The Lotus Dream Letter to Ishtar From: Normandy France To: Buddhist Meditation Retreat Centre Gaïa House West Ogwell Newton Abbot, Devon TQ126EW UK August and [September] 2016

Hello M. F. N. O., [Hello my Dearest Flourishing Lotus Dream] I want to call you by another name ("Ishtar") and I hope it pleases you to allow me to do so.

My name is Pat H. and I was born in Paris France in 1963. [Maybe you could give me another name too, and we will having fun changing our names, our faces, our costumes and our stories, "so(we)", our spirits, bodies, hearts and speeches, can experience some true love with some true intimacy...]

[When a lie is known as a lie before it is said, it is not a lie any more, it becomes a theatre play, a figure of style, a representation of the art of life, an indirect picture of a living world. So I can now express officially that all this text is a true fiction fabricated in my mind, invented and imagined by a simple shaman for a blue green meditating sister, to better reflect the illusion of a shared reality and to illustrate what might be a Buddhist Love Affair: The Lotus Dream.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 1/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com I have to write to you so I tell you how I feel, so I ask you how do you feel, and so “I(we)” can sleep in peace again [and think about something else than you you you always you, me me me always me and us].

[The truth is that the purpose of these writings are to awake us to some joyful freedom of love. I have been sleeping very much less, today Thursday, awaking very early this morning, listening to my brain who is inviting me to get up from bed and quickly go write again the new plans elaborated during the night, for some new truths to be revealed. That is the duty of the writer, who has to follow the inspiration on time, being present for the shining flow of light, when it comes, arises and enlighten the consciousness. Some other times, when I have spare time, I just practice “sleeping mindfulness” like sheeps in a field of opium would count the leaves falling from the trees, for hours or days, just to really rest under the blue sky in the peacefulness of the stillness of the night.]

[The higher truth is that I write to tell me how I feel, how "I(we)" feels about all this, to tell me how do you feel, and so I can still be with you, and respond to the feelings of you(rs) that I recreate in my memory. The higher higher truth is that you write to me, in this text you are me and I am you. The real truth is that I write to clean, clear, calm, ease, pacify and purify those moments that we shared together at Gaïa House, to flush and freshen our present and to invite a better future, because I know that all our present is known as it was decided for us to be.]

[Today Sunday, I listen to the French Radio France Culture, and it is hard to concentrate on writing as they talk beautifully, eloquently and with erudition on some old painting that was sold to a Scottish man, “The death of S.”, and while the world here too tells me about our love, while I write more and more, I can see how the picture I see tell, changes, grows, floats and flies.]

In all I do I do with a loving enlightening mind

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 2/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Things have been going wrong since we first met and talk, and I am sorry for this is not right and partly our responsibility. [I hope you are feeling good and that your practise is fruitful for you. I hope Gaïa House is good too. May the lights of Autumn and of Winter be great to see feel.]

[F**k, this is dam true, I wouldn't be writing, colouring and dreaming, if you weren't meditating on the other side of the world, or if I was there too by your same side in a cool peaceful bliss.]

[I need to be more me if I want to be more with you]

[And what about if we just could allow ourselves to say, that things have never been better, so good and so promising. Maybe it takes to really go down to push our way up again. Maybe we needed this just little soft tiny place of dissatisfaction to give rise to our willingness to improve a situation. Maybe our light is much more seen when there is some darkness around it. Maybe this soup is tastier with some salad and toasts on the side. Maybe we want pepper with the salt, making the spicy chutney contrast an indisputable evidence of clarity that will rejoice and relax the neuronal functions of our guts with its smoothering and charming colourful simplicity.]

Maybe, you too wonder like I do, if [or when] we would ever meet again, and have the chance to know and enjoy each other a little more. [Maybe it is better to let go of anything that is neither green, nor blue. But before I start I want to send to you some loving thoughts. You had your meditation cushion reserved and I had to leave as my time was over there. We both preferred to comply and hide behind the retreat rules of silence, nobody made a single move to break through our sorrow. Love requires some courage and some joyful simplicity to be. Who ever wants to share the price of a victory, must spare the willingness, the risk and the generosity of an engagement.] [I didn't say goodbye, just a flower to the Buddha. Misery of an ever gone past.] [There are no rules but there is no love without lovers]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 3/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Today Sunday, I made some very very so slow walking meditation by the lake, and I realised how a little change can lead to a big change. Inspired by some little sweet angel, they have been growing nice dark kale here on the garden areas and some colourful rainbow chard too near the city centre, and some lovely white cosmos flower by the green dinosaur dragon, I thought you would enjoy to hear that, as it sounds almost like the Gaïa Garden, just across the channel.]

[Sometimes, things happen all the times, and since my return in France, I have been wandering all the time around you. When I tried not to bother at all, my mind always come back to you. Have we lived what we tried to shared together, just for nothing ? Have we known each other enough already that there is nothing more to say, to see, to be ? Have we settled our minds, buried our case, to leave another abandoned script on the shelf of our memory ? Have the big curtains dropped down on the stage for the people, the musicians and the actors to go home ?] May it be like it is May it be like this always May it be how it should be for us May it be how we want it to be for us May we be happy for the life we all choose During the month of August, we have been crossing, meeting and being with each other so many times and in so many places in Gaïa's House, looking, wondering, feeling, smiling, following, exchanging subtle communications, that it became for us a real story, or just a dream for me :

[Gosh it is September now.] [We weren't on a retreat, we were on the tracking of ourselves. I make stories, but we did lived something together. Those subtle real events that happened between us have to be addressed, because it would make us indifferent people, if we kept silence and acted as nothing had ever happened. Our heart and spirit would be very much damaged, our lives would be changed for ever, if we would allow ourselves to disregard love, to abandon loving kindness, to look down on shared feelings and pridefully depreciate other's emotions towards oneself. Love is so rare and precious in this world, it would be cruel and crazy not to look at it, to see it not, to give it not a chance. So rare, to reveal itself, invite oneself, happen to call souls on a journey.]

[Detachment with equanimity is very much different from systematic refusal, prudishly dignity, opposition and stoicism or sadism are very far away from Buddhism, because it lacks the Ethics of a community, as well as the loving kindness and the compassionate right attitude which is at the core of Buddhism, and “the golden rule” of any spiritual practice in any religion of the world.]

[Yeah, yeah, yeah my lovely sweet heart, nobody is talking about God yet, [only in privacy] we are just talking about being better human beings, being happier, more at ease and more in peace, so relax, enjoy the ride, and learn a little something about our own spinning empty spirit.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 4/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [In a Buddhist understanding, it would not be very skilful, to let go such feelings of kindness, love and compassion, as they are very useful for helping us to change and progress in our spiritual practice and daily experience. An ethical attitude as well as the practice of awesome states of mind can help each one of us to become better human beings. We can always become better human beings than we already are. We can train our mind and develop our spiritual abilities by transforming our non skilful mind habits and unwise mental predispositions, into awesome states of mind, openness, tranquillity, mindfulness, generosity, kindness, freedom, stability, clarity, well being and non reacting compassionate mind. Buddhism is not just another body mind heart scanner tool, to spy the gypsy cheesy psyche of people passing by. There is no progress at all if compassion doesn't come along with concentration.]

[Those enlightening qualities of the mind are exactly the opposite to these other characteristics of the mind that are so much spread in people's mind and so embedded in our society and in almost everybody's today day to day behaviour. Those unskilful characteristics can easily contaminate our views, our actions and our lives. It is said in Buddhism that “the mind is pure and good, luminous and all knowing”, but with the constant contamination of those unskilful characteristics, our mind appears dirty and evil, dark and confused. The values we hold, the reflections we have and the decisions we take in our lives are of course very much influenced and directed by those unskilful states of mind, that are spread all over the place and all the time, on our foggy minds.]

[Further more, Buddhism's philosophy explains and Buddhism's practices prove that those awesome states of mind are the way to liberation and the way to the correct understanding of the true nature of reality. According to Buddhism, the realisation in oneself of the true nature of reality, with the practice of great compassion and the meditation on emptiness of all phenomenon, is the far away but certain destination of all sentient living beings. The true path is to overcome the duality of our perceptions and to let our consciousness entering into the vast and luminous space of the divine love.] [Behind the veil, there is no more veil, after the light, no more light, beyond emptiness, there is no more emptiness. Only stilled bare bones transparently naked.]

[For some examples of these ideas that people hold for the only truth in their mind and that is diminishing them and their freedom. Our selfish self centred individualist and ego centric attitude towards any question that is presented to us. The grasping or the opportunity focused mind that make us always looking at things accordingly to what we could gain or what would be our short term advantage in order to preserve our relative position in society. The common confused mind people have because they are over stressed, over tired, over feared, over whelmed by violence and terror, over distracted and over flooded by very partial, false or low useful informations. ]

Necessary to know why say no Obligatory to know how say YES

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 5/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [This constant flow of senses and fear occupying and distracting their mind and keeping them away from their real needs and the real solutions they could just apply to themselves to live better. The status to be never satisfied, to want, to need or to need to want always more. This urge to get something new, not because it is better or useful, but just because it is new, like there is something in our inner ways of being that is so intolerable, so disgusting, that our unconscious is striving for a change. This state of mind to be and feel always in fear and insecure, thinking in endless loop that we are under attacked or that we will be lacking something to be able to live normally. The material and the monetized usual concerns and activities of people because who are conditioned to believe that they need, for their own happiness, to become proprietary of things. This same belief that enslaves them in the illusion that this accumulation process of things will satisfy and fulfil this unreal and untrue need. This belief that everything has to be bought or merchandised.]

[We are not numbers. We are not products. We are not objects. We are not clients. We are not consumers. We are not producers. We are not patients. We are are not matter only. We are not processes from a larger system. We are conscious and sensible living beings. We are intelligent people striving for real happiness. We are heart and consciousness. We are light and love. We are on the path to enlightenment. All of us whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not. And the world is not a giant supermarket monopoly, it is a wonderful extraordinary lovely unique paradise we have to take care of.]

[For some other examples of these types of organisation in the society that is conditioning people's mind and behaviour to diminish their freedom and their potentiality, and that is artificially made, maintained and protected, for the sole benefit of only a few few, and at the disadvantages of the many many. The mainstream normal behaviour that our modern occidental societies emphasises, with the separation and the comparison, the isolation and the competition of people who are put artificially in a posture where they are alone against all the rest, and where they have to struggle to survive and fight against each other for a position in society. The lie that we have to work like animals just for the right to live with descent resources. The official organisation of the society that is enabling whatever is not officially forbidden by law, letting the place and reinforcing the power and the dominance of a privileged cast who feels they are over the laws and over the rights of the common human beings. The belief that anything can be bought or that everything can be corrupted with money. The belief drained by the scientific, technological and technocratic attitude that things are only valuable if they can be objectified and priced, put in boxes and defined once for all. The idea that things are only acceptable if and when they can be controlled and measured. The belief that some people are experts in their domain, that the domain of their study becomes their domain, and that their partial views should be obeyed and taken for granted. This illusion to think that one can truly take care of something from a far away distance without living with the direct experience and concern of it too. ]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 6/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [This illusion to think that we do not loose something when things are standardised, produced in volume and scale up to increase the percentage of a margin. These common attitudes of people, put in fear and in hatred states of mind all the time. So they are so desperate and confused, stressed and abused in the society where they are supposed to be part of as free human citizens, that they prefer to obey the stronger than the wiser. So they become convinced that they are powerless and that they cannot do anything by themselves. So they believe that in order to be part of the society, to succeed, or to just be living a good and simple life, people nowadays have to lie, to cheat, to steal, sometimes to kill, and that they have to endorse these wrong habits and these wrong views, as a new normality or a new society code. Thinking they can only be happy on the back of others.]

[Ethics morality, truthfulness, honesty, humility, patience, non violence, carefulness, well being, respect, politeness, tranquillity, generosity, charity, loving kindness and compassion are not just some other constraint, boring rules or standards one should have to comply to in order to be respected and squared in a civilised society. Those are useful qualities. They are guidelines to help us to be more happy and more truthful to oneself and indirectly to others. Ethics is the contrary of a constraint, it is beneficial, it is something made to help us to be better human beings and to accept our responsibility in a world dominated by consumption, opposition and destruction. Ethics is not only about not doing this wrong or that bad thing, it is about doing and truly engaging in this right or that good thing, that we can do in our daily life, because we believe it is valuable to do so, because we feel good just by doing it, because it brings goodness for oneself in one's own private life and mind, and because we accept to believe or to recognise that good consequences will be produced, for oneself, others and the world.]

[Ethics is about engaging oneself in a positive unharmful relation with oneself and with our environment, which includes others, and all living beings. Ethics doesn't have anything to do with restrictiveness, rectitude, rigidity, criticism, calculus, pretentiousness, honour, fear, shame or guilt]

[Ethics is about respecting oneself, taking care of oneself]

[There are only very few people in the world that have developed the idea and the behaviour that they are not concerned by Ethics. For these very few people in the world, feelings do not exist but only pleasure, empathy does not exists but only clientelism, relations do not exist but only partnerships, friendship does not exist but only transaction, feelings don't exits but only servitude. Those very few people in the world don't care so much about themselves and their humanity, they don't value anything but the short term pleasure they can get, gain and give to their ego or to their bank account. Those very few people in the world define their ego, their personality and their goals in life as always opposed to any other's interests. Those very few people, abusing many, in the world are called psychopaths by the science of human psychology.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 7/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Those psychopaths must feel very miserable in the bottom of their heart, and their ambition shows that somewhere in themselves there is a motivation to be better humans, but they choose the wrong direction to fulfil this goal. Instead of being humble and honest, kind and compassionate, generous and tranquil persons in order to grand themselves, instead of turning their minds to the Dharma in order to become better human beings, they apply their energy and intelligence towards the opposite, and they strive to develop in their lives and in others, what is called in Buddhism the three poisons, which are greed, hatred and ignorance. They only fill their lives and their minds with the desires for accumulation, for domination and for simulation. They refuse to take refuge in what is called in Buddhism the three jewels, which are their own Buddha Nature, the Truth of the Dharma, and the Community of the Sangha. In doing so, they reject for themselves the real possibility to become better human beings, and unfortunately they entertain the idea of hatred towards other people. And they prefer the reinforcement of the false identity of their ego that they have themselves artificially constructed, always playing on appearances and building fake representations. They choose for themselves the methods that expose themselves the less, afraid to participate or to be recognised, and they put other people in fear and in competition in order to gain through the exploitation of their weakness and their ignorance. In doing so they feel they are superior to others and successful human beings, of course it is another lie they tell themselves. But to protect their lies and their misconduct, they always want to have more power in order to maintain their illusion for themselves but mostly for others, and in pursuing an endless fight for more power, they put themselves in the situation to be tempted by the use of all the evil means they can find, such as cheating, lying and deceiving, stealing, menacing and destroying. Those psychopaths do not care about Ethics at all, they wouldn't spend a penny or a cent just for the sake of somebody else happiness, but for the most majority of us, Ethics is important, Ethics is a real value, Ethics is a valuable concern, Ethics is a true objective in one's life and a real important shining star for families, friends and societies. Ethics is a healing value.]

[ Ethics in Buddhism is the foundation of the spiritual practice ]

[I know I take the time to write all this, because I miss you, and because being away from your silence is painful. Tears are coming to my eyes again and my heart seems squished by sorrow. It is not that I entertain the sadness of my despair, it is that I write to help me feel again, and remember what happened, how I reacted, and also to heal, to slow down, to take care of my poor lonely heart, and also to give me the illusion that I do talk to you, and that this experience we had, can be transformed, sublimed in something useful, for me, for you, for anybody. Always striving for better human beings to live in a better world.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 8/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So we met every where all the times in Gaïa House]: in the corridors, at the tea wash up room, in the front and at the back of the flower garden, on the path to the vegetable and fruit garden and inside, near bed number 10 when I was digging the ground for some new seedlings of green spinach, for the tea in the dinning room, in the library, in the Hermitage Wing's long term and working retreatants, in the lounge and in the kitchen where we worked at the same time every day...

[The world and the people are an intricate network of complex and sensible relations, and we recreate this even in smaller spaces. Maybe we need to make those links between us, maybe there is no other choices for that connections to be established. We are sensible living beings, plunged into the sludge and plugged into the plague of the world. Sometimes even more in the Summertime, we can be fragile constructions with our higher conceptual refined and historical intelligence. Have we met before, in past lives, in dreams, or were we meant to be, because we are so much alike, is there a mysterious consequence that we together are supposed to achieve ?]

[The spinach soon will answer all these questions, and if the beetroots are great too, we will see at last the light and our plates will be full of joy and full of colours. May it be like this for most of us. May we find the peas on the path and the links to the leaks. May our holding hands shake gently at the sight of the evening sunset. May we see the trees again and the waves in the seas. May we breath the same fresh air as eagles in the sky. May we drink the same clear water as the dolphins in the deeps. May the autumn leaves nourish the ground and may the winter compost be our hope for the future. May we eat fresh and good organic food, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouts and seaweed from the Garden of Wisdom and the Ocean of Love.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 9/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I don't know everything, and sometimes I am happy not to know certain things. But that day, when I was preparing this bed number 10 with new seedlings, I had a movement with my arm to push away this little bird who was excited to see me digging the ground. I wanted to protect my hard work as well as the tiny seeds that I just had put into the ground. I was not thinking that it could be OK if this little bird grab one or two seeds, just as long as I could see where it did and be able to replace the missing seeds at the correct position. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of all that, or I wasn't allowing any room in my mind for this understanding of a bigger life. And as I had this attitude of rejecting the little bird need, you just happen to pass by. Behind me I could felt your curious nonchalance presence. You probably took this movement for you too, and you did not come again to visit the garden. I didn't see you again softly“passieren”, when I was on duty there. I feel sorry and humble. I feel like this little bird, and my tears again are coming to my eyes. I can hardly see the keyboard as I write.] [I am reading this passage another day, and I don't cry, but it doesn't mean that I am becoming insensible, it just mean that I am further away from that moment. Reading Again another day, I feel sad, sorry, nostalgic and in “esperance”.]

[May we always take care of our hearts like if it was a little bird singing in our hand]

[Fortunately, all the next days, as I was continuing my work at the garden, a little bird, maybe the same, came to visit me and I could rejoice, because it gave me some kind of good company and some poetry in my physical work, but also because this little female bird had a greenish robe and a tender striking look at me. We were playing “the eyes and mind game” together and as I was calming my mind and allowing it to be, she came closer and closer, with less fear, with more temerity, interrogating me and my moves with her charming sharp shy eyes, we were dancing, she was digging the ground like I was, jumping all around, almost asking me to follow her. There at that time, we did not get to know each other so much, that we would allow ourselves to be touched, but I felt she could have rested on my arm and twinkle my ears, and I imagined I could have caressed her precious feathers and whispered some quiet tenderness to her courageous wings. Each time and each day, I had the surprise to meet with that same little sweet bird, because I could recognise her, as they all have different faces, particular colours and personal characters. And at those moments, my mind was turning to you, and I was thinking that maybe at that exact time you were too thinking of me, thinking what is happening to us, what could we do.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 10/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Before all this happened, it is true that I looked up at you several times from a respectful and curious distance. I remember to have seen you, walking with grace barefoot on the grass of the front lawn with your sunglasses on; or standing alone, so tall whispering in silence and kindness to the big old oak tree, as I did too; or watching together at the two little cute rabbits playing around, waking up like us in some early morning; or smiling, talking and moving with joy, cordiality and openness with other retreatants; or wearing this lovely green woolly hat for breakfast that I like very much; or sitting straight, humble and mindful, and with perfect stillness, calm and easiness inside the main meditation hall, your shoulders or your waist all wrapped up and tight with your other lovely precious green shawl...

[You had a different allure than others, like an old runner who doesn't fall in the habitual tricks and traps of the tracks, who knows the roads, the branches and the roots along the way. Maybe because you were proud to announce that you were a "long time retreatant", you acted like you knew already all these little tweaks that come along in the "just one week buddhist momentary absence from the real busy world", and you seemed to be already almost a part of the Gaïa House family team, knowing how to arrive at the right time, not to wait too long in the waiting lines for foods. I remember you were sitting in the first line right in front of anybody else, facing the speakers that were talking the retreat on "patience and dissipation", and you looked so serious, so calm and straight, so fascinated and so into it, not wanting to loose anything from it, that I felt happy for you to be so much aligned and so concentrated.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 11/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [But for me, all this "new age" poetic arguments, mixing everything just for the fun of boiling people in a Marmite full of Bazaars, and seeing their brown faces after a good stir was not of a great interest. I thought it was just an other unfair illusion to bring on to the table “the fading enchantment of the all and diverse wholeness of the rainbow universe", expecting everybody turns "indigo". I thought it was just moving the dust rather than trying to give hints and practical help to the people in real need to understand and to learn how to remove their own dust. I thought it was mostly distracting rather than calming, exciting rather than tempering, confusing rather than explaining. All this chaos done and imposed in purpose to the retreatants that had no other choice than bearing it, appeared to me as so much unnecessarily bullshit, and was for me so stressful, so irritating, so disappointing and so far away from the real Buddhism I was looking for.]

[I found people on these retreats to be so lonely and so lost, like ghosts wandering in a world with no languages, with no interactions, with no goals, like prisoners kept apart from each other by invisible chains, and it seemed so unreal, so unfair, and at the same time so ridicule because of the so much other types of communications that were happening, and because of the sudden mystical posture people were taking and holding on their back like a heavy clerical coat, just to have the illusion that they are living something deeply spiritual.] [Anyway, I received that one week retreat like this. And this unsatisfactory pattern, where I catch a stain and criticise it very much, is what I will experience a lot, and what I must become aware of. But the plain reality for me, is that I was paying this one week retreat just to fulfil the conditions to be able to offer my service as a working retreatant and perhaps as a coordinator later on. So I felt like I was imposed to pay to work for free. I had to attend some wrong views and distress, just because I wanted to be generous. I thought, maybe, this is how people want others to be generous with them. To get into a relation, I have to accept to be “robbed”, to forgive their “fault” and to endure their “mistakes”. Maybe people feel safe only if others are ready to pay and take all the responsibilities. I always had difficulties for offering freely my time, my energy, my kindness and my knowledge to other people. They always think that pure generosity is abnormal. Anyway, my feeling of not being very welcomed at Gaïa House started there, when I was refusing and judging this inadequate teachings and ways of receiving my gift of services.] [Fortunately, as I reflect and rewrite, my opinion has changed a little bit with time. If this help people why not, if some Buddhist techniques can be useful to them why not. But please don't participate in the confusion, don't call it Buddhism, don't put "Buddhist Retreat Centre" in front of the gate and on all administrative papers. Find some adequate name so people are not mislead. And don't put in front of the parking lot the sign in big black letters saying: "Welcome, it is OK to Block people in", because those words we read when we first arrive show somehow the mentality of the place. Today Second and third Wednesday, I see it was not only Gaïa House which made me feel that way, but also some other external opportunist partisans which imposed their unfair atmosphere, because of the British political momentum. I was told the time was wrong, but never told when it would be right.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 12/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [But nevertheless, I liked the beautiful garden and the rituals of the good vegetarian food in the dining room, when we were regularly meeting and looking at each other, while waiting in the line for our turn to fill our plates, our bowls and cups, and then dispersing all over the place, inside or outside, and eating in silence. I liked the library and the lounge with those comfortable seats and thick carpets, and with those great windows showing the garden. I liked the well kept nature blooming in the middle of the summer of the beautiful South West England, that seemed so much alike Normandy with a Brittany style on the building stones of the farms. I liked also the old church outside the park, where once I heard some women playing very old instruments.]

[And at dinner tea time, when I was generously putting a thick layer of "peanut" butter in my whole complete slice of brown bread, and a little of red fruit jam too, I was secretly thinking of you, because what I was doing almost sounded like spreading a "pin­up" on my toast. I am sorry for this irreverent male habit and inadequate view, that I don't really regret to smile at, but I confess though, that I was indulging myself in those childish thoughts. Please accept the apologies of an adult, it is not very important, but when I tried to reduced my intake of peanut butter, I found it harder than I thought to skip that tasty ritual, and as I missed too much this little evening treat, I was having somewhat very innocently, I abandoned the idea to be so strict with myself, but then later on, I reduced by half my sin of gourmandise. Buddhist sensual addiction.]

[And I liked seeing you around looking different, maybe like me I was feeling different. I noticed right away that you had a particular interest and relationships with the nature, the trees and the greens, and me feeling like a wild animal in the so polished and somewhat artificial and forced British way of living, I felt we had this in common too, which made me a little part of the community, even though, I am not at all a "rave partying new type of hippy in this DNA age".]

[And I liked your way of standing and moving slowly with attention and style, like a dancer would do on the stage of a concert ballet hall. I noticed too some kind of sadness in your "aura" and I felt it was a pity that you had to suffer whatever you had to go through, and which made you come here or there at Gaïa House for one year long, finding the refuge, the quietness, the beautiful nature and the friendly fraternity you needed and always will deserve. I felt compassion for this sadness of life that always appears bigger and darker when we are alone, and I felt the drive to be closer to you, warming and cheerful, comforting and forgiving.]

[I felt also in you some kind of determination to stand away from intimate relationships, like if it became something dangerous and not worthy, because of some types of lies, disappointments, hurting, or abuses that happened, that happens, I suppose so often in today’s urban and fast life, with dishonest people in this "busy supermarket global world" we have to live in in big cities.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 13/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Big cities, where people see each other as renewable products of consumption, but also because of the lies we tell ourselves, because we want and we hope to succeed and to be part of it, because afraid to face alone “the fearful cognitive dissonances”, we consent to accept the main stream ideology of the industrial scam, without really believing completely in it, but making of our one and unique individuality some kind of dissociated and contradictory psychology. Opposing this untruthfulness, I correct, replace and present “the pleasant colourful assonance”.]

[So it is true, I liked your ways and your colours. I liked to look at your tall angular muscle body and your very long legs that I noticed maybe on the first day. I liked the way you wear some panties and a short on top. I liked the way you walked almost always barefoot whatever the place or the climate. I liked the strangeness of your strict hard face when you were worried by some stupid ideas. I liked the more wise idea of a soft, kind and lovely face, where I would have liked to see more often the quiet and relax smile of a happy person. I liked and appreciated your differences and I felt close to you because of them.]

