Tea and nuts for everyone, joining a Sangha, military police, dinosaurs and music (November 2022)

Since I began traveling along the Mediterranean coast in Turkey, I’ve noticed that much of the coast is densely populated with cities, roads, and hotels. It has not been as easy to find secluded natural spots, as it is, for example, in Greece.

The satellite photos on Google Maps and Park4Night led me to believe that the Marmaris peninsula would be a beautiful spot to camp, and it did not disappoint. Upon arriving, I stumbled upon a place I dubbed “dinosaur land” due to the dense, prehistoric-looking forest. The area offered a great combination of dirt roads and hiking trails, as well as an abundance of wild thyme to pick. It was an amazing place.

Rosinante and I were the only campers there, but I had the opportunity to meet a lot of wonderful people. Being inspired by the Turkish hospitality, I began offering tea to anyone who passed by. Most people seemed to enjoy it and when they accepted the tea, I also offered them nuts and dried fruits. It was a simple yet beautiful way to connect with others. I had a lot of great and interesting conversations. With two Turkish guys I talked a lot about Turkey and music. One of them even taught me a finger roll technique and a new, easy oriental beat to play on my cajon.

There were many beautiful encounters in that “dinosaur land”, but one stood out as particularly special. One day, an older man came to the place where I was camping. He stopped his car, got out and sat down on a large stone a few meters away from Rosinante and me. I greeted him and he smiled back. I had learned that some older people don’t like or understand how to use Google Translate, so I simply made some tea and offered it to him along with some nuts and dried fruits. He smiled, touched his chest with one hand, and seemed to enjoy his tea. I don’t know if he was unable to speak, but he didn’t say a single word. He communicated through gestures, and I did the same. I sat down at a respectful distance, and we shared some quiet but equally beautiful moments together.

Months ago, while I was in Greece, I began listening to episodes of The Zen Studies Podcast. I recall that I had felt a pull towards Zen a couple of times in my life before, but I never delved deeper into it. However, while in Greece, that changed and I became increasingly interested in Zen practices such as meditation and study. I had been considering joining a Sangha (a group of Zen practitioners) for some time, and I began attending the meetings of Bright Way Zen. The meetings were beautiful, very honest, and authentic, so I continued to attend the Sunday meetings, which included meditation, a socializing round, and a Dharma talk, during which the Zen teacher would discuss a topic which would then be discussed in the group. Although I felt like my identification with Zen increased in a way, I enjoyed these inspiring meetings.

After some days in the “dinosaur land”, the military police came by and informed me that it was not allowed to camp in that spot in the forest. They were very friendly but declined my offer of tea and I did not argue with them. I had been living in my car for more than three years already, and this was the second time I was moved by the authorities.

I moved on towards the end of the peninsula and found some truly beautiful spots to stay, with wonderful hikes and interesting ancient sites to enjoy. My music production became increasingly intense, and I experienced a number of breakthroughs in my learning. Sometimes I spent twelve hours a day making music. First I kept loving it, but then it started to change.

A more natural approach, letting go and Zen (October 2022)

Continuation of the previous blog post.

When it came to spending time together and showing romantic love, I was all in. I did seek to be close to Artha and learned that she needed more space than my ego was feeling to give without struggling. I believed that the general circumstances put some pressure on our connection as well. I was in Varna because Artha was there. If we hadn’t met, I most likely wouldn’t have been there. We spoke about this, but I thought it was just something “hanging in the air”.

Sometimes Artha built up what felt to me like a heavy energy and it felt like the interaction from her side switched entirely. From what I felt was loveful, warm, and close, she switched to ignoring, cold and distant. Sometimes just from one hour to the next. That triggered a lot inside of me. In times like this, I felt like I was losing her and that unique connection between us. I could not get through to her and a part of our connection got interrupted. Fully connected we looked each other in the eyes for long moments and it felt like I could look right into her. Seeing her completely as she was. Feeling everything there was.

When our connection got interrupted like that, we did not look into each other’s eyes. It just did not happen. A part of me did not want to have this. It felt like a threat to me. I was struggling with this switching between us and with me getting triggered. And I realized that my perspective was at first very self-centered. These occasions let me think about how Cori may have felt when she had been visiting me back in Greece (open blog post “There is no love left”). It felt like I switched places in something very similar.

