Dr. Freeman

G’day each and all,

A big hello from Kao San road (Bangkok)…. and a brief update on my
Euro-Asian travel adventures, where the goal of the journey is always
and already accomplished, and so never really attained… Some
memorable fragments in chronological order:

Thailand - I suppose Cold Chisel put it best in the Aussie rock
classic Kao San, “I’ve been to South East Asia, and the Answer sure
ain’t there…” Sagely advice, for IMHO we would do well to give up on
the popular Western idea that the ultimate pillar of Wisdom, the
secret spiritual treasure can be recaptured out here in the East, in
this forbidden exotic place… The ugly truth is that Thailand is
really just an Asian version of the capitalist Wild West - karaoke
bars intermingled with Buddhist theme parks and massage parlors for
Western tourists… Ko Phi Phi Island is great case in point – sublime
and majestic when first seen from afar, a kind of heaven on earth…
but up close it is a paradise of filth, a gigantic pile of shit… Go
there and see for yourself… And Patong – where civilized Westerners
come by the thousands to do the Western men do - penetrate the exotic
Other - is both fascinating and terrifying… A little friendly
advice, the best looking girls are really boys and don’t ring the bell
at the bar – or you’ll be shouting the entire bar a drink…

So to escape the debauchery of Phuket in the south I went directly to
Chang Mai in the north where I met a girl named Fhar, we drank
together most evenings while I tried to convert her to Christianity
arguing that Buddhism seeks a fictitious peace beyond the pull of
competing forces… and that in SE Asia this once noble religion has
become a blank screen for the projection of Western ideological
fantasies… this last shelter of ancient Wisdom is really just a
primitive superstition propped up by cheap tricks and magic rituals…
She is still a Buddhist - and I don’t know who I am, but we had a
memorable time together…

Europe…

I agree with Ken Wilber here: I love the southern European climate
(France, Italy, Croatia) but prefer the northern European people
(Germans, Dutch, some of the English). Unfortunately in Europe you
can’t have it all - it’s either one or the other… Nature or
Culture… I think this is what Slovenian philosopher Zizek means by
the irreducible “gap” in the heart of the Real…

Germany/Mainz – I was here for a Christian meditation conference,
which reminded me of precisely how deluded and ignorant I really am –
and that joining a monastic community would only reinforce this
illusion…

But one of the most memorable experiences was sitting at the local bar
in Mainz pretending to read the drinks menu in German, only to lookup
up and see a long pair of German legs attached to a g-string and a
topless red hot body standing above me on the bar – I open my mouth in
astonishment and this very cheeky woman begins to pour a bottle of
vodka down my throat… after which I could speak fluid German…
later that night I met and flirted with the two blonde-bombshells from
the band “Funk Factory”, who were actually on TV the following day,
apparently their really big in Hamburg…

France/Taize – a very unique place for thousands of young Christians
to come to live and worship in a contemporary style of contemplative
prayer, with some very wise and compassionate brothers running the
show… One time, we studied the Book of Job at one of the gatherings
and I learnt a lot about “letting go” of the need to make meaning out
of ones life… The shocking truth of the Book of Job (one of the
central texts Western civilization) is that God does NOT guarantee for
us in an orderly universe or a purposeful existence - Rather, God
tells Job that the whole of creation is a radical accident… and
since there is no Big Story that makes things make sense, we are
better off just accepting that we live in a world of meaningless
suffering…

So the key to deep and abiding peace is to give up the need to find an
explanation for our suffering or a “reason why” to explain what
happens to us - The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are just
a heroic fiction - nothing more - things DO NOT happen for a reason…
The secret is that there is no Secret that makes things make sense –
Yeah, the Bible rocks!

Next installment coming soon…

Cameron Freeman