[I liked also the fragility and the strength that you have, and this mental position you have to find by yourself the way out of the system, to try to trust yourself and to make it your way this time. And I like this particular elegance you have, because you are tall and well fit, because you are strong and delicate, because you seems to me that you are "an old and deep person in a young and too big body”. Sorry for this peculiar "littéraire" expression.]

[It seems that you have been facing so much troubles in your life, that your well balanced mind got overwhelmed and destabilised, maybe because you are missing some good old information in order to be well grounded and dismiss faster the futile accessories. It seems that you have been dealing with the constant difficulty to find the right adjustment between your sensibility that is suffering too much and your strong inner force that could hurt inevitably the persons around you if you did not always hold it back. It appeared to me as a fantasy, that you could have been in your younger youth, a fashion top model and an Olympic swimmer champion, and I liked both ideas, but I also understand it is hard to maintain these extremes in balance and in just perfect harmony all the time. One long term retreat is always important, still I wonder why.]

[We share and feel the same distress and misfit in this world. Are you a poet and a rainbow warrior yogi too ? Certainly, I liked in you what I recognised in me too. I often think that I am not in the place where I should be, and there is in me a great hope, not to be an outsider any more, but to find this mythical place that would suit me and the sweetheart I crave for, like I suppose it should be for every body, like I suppose it could be the case for both of us too.]

[Listening to the 20th century Prophet, I am happy to cry for a woman I want to love]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 14/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am falling in a fairytale story now, and I am thinking you should never read these pages because you might want to eat, pray and fall in love with the writer of those words, who is not always as charming, and who also spits the fire, runs the space and spells the world out to escape from its evil. We all have our stories, our worries and our patterns, and sometimes it is like they all sound or look alike. At the end of all these retreats at Gaïa House, I thought you looked like a famous actress who played many roles in many films, but especially two that had an important impact in my own life, "Pretty Woman" and "Eat, Pray, Love". Sometimes I think that I was interlocked, stopped, and shocked by your swallowing, your prostrating and your seducing attitudes, that left me in consternation, in demand and in hope. I see I am holding very hard speeches sometimes, please forgive my rudeness, but please don't misunderstand my purpose either, I don't want to be insulting or begging, I want to be polite and honest, and, as much as I can, or think that I am in my solitude, I want to speak to you the truth I hold in me, but I also want to write sounded phrases that chant like a nightingale. This truth is changing, brighter every day, I am changing everyday with some more kind truths. The same truth with higher love.]

[But because of all this, I happened to think to myself several times, that we could help each other. Maybe, I could help you, and maybe you could help me. I feel I am so special that I could bring to you some good news about the way to see the world, and I feel you are so special that you could bring to me this other feminine grounded relaxed point of view on situations that I miss if I stay alone. So maybe we could be of some help for each other, if we ever could finally find the way to meet in peace. I happened to think that we had enough suffered each in our own life, and that we also had enough in common to be able to be with each other in this calm and clear peace that we both need. I dared to imagine that I could bring back to you this lovely sweat smile I saw on your face and offer the tender happiness I hoped to see flourishing in your heart.]

[But now I remember suddenly that I don't know you, that you don't know me either, we are not playing in a film but in real life, and we hardly spoke to each other. All this might just be coming from my sole and greedy imagination. I remember it is so difficult to speak to someone as well as to truly love someone. I remember your cruelty when you ask me again when I was leaving, because supposedly you couldn't remember. And because you felt that I had hurt you, you thought you had the right to hurt me. I smiled at the time, and now I have forgiven you, but later it was painful. I remember my cruelty when I said that if your toasts were not good enough for you, then they wouldn't be good enough for me. Please listen and believe my kind and soft complain, I might have hurt you too, with or without the real intention to do so, with or without the true knowledge of having done so. Please accept my apologies for any hurt or pain I may have caused to you. And I would be so happy if you could please let me know when, how and why, those hurting happen, so I learn not to repeat them, or what ever doesn't suit you or belong to us.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 15/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [You told me once that I could attached to the wall the pressure water tube in the big sink of the kitchen, as it could hurt your head. Then afterwards, I always thought of checking its position, with kindness and satisfaction in mind, because I was doing something for your own good.]

[Please understand that it made me happy to be able to do something good for you. Me too I have to learn how to ask what makes me feel good, at ease and comfortable. I regret I am not familiar with this useful behaviour to express one's own needs and demands. Because isn’t true that “someone satisfied makes someone at ease” ? It is a lack I have in my personal education, not to be putting forward my personal requirements, and it is too bad, if I can ironically say it that way. So I don't have this useful habit, but I would be happy if people could invite me to tell those things to them. Because then, in the moment and in the situation, I could easily think about it, find the space, the words, find the tone and the right time. I think that this kind of interaction, when it is done correctly and gently, is very beneficial to create positive situations and trusty relations. “Do you need anything that could help you feel better ?”]

[I have learned with the NVC, the Non Violent Communication, how it is important and beneficial to express one's own needs and emotions, but I am lacking the training in that matter, and I don't always think about this possibility to resolve or to avoid conflicts, or to just communicate within good conditions. I agree that I need to be more mindful of the situations I find myself involved in, that I need to better listen, accept and receive my emotions that alert me of my unsatisfied personal needs, that I need to learn to protect my personal peacefulness as well as the peacefulness of the relation that I have with other persons, and that I really do need to take the time to relax my body, to breath calmly, to know better my own true needs, to recognise such situations and to formalise my sentences peacefully with respect and care within those formal four phases: Fact, Emotion, Need and Demand.]

[Please understand that it is one other good reason to talk, to express one's own feelings, so "I(we)" can make good use of our time, and transform our life for the better.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 16/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So today, as I read what I wrote, I miss the big old oak trees. I miss the garden and taking care of the vegetables I miss the rabbits and the squirrels. I miss the little greenish bird. I miss the morning porridge. I miss this tension between us, this emptiness that is calling for something, and this so slow discovery of each other. I hope it is OK with you that I wrote and that I sent to you the Gaïa Retreat Book with all the simple drawings I made to flourish the serious sentences of the Dharma. I want to publish the photographies of some of those pages on my site, and I hope it is OK with you too. I would be happy if you would tell me, it is OK to send some postcards.]

[Missing you, I am troubled not to know when your solitary retreat will end]

[Reading this last paragraph another day, Sunday evening, I realise that I spent a lot of time worrying, inquiring and protesting against “the peaceful silence that you were offering me”. I realise that my reacting mind was very much occupied by this because of a wrong view that I was holding for the truth, and that I start to question: talking is always best and I am a good communicator. I realise that I was spending a lot of energy against this situation, that I was refusing, opposing and rejecting. This situation that I was trying to understand in order to be able to change it, thinking that we could of done better. In doing so, I realise that I just did not put myself in the situation of the possibility to just accept what is and to make something positive out of it.]

[And even more importantly, I realise that I just did not put myself in the situation of the possibility to enter peacefully in this relation of silence, where we could have discovered each other differently, and where we could have exchanged together with some new type of spiritual “silent transparent communication”, that could have been good, fun, long, positive, strong, nice, strange, deep, true, wide, large, blue and very very much beautiful, enriching and colourful.]

[I realise that I put myself in this impossibility just by myself, and just because I was holding on the wrong view that talking with words is always better than silence. I see “word” is closed to “sword”. Now, I understand that this view is wrong, because silence doesn't mean there is no communication. There are no words expressed in silence, but within the silence, there can be another form of communication. I understand now that I did not accept the possibility of a good and positive "silent communication" because of the preconceived ideas I had about it, and because of the bad qualities that I did attached to it, because of some previous bad experiences I may have had with it. I understand that it is possible to have good experiences with "silent communication", depending on how and who we do it with. I can accept to attach some valuable qualities to this uncommon silent communications, instead of constantly depreciating their own qualities. I regret my past experiences that have inclined me to take such a position and to behave accordingly. I am happy now to be more free as I have defeated this unfair judgement that I was holding with me.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 17/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Finally, I do regret I did not allow myself to accept your silent offer. I want to apologise for my wrong decision, and I want to express the wish that we could offer ourselves the possibility of a new chance because of this new understanding. I understand now that I can accept your "silent communication" as valuable, and that, like good words, we can benefit from it.]

All this is true, I can easily confess to you, but all this would never had led us to the questioning of an encounter between us two, if all this had not been setup for us, on the base that we might have had some kind of shared feelings for each other, and also on the base that we truly share some of the same deepest values, that we both cherish the most, and that we both want to continue to maintain and to develop in our lives.

[This is the main hypothesis of all this theory between you and me, of all this story that I am writing for you. I truly believe we have strong things in common, and maybe, but this I don't really know, maybe we have strong complementary qualities between us, from you to me and from me to you. I believe this, but truly and honesty, I don't know much at all, in fact what I truly believe is that if we had a slight chance of marrying each other, and live happily ever after, then we should have those strong values in common with us, we would need to have those complementary qualities, to hold us tight, to keep us together, to maintain love alive and strong. The only way to know if we really do is to try very slowly the two pieces of the puzzle . The big picture is so big and wide, the veil is so thick and deep, and I am so impatient and so exigent, and you seems so tranquil and so resolved. So you see we are both So­So.]

[As I write, today Friday, I hear the beautiful fifth symphony of Beethoven at the French Radio France Musique, and before I was listening to some other classical musical piece named after the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet at the British BBC 3 Radio. I feel tensed, plugged to the stream of life constantly, I feel I am surrounded by vibrations of love and compassion. Like this sweet little girl I met at the Gaïa House Working Debriefing, who was explaining how she arrived, saying "the universe has its incredible ways", and the day before my departure she amazingly came to give me a sweet touching hug, and I told her what I thought about us that is true for all of us: "This kind of retreat create special spiritual links between people".]

[Reading another time all this text, tonight Sunday, I want to confess that I did meet and talk briefly to some other retreatants at Gaïa House. In deed, good people from all Europe go there. I remember I have exchanged with Bath, Norway, Holland, West London, East London, Manchester, Brighton, Totnes, Finland, Germany. It is too bad that, we/they don't have a way to reconnect together, or is it the purpose of the concept of "Gaïa's Friend Face Crook Page" ?]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 18/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I don't want to tell too much about those values, who ever reads this has to fill the blanks by himself or by herself, I just hope you know exactly what I mean because you understand me without speaking, but the real truth is that these are values we all need urgently to embody in today’s living world. When I say, we understand each other without speaking, that is one part or one side effect of the practice of Buddhism and mindfulness meditation that I appreciate the most, but you see I like to talk, to sing, to dance, to play and to write too.]

[I truly believe the values of Buddhism are compatible, complementary and synergistic with the values of Humanism and the values of Ecology, of Organic Farming and of Permaculture, as well as the values developed by the Ethical Fair Trade and the Vegan Vegetarian Movement, or the values that are so nicely operating in Free Software or in the many new Cooperative Organisations, where people engage in the responsibilities of their lives within the environment there are living in. But maybe more importantly, I believe that those values have the magic to bring real people closer together, because they respond and fulfil the real deep needs and the true expectations of any human being living on Earth today. Like it is said in Buddhism, everyone wants to be happy and live peacefully, and our bodies are adapted to live in this exact natural environment where generations after generations we have slowly followed the evolution of time and matter.] [Respecting the natural cycles of our environment to have a healthy life and to preserve these conditions for future generations. Sharing ideas, tools, actions, energies, decisions, benefices, codes, works, peace and tolerance to have a happy life all together with wise mindfulness.] [This next part was written before the discovery of the "silent communication".]

[So there is a questioning about our encounter, and your tactical attitude is I believe intentionally and strategically opposite to mine. The silence of your voice with the closeness of your body, makes me wanting more and more to resolve this issue and to speak the truth about it, or at least my truth about it. Your silence makes me want to talk to you. Why ? Because of the feelings of very strong curiosity that I feel towards you ! And all the purpose of this letter is to ask you to say what is your truth about it, is to convince you that we have to meet for good.] [While you were obviously satisfied with just the quiet presence of the two of us, I want to express my need to say and to hear things. Maybe, I want to grasp on the cultural and social need to speak and to do it in a precise, fully and correct polite way. I say what I do and I do what I say. I think it is important to say things, words have some meaning, some power, while not saying things has a particular danger. It is both our responsibility, to hold and to maintain the truth that is between us, clear and calm, light and easy, so we can build on it. Saying things has the benefit to declare what we have in mind, to show an intention, to enable us to reflect on what we say and hear, to question the meaning, to understand the motivation, to check if the position we hold is fair, coherent, useful and in concordance with our true intention of goodness and care. Like repeating a Mantra is a skilful mean to build and to maintain a good attitude.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 19/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [And in a certain way, not saying the truth is a form of lying, and we both accepted to respect the Five Buddhism Precepts on retreats, to refrain from the Ten Unskilful Actions or sins, and to pursue the Ten Skilful Actions or virtues in our lives which are the principal base for an ethical Buddhist behaviour and a mindful Buddhist practice. Words can heal as they can hurt, and silence can heal as it can hurt too. Of course there are different types of words, silences and whispers. Words are windows and can create bridges between people of different cultures, interests or opinions. Words with good pure intentions can put a sharp light on what is different between people, so they are in a set situation, where they can evaluate, acknowledge and respect those differences, without putting in danger all the other things that they have in common.]

[Saying our differences is a way to protect what we cherish and share in common]

[We are human beings, not only some intelligent conceptual monkeys. We are talking persons, like we are social individuals."I am talking to you my dear" is not only a phrase that shows the need for interaction, asking for a presence and/or a response, it is also a declaration that says the need to maintain the status of this dear dearness that is attached to the relation, to the speech and to the person. And this use of the alphabetical and phonetical abstract language is one of the most important characteristic of our specie, one of the most great invention of human kind, it did had and probably still has an important impact on the development of our own intelligence, of our own consciousness, of our own civilisation, and of our own Ethics or ways of living together. And like I have said previously, Ethics in Buddhism is the foundation of any other practices. Ethics is a condition for pursuing meditations as well as the attainment of compassionate wisdom or enlightenment. So I am not the only one who speaks, I am not the only one to speak to, and I am not the only one who speaks about speaking and about the truth. And even though the ultimate absolute truth may be unspeakable or wordless, we should protect tell our truths.]

[we can still kindly talk about our little relative truths]

["The breath" or "the word", I don't know exactly the usual and the conventional traduction in English, is purposively the one and the first term in the Bible. In French, "le souffle" or "le verbe" in the "le livre des livres". And this silent power of creation is said to be the attribute of the Divine and at the Origin of everything. So that is also why I am thinking about you and I am writing to you, because I am wanting to know if we want to create something between us, for us, with us. The purpose of your silence could be well to place our encounter at the Origin of our lives. Am I entitled to just drop speaking, pretending nothing is happening ? Why would we act like silencers, like there is nothing to say or as if no one is listening to us, unless we refuse, oppose and reject any further transactions, conversations or relations, or unless we claim that The Only One and All Mighty God's Only Wish was then to maintain silence and distance between us ?]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 20/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [As I am saying this, I realise that it is a big discovery for me, as I am just making this statement a proposition of living in harmony and concord, and as I am applying it to me instantly, I realise why so many people in my life turned away from me. Maybe they thought I wasn't saying what they thought I was supposed to say to them, so they can entitle them to believe that I had the correct and good intentions. They then based their behaviour towards me on the fact that something was not said, instead of basing their conduct on what I was saying and on what I was doing. Also, I just did not leave enough space for a peaceful true silence. Thank you.]

[I did not say to you: “Do you want me to stay with you ?”] [You did not say to me : “Do you want to stay with me ?”]

[In the Bible, the first story after the creation of the world Genesis and the departure of Adam and Eve from the Paradise Garden, is the murder of Abel by Cain his brother. It is said in the Jewish commentary, that it is because the speaking was missing or unheard that this tragic event happened, valuing the peaceful power of speech. So, this is another ethical reason to talk. I believe that both Abel and Cain lost a lot in this drama. They both lost the word and one united world. Abel lost his life. Cain lost his brother and God's Law. But also this story says that, there is some values or powers that are higher than the brutal force. The power of the word is first to maintain life and its discussion, second to maintain and develop intelligence and wisdom, and third to established some common truths for a life in Peace together. And "word" is very close to "world".]

[So may we find the peaceful words to live and love the light in one peaceful world]

[I am writing because I need to express all this, that has to be said, but also because it helps me to accept your silence and the distance between us. It also gave me the understanding that I could accept your invitation to get closer together in the silence of our minds. Of course, once we have talked and settled some agreement and base to live peacefully together, then it is OK to practice silence, and our liberated mind is more in condition to practice silent meditation. But as we are humans, the word comes first, then the heavenly silence may be practised. Your silent presence entertained in me an emotion that had to be said. Fortunately, we did not put that in words while I was there, and the last day, we both knew it was the day I was leaving, and none of us said anything. I offered a flower to the Buddha statue, a flower that was for you, and when I saw you just passing by again, it was just like you were letting me go in silence. But there were in your repeated presence some real true and delicate intention, some premeditation, and this intention of yours, I was hoping we could beautifully, frankly, honestly, have the courage to put it in words. I do accept your silence, and I also will do the same, and then you will also have to accept mine. I wonder if this is not what you all wanted from me from the beginning.] [Every moment is a creation, even God in the Genesis is asking if its creation is good]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 21/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [If we share together some meaningful values, then these basic principles of Buddhism within the very well known "Eightfold Path", should and must be part of our own values: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Of course we are inventing together the ninth key, the right silence.]

[My Dearest Lotus Dream, you are my Dearest Teacher. May you be blessed and live a long, happy and peaceful life. May I have the chance, the honour and the courage to follow your teachings. May I too benefit from your example, meet your spirit everyday, embody the quality of your mind and maintain the light of your heart into my own heart. May you accept my body, my speech and my mind as an offering. May I wash and kiss your feet and offer you the most beautiful food, clothes and jewels. May I cherish your teachings all my life as the most precious gift I could ever received in this realm. May you accept my modest and ignorant mind as valuable and capable of some progress on the path to enlightenment. May you help me purify my life, my past, my actions, my speeches, my thoughts, my views and my mind. May I be part of you like you become part of me. Like the perfect Guru and like the perfect compassionate spiritual friend we all need to encounter in order to progress on our path to liberation, I am privileged, thankful and grateful to have met you and to have received and understood your teachings. May this extraordinary encounter benefit all living beings from all times and from all spaces.]

At first, I was surprised and delighted too. I was happy to be able to exchange glances with you in a tenderness and compassionate way, and then I started to wonder why we were crossing each other's path so frequently, and after a while, when I realised that we were almost synchronised, and that we were meeting each other each time it was timely possible, then I started to anticipate and to imagine our encounters, I started to dream and nourish the Lotus Dream Tree in my heart.

[Isn't it always nice to share the space with people we like, trust and feel comfortable with ? In that sense, there is not such a need for an extraordinary intervention from a higher consciousness, people just by the nature of their own and personal vibrations are brought in resonance together, just by the mechanics of the world, just by the colour of the love that shines in their heart. On the other hand, we probably wouldn't be anything without those wise, alert and beautiful beings that take care of this lost speechless humanity, and that bring their light on us so we can be visible for others who don't see as well in the darkness of the sky.] [May we all be happy, healthy, at ease, mindful and in peace] [May the silence care to carry our vibrations of love] [May we listen to each other's words] [May we breath the same air] [May the peace be] [May we be]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 22/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I remember that one time, at the crossroads of the two corridors between the library and the tea room, I had the feeling to arrive at the same time as someone else, and thinking it might be you again, I slowed down, stopped and passed only the head to see who it was before continuing, and it was you, who recognised me too at the first immediate glance, and I saw there for the first time your lovely smile of fun & your intelligent fast brain lightening, making the connection and irresistibly relaxing the body and opening the muscle of your face for the joy of the happy surprise. I felt surprised and happy too, but I felt caught in my sneaky tentative, me who wanted to be prudent, and like an actor in a show that must goes on, I step my head back, dressed my body and proudly with some just condemned dignity continued my silent walk and turned your way. Like nothing had happened, and like nothing was going on, we silently passed by each other without looking at us, our brain body making a pleasant firework with the desired forced fatality. Maybe this is when I should have stopped you and whisper that we must find some time and some private place just to talk about what was happening to us, and to really meet, but I was too busy with the pleasure of this surprised and hidden secret encounter.]

[I remember, when we happen to be close enough to each other in the same room, especially when I was entering a room where you were already standing, I remember this feeling of softly scanning the space of our minds, as both of us could sense and see the presence of the other. And how many times, I just looked at you from behind, just seeing one fifth of your face that you were gently turning towards me but not too much, just enough so you could confirm in your mind too that it was me, but never our eyes crossed at those moments. The silent desire was just enough.]

[And whenever our eyes crossed, at other times, it always seemed like an uncontrolled accident, like if our mindfulness minds missed the perception before we had to face each other. And at those rare occasions when these truthful seeing situations occurred, it only last a fraction of a second. You were always rapidly looking downward and refusing to stare longer at me. Looking at each other would have showed our naked mind feeling nude too quickly to enjoy its simplicity. Thank you Gaïa House, for this very very wise and thoughtful loving kindness, to protect our open hearts and to delicately take out the fragile veil of our sensible soul in such soft and slow loving gentle movements. At those times, I always felt to be privileged to witness and to measure your humbleness and detachment, as well as the strength and the tremble of the straightness of your honourable posture holding with faith and dignity the strict rule of your duty. These unpredicted moments made us feel truly alive. I can say that I always felt happy to encounter you but also always felt frustrated too. Those qualities appeared to be true and simulated at the same time, they had some kind of an outside ambiguity in them, we were not plainly ourselves, but this simultaneously duality did not seem contradictory, they were like we were, just both there at the same time like black and white can be in the same place when the light reveals the true picture.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 23/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Nevertheless, these repeated situations reinforced in me the need and the wanting to get in contact with you, and I think that they reinforced in you the pattern of the "esquive", meaning reinforcing the behaviour of just passing through, safely, inconsiderately, like if you just could pretend that you had somewhere to go, some important mission that couldn't failed, that couldn't bare to stop. It seemed like you didn't want to expose yourself too much, nor contribute too visibly to these delightful encounters by their simple acceptance. Is your tactical silent presence was in deed exactly producing the effects that we secretly wanted and desperately needed ?]

[I remember also, tonight Sunday, what I can called “the injustice of communication”. In one hand you were very strict and serious with me when we were crossing in the building or meeting and talking in the kitchen, while in the other hand, you were very relax, open and joyful with others when you were for example, to write messages to the other yogis of the hermitage wing on the notice board, asking some of them only, to join you in a casual summer walk outside, but not saying exactly where neither when, or this other time too when, looking from inside the library, I could saw you outside standing in the front lawn of the garden, talking with some retreatants at the end of a retreat when we were allowed to talk and break the noble silence officially. I don't like the jealousy feeling as there is inadequate possessiveness in it, but at those particular times, there were from your part some kind of two attitudes towards two categories of people, which is unfair and not very equanimous. Or maybe, it was just the time for me to meditate on the wrong view that I could hold within my poor ego, thinking I must be such a so bad person to talk to, that people don't enjoy my company as much. This is“the injustice of self procrastination”.]

[I am listening to some grass root blues coming from the Mississippi river but sung in Chicago at the French Radio Normandie. I feel the deep heavy blues growing in my veins and spilling from my eyes. I am “the white black blues” crying rivers, fountains and falling cascades over you.]

[As I am writing those lines, I feel tired and now like a snow lion in a cage. I have been writing a lot every day, so I can send you this tender letter as soon as possible. I felt sometimes I had the eyes of the wild tiger and the force of the misty dragon, while you were playing the role of the innocent gazelle jumping all around in the African Savannah, while you were enjoying the pure immaculate role of the mystical unicorn in the enchanted forest. I was the solitary savage beast intruding in “the temple of our universal consciousness”, and you were the fragile gentle and brave prey, the desired lovely bate, isolated from the rest of the group, but sent in mission by the group, trying from a respectable and curious silent distance, to invite me in. I was put in the role of the dangerous screaming mean one, the impertinent innocent entrant, and you were having fun playing the role of the only good fair and partial one, the covering mistress, who is claiming to finally give the relief of the last sentence, proudly pointing at the ultimate and just justice.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 24/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Funny to see that the sculptures that protect the justice palace in central Paris are huge awakened lions ready to roar, safely waiting there frozen in the white marble stones, and letting the time of the eternity to the blinded almost naked woman who is supposed to give and to express the justice. This justice figure is always represented with a balance in which she is slightly pushing one side, the wisdom side of the social truth, and she is carrying with her, in her other hand such a big sword, the mighty sword of human compassion.]

[I say all this because we were setup, we were synchronised, we were coupled, they say in strategic intelligence agencies. And we maybe still are synchronised. How can we speak of justice and responsibilities, when people are directed and monitored from a silent dark room ? Unless it comes from a compassionate higher consciousness. Even though all the world around, like an echo, is speaking to me about my feelings and my hopes for you, and sometimes about you, when my heart sees your face in an other living form. Even if my mind is full of you, turned towards you, manipulating objects related to you. Even, when I recall in my memory mind, those feelings, images, actions and words, from a gone past or from a desired future. Even if somebody tells me, despite all these signs, alone there is nothing that I can tell for sure.]

[Maybe the world is just reflecting to me what is already on my mind, because you touched me, because I am writing to you, and maybe all this reflections have nothing to do with you. Maybe my mind is full of you because your mind is full of me too, and the world is just reflecting this natural physical and psychological symmetry. Maybe somebody else's mind is artificially full of us, and with some kind of reasons, wants to influence our perceptions, behaviour and destiny; and is projecting some feelings to both of us, arranging the objects around us, so we feel the world is in synchronism with the feelings we take for ours. Maybe all these reasons are true at the same time, and maybe there are some other very good explanations I just did not mentioned. The truth is that we are living in the interdependence of the spiritual world, where all consciousnesses are more or less connected together. So that is why also I write, I write to the connection.]