At first, I felt like I was responsible to help Artha, to heal her from having that heavy energy. That is a pattern I was feeling and following for a whole lot of my life and still, it is present inside of me. Maybe it’s one of the patterns that let me suffer in my life the most. Throughout my life, I felt so often responsible for the emotional states of others. That let me feel like I have to do something to help them. And I think that it was only to feel better for myself. I was mostly rejecting bad feelings and negative energies. I just did not want to have them around me. I started a long process of letting this pattern go long ago, but during that time with Artha, it felt like I profoundly experienced that I was really allowed to let it go, that it did not have to be a part of me. But even after realizing this, it was not easy to let it go and still it sticks with me. But I felt like I did a big step. And one thing that changed my perspective on that pattern was, experiencing that in the end, there was nothing that Artha would need any healing for. That I was thinking she needed to heal started to feel encroaching and self-centered. Partly I just wanted her to not have this strong energy to spend time with her and enjoy the light and deep energy between us. But the times when my pure and egoless compassion for her felt stronger than the cravings of my ego.

That time did let me experience and learn how much heavy energies can help and heal if I let them. How wonderful it is to welcome and accept these heavy energies and let them transform themself into something else.

Disregarding the healing that took place in me, I still felt the demanding romantic ego love inside of me and I was struggling a lot with how to deal with it. I thought letting it all out felt encroaching and self-centered and I thought suppressing it felt wrong and unnatural. I just thought so much…

During that time I was reading the book “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki (via Google you’ll find a pdf of it). I had read it years ago but back then it did resonate with me at all. But at the time in Varna and on the beach, I connected very strongly with it. I loved how it was trying to describe the non-dualistic nature of “everything there is” and how straight, pure, and “Zen style” it was. And especially the repetitive style I liked. For me, it felt like this book was trying to help its readers to not think so much but instead trust in themselves and live more. What is more, it described a lot about the “big mind” and the “small mind”. Basically, I understood, that the big mind is living without adding stories to the things we are doing/ living and the small mind is the part of oneself, that tends to add thoughts and stories to everything we are doing/ living. So the big mind sees and lives things “as they are” and the small mind adds delusions to that. These delusions then are causing suffering. Although I had read similar things hundreds of times before, something inside of me started to change those days. Somehow a seed got planted in me at that time. From then to now, my perspective about all of this has already changed and at that time back in Bulgaria, I only got a glimpse of it. But that glimpse felt good and healthy.

It felt like I experienced seeing the concepts in my mind differently. But just a tiny bit. Like I was able to open a door just a tiny bit and got a tiny glimpse of what was behind it. I was aware of some of these patterns and concepts before but now my belief that they were ok and I did not have to suppress them. Instead of analyzing, trying to understand, and changing them as I had in the past (see the last post), I started to accept them more as what they were and live them.

This experience let me start to change how I dealt with whatever was arising from inside of me. I started to open up to myself. It felt liberating. I think, I always had been a very authentic and pure human. But the glimpse through that door let me see that the authenticity of my past was like an idea or a concept I had come up with and which I had been living and sticking to. Like I had been living in a frame made by myself.

I started to partly let go of some mental concepts that made me feel unnatural. Following them let me feel like I was holding back a part of myself. And this part was mostly the one that I was suppressing because it did not feel “right”, “mindful”, “spiritual”, or “healthy” to me. When these parts had arisen before, I was suppressing them with my thoughts in a compassionate way. I was thinking something like “nice that you are here mind pattern but I think you are quite unhealthy so please go to sleep or away”. Now I started something in the direction of acknowledging, respecting, and accepting them as they were. In a way, I tried to live all of myself and not only the parts I wanted to have. But it was just a tiny step and it was irritating, weird, and demanding.

Being as analytical as in the example of the last post felt unnatural as well. It felt like coming up with concepts to explain concepts. Like stacking up concepts of and for the small mind high in the sky. I felt like being more direct and more natural. Less analyzing, more living, trusting in myself and seeing what would happen.

When my ego was demanding things, I told Artha. I tried to do so with as much love and compassion for her and myself as I could. So I did not act like an unleashed “ego devil”. At least I think so. It felt good and healthy and like I really could have a look at what was coming up from inside of me. The holding back and thinking about these things which I had done before, started to feel more and more theoretical and unnatural. But at the same time, not holding back most of what was coming up felt self-centered and still like I was managing it with my thoughts.

A lot of the time, I was thinking a lot and still the romantic ego love felt partly unhealthy and I was struggling to accept it. But I felt that that glimpse through that door opened up a deeper, more healthy, more true, and more natural perspective on a lot of things. And the unconditional love and deep connection between Artha and me felt so strong and unique…