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