[Maybe only me is setup. Maybe you already have been setup. Maybe there is nothing to be setup. Behind a blank silence that I am alone creating, maybe there is no intentions, no feelings, no meanings, but only the absence, only the lack of these missing words, and only the conditioned and dependent desire to fill with sounds and songs the silence of our missing voices. Maybe, there is only the missing heart and the lonely lips of an empty body and mind that wanders and prefers to stay that way, washing its hands, away from a possible loving world. Of course, these thoughts are contrary to the Buddha's teachings and his own personal life, because even him, when he reached the state of no return, was asked to stay in his human condition and to teach the Dharma to his fellow human beings. So it shows that even when all attachments and ignorance are gone, still in the endless silence of time, truth, compassion and wisdom remain alive.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 25/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [These thoughts are typically thoughts of doubt. Doubt of oneself because I am alone with my waiting, my wantings, my hopes and my fears. Doubt of yourself because you are far away with your own plans, your own desires, hopes, dreams and fears. Doubt of the world because in the present I keep holding on my past dissatisfactions and my old unfulfilled desires. Doubt of the truthfulness of the Dharma operating in the world, because I believe and make all my possible to think that things should or could have been different than how they already were and are.] [The doubt is one of the five hindrances that in Buddhism can keep us out of concentration and therefore in a deluded state of mind (Greed, Aversion, Excitement, Torpor, Doubt). Doubt is said to be one of the strongest, pernicious and most dangerous hindrances of all, because it has the power to cut us from the Dharma, and apparently from love too. That is why telling our truths to our dearest ones, show we hold them and their love as dear, precious and alive. Our own relative truths changes, and the words we can choose too, but the kindness and dearness is our precious truth. The present arrives with all the past pushing, but with our mindful presence and compassionate wisdom, we can let go of what arise and build upon the past a new world of love.] [Love also need this little part of uncertainty to keep us in the desire of the discovery.]

[That is why, bringing the awareness back to what is in the mind, which in that example is the objects and attitudes of doubt, is a skilful habit to stay present and mindful, and eventually to investigate on those thoughts that question the structure of our spiritual reality.][And there are some good news about doubt. For an advance practitioner of Buddhism, comes a time where there is no more doubt about the truthfulness and goodness of the Dharma.] [That is also why my dearest sweet and lovely lotus dream, I don't want to have any doubtful ideas, sneaking between you and me, between my love and your love. That is why I ask you to know and to express your own personal point of view. And even if you could always reply to me, “but you should have known by now my dear”, well it is always nice to hear about it in real, to talk about it, to write about it too, and talking doesn't stop anybody from desiring, caressing or embracing.]

[Maybe the reality is that you are so close from me, that you are listening to me and enjoying my erratic thinking. I like this idea of relief, that I would have to stop writing to you, because you suddenly appears in front of me. Maybe you thought that love could cut us from the Dharma.] [There is in deed nothing sure, nothing stable, nothing that appears continue and solid. Everything is impermanent, is interdependent, all is emptiness, like they say in Buddhism. And in deed, nothing is sure unless we say it is sure, because anything can be fabricated, can be copied, can be changed or modified, can be distracted and disoriented, can be arranged and be placed somewhere in the physical world or in our own consciousness mind, as an illusion to misguide someone from the true love or the true path. Were you placed there in Gaïa House just for me ? Was I brought there only for you ? Did the universe guide me towards you, and did it guide you towards me ? Were we both guided in the true path of our loving togetherness ?]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 26/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Unless we hold our hands together tight and gently my dear, unless we are feeling constantly their warmth and pressures on our skins my dear, unless we listen very closely and unceasingly to the beat of our hearts my dear, unless we walk together into these same directions my dear, unless we talk and exchange our dearest and true feelings my dear, unless we learn to know each other better than anything else my dear, unless we keep our three eyes into our own eyes my dear, unless we love each other like we never have done before my dear, unless our minds are turned and tuned to each other's as the most dearest union and as our only true shared consciousness my dear, there are no possibility of certainty that what we live in the world is not an illusion. Our consciously own illusion may be still an illusion, but it feels better than complete ignorance, and it feels much better than someone else's illusion, doesn't it my dear ?]

[Our feelings too can be fabricated and projected to our confused mind. That is why in Buddhism, the teachings say that only the fully liberated mind of a true master can be in the real knowing and in the real freedom, and therefore can be in a position where it becomes possible for him or for her to be able to directly help others. The ultimate help will always be the teachings and the practice of the Dharma. But in order to be able to help directly somebody, one Guru has to see, know and understand the conditionality of the reality of the person, meaning its ways to be, its obscurations and its afflictions, its desires and its aversions, its attachments and its ignorances, all that that keeps the person in dependence away from its own freedom. And within the work on the release of these attachments and ignorances, the Guru offers its guidance to help the person, who is conducting its own mind and striving with its own and personal practice, to overcome these impurities and delusions, and walk the path towards its liberation.]

[So understanding that these objects, coming from our senses, our perceptions, our feelings, our emotions, our attitudes, our beliefs, our thoughts, our motivations, are objects of attachments, objects of our wanting, our greed, or objects of our not wanting, our aversion; understanding that all these objects of the mind are fabrications of the mind, is the first step of being mindful. In Buddhism they would say that all these objects, that we use all the time, are part of our fundamental ignorance of the true nature of reality. “Is my practice useful and liberating ?”]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 27/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So understanding that all these objects of the mind are fabrications of the mind, and that all these objects can be fabricated in someone else's mind, and projected in our own mind . Understanding that if our own mind is not stable and non reacting enough, is not calm and peaceful enough, is not clear and pure enough, is not mindful and concentrated enough, is not "equanimous" enough, to see all these subtle external mechanism happening and arising in our mind, then we can understand that we can be manipulated by external fabrications and other people's will, and in that case we can understand that we are not really free.]

In that case, we cannot say that we are free, because our consciousness is attached to someone else's and directed by someone else's, because our consciousness is not in a state where it can realise by itself that these external and intrusive phenomenon are existing, happening and arising. In that case, we are not free because our own consciousness is in a situation where it believes that what is existing, happening and arising is the result of its own. We believe our own thoughts are the result of our own mind only, like I can believe now that my writing is the result of my own mind only. Of course a lot of phenomenons are happening in the present.] [Kindness is sure.]

[Maybe that idea of the possibility of an "external influence" can explain too the fragility of any beliefs, any perceptions, any emotions and any thoughts. If I can't just always believe my own thoughts, then the feelings that I have been experiencing towards you, are also subject to questioning, because I am alone and because they might not be the result of my own single mind only. Even, if there are no external influences at all, which in the interdependence of the world seems impossible, and if I am alone in questioning those feelings that concerns somebody exterior as me, then I cannot conclude to anything that is valuable and that can be hold as true, because I am in my own individuality, subject to my Karma and all my attachments and ignorances, which could be qualified as my own “internal influences”, and because those feelings can only be understood within the relation with this somebody else that is the source and the target of those feelings, which could be expressed as the “influences of the relation”.] [Good is good.]

[To be sure about those feelings of mine, I need to ask and question yours]

[I need to know if those feelings of mine are worth to have and if it is useful to think about them. Because when this feelings are in only one direction, only in me for you, or only in you for me, then they are not very useful, because they cannot lead to a true and real loving relationship, that requires, that both persons share the same kind of feelings and wantings towards the other, in order for the energy of the love feeling to flow between the two persons.] [Wait good flow.]

[I love you when you love me too, we love us when we both love]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 28/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [When only one person is concerned, then there cannot be true love feelings, because there is no loving relation in the first place. A relation needs that both parts are willing, participating and sharing in that relation. A loving relation needs that both parts are accepting, experiencing and giving some kind of love towards the other. On the contrary, when only one person is feeling something, then those “one way feelings” are kind of artificial, because there not based on a relation, because there are not originating from somebody else, and because there are not alimented by the same kind of feelings coming from the other person.] [Good is sent for its echo.]

[In the case of “a one way relationship”, maintained by the unique and personal will of one person, then what is going on is the illusion of a relation, and is more the expression of “a personal need for a relation”. Holding to this kind of one way relation is rather frustrating and destructive, because this is a solitary construction upon nothing. There is ”the wish of love”, which is good, but no love, because there is no loving relation. Once we know that those feelings we have are in both ways, and concern the same type of feelings, meaning there are of the same nature, then we can acknowledge in deed that both persons are experiencing“a two ways feeling relation” and that something is really going on.] [Something good good is going on.]

[I believe we were both experiencing feelings of interests and desire too, but still I need to ask you to know if you are accepting these feelings, if you want them to be and grow in your reality, and if you could let them be part of a shared reality, meaning our shared reality, at least officially and consciously for both of us. I have asked myself those questions before writing this letter. An this is only for ”the beginning of a relation”. Then comes ”the living of a relation”.] [Good days.]

[When there is really something going on, and that there is in deed a two ways feeling relation between two persons, then we can start to questioning “the validity” of those feelings for the two persons involved and try to evaluate if those feelings come from them only, or if those feelings are entertained by some external entity. If an externally entity is involved, then we can say that there is “a two ways external and indirect relation”, and then we can questioned and investigate its identity, its motivation, its interests, and eventually try to evaluate if it is a good positive and pure higher consciousness or not. ”The consequences” of the relation must be evaluated, because if it is a good entity, then the fruit must be good too.] [Good feels good makes good.]

[If there is no obvious external intrusion in “the two ways feeling relation” between the two persons, then it can be still useful to check and test if in deed there are no unknown or unfelt external interventions that is initiating or influencing the feelings of the two persons, because these phenomenon are very subtle. And it might be difficult to obtain any certitudes about the non existence of an external influence, because if the hypothesis is that there are no external entity involved, how can it be possible to put to the test this non existing entity ?] [Good proof.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 29/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [To validate their own and shared feelings, two persons must allow themselves, to take the time to investigate by themselves, to talk about it together and with others, and to check for themselves, the goodness and positiveness of their personal internal influences that contribute for this relation to exist. This requires time, and can be done within different places, among different circumstances and within different environments, with the help and the points of views of different people, with playfulness, care and honesty. When encountering imitations, temptations, false informations or contradictions, the two persons can look at their reactions. These fortunate counter proofs are indications, but never a demonstration. By evaluating if there is some kind of a coherence in the feelings shared, both can determine if there are some good chances that these feelings will last in time and contribute to a real, long and beneficial relationship. Then, with all these experiments, games and discussions, it might be possible to have an idea of the stability and of the truthfulness of these feelings in each person and therefore of this relation.] [Love should be more of a construction than a destruction.] [To discover some truthfulness about their love, people have to check their personal reasons, causes and conditions, their interactions and their compatibilities, their needs and their complementaries, and also evaluate the consequences and the benefits of such relation. People need to relate to each other and build for themselves some kind of an idea, story or myth, that explain why they feel that way and how such a relation is fruitful and beneficial for them.]

[People can investigate together within both of them what are the factors that are at the origin of the feelings they have. They can try to mindfully discriminate the causes and conditions of their experiences, and determine whether those reasons are meaningful for themselves, meaning for one, for the other and for both of them. They need to know how they feel themselves inside but also how the other feels too. They need to know how it feels to entertain such feelings and such a relation. They need to know how their being and life is influenced by the other, and how they influenced the other being and life. It is possible that one side of the relation is more active than the other, but what really counts is to investigate the true nature of the relation, and the positiveness of the energetic flow that is relating the two persons in both directions.]

[We can say that those feelings are worthy to live and lead to a positive experience when they come from both parts, or/and when they come from a good pure positive higher consciousness that wants to help and who knows better. In both case, people need to talk. People need to talk to know if they both feels the same, and to determine if they are both under an external influence or not. If they is an external influence, then they need to talk to determine if they think this is a good influence or not for both of them. If they believe that there is no major exterior influences involved, then they also need to talk, to really understand why those feelings arises in both of them and why they can take them for valuable and meaningful for themselves. Here is why, talking is making the loving relation. I think I kind of like to talk to you about love.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 30/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Nevertheless, just by starting to fill our cup with the awareness of this external possibility, and by accepting the possibility of a positive and gentle guidance from a good and beautiful higher consciousness, then one can progressively accept to expands one's own consciousness to the true nature of our global connected reality with the help of some exterior consciousness. To possibly progress just by oneself is very very hard, requires a lot of abilities and takes times very very long. Along the way, insights from compassionate beneficial higher consciousnesses are always very welcomed and very appreciated. Then, to continue to progress, the acceptance to open one's mind to other's higher consciousness is not only necessary, as it is part of the practice, but it is also part of the goal. That is why in Mahayana Buddhism the Guru is seen as a key factor to the path as well as the union of both minds. Buddha himself received insights from higher consciousnesses. The consciousness of this external awareness brings our mind to another level of mindfulness. Another world shows itself, another life begins, as oneself opens to a greater field of consciousness and a deeper, larger, wider or higher reality. It is easier to start to be mindful of external influences with the help of an external good consciousness, but it is very difficult for a beginner to evaluate, check or prove the qualities of such an external higher consciousness. That is why in mindfulness meditation, we try to position ourself as an observer of what is going on in our mind, and without reacting to it. Like a finger, an external higher consciousness could point out into our own consciousness the objects that are wise to be mindful of, and in so doing training our own mindful mind to watch. We also have to stay open to this greater field of reality, because the point is not to close one's mind to this external flow of consciousness, but rather to know that it exists, to learn how it exists, to see it coming and going, to feel it being and changing, and to practise the letting go of it with a non reacting mind. Because if we do grasp on to any objects of this external flow, then we are letting ourself to be entangled with our own delusions. When we catch and keep those objects in our mind, then they are staying inside our own consciousness, and usually they will have the tendency, just by their presence in our consciousness, to activate some memory, some story, some reaction or some pattern in ourself, which will then express itself and fill our consciousness, that will then not be mindful any more of the present, nor of the external flow. When we hold onto those objects, and take them as ours, with all our attachments, then we expose ourselves to continually be manipulated by those external events that triggers our personal rigidity.] [Kindly look listen.]

[People talk about "pushing their buttons". So they first investigate on what is going on in their mind and they observe their own behaviour too. Then they start to recognised the particular situation that brings them to a certain reaction. Then they might precisely recognise the subject and the circumstances, or the causes and conditions for these recurring processes to appear. And then, they can identify their own pattern involved. When they succeed in knowing why the situation arises and how it works, and when they succeed in recognising the pattern when it arises in the moment, then they can learn not to allow themselves in the same process. ] [Beware.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 31/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [People can free themselves from these patterns, by recognising when the pattern appears, and by applying the correct antidote to stop in the moment the process of the situation, and therefore avoid the mechanical reaction and the consequence. By doing this at each time and many times, with more and more mindfulness, we can not only diminish the unskilful pattern, but also with effort, patience and kindness, one can replace the old by a new skilful pattern.] [Generally, and because we are attached to certain points of views, we react or respond to certain situations always in the same ways and generally within the same patterns. This of course is not freedom, because we react mechanically to certain situations. In Buddhism, when people master this level of consciousness and therefore are free from external influences and at the same time open kindly to it, in whatever ways it might presents itself, then those precious Buddhist practitioners or masters are called "big minds" because they have enlarged their own consciousness to a wider exterior, and ultimately to the entire space of consciousness.]

[But there are conditions for this to finally happen. A spiritual relation between a Guru and a Yogi is for both a long term commitment, with strong and deep significances. So this kind of a spiritual alliance is not to be taken lightly, and the motivations as well as the abilities of both parts must be questioned, evaluated and checked. For example, One higher consciousness has to make the proof of its beauty, of its luminosity and of its goodness, or show that it is never neither ugly, harmful nor dark, and that it offers its time and energy freely, willingly and always positively. There is in Buddhism, a list of different things to verify by the Yogi, and this can be called the checking of the Guru. On the other side, the Yogi who is demanding and accepting this guidance has to make the proof of its own clear, kind and pure intentions too. The Yogi for example has to demonstrate its compassion, and show that he or she is practising the Ethics in a constant and meaningful manner, evaluating the consequences of his or her conduct, and making the choices that are relevant to the principles of his or her good morality. The Yogi also has to prove his or her own abilities by going through different difficult experiences and showing his or her willingness and resilience to learn and to engage. It is not easy and it takes time to know how to distinguish and discriminate reality with compassionate wisdom. The process of the practice of meditation is to become in daily life more and more mindful and concentrated. With the subtle mindfulness of whatever is happening in the present moment, the practitioner is becoming able to recognise when and how to apply the corresponding skilful means and kind measures in order to stay safe, in good company and with good and positive results. This is, in the right time and in the right place, within the right conditions and accordingly to the correct welcoming and acceptance of the higher consciousness, the checking of the Yogi.] [Sacred spiritual alliance.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 32/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [According to the knowledge of a Lama Geshe Rimpoche in Tibetan, the checking of the Guru is done following the eight checkpoints of the teacher, which involves the validity of the teachings, the appropriate private life, the embodiment of the teachings, the practice of the three higher trainings (ethics, meditation and wisdom), the pure motivation to teach, to help and to be beneficial, the level of erudition, wisdom and skilful means that must be higher, deeper and stronger than the student, the sense of reliability, of trust or some kind of positive compassionate humanity, and finally the teaching of the well established and definite meaning of the Dharma rather than some personal interpretations of it.] [All views are part of the bigger view.]

[Let say that everybody has the right to access the Dharma, and not to introduce any misunderstandings, that every Guru has the duty to teach, and to share the Dharma, if he or she is able to, and if he or she is in the correct conditions to do so. The Dharma is for everybody. Depending on what is, there is always some Dharma teachings that can be applied to a situation and offered to a given person, whoever we are, whatever we do and wherever we stand.]

[Are we in the new mystical grip of a British Masonic Symbolic Matrix, within the ancient and mysterious nets of the Celtic Wild Magical Roots, among the long continental and subtle lines of the European Executive Strategic Motherboard, surrounded by the faithful and wise witnesses of the Jewish Metaphorical Digital Cabal, and advised by the detached and neutral compassionate blessings of the Indian Shamanistic Trantric Mantra, all together assembled in the silence of the here and now, all coming from a millennium lineage, trying to resolve and settle some kind of international public and private agreement on our natural conception ? The entire world is in us, emerging, blowing and flooding, striving, building and screaming, thinking, praying and bleeding, like a giant and universal dance dreamed just for the mercy of us all. Nobody is following and nobody is leading, everybody is pushing, holding and pulling. God's decision is upon our shoulder, and we are all praying, looking, waiting, hoping, engaging.] [Peace]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 33/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I read once that nothing happens to us by chance, everything has a meaning and everything contains all the meanings, seeds and hopes of the universe, if one is attached to look and see meanings. Everything that we encounter is coming to us on purpose, like a free and gentle proposal, like our Karma or our destiny following us like our own shadow, like if the past is remembering to us our duty and our choices, like if in the present, the future was calling us for a better world, a better life and a higher consciousness. And when we live, when we face the local and sudden surprise of the world unfolding in front of us, we can be confident that we always have with us or at the close reach of our own hands, all the cards, all the ideas, all the mysteries, all the breath, all the tools and all the emptiness, that we could ever need to play harmoniously the silent music of peace and happiness.] [Air to breath, Water to drink, Earth to grow.]

Life is a fruit, a gift from the Sun and the Earth, from our parents and the world For us to shine all the lights of love

[Am I a Hero and are you a Muse ? Am I an enchanted Frog and are you a charming Princess ? Do I feel I may be like Neo, trembling, waiting and hoping for the kiss of Trinity, and do you feel you may be like Trinity, inviting, nourishing and guiding Neo to find the secret ways to get out of the middle of the battlefield and to invent together this other world we have been wishing for ? Are we rewinding the rolls of so many old films that we enjoyed because they inspired our hearts ? Are we just waiting for the right time to act accordingly to the script that has been given to us ? Are we free ? Are we happy ? Is our practice useful ? Is Everything possible ? Are we ready to live our true purpose in life ? Are we just doing whatever we are being told ? Is our role so simple, so directed that we just have to let go and do whatever we feel right ? Is Neo left in the dark, thinking he has to reinvent and to renegotiate the storyboard ? Is Trinity playing the role of Trinity ? Is she the message, the angel and the divine promised goddess ? Is everything changing so drastically all the time, that there is only hope and mercy in the stillness of our own emptiness ? Why can't we just let the light coming in and be ? Are all these questions an issue at all, or is there in fact just what is, because everything that is, has already been settled and done. Is the future unwinding itself in the present ? Is it only in the present of a past moment that we could have had the chance to act, to be, to meet, to talk, to dream and to love ? Is this eternal possible present instant still there just by the magic of my words and the freedom of your silence ?]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 34/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Isn't it that everything is just waiting for the right time to happen ? And I feel that all my thinking is now becoming desperate and useless. Time has come and all prophecies are accomplishing. There is nothing more I can do, nothing else than all that which I have already done in my past long and lonely working life. There is nothing I want to do any more, nothing I want to ask, nothing new I want to believe in any more. There is nothing in the nothingness of all the possible. All we can do is to take care of the correct conditions for goodness to be. All the seeds have been planted, watered and nourished, the gardener can be happy. Life will unfold itself, like it always had, and I will just be. I will just be, breathing, moving, loving, and eating the beautiful fresh organic vegetarian food from the garden. I will just be, and patiently and compassionately, I will look at the colours of the world. Peacefully and generously, I will just be, and share what is with who is. I offered my life to you, and I will just be. We are not alone. I will just be, and practice silently the contemplative meditation on the compassionate wisdom of emptiness. I must accept to be happy with what is. I decided to come here while you decided to stay there. But this is already the past, I am writing in this present and the future will just be.]

[As I am leaving behind me my illusions and my regrets, my fears and my struggles, as I still stand consciously for a free, beautiful and independent world, as I still believe that the truth only can liberate us from our lies, as I forgive myself for my poor and lonely past life, as I am putting down my old clothes and washing my body from the dirt and the dust of the past, I am resolved to finally and willingly do the undone, to practise the lovely peaceful open silent presence, to hopefully learn to let the light in and out, to accept to let things and people go, to be happy simply with me and the world, and to live wisely and compassionately. I am ready to let things unfold and to offer in the present of my life all the possible of the world.]

[And maybe Trinity is proud and happy, like a fairy tall in the heavens' mind of an Harry Potter.]

[I believed you just had to say something, one word, one touch, one sign, and my life, our lives would have changed. I believed in the one resurrection kiss. But these are just beliefs that desperately entertained, just to be kissed. Will I read your response in a letter ? Will I know the answer to all these mysterious mysteries in your eyes only, in the contact of your skins only, or in the silence of the deepest depth of the ocean of love and wisdom ? Am I still desperately asking myself those same questions, as I am still waiting and writing ? The truth you gave me in the silence of your peace, is that I just don't want to be kissed, I want to kiss you too.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 35/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [The facts are there to help us understand what is going on. The Gods are leaving all the traces possible for we are not lost when we just look at the world and inside our soul. You were not willing, not allowed or not able, when I was there close to you, to do more than what you have done, and me neither, I was not willing, not allowed or not able, when you were there close to me, to do more than what I have done. Everything is perfect. Every moment is perfect as we slowly evolve, transition and progress. By writing this letter to you with all my love and all its brand new understandings, about me and you, about life and our practise, I am changing the situation. By listening to the silent whisper of the world, we are changing the situation.]

[And if you read this letter, feel its truth, laugh and wonder about it, if you agree to most of it, then you are also changing the situation. For example, if you really think this letter is changing you, because you recognise yourself, learn something, or discover you can love me, then we are changing the situation. If the situation is changed, then it opens the possibility for us to be and act differently and to create together another present than the separation we experienced. If you don't read this letter, don't agree to it, then you are changing the situation too. The reception, the acceptance, the decision and the action are always ours, from both side together at the same time in the same world. Like the painting of Leonardo Da Vinci of man and God, is also an allegory of love between woman and man. God, Life, Love and Light can only happen in that free way.]

[We are always touching our own limits and our own limitations. Our own frontier is just where we are. Our own consciousness is just as it is here and now. We are standing, sitting, lying or walking, like the four formal postures of the Buddhist tradition of meditation. But the truth is that we are always in meditation, life is a meditation. Like the Gods Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva are always in meditations. Like the native American Indian used to sing and dance the great dream they were all having. Like the ancient dream tales that were told by the wanderer “griot” in the black village tribes of Africa to explains the origin of the world. Like the paintings showed by the naked bushmen from central Australia, or like the most old parietal drawings discovered in the caves of France, we are all having a great dream, so lets have a beautiful dream, lets have a peaceful compassionate, kind, and loving day dream.] [I am an other than the one who dreamt.]

[Wherever we are, we are somewhere and in some kind of a position. I would like to add running and swimming too. I like the forest and I like the water, I like the sky and I like the fire. As I am waiting, thinking and writing, I am doing regularly prostrations, with some Indian chanting, and I feel good to be with. Then after breakfast, I go see the shore of the channel sea that is separating us. I say hello to the water and I take one little stone I hold in my left hand. Then I run along the waves almost everyday. I get my feet wet. I breathe the sea. Then I walk and sit. I meditate in front of the lake with all the birds around and the sky above. And then and there, I do feel my breath and body more intensely. And I listen to the world talking to me about you.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 36/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [There is no other better imitation than the rawness of the instant truth. Which means that imitations remain imitations, with their limitations, with their falsenesses, their mistakes, their faded artificial broken shadows, and cannot stand “the level of the real living truth”.] [Why the far away words of my lonely heart would change your mind or change the situation or your decision ? Because it can change us. Your silence changed me like my writing is. I wanted to change, but only the true hope of a new flourishing lotus in my heart, could let my eyes invent another world. Your moving body was the light that changed the picture. Your silent presence opened my mind for some more subtle sounds and a deeper peace. A higher truth appeared more true, like a brighter light shows more reality. I was into the dark stillness of the bottom of the seas, I am now looking at the blue light above, and as I swim to the surface, my world changes. I see the shadows are just moving waves. I feel the pressure of the water, the bubbles gas, all the fishes all around, I was resisting, but now I accept that all this is normal. The ground feels like home, I breath with the trees and the birds in the clouds. I feel the wind in the sky, and as I am opening my arms to a wider reality, I can feel again directly the warmth of the Sun and the shining lights of the stars. It's a beautiful world.] [Life is not only about meeting the truth, it is also about the force of our attention, the wisdom of our intuition, the kindness of our intention and the beauty of our invention in the present moment. But for this "real living truth" to occur in a loving relationship, we need to be both present, alive and conscious. Anything can happened and everything is fine.] [I personally changed because I changed the way I was looking at the world.] [I found some touching caresses in one's kind eyes, and some tender kisses in one's kind words. I don't have to anticipate the unexpected any more. I don't have to fabricate was is already just perfect. I can just float like you showed me, and navigate in the sea of all our attachments and detachments, between our illusions and our ignorances, and look at all this with openness, loving kindness, curiosity and compassion. I will be showing and sharing my compassionate detachment and my joyful equanimity. May the world be blessed and benefit the merit of what was, what is and what has to come.]

