All the things you van carry with you

Today my journey starts hopefully without emotional bagage..

The next two months I expect  not being able to post a cartoon every week. 

Free woman? Free man?

Next week I'll travel to France to hike the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. So, these weeks I'm training almost daily with hiking with a backpack. Every day a little bit longer. 

During these walks the experience of 'going nowhere' occurs naturally in me. I'm open for everything that's on my way. A tractor with heavy motor abashes me. A thought comes up and leaves me after a while.

Hiking like this means having no goal, and is giving me the feeling of being free. Like a favorite koan of mine: "A true man/woman without title, without rank, without age, passes freely in and out through the gates of the sentences".

Everybody knows that freedom has nothing to do with gender, status, title or which kind of outer characteristic.

I experienced personally that as soon as I'm attached to characteristics and qualities that I ascribe to myself or others, that I'm hopelessly and unilaterally lost in the world of duality. And thus not free.

Nevertheless, this world of duality and how I interrelate to that, is what I want to investigate during my journey.

What is it that makes me the persona that I am?  Waht is it that makes me feel a woman? Or a man?

Maybe I'll find an answer. 

Empty

Being nobody

Lesson 1

What?

My zen career

What leads to black or white thinking..

Lets meditate together

Doesn't exist????

Do you know?

A strange suggestion..

Confronting

A penny for your thoughts..

Living in this moment

Zen-sayings

Exclusive

This week there were a lot of reactions on two articles in the dutch buddhist newspaper about the costs of retreats in Holland, and what buddist teachers ask for a retreat. It appears that there's quite a difference. Some teachers don't earn anything for a retreat, others have a great income out if it. 

Off course the question rise if spiritual retreats are only for wealthy people. And the next question is if we do agree that people with a small income cannot afford such retreats. 

So how exclusive is buddhisme in the West? 

Let it go-moment

Which side?

Buddhists aren't afraid

Happy easter

Too busy

Sharing enlightenment

Don't believe everything..

Risk?

TTIP

Mirror

Of course, everybody has his or hers background. Some people are raised in such a way that they only dare to trust on their intellectual abilities. 

Lots of people are taught to not listening to themselves. They learned to not follow their intuïtion. But to follow something outside of them, standards and values from outside. 

Therefore , most of the people do trust primarily other people or institutions. That is very common. Particularly in our western society. It's very rare that we raise our chlidren and teach them how to follow their inner voice.   

Most of the time standards and values are imposed from above.

Therefore people tend to put their trust in ideologies, in teachers, or in  leaders. 

I think it's very healthy to be open for guidance. But if that is your only entry to truth, and you don't look inside, you don't pay attention to your own intuïtion, your own wisdom, then you give up your  responsibility. And you also give up to find out what it is to trust in yourself.

I'm happy to have a good teacher. She's not the authority who just tells me what to do and what not to do. No, she's like a mirror for me. She always invites me to look for the truth in myself. She encourages me to look further. To look beyond my ego and find confidence in my unconditioned, unborn self.

Who? Bowie?

Big holes in your ego