mind alert and sharp.
And then, on the fourth day, the real vipassanameditation starts.
Where you could change your position in the former days, you now have to stay still. Less easy.
And then you are being asked to observe the whole of your body part by part, piece by piece.
And then your are being asked to keep your mind calm and peaceful, alert and attentive and above all equanimous, without any craving or aversion for this or that sensation.
This last thing seemed to me the easiest task while struggling to get my attention back from the food, or the Halleluja`s outside or the plans for the future or the counting of the money I still had left for the rest of the journey, back to the sensations on my body. But I had better first stayed for one hour sitting immobile on the floor with crossed legs and closed eyes before thinking that.
At one moment your feet are burning, you are sure, they`re burning, there`s no doubt. You keep sitting there because you want to be a good girl and you`ve been raised in that way that you know it is impossible that your feet are on fire. Then someone should have put them on fire. And that is not possible. Because it is not so easy to put a foot on fire. And not easy at all in a meditationhall where nobody is supposed to move.
So you come to senses and tell your feet (in silence) that they are not on fire, that they only think the`re on fire.
And then you are being asked, whenever you feel a gross, solidified sensation (fire wasn`t named specifically, but I felt free to count that in) to stay there for a while with your attention. With an equanimous mind. Without desire or aversion. The desirepart wasn`t too difficult. But that aversion.
Why am I sitting here? you think. Why do I have to watch my feet being on fire while outside there are very beatiful no burning palmtrees and a tree trunk to sit on and a sun to sit in. What am I doing for heaven`s sake?
And then something very strange happens.
When you keep your attention with the pain and try not to feel that aversion, the pain resolves.
The feet were still a little bit smoldering but the worst part was over.
And then you experience for the first time in practice what the meaning is of all the words in some spiritual teachings.
And then you realise that you don`t know anything before you`ve experienced it.
I never thought that burning feet could teach me that misery is only as big as to the extent of importance you give to it.
And then you realise that nothing from the outside world can make you unhappy.
It`s your own reaction that makes you unhappy.
And that thougth makes you happy.
And then you are again a little less happy because now someone has stabbed a knife deep into your rightshouldermuscle and also some needles in your leftankle.
But then you think again of that misery and aversion part.
And then you are happy again.
A little later you feel something you`ve never experienced before.
A kind of flow of all little vibrations passing through the whole of your body.
And then you think, I did it, I can meditate, I can go home, I only needed six days, maybe they made it ten days so the slow ones can get there too.
And then the voice tells you that you shouldn`t crave for pleasant sensations because they also are impermanent just like the unpleasant burning feet.
And then you want to run away again. What am I doing here? You can enjoy a little bit, isn`t it? After all it`s christmas for all (well, for all in Belgium). What am I doing here?
Until you realise that nothing from outside can make you really happy either.
Because then you would only be happy when everything goes well. And when does everything go well?
So you learn day by day, step by step, to firstly sit still for one hour, but secondly that here exists a happiness other than that you`ve known before.
And then you realise that you will be banging your head against the wall still more than a few times because you are a human being.
But you also realise that you now have learned a way to attenuate the headache afterwards, or even to make it dissapear.
And then you are happy to have sit still for ten days on your journey in one spot, practically on one cushion.
And you want as many people as possible to do the same thing because you maybe can`t explain it that well and because there`s still much more.
But you know that it works because you felt it in stead of reading it.

If you, while reading this, didn`t feel a too big intention to book a ticket on the first plain (sorry, plane would be easier) to India to save me while it`s still possible from the all-devouring spiritual monster, if your thoughts didn`t produce the word bullocks too often while reading this, then you can always try it.
There are centres everywhere.

After these ten days there was the goodbye.
Laura and me will be going our own way for a while.
Not because of problems, on the contrary.
Just because. Pieter-Jan is coming tomorrow and will be travelling with Laura for six weeks.
And I am starting a new adventure tomorrow in Mysore.
4 weeks, also staying in one place, but this time with a little more movement than before I assume.
A yogateacher training course is what I will be attending.
Because India is the country where you should do that.
And because a long journey allows you to take some time for one place.
And because life is just long enough to do all the things you`ve always wanted to do provided that you don`t wait with doing them.

I will keep you informed about Laura`s travelling around and about the amount of knods in which of my limbs.
Although it won`t seem like that due to the maybe little lower frequention of blogmessages in the next weeks, the journey has reached her cruising speed.
The one intense experience is following the other rapidly.
And we are receiving without craving or aversion.
Looking forward to what is still there to come but above all enjoying what is being being. And enjoying each other. Ten days not having any communication at all, you can only do that with noble strangers or with real good friends.
The only thing we did once in a while was giving eachother`s arm a little caress before going to sleep. In the dark, at 9h30pm when the lights went out. To say sleep tight, or merry christmas, or I hope you are ok, or thank you.

U will hear from us. And be happy and remember : the weather is not really cold, that`s just your idea.