Then, when all this became so obvious, and that I could understand that it was true for you too, I started to think that something was going on, between and in between us, and after so many occasions of chances, I realised that either me or you, or maybe both of us, were softly driven by some higher consciousness, so we meet, encounter and care for each other. I have learned to have some respect towards higher consciousness, as some beautiful ones only want to help us and guide us, and at the same time, I have trained myself to keep an independent and just awareness on what is happening, so I can stay free, responsible and good, and so I can decide for myself accordingly to my own experience and my own compassionate consciousness.

All this was setup, but I, and I suppose you too, did not know why nor whom was doing this to, for and with us. [Or did you ? The more I write, the more I think you did !]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 37/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com All this appeared to us strangely, but even more in a modern buddhist retreat context, where we are supposed to practice mindfulness, detachment and discriminating wisdom, and where we are not supposed to talk to each other, and rather are expected to keep the noble silence, as we all have promised to do so on a written statement.

So when I discovered that we would have to work every day together in the kitchen, I felt happy to have the chance to talk to you in private, and at the same time I felt tensed by an emotion of discomfort, because I was aware that all this was not only happening by chance, but that there were a hidden will and an unknown purpose behind this artificial and premeditated gathering. So when I first talk to you, my words and my voice were not as natural and easy as I would have liked them to be, and by a stupid male conditioning, I had this stupid male behaviour. I was out of tune with my deepest true self because of fear [greed and doubt.]

[Is it really true ? I always hoped in my mind that the universe will help me to encounter someone. When we met in the kitchen, I briefly thought this is the time, this is my chance, let's go. But did we really ? I talk to you very routinely, very objectively, mostly very stupidly, hiding behind the official story of my excuses. It is true that I wasn't expecting to meet you at this particular moment, and facing my surprise, I reacted and improvised a posture immediately. The truth is that there were nothing to fear, nothing to improvise, life was just presenting itself. I refused to acknowledge that it was an important moment to be there with you for the first time. I played a role, acting I am doing extremely fine, not moved nor surprised at all by the situation, pretending I have seen already so many things in my life. I was unconsciously acknowledging that in fact, we had been prepared for this situation, and I acted like if everything was normal, and like if I was just there like you, accomplishing our duty. My self grasping and self cherishing mind wanted to show you that I was sure of myself, but I was controlled by/through my ego.]

[I have acted in this situation with fear, tightness, hesitation, refusal, distraction, abandonment, pretentiousness, mascarade, and mostly without the appropriate kindness and mindfulness, that we both deserve. Please accept my sincere and silent apologies, even though I know that's alright, it just happened that way, because at that time we were just that way. I hope this letter will contribute to explain and change my behaviour, and to encourage you to forgive me, as well as giving you some new desire to meet and discover the new Path.]

[Understanding how I was acting and how I could be observed by you and others, I understand why several time you returned your cup in front of me, you did not want to listen to me, or even be in contact with me. Because mine was full of the three poisons in Buddhism: greed, hatred and ignorance. I understand you did not want to get your cup contaminated by mine. Or is it because, too much was pouring, and I thank you for telling me. Damn you are always right!]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 38/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I apologise with sincerity, but it remains that before this first real encounter, we had many other things happening between us, that have conditioned and coloured what happened that day. In a way, I was just continuing the little game we were put together to play, but my foolishness doesn't explain that all this was setup and prepared somehow. And my weaknesses towards you don't explain either all the difficulties I had to go through since my first arrival at Gaïa House, and that influenced greatly my behaviour. The atmosphere was poisonous, not my cup.]

[While I was saying why I was asked to be there at that time, showing that I had an official excuse and that I was covered by orders form the household staff itself, and while I was standing there in front of the door, you kindly invited me to come in. I said I was asked to be there to meet one coordinator here in the kitchen at three o'clock, so he could show me the work I will have to do, and you made a funny distant remark about the time, saying that I will just have to wait two minutes then, and I looked at the clock hanging on the wall of the kitchen. I understand now that your tricky remark was telling me that there were maybe things more important than the count of time, that we were meeting each other: two conscious living beings in front of each other for the first time. I knew, but I did not realised or acknowledged the extraordinary encounter we were having at that time. I am so slow sorry. I needed some times and some writings to realise those things.] [I have been writing more than a month, feeling and questioning the feelings I had.]

[As you invited me kindly to come inside the kitchen, I step inside. I step inside, but I think that you had to change of position, because I don't remember that I first talk to you while you were sitting on the floor, therefore you must have been standing while I was outside the kitchen in front of the door, when I first addressed to you some words. But then, while I step inside, you must have sat on the floor, as you were on the cleaning of the floor. I think that I was standing proudly inside the kitchen, and you were sitting humbly on the floor. I remember this image and I regret my pride as well as I admire your humbleness.] [Living each moment at the fullest.]

[Why can't we go back in time and correct our errors ? Because we have to learn from what is happening in our life. My tears are falling again on my chicks. I feel I am living outside my life, like I lived all my life. I feel I am not as truthful as I think I am, and as I always thought I have been in my life. I am thinking that I am not truthful and kind to me, that I have forgotten to be truthful and kind to me. I am missing my life. I desperate. I regret. I can feel my tears are coming from as down and deep as my belly, near the chi, in my body there is a flooding river of tears, raging that is pushing upwards. I can see all these thoughts and feelings are arrows that I am triggering to myself. I recognise in my deepest self my true need for humbleness which I saw and learned from you. Thank you.] [I can see that tears are revealing some truths.]

[ like a boiling geyser in the middle of a grey deserted ice land]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 39/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [As I recall all these different emotions I have gone through these past weeks, I feel what the ancient philosophers called the truth of one's vanities. I feel that this past year I have been living so intensely, everyday learning something, everyday changing and spiritually progressing, everyday almost going through hardship in the material world, in the social world, as well as in my own personality. I am happy to do so, I learn many things about me and the world, but sometimes the process is very hard, and I feel it goes so fast that I can't even get used to the new me, as a new one comes along to replace it. It is alright to accept to become somebody different when this somebody is better than the previous one, but it is harder to look back in one's own history, with the new eyes and the new understanding of a new personality. It is especially difficult to look back on one's past errors, regrets and missed opportunities. With a brighter spirit, our past lightnesses appear darker than they used to be, but it is too late. Times just goes by inevitably. Letting go of pride and presumptions, self centred ideas and attitudes, glorious victories and vanishing vanities is a destruction, a deconstruction and a releasing process.]

[I understand that I have been hoping for the impossible, I have been asking you for the impossible. How could you engage with someone you don't know, who did not have the courage to talk to you sincerely and directly, and who from a far away distance and with his unfair ability to write and think, put in front of you the questions of his own lost life, asking to join him in his desperate situation ? How can I apologise, how can I change, how can I live a normal life ?]

[As I want to stop relating what happened because I don't feel comfortable, I understand that I need to continue this experiment and this writing on myself and my points of views. My tears are falling again, but I have the belief that I must finish the story of this first encounter. I have in my mind many things that I could relate and that just happened in the past two months at the Gaïa House Laboratory. I have been writing all day since this Saturday morning on my big smart phone touching each letters with only one finger. I imagine I am engaging in a terrible fight with myself. Now, second Thursday, I am writing and putting images along the text with a little pocket computer, and I am feeling better, I use now two fingers.]

[So, I step in after having told you why I was there and after you invited me. While I enter, you say that perfidious remark about the two minutes before three o'clock, I look at the clock while probably you change of posture and sit on the floor, then I look at you humble on the floor.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 40/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Before I came to the kitchen, I was in the laundry where I went to check on the time before arriving to the kitchen, and so I can arrive there at the correct time or just a little bit before. In the laundry I meet someone who is stacking the clothes. I apologise for my disturbing presence in the laundry, explaining that I just wanted to look at the time and saying that I am a little early for my appointment. The truth is that I use this casual unexpected meetings when people are in duty to say some little nice words because I miss speaking and being kindly with someone. I feel it is terrible not to be able to speak with other occidental Buddhists, as I believe they are very interesting and that we are fortunate to meet. They are interesting people, because they are caring about their mind. But they care so much about themselves that they forget others, almost like denying their presence. It seems that I am some rare very lonely old angel who allows himself to feel that way, and who truly sees that these opportunities are really extraordinary and rare. Everybody is acting like “well I want to be into it, and people are so boring, my life is so busy, I don't need to meet extraordinary people, I want to be sure I stay mindful and be careful, real extraordinary people don't speak, if I really need to talk then the Gods will force me to interfere”.]

[So the person in the laundry tells me it is alright and invite me to help her in her easy work. I agree and for some few minutes we stack the clothes together. She shows me how she stacks the clothes in the very best correct manner with all the clothes well aligned and each category well separated. So we do this together for a little while, we feel happy to do some work together peacefully and in the best mindfully and correct manner possible, and since we have done it together, we finish rapidly, and I left her to go and attain my appointment in the kitchen. I walk in the corridor towards the kitchen, I pass the reception on my left, and the main entrance door on my right, and there I stumble in front of you. Today second Thursday, my heart still beats faster, as I read those lines. Today third Tuesday, I feel a vibrant openness.]

[So I look at you, you look at me, I speak, you speak, I step inside the kitchen, you say your two minutes impatient remark, we look at the clock, you sit on the floor, and I stand there in the middle of the kitchen. You make this stupid remark about the two minutes before three o'clock, I feel stressed about this ridiculous remark and with those two minutes, and I see that you are doing some cleaning on the floor, and since I am just coming from the laundry, I have the idea to use as an excuse the proposition to offer you some help, while I am waiting these two minutes, that are starting to appear as a very long time. I am still acting in a role that I am giving myself, and as an easy text line, I am just repeating what I just experienced in the laundry, the woman asked me to help her, so I ask you to help you, like it was just a rehearsal, but this is not really my idea, this is not an idea coming from my true mindful and peaceful self. And writing this, second Thursday, I can see how easily it is to just drift away from one's true mindful self when we talk, I can see how it is so easy to just endorse someone else role or someone else ideas, it seems easy because it is simple, easy as a simple copy. But a fast key two minute copy.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 41/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [And, as I am still writing more, and thinking about you, while adding images to the text, I am thinking, I just learned a big life lesson, I am truly in love. And it is a complete victory, my dear Ishtar, you are my Very True Flourishing Lotus Dream. This is happening, Second Thursday, 8 September 2016 19h09 French Time.] [Maybe I could be more me, if I was more in my silence like you were in yours with me]

[So, we are in the kitchen, and I am asking you if you want me to help you for the cleaning of the floor, just as an excuse to say something polite and with the intention to appear to you as a gentle and helping person. And in the same movement, not even waiting for your reply, and like a male who wants to take control of the situation, I see the water iron bucket in front of me with its stick to clean the floor, and I decide to take it in only one step, showing how clever and flexible my body is, but the stick is a little far away and as my arm is reaching the stick with the end of my fingers, the stick slides on the wall and almost fell, I grab it before it falls, and you tell me, answering my question and making a judicious statement on my hazardous behaviour, that you probably noticed, that “I might get my feet wet” if I help you to clean the floor.]

[I understand that I am making a fool of myself, that you are taking advantage of it with your funny remark, and that I missed the opportunity to be there and just to meet you, to meet you in spirit, instead of with the chock of our different personal story, cultural backgrounds, genders and hopes. I replace the stick straight into the bucket. I look at you still cleaning the floor with your hands. I feel awkward. I am thinking, life is more simple when one accepts to take a humble posture and just relax about it and about life. I step back away from the bucket, my back is touching the wall, my hands are joined behind my back. No I won't salute to the bucket, neither hit it. I try to relax, maybe I say something stupid again, like you are right, or I just expel a male groan. Maybe I don't, I don't remember. Me who likes the water, I feel I really got wet.]

[I wait a few seconds to think what I could do with myself. I decide to respect your prophetical witty remarks and your mindfulness work. You scored twice in 2 minutes. Your first sentences have created some unnecessary tensions between us, orienting unconsciously our conversation on a sexual underlined meaning, and on a relation of opposition and dominance. Talking about “getting wet in two minutes”, can easily be interpreted as a sexual allusion, doubting my performance or my masculinity, or trying to define the male and female roles between us, or inviting me in sex game for hard intercourse on the kitchen floor. Then I don't think, I let you alone in peace with the bucket. In my discomfort and my stupidity, I don't think lets be mindful, lets take this other new moment of the now, lets accept that it is really a new moment all the time, when we really get mindful of it. I don't engage deeply in this new moment, I just let me drifting, I let you go. I decide to leave the kitchen room and to wait outside.] [I think now, it is so hard and easy just to be one's true self, so easy and hard to let people away.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 42/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [As I write, I realise it is somewhat easier to be mindful of a situation afterwards, taking hours, days and weeks to think and to fall in absorption of some particular moments. Writing alone in a quiet place with no disturbances, has this advantage to be able to rewind and rewind, and getting deeper in the past of a moment. It is a training, a learning experience for oneself, but lets not forget that this particular moment is gone, only surviving in the memory of a bucket.]

[I have the feeling that this first encounter was difficult and tensed, even though we both tried to be friendly, there was an "indicible" tension or fight for presence, for initiative, for invention, for inspiration or for domination. I don't worry about that, it seems there is always this happening in a first confrontation. We are both strong persons and it shows, nobody wants to let go, and I know how the first encounter is very important and very symbolical. Fortunately, we can say it is a tight, one two one. I like this idea of equality, of an equilibrium between us. I don't like the idea of rivalry or dominance. I am sorry for this foolish behaviour of mine. I smile thinking maybe you too are sorry for this foolish behaviour of yours... I have been living so much alone for so many years, that I am very sensible like an hermit who leaves his cave and sees the light for the first time. But writing about it makes me realise how childish we can be. Somewhat I am learning a lot about me. By putting all this in a written form, I feel like a painter who would spend days to draw some particular historical event. My wish to write to you is helping me to understand myself as well as you better. I am looking at things, in a way without any other precedent in my life: a kind of past absorptive meditation. Thank you Lotus Dream.]

[At that time, I don't have the real peaceful and loving consciousness to go towards you, to lean forward to you and to put my body towards the floor, or to put my knees down on the floor, and like a gentleman to give you my hand and my arm and my tender smile to help you stand up, I don't have the simple consciousness that maybe I could just be near where you are, that I could sit too next to you, that we could sit there, just the two of us, I don't have the consciousness that it would be an easy way to look at you closer in the eyes and maybe to smell your perfume.]

[If I was more mindful and more in the silence of one's true self, I would probably be more aware of the characteristic of a situation, and be more aware of my perceptions, my feelings and my needs. If I was to meditate more and practising mindfulness for longer period of time, and more regularly, I would probably be more present to myself and take better decisions. All this, I have learned because of you, because of your remarks, because of your silence, and because of my wish to write a letter for you, my Lovely Sweet Flourishing Lotus Dream. For all this and all these memories, I Thank you and I bow to you.]

[If I was more in my breath and my body, I would be more in my consciousness]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 43/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So I left you in the kitchen room, went back in the corridor and sat on the chair in front of the reception office, feeling sorry for me. There I wait a few seconds. I feel I am synchronised with the coordinator too, he is just coming out from the staff room. He apologises for being a little late, while in fact he is just on the right time, and we do together the tour of the kitchen garbage, work that I will do with expertise every next following days. I wonder who is doing it now.]

[It seems to me that at Gaïa House, they observe very closely the material things and its flow, if the people working as benevolent do correctly their duty, and of course it is the responsibility of the organisation to check if things are done and if everything goes alright, but as I write about my feelings, I see how important the emotions are in the process of a life and of a retreat, how it conditions the experience people may have, and that there is no real opportunity to speak with someone we can trust, or someone we feel good with, or someone involved about all those feelings and emotions we have. One could say, but we feel emotions all the time, and nobody has time to hold the time like I just do, to look and care at one's emotions, for the sake of writing to you.]

[Nevertheless, I truly think that humans are deeply emotional beings. We build and conduct our life mostly on emotions, feeling tones, perceptions, interpretations and beliefs. Our health as well as our social harmony, our interactions and our decisions, would certainly be better if we could accept that fact, instead of systematically wanting to transform people into insensitive and careless machines. Like it is said in the Non Violent Communication, the feelings or the emotions are windows to needs that are not satisfied in oneself, and when these needs remain in demand or are seen as under a threaten event, then the person is switched into an unbalanced position. The emotions alert the body and the consciousness about some need that has to be taken care of. It probably comes from childhood, when a baby has only its tears and cries, its eyes and its smile to communicate his or her own emotions (fear, anger, love, joy) and needs (safety, peace, goodness, happiness). Through basics emotions, we try to express or resolve some crucial or urgent need. We are complex black boxes, in which the needs everywhere have to stay balanced in order to maintain the system integrity. People are really emotional needs.]

[Thinking and feeling we are “emotional human livings”, with my eyes and my mouth, I listen in live from Paris at the French Radio Classique to the Mozart Concerto of “Le Couronnement” by the Berlin's Stadt Kapel Orchestra, directed on the piano by Daniel Baremboïem.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 44/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I think it is very important to know how to recognise and express one's own feelings, and to focus our own attention on our own emotions when they arise, and on our own patterns when we can observe them in the moment, while investigating on their nature and process. It is very important to take the time for oneself, to speak to oneself, so to speak, to entertain a true and kind relation with oneself.]

Who are we, how do we feel, what do we want, why do we live

[Of course, it can always be very useful for people to be able to speak out about their own feelings to some other trusty person they have personally chosen, or to be able to let it out somehow, in a peaceful and non harming way, when somebody really needs it to, or to use prudently derivatives to temporary give relief and time to come back to one's own presence and consciousness. Everybody in a perfect and modern society should be trained to know how to deal with one's own feelings and needs, as well as with other's, in order not to be overwhelmed by oneself, nor to be contaminated by others. Because dealing with the violent feelings when they arise is a good way to prevent harmful conflicts and real physical pain, personal stigmatisations or illness, social rigid oppositions or artificial postures, and psychological hatred or greedy views.]

[I think it is wise not to accumulate bad feelings and wrong ideas on whatever event that may happened in one's life, whatever the age or the circumstances, because throughout life, this harmful personal attitude can block the well being and the ease, and it can stop the optimism and the positive construction of the person, and it consumes unnecessary a lot of energy and time. And especially when people live in concentration site, in retreats or in cities, with personal or professional psychological requirements and tensions, where the vital living conditions or the personal sensitivity are tensed and exacerbated. When there is a rule of organisation that prohibit opportunities to talk, then it is possible that these tensions and these wrong views are building on each other, and with time create within a “positive feedback” that will reinforce the rigidity and the strength of the problematic situation.]

[Speaking, analysing, compensating, subliming, dissociating, performing, addicting are solutions to bring to oneself some kind of relief to these psychological problematic situations. But in a way these choices can reinforce the pattern by making a way of life out of it.] [Learning how to recognise and letting go of the intense reaction towards one's personal feelings is part of the beneficial mindfulness process.] [Life is so precious, being here on Earth with consciousness is so precious. I feel lucky, grateful and happy to be alive. I understand how difficult and long it is to become a living being in such a rare position. I realise how much careful, mindful, benevolent and compassionate I must be with myself and others. I am responsible for such a beautiful and rare Karma, and I am free. Here with other living beings, our consciousness is a heavenly duty.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 45/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [This beneficial mindfulness process goes through different phases and awarenesses.]

[The recognition of the arising of an emotion with the changes that might appear in the body and in the consciousness. The recognition that this emotion make us want or desire to apply a reaction is some particular and personal ways, and therefore that there is a trigger or a direct physical relation between a well known emotion and a stereotyped reaction. The recognition that the emotion is not stable, it changes, increases, diminishes. The recognition that the emotion colours or influences the state of mind of the person. The recognition that the personal state of mind influences the perceptions and the understandings of the person on things, on events or on any other conditions that are in our own near environment. Finally and importantly, the recognition that the repetition of such psychological processes are reinforcing themselves the sensitivity, the strengths and the mechanical reaction that is attached to it.]

[The recognition that such patterns can be soften and released by practising mindfulness meditation, with the calmness,, the awareness, the acceptance and the letting go of such patterns. The recognition that such patterns can be replaced by some better ones that will have beneficial and positive consequences for the person sense of well being, for the harmony in people's relation in society, and for the deepening and clarity of one's own consciousness.]

The understanding that these emotions are related to some basic fundamental needs inside the psychology of the person is also very beneficial, because this understanding of a relation between our emotions and our needs, can change the ways we have constructed our image of the world, our self image, our self purpose and our self behaviour.]

[The understanding that the awareness of this relation enables more freedom. The awareness or the mindfulness of such a relation (relation between event, needs, trigger, emotions, reaction, consequences) is valuable because it allows and the understanding of one's own patterns. Then by training the mind in the awareness of such patterns, with concentration and with mindfulness, one can comes to the understanding that one's own pattern can be evaluated, softened and questioned. Then this same understanding of one's own patterns, or the recognition of the mechanisms involved in such patterns, enables the person who practise mindfulness and concentration to be more relax and detached from them, which allow the possibility of the understanding that one's own pattern can be abandoned and replaced by others more beneficial and more useful. The evaluation of one's own pattern may lead to the conclusion that any of their component are not beneficial or useful. The questioning of one's own needs, of one's own trigger and one's own reaction, and their consequences, internally or externally, can lead to the motivation of their abandonment or their replacement, in order to be able to live different experiences.] [Being happy in a joyful peace is the fruit of the Path.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 46/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Seeing these relations and sometimes their artificial or unreal foundations, can be very enlightening for understanding our own mental positions, priorities and rigidities about life in general, and about certain ideas, certain beliefs or certain needs that we may have had since childhood, that we may still take for the truth, and that we entertained in our daily unconscious life without a real awareness of them, nor of their great influence in our state of minds and in our well being, as well as in our decisions and in our actions.]

[It is normal to have needs and triggers that alert us about them, to hold on those and to want to find some satisfaction for these. Our needs put our mind body heart in motion through our emotions. But, when we recognise and identify that an emotion is related to some underground need, then we can question this relation that may trigger a negative response, and then we can question and investigate on the reality of this underlined need.]

[The questions to ask peacefully and kindly to be more mindful of our inner life. Is this emotion satisfactory ? Is this response beneficial ? How is it possible to accept this emotion to be, without being engaged in the reaction attached to it ? What is the unsatisfied need behind this emotion ? What are the causes and the conditions for this emotion to arise ? What are the material objective external situation and the psychological relative personal perceptions for this emotion to arise ? What are the circumstances, the triggers, the processes, the reactions, the consequences and the whole experience of this need in need of satisfaction ? Is this need really satisfied by the process engaged and the result provided ? Is this relation between this emotion and this need obligatory ? Do we really need that need, or do we really need that this particular need must be fulfilled in that particular way ? ]

[When there is no care and no mindfulness for these basic needs, emotions and rights to express them, whether it is done by the person itself or with the listening help of another person, then the conditions are put in place for an explosive situation. The building explosive process is seen sometimes as a productive technique, like in police strong interrogative method, in military torture techniques, or in competitive working conditions, in order to force people to talk or to act, and to get a fast and cheap result at the expense of their psyche.]

[But these wrong ways of using these mental process are not in concordance with the respect of Human Rights, neither with the Buddhist Ethic of non harming and loving kindness, or any ethics at all, anywhere, any time and in any civilisation. These violent and intrusive techniques are never useful for the psychological stability and well being of the person itself, and they are used deliberately when there is in fact and in mind no care and no consideration for the individual human being who has to endure these conditions, while there are other soft ways to do things, and other ways to prevent strong drama, or even the existence of a conflict.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 47/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [It seems that in a silent buddhist retreat, the emotions are not put aside, because they are a big part of the training to become mindful of them, and mindful of one's consciousness. But because of the silence, these emotions are supposed to be dealt only within the person's mind and without the help of any another person. And these particular instructions, to be aware of one's emotions, triggers, reactions, processes and needs, are not always clearly expressed and told to the retreatants that may not have already a knowledge of them, or of Buddhism in general.]

[Buddhism is not only about sitting in a quiet and nice place, and maybe feeling peaceful and alright. There are in Buddhism techniques, instructions and purposes. Meditation is not just staying still and in silence in a particular posture, it is about becoming aware of what is going on in our own mind, with the goal to become more mindful, in order to become more free, more responsible, and wisely more detached of our own illusions of reality. But even in retreats, a retreatant remains a human being (with a loving heart, the wish for a good life and the responsibility of its duty and own consciousness in the world).]

[There is a path in Buddhism because there is a goal] [But the goal is not the goal, the goal is the path that leads to the goal]

[It is an unrealistic presumption to think that anybody who comes in a buddhist retreat has the strength to be able to face alone his or her own complex and private psychological arousal. Or to think that everybody is coming for their own enlightenment, that will happen like the Buddha did, by engaging in a decisive and non return practise under the Bodhi tree. And the silence may reinforce the feeling of loneliness and eventually the habit to keep for oneself his or her own feelings.] [Accepting and letting go of the challenges and difficulties in a retreat is its purpose.]

[On that topic, I felt several time that the staff in general in Gaïa House were enjoying the fun of looking down at people's distress or strange behaviour, that could have happened just because of the conditions that were put in place by themselves. Of course humour is also a way to release some tension, and that is OK to have fun in life with others, but not at the expenses of other's feelings and difficulties, as it is not a compassionate and loving kindness behaviour, and as people can feels these attitudes because they reflect on one's person. When there is some kind of detachment, things are taken less seriously, but detachment doesn't mean indifference.] [Further more if the staff understand the need to relax the tension for themselves, to get together in a relax private and protected atmosphere, then why this understanding is not taken into account for the retreatants themselves ?] [Here the understanding and the true acceptance of the practise of Ethics or the “ten skilful action”, may be useful to find the appropriate middle way, and here I am thinking in particular of the hardship speech and gossip speeches.] [We may make mistakes but we may want to continually progress]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 48/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I think it is important for a person on a retreat to be able to talk to somebody he or she really trust, because feelings are very personal, and because the knowledge of them can easily be misunderstood, misapprehended or misused by somebody whose intention and attention are not of loving kindness, or even worse, when they are opposite to the person who talk about them. And it should be the person itself who should decide who he or she trusts, who he or she talks to, and when. The direction of a spiritual institution, because of their hierarchy and their experiences, should not put themselves in a position where they supposedly know better or are too busy to be available, but rather should invite and listen actively to the retreatants' needs and emotions, not do their own practises or experiments with retreatants that are under their care and surveillance. Retreatants are not blind free laboratory experimental subjects.]

[Good teachers should prevent wrong conditions that lead to wrong experiences]

[Retreats are also a shared experience, where everyone's can be felt, heard by others (or insiders). And this is a real challenge for everybody to be able to offer the best environment and the best conditions and organisation for people to feel at the same time peacefully welcomed and individually protected. Within a community of retreatants, doing together the same practise, there is nothing to do about the influences that everyone may have on others, on the contrary it can be viewed as a positive synergy, but only when everyone is going for the same goal to reach and with the same understood methods. Because it is helpful to practise with others, it can help in keeping one's motivation, it can be beneficial to see others as good examples, and it can give the feeling of being part of something greater than oneself. For a personal retreat, this community environment must be taken as part of one's individual practise, and the privacy must be possible if someone prefers to be more isolated. But it is an impossible wish to want to exclude all influences. Even in a retreat, people remain living human beings, and that is best if it stays like this. Buddhism is not about transforming people in statues, ghosts, marionettes or dry fleshes. Buddhism is fun, positive, joyful and rewarding, it is about becoming more happy, folks, so people should feel relax, at ease, comfortable, welcomed and invited in a peaceful free place to be.]

[Writing, today second Wednesday, and rewriting second Friday and Saturday on this paragraph, I am thinking that I would not have wanted to speak about anything, and certainly not about the emergence of my new feelings of empathy, of care, of curiosity, of tenderness, of attraction, of interest, of desire, of obsession, and of loving expectation, that I may have had with you, to someone I don't know, I don't trust and don't feel good with. Trust is like respect, one should always have some for oneself and be able to give some freely to others, in order to start well a relation, but these qualities are also building qualities, they are built, entertained and cared between people. And I wasn't feeling these qualities, because I thought that I was not appropriately welcomed, accepted and respected.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 49/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I also thought that my person and my negative thoughts were disturbing, and that in response I had to experience isolation and rejection that were in some way intentionally organised and prepared, and imposed to me without my knowledge, my consent, and without the concern of my situation of retreatant. Was the purpose of all this to make me react and write this text for you ? Did we have to go through this “incredible ways” to meet ? The answer is probably “Yes” as it is that way that things appeared, went and are eternally resting in that past. I can agree that I am partially responsible too. That my responsibility as a retreatant was to let go of all this, but we were in a special place, a Retreat Centre, which in our educated mind involves certain qualities to be called by that name. I am also responsible for one end of the type of relation that was put in place, but my silent cooperation that was not a tacit approval.]

[There is in Buddhism the notion of detachment, but it is about the detachment of oneself, of one's attachments and ignorance, not about the detachment or the renouncement of compassion, loving kindness and wisdom towards others, and towards the situation we are experiencing. Should I have asked the staff for a private secret meeting with you ? Maybe, but it was making public what I wanted to keep private.] [I came to be part, and I felt detached, put aside.]

[Tonight third Thursday, I start to realise that all this may be exactly one pattern that I do personally have to be mindful of: Getting involved in the injustices, the contradictions or the untruthfulness that I can witness or endure in my own person. But sincerely, I was coming in a retreat for a quiet and peaceful space, not for a challenging environment of pressure and deconstruction, although I agree such can be very useful and beneficial too. Did I not sign for it, but got it anyway ? I answer progressively “Yes”. This Painting is transforming my viewing.]

[How can I honestly, directly and peacefully be speaking about a problem to the person that I think is responsible for this problem, if that person doesn’t want to accept officially, neither my right to talk about it, neither the existence of a problem, nor its own responsibility, or its own involvement or participation into the problem ? Especially if that person is playing a hidden game, using hypocritically the living silence conditions put in place, or using unfairly a position of superiority in a hierarchy ? Whatever function one may have in an organisation, one should always be able to remain a good, honest and fair play human being first. There is only a trial in front of an official third party justice that could deal, settle and stop such a close shut atmosphere, such antagonistic and hard interests, and such unbearable unhealthy relations.] [Of course life happens that way, things happen and we have to deal with whatever comes, with whatever we have and however we can. It took me one full month to express all this on paper, so I can understand myself, and so I can make myself understood. So I understand very well, that it is never easy to talk the truth, neither to be well with the truth, but this too is part of the path.] [It can be nearly impossible to really express what one has in its own mind and heart.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 50/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Nevertheless, I regret that the retreat conditions did not allowed us (whether the staff or my Lotus Dream) to find easily a real opportunity to speak together. We did speak, but was it enough for me, not really, as I am writing today third Thursday 82 pages. I did speak to you my Tender Lotus Dream, but did I said what I wanted to say to you, and will I ever be able to say all that I would have liked to tell you ? Can I resume my feelings, my experiences and my projects in such a little text ? I regret my personal behaviour, history, patterns and psychology did not allowed me to go forward to the staff to express my disagreement on/or my personal difficulties in Gaïa House, nor to you, my Sweet Lotus Dream, to express or suggest simply my stronger and stronger appealing for a sincere and intimate discussion with you.] [I regret that you did not do the same. Sometimes, I regret that I am letting myself falling in the frightening fear of betrayal, thinking in the possibility that you could have been part of all this. Or thinking that you could have been a tool for me to react and accept this new spiritual position that I write about. In any case, you have changed and saved my life. But is it honourable and worthy to save one's life, if it is to let it go alone and without love in this desperate world ? I don't regret of being convinced now that your emotions were not part of a role you were playing. But as you know sometimes, people use the real thing to hide the fake. Maybe you could or should have shown me your real intentions. I regret I did not ask you if you were single, open or receptive to a new relationship.] [And if I was totally manipulated since the beginning or even a long time before, since many years of an incredible Odyssey, because those circumstances need a lot of motivations and conditions to arise, I don't regret any more that I don't have to choose between a natural coincidence and an artificial manipulation, as I believe that both have presently been going on according to my personal understanding and awareness. During my stay at Gaïa House, I regret my polarisation, as I acted and lived accordingly to those feelings that I had of not being welcomed, accepted, considered, respected and protected, except for some too rare exceptions. I should have reacted with more compassion and understanding to the suffering that other people too were living, not only me. I regret that I never had the motivation, nor the opportunity to friendly speak about my feelings of being put in quarantine, nor of my project to be volunteering as a coordinator. I regret my impatience as I should have taken the time to know you better, my Lotus Dream. I regret I am a social monster, and a good writer, because these are very time consuming. I don't regret that all this made me write as I have reflected and corrected some personal approximated views and positions that were uncomfortable to live with, and because I have gained some precious insights about my spiritual life and the spiritual world I will be living in.] [These insights are worth all my true forgiveness.] [Life and retreats can also be very much valuable if conditions are peaceful and kind.] [There were some Indian lady, at the reception I tried to talk to, but the discussion we tried to have before I left the first time, through fantastical little notes put on the wall, about clocks, tents, and Bodhisattva drawings, were elliptic, indirect and full of care and full of fear not to touch the real concerns of the situation “I was put in”, and why I had these feelings of being ignored and rejected. Feelings that are not funny to have.] [May we feel peace.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 51/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [When I told her I was living and asking for reimbursement, she replied I should wait the next day and talk to a “teacher”. I regret the urgency, the next day I left without a word or a goodbye. I regret I had to go through all this to understand that I don't have to wait for a situation to harden and then to take decisive hard decisions. Being positive and constructive is not always about keeping silence. Sensible relations are worthy to be taking care of, as it is easier to break than to build. It is unusually difficult to keep open and kind a hostile one way relation. It seems that unfair people find an interest in abusing unilateral situations, trying to provoke unnatural reactions, and creating deliberately artificial hostility to force the breaking of a positive relation that doesn't fit their personal plans. It takes some will, talks and effort to want to keep such a positive relation in such a context. I regret there were no real opportunity to engage with others retreatants in a non artificial way. But people do not have time for this, or refuse to get personally involved. It is just not the purpose of a retreat. People are protecting themselves too. But also this possibility to speak and to be really with someone else is an attitude or a subject that was kind of taboo with everybody. Especially within a well educated and initiated, formal and strict ambitious British population. I am a fair and funny person, people shouldn't be afraid of interacting with me in a kind way. And I like British people too, it is that I don't like those that in any part of the world, want others to be like them or to be like they want them to be, and who pretend that everybody should be in the same boat as they are, and claiming to be the captain of the boat. I mean do we have to talk about the meaning of freedom in Great Britain, in France, or in any decent place in the world, not to mention all nations ?] [“Honi soit qui mal y pense.”] [I have experienced difficulties in Gaïa House since the beginning. I have felt sensations of hypocrisy, of suspiciousness, of being observed in the beginning and later of being avoided or rejected, and even later of being intentionally isolated, surrounded, stressed, pushed, denigrated, tested or put in difficulty or in denial, even put in dangerous conditions too.] [I understand now that the staff and the organisation were not probably directly responsible for all this situations that I had to go through, and that they were themselves enduring difficult conditions indirectly because of me. I regret that because of my presence they had to confront difficulties that they did not deserve either.] [But can we negate a world put on terror ?] [I think we somewhat have contributed to our own distress, at least partially. For some of us, it was just easier to let go. For some others, it was in alignment with their political views and their strategy of confusing people. Lightning fire so everybody has to put a mask and react to the same basic and urgent phenomenon, so every body experience the same fear of the fire. I regret that tactical political views come to play a role in a Buddhist Retreat Centre, especially one like Gaïa House, in the country side and with such a beautiful garden. I regret sometimes that nature seems so much more beautiful than the people. Overall, I had the feelings that I wasn't truly helped, supported, nor saved. Now, that I write, third Thursday, I realise that, love, politics, personal projects or ambitions, social alliances and conspiracies, are part of today’s life, even in a Meditation Retreat Centre. It is just the time, the conditions and the atmosphere we ere all living in.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 52/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I regret we accept such conditions to live and practise in. I regret that ugly people have to be painful with others, just to catch their attention, and that in some way they succeed to get it with their provocation. I regret there are so many fools in charge and so much corruption, so less transparency for people to know and make their free choice. I regret that breaking, building and renovating are taken at the same level. I don't regret to have understood that the best way to respond to these unkind provocations, is not indifference, nor accusations, nor attacks, but in deed, is to have a compassionate revolution attitude, to face the real issue they are presenting, and to offer them in the moment of the painful suffering, the awareness and the carefulness that they need and that they do ask behind their brutal manners, and to reveal to them the true love and the free care that, like everybody else, every one is untitled to deserve. Somebody violent is often somebody in fear, in lack. I regret that sometime they abuse of the patience of the peaceful compassionate people like Buddhists, with their hatred, fear and violence, because they know that, by reasons and convictions, Buddhists would not reply with the same objects. So I regret their cowardice, but I don't regret to have understood, that they use and abuse what appears to them as weak targets, just because in reality themselves want to get rid of their own violence and have the deep wish to experience peacefulness too. I regret nobody has told them that there are other ways to reach true stable happiness and peacefulness for oneself, as well as beneficial and positive relationships with others. I regret people let them use those tricks to make business.] [Retreat Centres where there is a big, old and stable Permanent Community of Meditators, are more independent of external conditions, because it enables to keep and build an independent, calm, peaceful, open spacious atmosphere, where local and temporal external conditions would not interfere as much. Such places are precious sanctuaries and opportunities for who ever comes to experience a peaceful time and space to reflect, heal and become better conscious and mindful human beings.] [I did not realise at the time, that I just could have considered myself as away from all this disturbances. I could have decided just to let go of all that. I could have accepted to allow me the possibility to keep the silence not only in my mouth, but mostly in my mind and softly in my body heart. I could have become more concentrated on myself with the help of my mindfulness of the breath and body. I could have decided to focus on other more beneficial states of minds or subjects. I could have decided to practise more Buddhism than Socialism.] [I did try to develop and maintain awesome states of mind: Loving kindness (METTA), gratitude or altruistic joy (MUDITA), compassion (KARUNA), equanimity (UPEKA). But, since the difficulties and the challenges put on my shoulders were constant, increasing, changing, and since I had to interfere with other people, because I was in a working retreat, it did not seem very productive, nor efficient. And those very useful practises would have kept me in “the relation with others”. It would have been more beneficial for me to be more into me, more in a completely absorbed state of mine. But my mind was more in the thinking of finding adequate responses to all these challenges that were proposed to me. I did realised some of that at the time, and let the Rainbow Warrior for a Yogi Lover.] [Be the peace we want to see in the world.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 53/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I just could have just ignored all this and be with myself inside my own retreat.] [I regret I got personally involved in all this, but I regret also that I let myself involved or carried away in all this. It is not that easy not to be influenced by external events and especially when the pressure is so intense and gradually increasing. My pain is my heavenly messenger (suffering, pain, illness, accident, ageing, death) to remind me of being with myself in the presence of the present.] [And I came to Gaïa House to participate, not to isolate myself.]

[In the presence of the present I can really face and deal with what is]

[Nevertheless, I realise now that the pressure might always be intense, in a retreat, and that it is because it is so intense, that people get involved with external preoccupations, that they look for an escape in this involvement, instead of just accepting the pressure as a way to get in deeper consciousness. This understanding shows or explains why in Buddhism our enemy is considered as our best teacher, meaning that confronting with what is the most difficult, is a way to get really with ourselves, with what counts, because this is what is compelling us, and to get deeper in ourselves as well as in our own mindfulness practice of our own consciousness. Probably one has to decide for oneself, according to one's own beliefs, engagements, priorities, limits, what is best to do, when, how and with whom. But I understand that the real beneficial and positive attitude of Buddhism is there, in the grasping, so to speak, of the present moment with all it may contain. But Buddhism is not about passivity, on the contrary this attitude requires lots of energy, lots of generosity and lots of presence.] [If there were a war out there (Thanatos), I think it would be hard not to be part of it. And if I was to encounter love (Eros), I would personally take the time to submit to it. I realise that the truth is that I was always allowing myself to be preoccupied or simply occupied by those events, that I decided to take as my own, and of my personal concern, that I accepted to considered as mine because they were directed to me. Like my curiosity and love were directed to you my Sweet Lotus Dream. It is certainly possible to let go of things, whether they are external or internal, personal or not. That is maybe the one and only way to progress on the Path and to discover more wisdom.]

[I believe now it is an important lesson for my life and for further meditation retreat I might pursue. I say “might”, because I felt so disappointed by the ambiance that I was telling myself all the time, “this is the last time I get engaged in such retreat”, as I should of said to myself that “I shouldn't get caught by these kind of distractions, even if they might appear as very personal, very important or very urgent”. May my writing give the understanding to the reader that things are not as always simple as they seems, that things and understandings changes, like people, and that there are always ways to improve one moment and one situation. So maybe it is not my last attempt to participate in a Mutual Community Meditation Retreat, and maybe I will meet you again my Sweet Lotus Dream.] [Less caught knowing I got caught, but still caught at you.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 54/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I realise now after one month of writing and thinking about all this, that Meditation Retreats may always and only be that way, because it is the time to deal with what is out there and what is inside there. I realise I am more of a political person than I thought I wanted to be, and all my thinking about Ethics is certainly making me more of a social human being.]

[I realise that maybe one should take the engagement not to be influenced at all by anything at all during the time of a personal retreat. And in saying so, I am starting to understand why, you, my Sweet Lotus Dream, you are still there, may you be blessed and accumulate the great merit that you deserve for your effort. An effort I couldn't have done because I did not have this new understandings. An effort that I will always have difficulties to attain, as long as I keep unspoken my hope and my desire to love. An effort that will become so easy when my love will be certain, true and real. Because love gives a platform to build on.] [They did have repeated in the last teachings of my last week at Gaïa House, the words of their Thai forest teacher, saying that “the more we let go, the more we become in peace, free and wise”, but even if I was agreeing a little, I just did not have the clearness of mind to use the understanding of this teaching in the exact situation I was in at that time.] [I don't want to be so much polluted any more by all this external agendas that are put in our mind in this Global Information System, where so much parasites and terrorisers are using it for their own interests.] [Another understanding before I go to sleep, tonight third Wednesday very late or third Thursday very early, with my Dream of a Lotus Seed. I am realising that what ever occurs in life, is because we have in ourselves the place for it to come and to settle. So I let go of the “world war”.]

We have the cocoon that fit the seed

[And the will to feed that seed. In particular during a meditation retreat, when the condition to be mindful and concentrated are optimal, what ever occurs, is arising because we have in our mind the space for it to arise. For example, my love for my Absent Lotus Dream was possible because we both had that same imprint in our own mind. We both have the deep imprint in our mind to find someone to share love with, and of course, our bodies and attitudes showed to each other that such a project seemed acceptable enough to be reasonably considered and realised. Whatever is, occurs because it is part of our Past Karma, that we have in our mind memory, but it is also our duty or Present Karma to respond to whatever happens. Our Past Karma meet our Present Karma. We are impressed by things that are impressive for us, and it leaves another impression in our mind. If we were having a walk in the park with our parents, we all would have to be there, and want to meet, to play together. Therefore it is very important to be aware and mindful of whatever happens in our present. Not over reacting about it, especially if a bad seed meets a bad imprint. Fortunately, our love is a good seed and we have good imprints. We are blessed, Lotus Dream. I see kiss you night.] [One last word to go to sleep, endless 3rd Wednesday]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 55/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [It is said in Buddhism and in Permaculture: our problems are part of the solution.] [We have to practise mindfulness with whatever arises, because whatever arises is whatever we are attached to, and if we let go of what we are attached to, then we become more free with whatever arises, because then we can let go of unskilful and non beneficial reaction patterns, and we can allow ourselves to invent a more adequate response, which can be to act or not to act.] [Love is such a particular attachment, that it requires a special treatment, like this letter. I bless you Laughing Lotus Dream.] [Whatever arises is not always something we are attached to, it is when we grasp, catch, hold on to whatever arises, when we take it personally, that we show by our feeling thinking attitude that this whatever arising is finding in ourselves a place to attach itself. It finds a place to hang on, as it is making us developing a reaction, instead of just letting it be and go.] [This is a big lesson. Instead of growing attachments and enslavement, we can grow mindfulness and freedom. We can fill our cups with lights, let go of the suffering chains.] [Thank you Dharamsala India, Gaïa House United Kingdom, Normandy France. Thank you my Invisible Lotus Dream Teacher. Despite all these difficulties, I have worked and maintained my ways and my hopes. Following Voltaire in the best known world, we can Grow our own Green Garden.] [I am thankful for this charming lady from London who was kind enough to say something about being in our own shoes. We talked about films and love, then she had to rush away. I am thankful for this charming Indian lady who was compassionate enough with me to imagine some stratagems to verbalised indirectly a difficult situation. I cannot ignore we can do better, invent a kind presence and true soft words, change the perception of our lonelinesses, orient our attention to common grounds, choose skilful loving energies to change the situation. Talk about all that is not impossible. Without incorrect words, we can address softly directly with anybody those issues. There is such a darkness in this world that it prefers to be let in the dark. So we can let it in the dark, and bring to light what pleases us. We cannot reject that it is our own and only responsibility to talk about what seems important to us. We cannot forget to concentrate on the good. What we want is to feel good. Do we play .?.] [She mentioned the words of the song Romeo and Juliet:”It was just the time that was wrong”. I was thinking, but the time is always good to do good, to feel good, and should always be good. Our words, attitudes, presences could have been better. It was the hottest summer ever in Greenwich Mean Time, and in that time zone time should always be on time for the sake of the world. Villers Sur Mer Normandy France is exactly the place where the line of The Greenwich Meridian arrives in France. Please beautiful people from all over the world, don't mistake my beautiful intentions. I take the time to express all these feelings I felt, and all these new understandings I have reached, because I truly want to solve and soften those unnecessary troubles. We don't want a darker world. Life and human relations are too precious to be confronted all the time to this kind of pressure, conflicts and injustice. I want to be faithful and honest to my Dearest Lotus Dream. I hope this kind of peaceful harbour place should exist in the future. I think that Gaï House & Garden should improve to become the most beautiful and joyful Buddhist Meditation Centre in Europe.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 56/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [With all that which I wrote, I should have learned how to be happy in any circumstances. I should not react badly any more, not only in my actions and in my speeches, but also in my heart and in my mind. Practise takes times of mindfulness. At the French Radio, I hear or I understand some words that I symbolically interpret with the meaning that our relation is false, mistaken and broken for ever. I have a strange feeling tone as this interpretation is strongly corrupting my state of mind. I feel bad, I doubt myself but not the lie I hear. I am trying to justify my feeling. I hear me thinking that it might be true after all, because you are not here. I don't think, you are always here with me my love. It is not the emotion not to be loved, it is the emotion to be mistaken about our love. But why should I let the opinion of this unknown and unkind person to have an influence in my mind. I must take really good care of myself, my environment, my perceptions, my feelings, my thinking, my beliefs. Stay open, happy and kind. I reflect that some sad people just have their poison to share with others. They use their work as a psychotherapy place, people as in a game. They would like to show that they have an influence too. To prove they sadly exist, they resist in their sad ways. Like if they wanted to be sure that other people know their troubles, they contaminate others with the same troubles they do. They are mistaken, so they want others to be mistaken too. Nevertheless, it is true that anything can be, and it is true that it is an occasion to practise. These sudden repulsion feeling tones are very intense, but very short. It wouldn't be wise to base one important and long term decision on them. Nevertheless, the intensity of the sensation gives the impression, in the moment, that they are important and true feelings, because lots of energy has been put into them. But they are neither, and the mistake would be to react to the intensity of the emotion, rather than its value, rather than its meaning. These sudden repulsions might come back once in a while, to prove that they are not extinguished, to prove that they still have some gas, but they are peripheral and meaningless phenomenons. They are just external tentative of contamination, of domination, bluff, poof, splash. I have the feeling that it is because I continue to write and let you alone in Gaïa House that you are not happy, and by reaction you are sending me to the roses, if we can say something like this in English. I hope you can understand my Impatient Lotus Dream, that I just have to finish writing this text, so it become complete and ready to be published. Because it is an experience that can be beneficial to others. Today third Friday His Holiness the fourteenth Dalaï Lama is in France for teachings and blessings.] [Be happy with your presence and your absence, trust the silence]

[Today third Thursday late morning, I want to express what happened to me yesterday. I have had sexual arousals here too with you almost every night. I am thinking of you and start to imagine things, making fantasies and plays. [This last night, after having writing all day, I am going over this passage again, correcting a little just enough that it is readable. But suddenly, I feel very tired again, and I go to sleep, and at midnight, my phone rings, nobody I know is calling but it rings twice. I wake up and come back to writing, just to finish as soon as possible.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 57/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Last night around five in the morning, I had a strong sexual arousal with you, with your image, with my feelings and with my sexual fantasies that I imagine between us. These sexual phantasm are not extremes but rather normal I would say.] [So I have been indulging myself in onanism at night, in my bed, because these thoughts and images were coming to me, because I wanted to be with you, and because it is very difficult, alone, stressed and tired not to let oneself in those relaxing and distracting actions. Anyway, I have masturbated, which is alright, there is no guilt to have because of that, except that it is better to find someone to do it with, and except that the seeds should not fall on the floor like it is said in some holy book. My life, body, speech, heart and mind, like it is often said in Buddhism, is my own and my personal responsibility. Everything is fine. [It feels strange to read about my masturbation.] Lately, I have been thinking that not indulging in masturbation is a way to prepare oneself to meet the right person. So I regret and apologise for the so many times, I have not let myself the possibility to change my lonely situation and to prepare to meet someone. I have been there all the time, like you, you have been there too. May my fault be an example for others, so they don't have to wait in waiting rooms for years and decades, and may they live in the real their life, the real life that they have. It is a bad bargain to content oneself with only virtual imitations and fantasies.] [So I have noticed that my sexual senses and orgasms were manipulated from the outside. I was kind of excited from an external subtle point of view. I believe it is like an invitation to explore my desire and my envy to do sex. There were this door open, where I could let strangers enter without knowing them. Now the door is closed, I have the key. But the manipulation goes further to my understanding of it. I also believe that this external point of view is using the result of my actions and sensation, as a material to be transferred and used outside my room and for people outside my environment, and for a purpose that I don't know, but that I imagine to deceive people or to force make them do something. Like if, and I kind of believe it is somewhat true, like if my orgasm had some kind of power, and could be used to bring some relief, joy or strength to others. It is a feeling that I already have had when I was watching pornographic video. I believe the sexual desire that people express while watching sexual videos, and the pleasure they experience when they reach an orgasm, is used by the pornographic industry to gain some spiritual powers and to negotiate for themselves a better place in this world of temptations, addictions and enslavement. Of course the desire and the excitation are strong, but these experiences are not real. And I truly hope that people can overcome the taboo that has been put culturally, spiritually and historically on love and on sex. Because like Death, Love and Sex are strong human drives, so controlling these drives is a way to control the people. Love is good and Sex is alright, when it is well done with truthfulness and kindness, when it is, like they say in Buddhism, done in a proper and correct conducted way. Adult people, women and men, should allow themselves to share with other real adult people, men or women, the willingness and the tenderness of these moment. And it is easy, people just have to talk to each other, freely, honestly, without fears and without issues. They don't have to promise themselves for eternity to enjoy terrestrial orgasms.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 58/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So I am being used through my desire and my loneliness, as I am using some external perceptions and images to fulfil this sexual desire that I have in myself. While the people that are making those images are being used too in a market where their body is sold to sell simulation of sexuality. And the result of my physical sensations and explosion of hormones and contentment is also being used to continue the vice circle and to manipulate some other people. Maybe the worst is my pseudo spiritual intellectual acceptance of indulging in those actions, that is being used as a permission for others to do the same mistakes and to accept being involved in the same kind of corruption. Finally the guilt and the social shame of all the persons involved in that process is being used to manipulate their psychology that is let in confusion and desolation. And all this just because, some real human beings had some fear to talk truly to each others, to meet, to care for one another, and did not find easily in the society the opportunities to copulate freely kindly.]

[So understanding this mechanism and this enslavement, in which I have been participating in weakly, I decide yesterday, to refrain from my physical sexual conduct with my lonely self. And I said to myself, that maybe it would be better for both of us, to refrain these sexual assaults that are not truly ours. In my mind I always thought that we might have these experiences somewhat together and maybe at the same time too. Since you are on retreat, maybe it would be useful for you not to be “invested” by my own and distant sexual needs. So I decide, as I have already done before, to stop indulging myself in masturbation. Everything is fine, and I feel fine with the idea, as I think it brings me closer to you in a way. But I don't train my mind to be able to hold this new idea in whatever circumstances.] [Need to train to stop, need to clean past zombies imprints.]

[And I write all day and all night, and at five in the morning, I am very tired and I go to bed. But then those sexual desires come to my mind again, with very strong sensations and demands. My penis is in strong and long lasting erection. I can feel the hardness of the male desire. I touch myself and I can feel the very nice and voluptuous sensation on my skin and inside my body. I recall the wish I have expressed to me during the day to stop doing this, but the appealing is very strong, continuously very desirable. Your image is in the picture, so I don't directly feel that I am being untrue to you, my thoughts are confused because of the idea that you could do the same at the same time, and that we could engage and indulge ourselves willingly together. But I feel I am being untrue to my wish and to my will to act with respect of your own well being and “dignity”. There is no “dignity” to have anywhere, anyhow, only “vanity”, people don't have more “dignity” if they wear a tie, a hat or a gun. Sorry, my words are coming to me with my own conditioning and with my Christian and Occidental European Culture. So I don't feel untrue to you, and you are not there anyway. I think our commitment is purely hypothetical, purely spiritual for the moment, and in my semi sleep, I don't feel untrue this reasoning, and I don't realise the importance of the subtle nuance menacing our truth. A spiritual commitment is always very important as it engages the whole person. And commitments are necessary for engagements.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 59/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [But I feel untrue to me, because I think that I might hurt you, because I think I am not doing what I had thought to do, and because I know that if I do, what I do and my experience will be used in a way and for purposes, that I don't really know, but that I don't really like. But it is late, I am tired, I know that an orgasm help me relax and find sleep. But I know it is untrue too. I touch myself to know how it feels, and it feels good. I am thinking with tenderness about you, and also with hardship because in a way you are the reason why I should stop. I know that I have needs too, and that it is my responsibility to take care of my well being, and to maintain some metabolism in me. But I know it is untrue too. I know that I need to survive if I want to continue to live in this world, and I cannot always stay in a denial or a refusal position. But I know it is untrue too. I Know that I need to have some kind of “reward” or “pleasure” in my living experience, not to become completely nuts or really crazy. But I know it is untrue too. They use in Buddhist meditation, the expression “rapture” to qualify these awesome states of mind where nothing more is needed than the realisation of emptiness. But I know it is untrue too. And I know that I am here in Normandy France, that I have had some intuitions, insights and good thinking, because I am here, sharing the space and the surrounded consciousness. But I know it is untrue too. I am starting to think that maybe I will and maybe I could indulge myself again. Doubts, thinking and justifications, envy are coming with temptations and my weaknesses are becoming stronger, weakening my resolution, because I did not train myself. I know that I am not strong enough in that matter, because I do desire sexual orgasm. But I know it is untrue too. I recall my wish of virginity, and turn on the side to think about something else, but my sex is still in strong erection, and I can't sleep or think about anything else. I wait some time, try to find some sleep, and I notice that my erection is still strong. I know That I can be defeated and one defeat doesn't mean the end of the battle. But I know it is untrue too. Finally, I think that I am entangled in a double duty. I have to be faithful to you in England, and to the people here too in France, and I feel it is unfair to be just fair with only one side. I feel stuck and caught in a reasoning where there is no solution, because either I do or either I don't. Then I think of myself, of my duty to fulfil my own needs, to fulfil my own desires. And here is how the balance got in favour of my untrue indulging. I don't think strongly because I am very tired, I just let my inclination. I don't think that my duty and my real true need is to be in concord with what I have decide before. I touch myself more and more. I think that it is really pleasurable. I continue more and faster, and there it comes, I feel the acceptance to welcome the desire and the sexual experience. And then, rapidly, I have an orgasm, I feel good, I feel relax, I feel in peace, and I found sleep easily.] [But my past imprints are reinforced, not in controlled and projected.]

[But in the morning, I have all these ideas that I have just related. Maybe because of remorse, maybe because I don't want to stay on a defeat. The spiritual warrior is still alive. I think I must write these ideas, because my wish to be faithful and true to you is real and strong. It is just that you are not there, and that I have not trained myself enough for that purpose.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 60/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [So I have try to be honest and true with me, and with you at the same time, but please accept that I am in the process of being a better human, which means that not everything is settled and well done from the beginning, but that there is a path to walk with compassion for oneself as well as for you and for others. I follow a star but it doesn't mean that I am always capable of taking the most straightforward road. ]

[I understand that it is not the real values of Ethics that can become contradictory, but those values can come in contact with personal attachments that have not yet been resolved, and in this conflictual situation, I have to try to be as much true and faithful as I can, and in doing so, I was first true to me, then true to you, then true to my work. The work I want to give to you and to other, is important to me, like a piece of art, because it helps me to feel that my loneliness has somewhat been a little bit useful. Like Gandhi said, “my life is my message”. Then I wanted to stay true to the humanity I belong to with my strengths and weaknesses. Then I tried to be true to the particular people I like and want to take care of. Then came the rest that was not taken into account in my thinking, because I am still in my ego sphere, in my wanting and my desire about love and still in my human body and in my conditioned mind. ]

[This is a big lesson for me, as I understand the difference between relative things that happen in the moment within our own situation, our own history, goals, strengths and skills, and the absolute things that are part of an infinite and eternal realm. Ethics are guidelines, it is our consciously human duty to go towards them, but we don't have to feel bad because we or everybody else has not yet arrived to the destination. It is a process for all of us and sometimes it is challenging as it is difficult to become aware of new choices. We are all in transition.]

[My practise feels good when I have the feeling that I am doing good, when not my best, and when I am convinced that I am going good in the correct direction. It is not that I forgive myself, it is that I am not punishing myself, because I am still in the process, because I am still in the good direction to become a better consciously and compassionately human being. I don't get overwhelmed by my own exigence as long as my whole experience is still in harmony.] [I understand now how people who unconsciously know that they unfortunately went and drove themselves into the wrong direction, can be hard on themselves, willing to punish themselves unconsciously too. They know they are going in the wrong direction, but they still go, because they are enslaved to some short term advantages that they have and that they cannot leave behind their resolution. They maintain their wrong cap, despite the fact that they know it is not where they truly ought to go. And in doing this or in maintaining this attitude, they are keeping a contradiction that they carry within themselves. I understand how sometimes they punish themselves in doing things that they know are not good in the long term absolute sense, but that feels good, and consequently that seems to be good in their trivial short term situation. ]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 61/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [They are hiding their unwillingness of an absolute good, that they know but still refuse, and their shame of such an attitude, with some relative good that gives them the illusion to have a good life. The feeling good sensation is deceiving their body and their mind, as it gives them the illusion to be right in the maintaining of the contradiction that they keep holding in themselves. They even build in their mind the idea that phantasms are necessary for their desire to exist.] [The sad reality is that this contradiction keeps them in a surviving mode, out of the possibility of real redemption, which in the matter brings a real and true good feel. The feel to be good is great. They are like drug addicts, always in the need to refill their addiction, so they don't face a reality that they already know. They could accept this higher truth, but they can't accept to loose the advantages they have with the lower relative truth. They maintain themselves in their wrong attitude. Because it is only by recognising one's error, that one is allowing the possibility to become correct again. It is just as simple as that, deeply recognising one's error and truly willing to stop. This is the Buddhist process of purifying one's mind with the four opponent powers (Regret, Reliance, Remedy, Resolve or Restraint, Radiance, Gratitude, Dedication). This process of redemption starts with the true and conscious regret. For this regret to come, one has to believe in love. This process doesn't excuse past faults, it purifies the mind to become better.] [While saying this, I understand why Spiritual Mafiosi and Corrupted Gurus, require the total acceptance and submission of their people. Because they don't want to introduce any contradiction in their system, but they hide that their system is not universal. Because their “so called ultimate truth” (that is still relative compared to the entire universe, or other spiritual groups) requires to be hold by all members as the “true truth” and cannot be questionable. Because if someone is questioning that partial “relative ultimate truth”, then it puts in danger all the integrity of the system and its philosophical base and purpose. Exactly like a Ponzy Pyramid that is disappearing when people are running away from it. This “relative ultimate truth” is then only “true and valuable” for the members only, and as long as they hold it as such. It may be the truthful wish and hope for an ultimate truth to arise and be, but in the way it is materialised, in the way it is conducted, and in the consequences that it produces, it remains just a belief of an ultimate truth, it remains a partial truth.] The real truth is the all and only truth

They are, in a complex psychological manner, punishing themselves with the good pleasures they are indulging them into, and in their facetious pride behaviour they hold in society. I know because I have been doing this a lot too, but just in a reverse manner. I was finding relative satisfactions and pleasures in knowing and in feeling, but I was refusing to acknowledge that my daily reality was poor, lonely, sterile and unreal. And by maintaining my attitude of pride and absolute, I was forbidding myself to be part of and to be accepted by the real and true human realm. Like if I wanted to stay on the other side of the mirror, or even be the mirror itself. Absolute and relative are together part of the same reality

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 62/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [They are punishing themselves, like we all do, because they know unconsciously that these good pleasures and honourable postures, are not just and are not true. It is a punishment because it prevents them from going forward in the correct direction. Because they know that these actions are not in concordance with the truth that they truly hold for the truth, within their own mind. They are being satisfied with their own complaisance on themselves, and they maintain their attitude because it brings them advantages and privileges that they wouldn't have if they were in the truth of who they really are. Some have gone so far in the injustice that they fear to stop. To really feel good and be happy to feel good, one (all of us) must be in peace and in harmony with some kind of spiritual honesty or some kind of human sincerity. While staying in the contradiction and in the confusion, they hold on to their own “precious weaknesses” as the only “fake gold” they deserve to have. It is the refusal to accept entirely and truly the absolute truth in their lives, and its normal and just consequences to behave in concordance with it.]

Life is simple and great

[Hereafter I continue to say “they” as it was written that way, but it can be easy to say “we” instead, if we think it can apply to us too.] [So it is the wanting of not letting go of personal indulgences and pleasures, because they think they deserve them or need them, because they think that they have suffered enough and that they are entitled to some reparation, that maintain in their psyche, the impossibility to really change of direction and to do otherwise in their own daily life. It is the wicked sadomasochism relation between good and bad, that is also involved, finding good in bad, doing bad for good, hoping for good in bad, thinking that good and bad are equal, like if the light had to compare itself with the shadow. ] Shadow is the absence of Light Bad is the absence of Good False is the absence of Truth Hate is the absence of Love Misery is the absence of Wealth Injustice is the absence of Justice Death is the absence of Life [Of course there can be examples where something bad has good result, and vice versa, or that things are more grey than well separated, or that outcomes are so complex that they stay undetermined for our own awareness. The purpose is not to deny the relative reality of those examples, but it is about not making of a particular example a rule of generality. Good can be bad in relative experiences, but in general good is good, and by definition bad is bad, and good is good. It is the belief that, as a general rule, good can be bad and bad can be good, or that Good equals Bad, that is the wrong view, and that is questioning unfairly the ultimate truth of the eternal and compassionate divine.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 63/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [In our personal life we can have grey experiences or grey understandings. And this relative experiences or understandings are also true in Buddhism. For example, a Guru can be or become a crook, because he is still a human being, as well the Sangha can become corrupted as we are all under the pressure of the present moment and its impermanence.]

[But the Dharma is true, and is not questionable. It is said in Buddhism that this is an absolute wrong view to say that the Dharma can be wrong. Like for any other religion, the Goodness of the means and of the purpose that have been revealed by higher consciousness are not questionable. It doesn't mean that Gods, priests, or humans are not questionable either. It means that the “Ultimate Truth” is the “Absolute Truth”, the ultimate Goodness is Good. And thinking that it can be other wise is a real misunderstanding, a real mistake and a real danger. That is why people who want to maintain their bad actions are holding to wrong views. That is why people who want to maintain their wrong views are holding to bad actions. These wrong views and wrong actions are not beneficial for them. And that is why, in doing so they are punishing themselves, even if those bad actions or wrong views give some illusory good feelings. ]

[A wrong view leads to wrong actions, and a wrong actions lead to wrong views]

[That is why in my personal example of sexual misconduct, I regret my fault, but mostly I declare and repeat my intention of going in the correct direction. Our stains in us and our mistakes in our lives doesn't make us bad people. It is the will to go towards the wrong direction that make someone a bad person, because he or she is claiming that as its own identity. Mistakes and stains can be transformed in good motivation, to increase our determination to clean ourself and to be cleaner than we already are.] [Shit happens, but bullshit is not a doctrine.] [This sexual misconduct event, that I have been going through yesterday, third Thursday, and that came back today without succeeding this time, has been a big lesson for me. But I also rejoice because this understanding is for me also a big lesson for understanding human justice. Because of my own personal difficulties, temptations and contradictions, I can better understand how others too can be struggling in their owns. This indulging experience showed me the required humanely indulgence to be with others, to see others with compassion and benevolence, and to live in harmony and in peace with all living beings.] [May we all maintain our progress into the correct good direction.] [This experience showed me the need to constantly be striving towards the good direction, to question, to ask, to look, to search, to build, to do and do again, to always start from the beginning, as it is easy to be confused, to be mislead, to be sleepy, to stop, to renounce, and to cheat with one's own values. I am grateful for all these new understandings in my life as well as for the new life that will come to me because of them. May we all benefit from these experiences, and learn from them.] [I have fallen many times, and fell again, but in mind the fall is not to remain, because as I crawled, and knelt, now I walk, and I will run to the sky.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 64/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [There is also this one time with this remarkable young lady from New Zealand, who was cooking beautifully, mindfully, and with a delicious fresh talent for mixing the flavours and the tastes, the colours and the textures of the vegetarian food. (Someone from the teacher wing told me once that we were lucky she had cooked with lots of love, like if it was extraordinary, unusual and unexpected, to do things with love in a Buddhist Retreat Centre). So I remember that time, when this charming young lady came to me in the dinning room, touching my shoulder delicately, while I was waiting on the line for lunch, and gave me a sign to follow her inside the cooler room, where all the vegetables were kept at the right temperature. It was nice from her to tell me humanely and with loving kindness about the need for some more trays of salads and the need to have them ready early in the morning. It seemed that if I was complying to their demands, then they would be safe. It became a real tough job for me that I had to execute every day, but I was happy to do so. And she had one other time in the kitchen, a real smile of gratefulness, when in the morning working karma yogi hour, I brought in time some new trays of fresh salads with some delicate lovely flowers and herbs from the garden.]

[I can see in the impermanence of my writing the slow elaboration of my points of views, and the difficulty to keep the harmony and the coherence in the text that I have to rewrite. Every day I have to rescan the text and its meaning. I have to rewrite things as my understandings changes and deepens from my first writings that were too sharp and extremes. That is another benefit from rewriting, I see things with a better kindness. But lets continue the way it is, as I express my true feelings and understandings, that were not, are not, and will rarely be always all black, nor all white. So referring to some other paragraphs above, that is why, I never had the certainty to feel at ease with the Gaïa House's staff in general. I remember once I had to write a note to a coordinator, saying “we need love too”, after having said to him that we needed good food for our body and good sleep for our mind, because he was frequently telling me that I did not “need” to know this or to do that. Anyway, I always felt on the border with the majority of the people working there as coordinators, with the people working there as volunteers, or with the other retreatants, like if they knew too I was an outsider. I have felt so strange when I am with others, and felt like a lost angel, and will until I am able to arrange my perceptions accordingly to my correct position. I thought that people saw me as an outsider, because I too was accepting to see myself as such, and I was projecting that image onto them, which then was reflected to me.]

[As I am writing, I can now recall many times when there were exceptions. People expressing almost invisibly to me their exception, their compassion, but again, I was and maybe we all were, so overwhelmed and busy by the heavy atmosphere, that was imposed to us all, that it did not appear to me that way, at least at that time. So they were many other exceptions that appeared to me as very few exceptions. Particularly, at the end of my retreat, during what I was told meaningfully “my last days” at Gaïa House's plot, I could feel those welcome exceptions.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 65/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [As I was in need of exceptions, I thought that some retreatant people could notice themselves, what I was experiencing, and in their own personal ways were expressing compassion and support, were saying their own exceptions. Then I felt their compassion and their consideration, but it was always in a very discrete manner, sometimes without any words at all, with just a kind attention or even just a kind thought. And as I rewrite this paragraph, my memory and this story, I smile at the silent exceptions you were offering me. These feelings I will always keep with me

[Some other times, I could feel the strong and ugly determination of some other people, using me, and using tricks and artifices, to impose by force their will to see me do and go. It seems like if people's attitudes and choices were dramatically opposed and artificially put in rivalry. It was the time of this third wicked “Brexit” referendum vote of the British people to decide whether they stay or not in Europe, that was ridiculously manipulated in so many illegal, untrue and unfair ways, that the intentions and the manners of the partisans to leave the continent should be questioned in a real transparent and well informed democracy, and that the result itself of the vote that is supposed to reflect the free and true mind, as well as the real opinions and interests of the citizens, should be questioned in a real educated and independent country.]

[So it seems at Gaïa House too, they were this artificial split in the people and in the air. They were the ones that considered that I deserved their exception and their compassion, and there were the other side that considered that I did not deserved their exception or their benevolence. There were the ones who knew in their heart and who accepted in their mind the present reality that I was innocent and suffering like they were too, and there were the other side, that was considering that I was responsible for the suffering, whether it was mine, theirs or some else’s suffering, happy to put their own hatred on my shoulder. This other side considered that they could easily prove that I was directly responsible for this situation and their own discomfort, because if I wasn't there, if I was to go, then these discomforts and suffering would go too, and would disappeared with me. But was I the cause, the condition or just a pretext for creating some suffering ? Nobody has taken the bother to offer some response to this question of human responsibility and of social injustice.]

[Fortunately, in one hand they were some compassionate community people for me and themselves, willing to offer some relief, and in a way some support for that suffering, that we were all enduring. Unfortunately in the other hand, they were some pragmatical individual people, considering only their particular interests, refusing to be compassionate or generous, with someone they considered as responsible for their personal sufferings, and refusing to share or to try to find together an appropriate response in order to diminish, stop or eradicate that suffering. Refusing to share their positiveness, but accepting to thraw their negativeness.] [Like the story of Abel and Cain, I write to express the need to say things, to make live the words and the breath.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 66/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [The truth and the Goodness were opposed, and in doing so, artificially compared and put at the same level as the untrue and the unfair. It is not that it is inconsiderate to consider one's own individual interests (in plural), it is that it doesn't correspond to the problematic that is put in question: the interest (in singular) of the whole country and the global community welfare.] [Nowadays people in advantageous positions in the world try to become even more in charge, in order to benefit from the confusion they entertain, between public and private, between society and individuality, between sacred and profane, between spirituality and community.] [These feelings and these conditions, made my life miserable, and my confused mind had to work even more to find some clarity, some understanding and some detachment about all this past. A clear past makes an easy present and a better future to come.] [It is not that easy to make one's own life happiness completely independent from the conditions we are living in, and that is a real beneficial Buddhist understanding. This is what I will call the fifth noble truths: the truth of the interdependence of suffering. In my solitude and in my own search for finding some relief or some solutions, I was also making some awkward connections betweens events, or making some strange hypothesis on what, why, who, how all this was happening to me. There were also some other particular things, that were operating, and that I did experienced, noticed, remembered, integrated and worried about, but it is hard to say everything in one single phrase, complex to express everything in one single text, which goal in the first place, is just to tell you how I feel, to ask how you feel, my Soft and Gentle Sweet Flourishing Lotus Dream.] [It may seems that a retreat is a safe place to be with oneself, but the truth is that it is a place were things are amplified. Because of the silence, but also because of the presence of many people sharing the place and having themselves the same amplification. And many little subtle things come to play a role “in such a silent and solitary environment”. And there are in deed many forms of events and many forms of communications that are not with speaking words.][Like meeting the people and separating, seeing their faces and their bodies, touching their glances or their look, feeling their feelings, their thoughts or their worries, thinking or making stories about them, wondering what should be our own personal focus or social behaviour. Like hearing the teachings, or what we can receive as some interpretation of the teachings, or making for oneself some personal understanding of these interpretations of the teachings. Like thinking that everything that happens is intentional and directed to oneself. Like in the organisation, particular rules and looks from the management, or in particular attitudes and demands from the coordinators, or even in particular attitudes or interactions from the retreatants themselves. Like the meanings we see that have been attached to some particular object or word that were put on one's path, or the ideas that there is some purpose behind those things. Like in my sleeps the strange intrusive dreams that I could have had. Like the surroundings, with sounds of the birds or of the winds, the noise of the building living or of the people walking, talking, the images and the words that come to mind. Like in my thoughts, these ideas of the world that I consider would be helpful, but that I refuse at the same time to take as being my responsibility.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 67/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [As I am writing like the Russian little dolls [that are [encapsulated [in] each] others], you can tell that the content is hashed, or discontinued, because as I follow my thoughts, I can add long parts in between parts.] [This particular technique allow me to go deeper or to smoothly surf on the surface, but it can be a never ending story, as it is always possible to add and rebound almost anywhere.] [A progressive personal psychoanalysis of one encounter in a moving mirror.] [The truth is that the higher we fly, [the deeper we fall], the more we feel alone and pressured, the more we feel compelled, to the detachment of our particular views, and to the renouncement of the world and its people. So many times, I wanted to terminate with “all this” shit, with myself or with others.“All this” did not contribute to make me feel welcomed, or even considered. I feel I cannot say what “all this” is about any more, there have been so much, that it is just an indiscernible pile of unwanted.] [“All this” that I had to let go.] [I realise now that it was my ways of relating that were entertaining an “all this” position. With the tool of compassion, I changed my look, it changed my eyes, my mind and my heart.] [Today 4th Saturday, I rewrote this text with new understandings and with more compassion. We desperately need more compassion.] [I “all this” hardly ever really felt some solid and durable engagement in loving kindness, in true compassion.] [Everybody was just too overwhelmed.] [Maybe, I have to realise once for all, that life is food and work in this world, that even Mind Centres are places where to experiment the domination principle of the world.] [These are training places where to learn how to deal with the three poisons in our minds.] [I have spit some of them on these pages, and swallowed much more.] [But there is light.] [There were many soft and short exceptions, but these did not appeared as such at the time, when I was still in Gaïa House, nor when I returned in France and started to write. It is only inside the writings that those insights were finding the right conditions to arise. It took time and needed space to grow my mind in a kind wider scale.]

[Now I must relate briefly four other exceptions that I had with retreatants, and that are tender to my heart. The first is with a nice girl from Norway. We happened to talk before her retreat and after. I told her that I was happy she had a different experience than mine in India. During the retreat I could feel great compassion for the suffering she had lived, and when she left, she told me to take very very good care of me, and it felt very relaxing to hear that, even though my thoughts were much darker than this little but thoughtful declaration of sympathy.]

[The second is that other young girl from England but with a French name and some beautiful blond hair and an amazing body, we were working at the garden together, and once she offered me to bring some tea. She chose the red Eucalyptus tea I like and for her the milk tea, [Not too much milk my dear] and while we were drinking together inside the greenhouse, she made me talk. She asked me if I had a garden, and there I was, starting to tell her all about my green world and the enchantment of the garden for the family I dream of. She smiled and that was it, we never talked again. Later, I could feel, I could have gone a bit too far just being true, just being me.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 68/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [The third is that English nice fellow man that I have already talked about further down this paragraph. Three day before I leave, he offered me some real Italian coffee. Because as an experienced practitioner, he had brought some with him, that he was keeping in the fridge of the Hermitage Wing. He made the coffee in front of me, and then he poured it in our cups, and hit the cups like we do for champagne or a glass of wine, and then that's it, he left me by myself, with my own worries on how this retreat will end or if it will end, what should I do or will you do something before I leave. Then the day after, I thank him again for his nice attention, and I tell him that I would be happy to do the same and offer him a coffee, if we ever meet again outside. And then he came to me his arms open wide to offer a fraternal hug. It felt a little strange, as I am not use to physical contact, but we hugged and I thought isn't it strange, just a little true polite phrase, and here it comes, some interaction between humans.] [Little exotic butterfly.]

[The fourth is that very young and small girl from Finland. I have talked about her already. She came to me the day before I leave. She freely offered me a free tender hug. I feel fortunate and very nice to be in her little arms. I feel alive like a human being to feel her tiny body and my body both embraced.] [I see there is some kind of a progression in the sequence of these events.]

[So I had some very short nice and pleasant moment with very few people that I briefly had the chance to meet. It was exceptional and it felt extraordinary. Rapidly after these little bubbles of human expansion, I often felt that the people's attitude towards me were going back to the normal indifference, back to the shield group attitude, that had gained their cause again. It is so easy to just follow the easy way. Finally we cannot keep longer the swim against the main stream current, unless we are very well trained, ready to die, really motivated by the higher truth of the divine Law.] [Welcoming the pain for the other's sake hurts the ego who feels like dying.] [My problem is that I never went towards the staff either. I thought it was not my role to tell them how they should accomplish their own responsibilities. I thought that if I had a honest conversation with them, then I would have to tell them how I feel about how they are, and how they organise things. [They knew that.] I was afraid to tell them things they wouldn't appreciate. I rarely had the mindset to engage in a relation with the staff, because I did not feel there were enough trust, availability and openness from both sides. [The truth is that in a retreat one is suppose to retreat with whatever arises.] [In a ”silent retreat” at Gaïa House, retreatants are not suppose to talk, at all. Several time, I was asked if I had some experience of the “Noble Silence”, and even though I noticed after some times, that I was part of the very few who were really respecting this rule, I often thought that my “discussions” with the staff or with some Coordinators, were not that much welcome. I was embarrassing people, and they had to hide their humanity behind administrative procedures and behind the rules of the house. Even the few times when I went to the Yogi Hour at the reception in the morning, I had to find a good reason to come to talk. I felt invited, but their responses were always short, material and restraint. ]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 69/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [My approximative Buddhist pattern: (writing third Friday and Saturday]

(00) I am a spiritual living being with a purpose in life: My goal is to be happy.

(0) My purpose in life requires the fulfilment of a condition : My need is to live in peace.

(1) To protect my goal and to take care of my need, I integrate in my ego a false theory: I am good person, and to stay a good and peaceful person, and be happy with my life in society, I must live accordingly to the Principle of Non Violence. To live within this Principle of Non Violence, I must always be a non violent person whatever the conditions or the situation.

(2) My theory is built with some rules of conduct: To fulfil my false theory, I accept the rules of conduct, to always be afraid to hurt anyone, to always avoid conflicts at any costs, and to put aside my own needs as much as possible. I give people few chances to be kind.

(3) To justify this impossible theory, I am finding some excuses and reasoning: My excuses were to take into account other's people wants and needs. Because they deserve to be happy too. Because if I keep a friendly position, then they don't have to fear me, or see me as an enemy. Being friendly and positive is the best manner to initiate a positive, cooperative and non harmful relations. My needs can be considered by others as a negative constraint for them. If I don't put forward my needs, then others won't have to deal with this constraint, and in doing so, I am releasing for them this one difficulty in our relation. If I don't ask anything from others, they will be more at ease. I avoid social groups as they build identity against others.

(4) My theory reveals some problems: In the process of finding excuses for others, I am forgetting to take care of my own wants and needs. I am not putting forward my other needs to live and to be respected. I am refusing the fighting or the negotiation in a relation, which is seen as a normal type of relation people have in society. When I refuse to ask others to fulfil my own need, then I refuse the possibility of an exchange of reciprocity, and I finally have very few or no relation at all. Because of my behaviour, I can easily be excluded from social groups who see me as a strange fellow. Alone, there is nobody who is taking care of my needs, particularly my social and sexual needs. I have to support people who are not friendly, nor fair in a relation, and their aggression or their greed cost me something while my peacefulness doesn't cost them at all (Buddhist offering). I can be seen as someone who doesn't defend himself or his people, then people don't feel safe nor interested by me. When dealing with non cooperative people, I always fall in a loose win relation at my disadvantage. I am having a lot of one way relationships. Fulfilling always the other's need is boring. I hardly meet cooperative or kind people who have time for me, or who want to interact with me, because I do not let the peace flow in the relation.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 70/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com I have been afraid to express the requirements of my own needs and wants. When I am always trashing my own needs, I am inconsiderate with myself, and my self­esteem is very low. I am living in fear with others and others live in fear with me. I feel miserable and useless which is the contrary of my initial purpose. And all this is not beneficial. Being consumed by all these considerations, hopes and attitudes, I burn a lot of energy and I stress people with the force of my questions. People think that I am judging them with my concerns of ethics and peace, and nobody feels peace, which is the contrary of my initial purpose. My people's patience is low.

(5) My problem reveals a belief: I am holding on to the belief that taking care of other's needs, wants and considerations, offering cooperation, being always but only kind, is always the perfect mode for interacting, and the one only perfect mode for being my true self in peace in society.

(6) My investigation lead to some conclusion, solutions and actions: I need to reflect on this pattern, not only once, but often, so I integrate the unfruitfulness of it. Non Violent Communication can help me to take account of my needs and to have a better care for them. I can still be in the non violence, as a way of life in general, when I am not under an external and imminent threat. But if I feel abused or disrespected, I can allow myself to protect my interest, to ask for help, to run away the danger, or to fight for my right to live in peace and in freedom. I can allow myself to express freely and nicely my needs in a relation. Silence and meditation, Loving kindness and compassion can help me, by providing a gentle and positive space for me and for others. I can refuse fighting, escaping, and depressing, but then I need to manage, the fulfilment of my personal needs, and I need to manage my position in the world, and find solutions to all the internal and external aggressions, dissatisfactions, frustrations and sufferings in general, that happen in the world constantly. To do so, I can learn more about Non Violent Communication and Self Defence, and also about Buddhism and Gardening. I can recognise that the principal goal of Buddhism, presented in the first turn of the Dharma wheel, with the discourse of the Buddha on the Four Noble Truths, is to find solutions to our attachments and delusions, that are the principal cause of our sufferings. With time and understanding, I can offer to myself the practice of the Buddhist Three Main Trainings of Ethics, Meditation and Wisdom. I need to develop my own internal resources of peace, joy and wisdom, as well as personal defensive techniques or skilful means, which could be verbal or physical. I need also to become wise and find ways to say my emotions and my kindness, which found my well being.

(7) My new behaviour can be expressed in a declaration: Unhealthy is to fall in depression, to be overwhelmed by external aggressions, or to run away from all civilisation. I want to protect myself and my needs. Buddhism is compatible with my spiritual purpose in life to live within Love and Peace. Non Violent Communication is an efficient tool to express peacefully one's emotions, needs and demands. All this takes time, and requires effort, discipline and training.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 71/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com If I practise Mindfulness and Concentration Meditations, I will give myself some true time for myself. I will be able to receive beneficial insights about my needs and my well being. I will improve my own life and my knowledge of myself. I can develop awesome states of mind that will help me to feel better and to be better within the people in society. I can embody in my daily life these awesome beautiful qualities (compassion, loving kindness, gratitude, generosity, detachment, renunciation, equanimity, emptiness) in all my being (body, speeches, heart, mind). The practise of Ethics (from Buddhism and Humanism), as well as the Grounding Earthling Values (Organic Farming, Permaculture, Cooperative, Fair Trade, Recycling, Volunteering) can certainly help me in achieving this goal of being happy and sharing with others. I must be sure that my needs and emotions are expressed and that they are fulfilled. Peacefully offering a silent presence and a benevolent space in my life, I will create the conditions, to become a better person, to receive better insights, and to have better relations with others. [All this I understand and I am able to acknowledge it while I am in the writing of it. I am not writing to excuse my excuses, but to see the mechanism of a pattern in order to become free of it.] [In Gaïa House, I experienced feelings that were not mine, but that were how people could see me. I often thought that I would be misunderstood or misjudged. I was afraid to do a mistake, to be abusing other's time, to be seen as doing something out of my place, or to interrupt something. The silence rule, and the difficulties to communicate did not allow me to express my needs or emotions. So that is also why I am doing this expression in this letter.] [Like this woman from Totnes who helped me with the 12 salad trays. She was saying that all her life she had been at the service of others, listening and complying to other's needs, and not taking care of her own needs and of herself, until now.] [All is possible, I can be non violent and I can express my needs and my emotions.] [I need somebody to take care of me too.] [Buddhism is not an easy fatality, it requires strength, courage, long term commitment, ethics, and discipline.] [I am expressing my feelings and my needs towards you, and I am showing the world how I became mindful of this unskilful pattern. While in the writing of this long letter to you, I am acknowledging this new understanding in my psychology and in my life. In doing so, I am starting to stop this pattern. I declare I want to act with more space fullness and more silent mindfulness in my own life. I can be compassionate with others, which doesn't mean that I am always willing to carry their pain, or that I am responsible for it. I don't want more excuses and pity.] [The problem is the solution. I am happy that I don't have many thing I hold on to any more. I need to declare out loud what I need and what I want. I am a simple man practising in real life, not a monk in a cave of a mountain. I need love to continue to live in the light. I need organic food, real love and kindness, a house in the nature. I want a nice family life in a quiet and beautiful garden.] Silence Peace Presence Beauty Freedom Wisdom Compassion Sun Air Water Land Life Laugh Light Love Garden Trees Animals Joyful Nature Healthy Fruit Calm River Clear Sea Tree Sky Bird Care Music Books Great Organic Vegetarian Food Meditation Lovely Garden Family Wife House KidCats

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 72/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Today second Saturday evening I am sitting and eating some noodles with the pesto sauce and some organic cheese. I am listening to the record of a theatre play at the Radio France Culture, and my eyes fall to the sight of this orange that I have kept from my last breakfast at Gaïa House. It is around 20H00 this second Saturday 10th September 2016, and it must be 7h00 PM in Devon England. I look at the orange and I feel I really see one of your tits of your breast. I am surprised and excited. I look and I rejoice. I smile and my mind is filled with joy and gratitude. I wonder is it true or my imagination. I think this is really you thinking of me. I feel I want to tenderly kiss its little bits. Your face and your looking eyes are entering my mind, and we are looking at each other inside my mind. There is a presence that I hope is yours. I stop feeling and start to think again. I hope you are good. I think of you too. I send you some tender thoughts.] [I think I have to finish this letter as soon as possible. I have been writing hours and hours, and all days and days since I sent to you the first draft of this letter with the my Gaïa Retreat Book. I am getting to the end, as I have to refrain from dropping and from continuing. You must think that I am an easy lover: just a few words, some simple mystery, some clever silence, some hidden glances and some stolen premeditated seducing postures, and there it is, I fall from the sky, and fly in the clouds with 72 pages to come. [Third Saturday, I listen to Santana, I cry 89 pages.]I think that this text would have never existed if we would have talked. I think it is a gift we both are giving to the world.] [From the beginning, I thought that the coordinators should coordinate, the teachers should teach, the facilitators should facilitate, the exterior working people should have done their work only and stay out of retreatants, the managers should manage, and the directors should supervised, controlled and organised things for the better peace. I always thought that a Buddhist Retreat Centre should be Buddhist before anything else, and that the Sangha should be compassionate before being psycho­symbolic, that people should be human before being political “Beleavers”. “Meditators” should be meditating and compassionate. Were there no pilot at all on purpose attending the retreats ? As I recall and reflect, I think everything is perfect like always. Lets make an exception for the British military jets, planes and helicopters that were flying all over our heads, sometimes breaking the sound barrier on top of the buildings, blowing the grounds almost touching the roof of the trees. As I remember the story of Nelson Mandela, for me the victory has a slightly different meaning. The Shambala Meaning of Victory is the offering of one's ego, one's suffering and one's courage for the compassion of all living beings, and for the benefit of us all. [I hope this kind of victory will suit you too.] [Mostly I felt left by myself and ignored, until I will just leave the place, reserved and paid since the first day. I felt this tension was a game of who is going to crack first. And I did left once and came back ten days later until the end of my working retreat. Never, I was proposed to received a reimbursement. When I left the last day, I asked if they were happy with my voluntary work at the garden, and I was replied that they had no idea at all. No thank you from officials for my intensely work every day. So all this tension and tiredness did not bring to me the best conditions to meditate, neither to meet you with a peaceful state of mind.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 73/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I expressed all this in my first meeting with the “teacher” who was supposed to help me. She avoided to answer the issue. I had a meeting with her the same day I left for the first time. It was an early meeting that I could not attend because of the bus I had to take to go to Newton Abbot to catch the train and then the boat to France. But before I left Gaïa House for the first time, the sixth of July, I offered her some jam for her health and well being. I also offered a lovely ball of wool that I had found on the fields and that I made myself with some special green strings I brought from Dharamsala India to show her the possible benefice of the creation of an international network of compassionate organic meditation centres (“comCcomÇa”) that could participate in the dance for a better and more conscious world. And I left her some reimbursement papers to be reimbursed with the price I paid. And I left some other paper with in red colour underlined six times the word “Buddhism” in Gaïa House's Logo to point out that I was leaving because the atmosphere was to me not authentically Buddhist and enough peaceful, at least for me, hopefully only for myself. And I left a flyer from India showing the Traditional Medicine Tibetan Treatment to explain that for me a meditation centre is also a place to be, to heal, to feel, to relax.] [At least, I have expressed myself indirectly through objects.]

[The jam I bought was coming from the Denbury Lovely Intentional Market, where the family production is set on the street on a table with the prices, and people passing by just put their money in a jar and take what they want. I had bought this jar of local blackberry and apple jam in the street before I arrived. But when I came back to Gaïa House the 14th to finish the retreats I was engaged in, and when I met her, we barely talk about my offerings. I never heard thank you. She ignored to reply or discuss with me the content of those signs that I left for her before I left, saying that all this looked like a puzzle to her. When I asked her if she had read my long mail, about my understanding of Buddhism, that I sent to Gaïa House before I decide to return, she said ho yes, huh but no, like she didn't want to talk about it. Nobody at Gaïa House ever replied to me about this long mail. When I took the time to explain to her why I left the first time, telling her about my concerns on how a Buddhist retreat should follow Buddhist teachings, she replied and she said that others could have a different opinion. I had to explain and to justify myself for 29 minutes out of 30, without any feedback from her or from Gaïa House's point of view. When I said that I would like to use the last minute of the meeting to talk about my personal experience of retreatant, and when I talked about loving kindness, she stood up of the armchair, sat down on the carpet, and open her knees and legs wide in front of me, in a sexual evident position, like the painting “The origin of the world”, like a manifestation of her well being and contentment. I was surprised and I talk to her about my need of filling my mind with the feelings of Loving Kindness, which is the wish for people to be at ease. And at other meetings, when I was expressing myself, she asked me to shut up and to let other people the time to speak. I am not incline in this sort of perverse sadism inside a Buddhist therapeutic relationship.] [I am just relating some of the things that happened to me at Gaïa House.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 74/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [My relation with you came on top of all these feelings of being separated and isolated, confused, disrespected, abused, tested and manipulated, and my stress and concerns increased, because of the ways we were meeting and not being able to talk. It seemed to me that everything was done intentionally between us to reinforce the excitement and the frustration, because we were meeting all the time, by entertained coincidences, and because we didn't or couldn't take ourselves the control of our situation, by talking about it.] [Lets stop meet out & chat just the 2.] [I had the feeling that all this could have been an experiment on me and about my abilities to control my feelings in a hostile environment. Maybe you were just acting as a retreatant, and you are just a nice woman on a personal long retreat. But considering the way I thought I was treated by the organisation, the atmosphere, the time of the British Brexit, my French European nationality, I could not consider your silencing presence and our feelings as completely outside from all this. You were in the situation like I was, whether you knew it or not, whether you agreed on it or not, whether you accepted it or not, doesn't change anything. What really change something to me, is if you could have been an insider, if you were consciously and intentionally participating in the conditions I was exposed to. The Gaïa House's conspiracy should have not and could never have any effect on us, if we together honestly put ourselves outside of it.]

[Those conditions reinforced in me the feeling of distrust, and the need to clarify our own positions in this situation.] [Where is my home, where to feel at home, if it is not with my love in my heart ?] [I really did feel that during my stay at Gaïa House, I was participating in different psychological laboratory experiments without my knowledge, or let say officially because I have had my personal opinion and intuitions about it since the beginning, and without my consent. Strange things have happened to me on day one and after, and those things were out of a normal retreat purpose, like if people from the outside could interfere and influence our state of minds and our experiences. And that is the main reason why I wanted to leave, despite the fact that I liked very much the last teachers from South Africa, and despite that there are in Gaïa House some really nice people trying to do a good job to offer a place for people to learn and practise meditation, and despite the fact that I wanted to get in touch with you, and spend more time with you.] [Like this text, our experiences are created in our mind.] [Inside an imperfect world and within our imperfect mind, we have to clean in and out regularly to become better.]

[One week before I leave, I was asked by a nice fellow man, the same I told about, if it would “please” me to stay at Gaïa House, and I felt he was asked to ask me. Again, I felt indirectly manipulated and my kindness for this person was used to get some information from me. From my first day, my intention was to propose my services as a coordinator, but later on, I never had any official conversation on that topic with somebody from the management. I answered the nice fellow man as much as I could in my confusion and in my distress, and found out that I really felt I was not warmly and truly welcomed. Conditions were not ready to propose me to stay.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 75/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Just by talking with this nice fellow man, for just some few minutes, and listening to the content of my speech, I could revealed to myself and to him at the same time, the reasons of the true feelings I had inside, and this is the power of just expressing one's heart mind.]

[If you feel that you were part of an experiment too, don't worry too much about the idea. And there I have the feeling that I am mainly talking to me. I don't like experiments nor deceiving situations. But it is also the way we can receive that matters, as our reception is mainly where we can freely act. How can one knows what will happen before doing it ? How can one knows what happened before finishing it ? I have been improvising my all life all alone in such an extent that it is becoming terribly stupid and aberrant sometimes. But if no individual believes in freedom, in compassion and in wisdom, what will happen to our “common humanity” ? It has become impossible for me to survive alone without love, and stay a simple free and good human being.]

[Don't feel bad because I was trapped in this “psychowar” on fear and terror, on disinformations and deceptions, on consents and desires, on appearances and illusions, on threat and opportunities, because this is what is going on nowadays. In today’s world with the progress of so many human sciences, and the abandonment of our morality and consciousness, the people are so lost and so left far behind, that they can't even imagined that some great hidden powers have gained influences on them. After the “digital information revolution” is coming the “psychological revolution on consciousness”.] [We walk talk dream work share the Path.]

[Don't feel bad because my personal experience was questioning the purposes and the authenticity of a so called Buddhist organisation, because this was my understanding of the feeling tones I had during all my stay there. With a lot of reflections, I could change my point of view and the meaning of all my experiences. Of course it is much better to be prepared. I probably was asked to accomplish such a journey. Like Ulysses I am ready now to come back to Ithaca, meet Penelope and receive the welcoming of the prodigious child. But don't worry about these last ideas too, because there are only ideas, because it was only one's experience, but also because, and I have to declare this officially here and now, to dismiss any further misunderstandings about my opinion:] “Gaïa House Trust is in deed a good, safe and valuable place to practice meditation” The challenges that I had were just concerning myself, because of my particular status. Maybe yourself because of our feelings. Even if they do have progresses to make, like we all do, it doesn't question the fact that they are probably already part of the best on Earth. But this opinion, expressed by me on the second Sunday 11 September at 02h37 French Time, doesn't diminished all that I have said before, does it ? Question everything, learn the wisdom of the experience.]

Life is an experiment, Love is the experience

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 76/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Like the checking of the Guru is very much important, lets remember the words of the Buddha himself who was saying not to believe in what he said just because he had said it, but because one could have made himself or herself the direct experience of its validity and of its worthiness. And also that the Buddha showed the way. We all have to talk walk the Path ourselves.]

[We need to find and cherish our inner clean source, drink, wash and purify ourselves]

[Don't feel bad because our feelings could be questioning your project to give yourself a sabbatical retreat for yourself and your well being, which is always a good idea when it is done in good circumstances. But if you have participated voluntary in this experiment that I had to endure and solve, then I am sorry, but we don't really share the same values on Humanism, Buddhism and so on... Don't worry about this idea, as I am already convinced that you did in deed participate, but I believe you did in a generous and positive way, to help me come back on Earth. This is the conclusion of my lovely 35 days of writing to you Sweet Lotus Dream. I want to see you. Don't tell me I am a little slow, because you were a little silent yourself. Retreats are times to flourish our soul, if we have found the ground for our seeds of love, then it would be auspicious to accept to take this chance and decide to follow its growth.]

[Here at Gaïa House, “They” seem to be in deed very much interested in experimenting psychology and behaviourism, and very much interested in exploring Buddhism's motivations and practises in a productive research. When I say “they”, I don't mean necessarily the staff, but rather who called themselves “teachers”, who should leave the kids alone, like says the song, particularly those that are backstage, that we don't see much, and those that are upstairs and that we don't see at all. Buddhism has expertise in both psychology and spirituality, and both goes together.] [We are living in a strange world were people have strange inhuman behaviours against each other, just because they are from different nationalities, just because they belong to different groups of influences, just because they have different interests, opinions, beliefs, qualities or values. We are living in a world where there is more and more the need for some trustfulness, some truthfulness, and some goodness, and if there weren't, that would be very frightening for a future where we do need more than ever in history, to be full of love, full of consideration, full of generosity, full of compassion and full of peace, full of wisdom. Until our own enlightenment, we need to practise ourselves and the world as it is, to believe, hope, and follow mindfully our own progress in our own path.] [People have given their power to representatives that don't represent them well. It is not about giving ourselves back to the Earth, it is about returning to the natural connection with our own selves, others and with the Earth.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 77/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [May we be well, in love, at ease and in peace] [May we be well, in love, at ease and in peace] [May we be well, in love, at ease and in peace]

[As I continue to finish this letter as soon as possible. I replay in “ralenti”, slow motion. I follow the structure of the first text I wrote to you [without brackets]. This following paragraph is talking about our encounter after our first kitchen meeting. The second day in the kitchen.]

The same thing happened the next day, when you talk to me and ask me my name. I felt all this was not as natural as it seemed, and I felt awkwardly excited because the strange playing of our game was still going on. You asked my name but did not say yours. And when I had to take too the initiative, and insisted to ask for your name, your response put me even more in distress. I started to talk by myself to myself, looking downwards inwardly and stupidly searching in the mind of my shoes for some kind of suitable explanation. After that talk, we knew our names, but we never used them. I felt very angry and alone. I wanted to stop and to cut all these foreign manipulations, and I was about to grasp on my sudden internal violence like if it was only mine after all. I want to apologise for this, say that I am sorry, make clear that I really do regret my foolishness, and that I feel better now. I feel I am a very difficult person with all kinds of ideas that I hold for the necessary truth, but that are not as useful as they look pretty in my books. You must think by now if you ever read this letter, that I am a very strange fool to talk to, you ask my name, I ask your name, and so many pages to read.] [I already have written fifty pages to you.] [Today second Sunday, sixty eight pages. Second Wednesday I want to stick to 72 pages. Third Saturday 90 pages. Is there a magical mathematical trick in the limit ?]

Then, when we had to meet again each day at the same time and at the same place, within the same circumstances, I realised that we were both tensed and stressed, expecting, hoping and apprehending. I wanted to talk to you more and at the same time I did not want to talk to you at all. [In the uncertainty of the impermanence the lotus is unfolding its immaculate splendid leaves.] [I wanted but I was thinking that you did not want]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 78/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am hiding my true self behind those convenient superficial statements. The truth I am realising, now as I am writing to you and to me, today second Sunday afternoon 14h36 French Time, is that I am very scared of mistaking my heart. I cherish my heart like a precious living jewel. I wanted but at the same I did not want, not at all because of anything wrong coming from you, but because of things I have in myself. I did not want to break the ideal love I have in my mind. Like a crystal glass is broken in the process of entering into a new life in a Jewish marriage. I am in the impossible experience of the strong fear to face alone the truth of a real love situation.] [I see the image of the breaking of the vessel to enable the building of a bigger vessel.] [All this letter doesn't mean anything: we ought to spend some time together to see if we like each other. But this letter help me settle my views about my Gaïa's experiences, because I remember you ran away when I did not take the corn soup and came closer to you for a peanut butter treat.] [I wanted because of my joy to love, but I did not want because of my fears] [I could come to you and say that I have feelings towards you. I could face you with that statement, and see what is your response to this declaration. Then, I would know, you would know. The truth is that we wouldn't know anything because each of us doesn't know how we feel, or do we ? I could reach your hand, embrace your eyes, and hearing your heart beating like mine is, I could ask you to live together, to love each other, to receive and cherish our spiritual and physical union as a gift and a blessing from the gods. With the practise of mindfulness, we both know how about feelings and mind processes. Only actions can slowly draw our intention in time. My heart is as light as a feather, as clear as a mirror and as simple and true as a step in the void.]

[I prefer to tell you first about my fear of love. I am afraid of many things that are mixed and confused in my mind and in my heart. I am afraid that the type of courage that I would need to face you and to confront you with my feelings, will bring in me a greedy state of mind, wanting to consume the fire of life, or will bring in me this attitude of the beast facing its prey, that, then would not have anything to do with the love and the compassion that we cherish more than the hunger in our stomach. I am afraid to loose the clarity of the clear source water that is filling my crystal cup, or the stillness of its surface, if I approach you too fast. I am afraid that the force of our will and its impatience, will take the place of the soft tenderness of the love that abandoned itself naturally. I am afraid that you might not share the same feelings at the same time, and to come at the wrong time. I am afraid that my feelings might not really be true. I am afraid that if I get to know you better, then I might not love you as much as the idea of loving you. I am afraid that reality would be so different than the loving dream, that I can imagine freely and easily when I am just by myself. I am afraid that this confrontation between my ideal and the reality, between my poor me with your poor you, or between your greater self and my greater self, might shows us that there is no us, that there is no love. I am afraid that our loving relation will not start easily, simply, charmingly, epically, romantically, lovely, smoothly and friendly, as I think it should be, and then live its life happily and tranquilly, like it can be in a novel or in a book.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 79/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am afraid that my simplicity is too complex. I am afraid that things don't go naturally, like I would like them to be, because I think love is simple, and that we just have to love. I am afraid to be exposed to the influences of others and fall into wrong ideas and wrong doings, because in my loving fragility, I am not enough aware, strong and independent. I am afraid you could abuse my fragility, because I don't really know you and because hardly people know each other, and because people change or get influenced. I am afraid you could manipulate me just for the fun or the achievement of an other goal. I am afraid that with all these fears, it become impossible to breath, to be quiet, to be still and to be open for love. I am afraid of an unbalanced progression of our feelings, of our demands, of our constraint in life. I am afraid I might not like your family , your background or your friends, or the place and the ways you want to live. I am afraid we might not share the same education or the same understanding of life and the world. I am afraid I will have to respond to so much external demand that I might get drawn and deceived by all the requirements that would be imposed to me just to start a relationship. I am afraid that I am so free, so open, so out of the world, that you too would be afraid to enter such an emptiness. I am afraid that I am not so free and open to anything. I am afraid I/you/we or both of us and each of us at the same time, cannot let go of some foundations I/you/we have build in my/your/our life. I am afraid of the domination aspect of any relation that would force us if we don't keep our equilibrium, our intimacy and our own space, to have to choose between you/me or me/you, or between me/you/us/them. I am afraid of the ultimatum loving people through at each other, forgetting the blessing of their relationship. I am afraid someone goes faster, or slower than the other one, or goes too far or in a different direction. I am afraid someone gets hurt, tired or bored of the relationship, and let the other one in pain, in lack or in distress. I am afraid my feelings are just a one way feelings coming from me only, or from some kind of exterior manipulation. I am afraid these love relationship wouldn't work anyway, there are so many factors out of our reach and so many examples in our modern urbanised societies. I am afraid that our values and our views would not be so much the same. I am afraid that our values and views will always be the same, and that the only thing we could ever exchange in our identical individuality, would be just the agreement that we agree together. I am afraid that it is important not to be just always on top of each other, but difficult to achieve in reality. I am afraid not to be missing this one faithful and always available external source of regeneration. I am afraid that you would have to become for me this unique external source of life. I am afraid that I could not or would not want to find outside of yourself, this sweet and tender external source of life and love. I am afraid that I would not be for you this external source of goodness, or that I would not be the only one. I am afraid to become jealous of the one you could have for yourself in your life, because I would have like to be that source for you. I am afraid that we might have some confrontation about something we think as crucial, or about some people that could interfere in our relationship, and that our difference or that interference would lead us to separate, because we couldn't find the resources, the wisdom or the patience to be mindful of this hindrances.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 80/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com I am afraid that I am thinking the impossible, and that it is not reasonable to want to know and be sure of everything before anything really happen. I am afraid to extinguish the source of our appreciation as we grow old and that there is nothing that we will still appreciate in the other we got to know so well. I am afraid that I grow older faster than you. I am afraid that I grow younger faster than you. I am afraid we don't have much time to be together anyway. I am afraid that you would like better your state of mindfulness than anything else. I am afraid that in your tactical silence, you also wanted to bring me to your world, and that when I am completely engaged, you will let me by myself, because you have some other challenges to fight. I am afraid of the Trojan horse story that Ulysses imagined and that the fatality could send back to me. I am afraid you are just a Valkyrie for me, and that I am just a pawn for you. I am afraid we are both pawns and there is nothing we can or we want to do about it. I am afraid we are Queen and King but of different colours, and that, like the story of Romeo and Juliet, our love in not humanly possible because our worlds are too much divided. I am afraid to be so afraid about things that did not even happen yet. I am afraid to compare our future with the pasts that we each had. I am afraid you would tell me that I am a little too much afraid, that I should relax a little, but that it would not really help me at all. I am afraid that we engage in a relationship and that later we change in a way we don't like. I am afraid that we could become some very different and new persons, so different than before, with so different and incompatible new goals and new expectations, that we would forget our past common grounds, and that our ways could diverge, and that our lives would separate. I am afraid I am already too old in age, and too young in experience. I am afraid I am too old in age and already too old in experience. I am afraid I know already so much about the big love, that I could be wanting to impose you my ways or my understandings. I am afraid I know so little about the real love, that I would always have to follow what you would have already planned in your mind. I am afraid you ask me to do things that I don't want, and then, I would be in the terrible situation to have to choose between me and us. I am afraid to be afraid. I am afraid that you could be afraid too, and that we couldn’t find the ways to give us mutually the peace and the love we need and want to share. I am afraid I have a life and a past you don't know, and I am afraid you have a life and a past I don't know. I am afraid that those lives and those pasts, facts and structures we have build in our mind wouldn't fit together. I am afraid our different origins, cultures and languages, as well as our different stories, backgrounds and codes will always put a distance, a wall or some kind of misunderstandings between us. I am afraid I would want to be too much in the fusion, or not enough in the respectful space. I am afraid of the contrary too. I am afraid there will always be things that I don't know about you, or things that are close to you but closed for me, or things that are allowed for you and forbidden to me. I am afraid I can be afraid of anything when I want to be in love. I am afraid not to be afraid of anything any more, because then I would not have any more excuses to be, to come, to meet, to talk to you, and to love you.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 81/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am afraid that I don't want to be in the idea that I am taking you, or that I am possessing you, but that also in a certain ways, we may have to let us being that way. ] [I am not afraid of the idea, nor of the feeling, nor of the desire, that you could be offering yourself to me, body heart and mind, and that me too, I could be offering myself to you, body heart and mind. I am afraid I could ask for too much and receive too less, or the contrary, or the opposite. I am afraid our synchronisation could stop, change or become opposite. I am afraid we would have to learn how to synchronise ourselves again.] [I am afraid of the void feeling I have when I think of coming to Gaïa House again but without any excuse this time. I am afraid that it is exactly what you are asking me to jump in the void, like the wind and the screams of the kids have suggested me this morning on the beach.] [I am afraid that I was warned about the easiness of falling in love during a Buddhist meditation retreat, because of the sensibility, the compassionate awareness and the loving kindness that it brings to people, or let say because these qualities that we already have in ourselves just rise in the correct conditions. But I am afraid that I don't always really listen. I am afraid that I don't always really believe what I am told. I am afraid I cannot really discipline myself, especially with love. I am afraid I am always in the”all in” after having been in the “all this”. I am afraid people always want to discipline me. I am afraid that this great desire of Love would stop me from attaining full Buddhahood. I am afraid I always want to be right, and that I have this bad habit to show off to others my knowledges and understandings. I am afraid that, starting to understand that being right is not as important as being kind, I missed this opportunity to really be and be kind with you.] [I am not afraid to say that what really matters is to be in the right kindness] [I am not afraid of Love. I am afraid not to really love and be loved] [I am afraid if the dreamed love I have will ever be possible in reality. I am afraid also if the little love I dream of, will ever be possible for me. I am afraid that you would have talked to me by now if you did had some kind of feelings for me. I am afraid that you being in retreat doesn't explain all the silence that you had towards me. I am afraid to be forced to have to abandon that dream that I hold dearly in my savage loneliness, because it comforts me, takes me company, and it keeps me mentally healthy. I am afraid that our attraction might be just some “reasonable desire”, or some “love of a love relationship”. I am afraid not to be able to love at all. I am afraid because I wonder sometimes if I ever loved anyone but me.] [I am afraid that we are not both enough clean and open to be able to build just by ourself a brand new life and love relationship. I am afraid not to be able to hold all these fears any longer if you don't bring to me some love and some tranquil peaceful energy. I am afraid you like better your meditation teacher and your meditation retreat than the love I could have offered you. I am afraid that the loving space in my heart, that has been opened while we were together at Gaïa House, and that I keep open while waiting and writing, could remain free and empty, and that it is painful and dangerous to keep open such an empty space without filling it.] [Fourth Thursday, I listen at the French Radio France Culture an episode of the book “Mon enfant de B.” from a famous French woman who married a Russian Prince after the second world war in Germany.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 82/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am ready to love, I have the opened space in my heart to love, even for a great and big tall person like you. I feel there is some true senses why I feel that way, and at the same time, I feel there are some true reasons why nothing was happening when we were together, but just the thrill of falling in the being of a new beginning, and making some subtle moves and investigations. Because, we both think that those reasons must be respected, as we both did not do anything imprudent to counter what was naturally happening, then we just have to pray, hope and let go and put the destiny of our wishing love in the hands of the same higher consciousnesses, that brought it to our awareness in the first place. And continue to eat good organic vegetarian fresh food. With that letter I acknowledge I have had fruitful difficulties during my retreats.]

[May we be well in the hand of the almighty and in the land of the pure joy]

[I have been thinking a lot about the idea of coming back to Gaïa House, to offer my services again, or to register for a new personal retreat just to be there, or just to come as a tourist just to offer you this letter in proper hands. But since you did not do anything else than your silent presence, and since you did not show to me anything else than your own mindful curiosity, and since you probably consider impossible the idea to leave the retreat for the love of me, I think that my venue would be inappropriate, because it would mean I am trying to force something.] [But then, it is the best way to be together and get to know each other better in our silent presence.] [I will come if I am asked to come.] [I wanted to love you and you just did not want to simply love me in return. These women rules to be so passive, reversing, waiting, trashing, changing and then disposing. If women are equal to men, then everyone should have the same rights and responsibilities, and in relationship both should hold the relation. This is so old fashion and out of the gender parity we are fighting for. Like if women did not have their word to say, like if they had to seduce, to suggest the male desire, and then remain in the waiting of the male approach and the male penetration for their pleasure. So none of us did anything compromising, and maybe this will be the end of the story. I know it is stupid, as the simplest solution was to ask you or be there in person. But even this simple act, I couldn't do it. I did not even think about the possibility of doing it when I was there close to you. Or lets say that I did think of it, but I thought in my terrible thinking mind, that it would have been better to try to find some little clues about your feelings, before I try to think about engaging in a straightforward demand, which is good, but it has now, that I am in France alone, the bitter taste of an immature fruit. And this is what we did for days, just turning around each other, like mad bats around a pole. I now accept to be with this time, this energy and this space that we all share together. We are becoming more free but still within the strings of this spinning world. Acceptance and patience of what is to stay in peace and gain wise mindful experiences. I pray and wish you well.] [We have to find ourselves what and who is good for ourselves] Maybe it was just the will of whatever is above us and our freewill

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 83/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Today third Sunday, I listen to the French Radio France Culture with its spiritual programs of the Sunday morning. I listen about the marvellous infinite embodiment of the language that is expressing the tension of our humanity towards the search and the return to the divine. No traduction can reveal the experience of the original deepness of a human breath, that was engraved in some text. No text ever, no defined words, no enchanted music, no futile traces on the sand, will ever be able to express all the beauty, all the energy and all the intelligence of one single life that looks at the sky, that feels the waves of the ocean, and that is listening to the songs of the world, and understanding in the instant, all the preciousness and all the miracles that exist to live, to love and to be. And at the same time, no true communication is possible, no cultural life is worthy to be discovered, no memory is bringing throughout the ages the light of the past to the future, if in between our differences, among our misunderstandings, inside the distance of our own proper individuality, there is not this motivation, this hope, this tender dream and this human need, to reach and to give one translation, one echo, one reflection and one response to this original deepness. And to engage in this impossible attempt, translators and readers have to dig themselves in their own deepness. The message of the divine must already be known to be understood and expressed.]

[This is the transmission of our secrets, the revelation of our silences, the meaning of our transcendences, brought together for our brothers and our sisters. Our letters, our hands and our eyes must be separated by some tender free open space to be able to breath, to see and to smile to each other. We are here and there, now and then, and because of that space and that time, we are enabled to move, to dance and to fly. In that time and in that space, we can live and express our love, like if our body were coming together, speaking to each other, touching together, in a blind loving movement, our souls and our lives that are shining and vibrating, behind and beyond the fragility of our skins that hold our sensible feelings, our intangible thoughts, our mysteries and our hopes. I am bringing together all the uncorrupted pieces of the light that were inhumanly and artificially isolated, separated, hidden, reversed, broken, and lost in all the direction of our times and spaces. Making again the beautiful mosaic of the eternal image of ourselves, I bring it to you, my Sweet Tender Flourishing Lotus Dream, as a little gift of grace, just to share with you the world that you opened within your silence, to thank you for this lightening of my heart for you, and to ask you to come along. I now agree that the silence of our silences can also say it all too, when we really take the time to be quiet, mindful and listen to its deepest meanings.] [I listen fourth Thursday at the French Radio Classique to some choir piece of J.S. Bach and I feel the soft gentle whisper of their heart suspended in the air.] [My eyes are full of pearls, I cry reading the tenderness of these words I wrote. My heart desperately doesn’t want to keep silence.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 84/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Today third Sunday, I continue toward the end of this text, that was written so many days before. I listen to the French Radio France Classique and listen to the Haydn symphony that Beethoven used for his own. And it is incredible, note for note, I noticed the humble signature of gratefulness. And I think how things can change so fast, so drastically, and remain the same.] What arose is : A Lotus Dream ­ What was needed is : The letter of its story [In doing so, I realise that all these silent strategies, to figure out what was going on in somebody else’s mind, [and in our own mind,] just with our own eyes and mind, and without showing any direct feelings or any obvious physical attraction, trying to discover indisputable clues, that we could have imagined as the truth, the real truth and all the truth; well all these disguised combinations, all these subtle interpretations, all these fine approaches, and all these delicate mindful feeling tones about an impermanent reality that is always changing; all these soft tensions, all these determined and maintained concentrations and efforts weren't useful at all, and did not lead us anywhere. [It was our time, it was the time to be, not only lovely compassionate and kind meditators, but also rising loving human beings.] All these attentions and awarenesses, [were meant to be, of course, but also had the consequence to] just only made us stay in the remaining, in the waiting, in the expectation, in [the questioning and in] the doubt, [as well as in the wish and the hope] of the situation. All this occupied our mind, and reinforced the idea of some feelings, but never contributed to clarify or to open the situation. Like if we both had chosen to prefer the unknown over the real truth. [Or maybe like if we both had chosen to prefer the real mystery over the partial spoken truth. Because you see, even my so many pages of writing can not say it all.] We might have started to love, but if we don't manifest it, then we will never know about it, and it will never lead us to some concrete loving relationship. Like the Aretha Franklin's song, “I tried a little tenderness”, but now I really want to get rid of [what I felt and interpreted at the time as] this uncertainty of yours [or this impossibility of mine]. [There is no doubt of this little undefined and unspeakable something that happened. So I declare there is, there was and there will be no doubt. And the proof is those so many pages that don't want to finish, and that I continue to write as a witness of our own loving fatality.] [I hear on the French Radio, the French news of the world, and I can see the impermanence, the interdependence and all the excitement of our world, the changing, the relating, the wanting of our consciousness, and I imagine ourselves peacefully in the navigation of this turmoil, we are both of us single beautiful living wholes beings, just inside and part of this same moving larger world. Like the Dalaï Lama said once: “All this is made within our own minds”. Silence may be the best peaceful strategy, but not as gracious as the music, not as voluptuous as the dance, not as glorious as the words. I now make mine the will, the light and the gift of the Divine. May we all gather in peace for the beauty of its splendour.]

[Our own freedom and glorious purpose is to bring the meaning in what we experience]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 85/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [Today third Sunday, I remember I heard yesterday evening on the French Radio France Culture, the recording of this old English play, “The Grand Babylon Hotel”, and this phrase of this charming young courageous woman, saying with surprise and delight, when she recovered from her fainting, “oh you kissed me”. I now realise I have to request something to be done for the grace of someone. It is in my generous gift that I can open and find the possibility to receive. May we be simply, honestly and joyfully happy.] [I listen to the discourse of the painting kept at the National Gallery of London, “Les époux A.”] [Please noticed that there are now very few [and no [[new]]] brackets, as I am finishing this letter as soon as possible, with just the plain first words that I wrote to you in the Green Gaïa Retreat Book that I already sent to you by mail.] My highest intention is : a beautiful world ­ My highest aspiration is : a beautiful love All this because I thought I(we) should respect a little bit the silence of our mutual retreats, and also mostly because I felt you were not yourself so incline, willing or ready to talk. [Maybe you were keeping a wise silence coming from high above.] I did not feel either that it was quite the most appropriate time to really talk and to really meet, because I understood that we were both in discomfort, because of this strange situation and because of all the misunderstandings that already had happened in our previous verbal attempts. Because also neither of us were speaking our native language, because we did not have much time to express ourselves, and maybe because we did not have much to say, except our most intimate truths [that really matters and that are really worth and fun to talk about if we can truly trust each other and meet in our dear own private space], or because we could have been interrupted at any time by anybody. I felt I had to live contradictory feelings and that I had to face a psychological "double constraint" situation that did not participate to release the contagious discomfort we were both experiencing.

Then, days later I realised that you did not want to engage in more talking or meeting, and maybe that you would prefer to stop any forms of communication at all, and I felt even more in distress and frustration, I felt I was responsible for this discomfort, and I felt bad towards myself and bad towards yourself. So I tried to find some new relaxed and neutral subjects to produce an easy and detached conversation with you, to show you that we could and that we should be able to talk to each other without any stress or fear, without any tension or personal issue. Maybe, it worked and maybe we felt more relaxed, but now as I write, I cannot really tell or remember how it went. [[I remember I asked you the road to the river, I saw you were happy to tell me, you saw I was happy to listen to you. Unforgettably, I rejected your offer to draw me a plan, pretending I had it all in my mind already. I brought some flowers back, some wild rose orchids. Nobody said anything about them. You never asked me how it went. Misery's miseries.]]

Then, I think I tried to reduce my voluntary speaking engagement towards you, bringing back my attention to my breath, and I found for that purpose a little rounded rock by the "wellies" gardening boots that are kept outside the laundry room near the telephone booth.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 86/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com As I was holding that little smooth rock with me all the time in my left hand to help me remember to keep silence and to stay mindful, it seems to me that suddenly the situation or your behaviour was changing again, as a proof of impermanence, and that this time you were the one willing to engage me in some kind of a new discussion. So then, I felt manipulated again, and as we exchanged few words together, I felt that each phrases we could addressed to each other, could have had a double or a mystery meaning behind the casual topics or the usual vocabulary of daily life. My surprise, my worries and my discomfort seemed to increase and to be even more established in myself. I thought that I did not mastered “the double talk” as well as you may do, and I felt I was forced and trapped in a game where I did not know the rules. I think the doubt and the uncertainty increased for both of us, making the situation worst, and I suppose for you too. I am sorry for all this misunderstandings and role playing, and I would have preferred to have the chance to talk to you in a more empathic, easy and direct way. [I breath relax soften.]

Like I showed you my interest in other meditation centres, because I am looking for such a place for a long personal retreat, and like I shared with you my little knowledge of the Bön Tibetan ancestral rituals [and shamanistic dances that were kept, adapted and assimilated in Mahayana Buddhism.]

[And it was fun to be able to talk in a detached manner with you on Buddhism. And I told you a story from the book “Images of Enlightenment” that I discovered at the Tushita Temple in Dharamsala, just one month before I returned from India and decide to volunteer at Gaïa House. Because, my dear Flourishing Lotus Dream, I was supposed to stay in India, and then go to Nepal for the winter in meditations centres, and then travel more and tour the world to find a place to live in peace. But ”the universe had its way” to put me out of my Eastern Asia project, and I came back to Europe earlier than I thought, to come to Gaïa House.]

[During that talk that we had together in the kitchen:]

I missed the opportunity to express to you clearly that I do love the wild astonishing country [Landscape] as well as the great accomplished [Blue face] people of Scotland, but that I never was formally invited to go there personally in flesh and bones. I am reluctant to engage just by myself in a "Scottish oriental tour" because of some personal philosophical position I hold on Truthfulness [Freedom and Compassion], and [I missed the opportunity to tell you that] I am not entitled to speak the "local language code" they sometime use in friendly conversations under their unusual blue sky, because [I was never formally initiated in the art of building a conversation with private disguised meanings, nor in the particular gestures that hunters have to recognise their ways and to keep their silence in the woods, nor in the special steps people have in dancing halls to meet new friends and have a free good time without fear or pressure.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 87/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com [I am just a normal simple human being, and I don't feel I have to apologise for that]

Like they say in Mahayana Buddhism, one must be individually empowered by a Guru or an official school to have the right to engage [in the advanced study of the Dharma, or] in the practice of a particular Mantra, [or in the skilful powerful means] of a special Vajrayana visualisation. So it seems it is done to be able to benefit from the encouragements and the advices of the guru, [the compassion and the loving kindness of the Sangha], as well as the entire protection of all the lineage of the Buddhas.

While our misunderstandings were going on and somewhat growing, I also realised that our encounters outside the kitchen during the day, were changing of status. It seemed to me that you were intentionally putting yourself in front of me, trying to exercise your practice of Vedana, or “feeling tones”, and I felt my feelings were becoming an object of study, I thought I was pushed to feel, so people around could feel how I feel, I thought my feelings were used without my approval, and as I felt my consent was stolen, I felt again more manipulated. My brain and my personal history made me imagine that you may have had received or asked for special instructions from the "psycho pseudo therapeutic teacher" that we all had as a referent and retreat counsellor, and I felt even more abused, and even though I did not investigate further in that direction, it was just an idea that my intuition felt true. [“Faire connaissance l'un l'autre avant de se parler de soi, de sa vie, de son intimité, de son être et de sa spiritualité”.]

Then, I felt more and more sensible to any subtle changes in your own behaviour, and in me more and more was growing the desire to express in my own behaviour the talking we could not have had directly and freely together. My imagination started to react strongly to this alien situation, and the energy in my body increased proportionally as I needed to respond to even more new challenges and difficulties coming from different departments and people in Gaïa House.

All this happened, just because from the beginning, I had accepted the intention to engage in some kind of dialogue or relation with you, and also because, since my first arrival, I was proposing my benevolent services to Gaïa House. I felt my intentions were misunderstood and misused. My internal strategic attitude began to create some different scenario to respond to the uncertainty and awkwardness of all these situations, which appeared hostile sometimes, and foolishly I was still trying to be smart with you and somewhere to be impressive. [Now I cherish the soft simplicity of an imperceptible tenderness, like the gentle touch on the concert pianoforte.]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 88/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com I want to apologise for this too. With some reflection on my conduct and my motivations, I think now that I should have taken the time and the responsibility to ask you directly in person for a private discussion and a hand to hand clear "mise au point". [As I told you in the kitchen, I am not good with [blue] names [and neither with touching hands with strangers]. Maybe, I am good with other things. I thought of letting you a “little note” on the noticed board, but my Dear Flourishing Lotus Dream, I abandoned this idea, that sounded too risky. I preferred to see with my own eyes in your own eyes, and see feel if we will be together coming closer and closer to each other or not, and in a certain way we did get closer and closer, but meanwhile, as you were always there somewhere near me, always in silence, observing, but not really participating, I felt strange. I felt you could allow yourself to come closer, but not me. To me it wasn't an open invitation.]

We have had together very few short talks, but for me none of them were really satisfactory, and by some sudden reactions you had sometimes, I could easily understand that they were not entirely satisfactory for you neither. I am sorry for this too, as I can see we are both sweet nice and lovely cultivated persons, grown ups [people] with goodwill and mindfulness intentions. It was just that the situation was not natural nor common, at least for me. That is why I try now to offer my point of view. Nevertheless, I would be happy to ear from you if you would happen to appreciate to share a friendly and open conversation with me, and if you would be willing to express to me your own and true feelings, or the points of view you had while I was staying at Gaïa House.

I must also say that my primary intention when I arrived at Gaïa House in June was to offer my service as a "coordinator" for one full year. The ways I felt welcomed, treated and ignored in Gaïa House in July made me reconsider my offer. This change of orientation had also a big impact on me and on my availability, as well as on all that happened in August, because I had to evaluate [again] my future, and because of the attitude of the staff towards me that changed too, and also through my states of mind that I had to constantly reconstruct and maintain. [And isn't it funny to see that it is exactly what you are doing, one year retreat.] [my New Open vessel.]

I feel it would be a pity that such a beautiful place combined with the beautiful buddhist spirituality could be transformed into a new type of psychological laboratory and be corrupted by false architects or fake doctors in need of recognition or new ideas, or by real military officers in search of new mental weapons or mass media propaganda. Testing people without their knowledge, nor their consent wouldn't sound like a very compassionate project. Neither would be the elaboration of new psychological protocols to measure their acceptance and their resistance to a designed adversity that shouldn't be deliberately organised in the first place. Using the people who come on retreats and their buddhist views and ways of life to find out how their motivations and practices could play a role to reinforce the conditioning of citizens in a capitalistic and competitive society, wouldn't sound very altruistic either.

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 89/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Finally, I must address that "our private game" was going on at nights too, with respectful and tender thoughts, meaning sexual images and physical sensations, that I had to control. For me that was an opportunity to explore shameless physical desires, and that is OK, I don't see anything wrong when a woman and a man are having simultaneously feelings towards each other, except that they could live them in reality... [I feel I could imagine the real vibrations of the Mahayana Buddhist Tantra Tankhas showing the male and the female figure embracing together the union of all dualities.] [I have to accept the divine loving will and let all flows go.]

I want to take the time with this long and truthful letter to tell you that all this would not have happened if there were no existent feelings in both of us. But can we both trust those feelings ? Can we both accept them as true ? Did we still both had them unchanged after my departure ? Do we want to believe in them together ? [Can we imagine a peaceful, wonderful and delighting world together ? Are we both ready ? ] These are some basic questions I have to declare

When you told me about "The Most Beautiful Cottage" by the riverside near the Gaïa House, my heart opened and could not close unless you intentionally and directly told me it was just a coincidence or a joke. Because this is exactly what I am looking for: somebody like minded and sweet to share the dream and the life of "a peaceful little family farm".

So if all that happened during that month of August in the Devon country side was just an artificial game, a joke, a mistake or an unusual mental and virtual practice, then I would appreciate if you could kindly release my mind from this other misunderstanding, and tell me what you think as true for you. On the contrary, if like I thought, you did share some feelings and you do have some real interests for this same project, if you do feel something in your heart, and if you do think you can go and engage truly in this same direction, then maybe it would be wise if we could consider to have together a real open direct and gentle discussion on our motivations, our expectations, our needs and our views...

[The world peace starts in our own minds]

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 90/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com Dear Ishtar,

Love must be easy, enjoyable and positive, a little bit like a buddhist meditation. Love is like the Leonardo Da Vinci painting of men and god, it is a spiritual light that only sparkles and shines when both hands and mind are honestly striving towards the touch and the care of each other.

You know I can only wish you the best. So please take the best care of yourself, take only what is best for you from what I just wrote to you, and also allow others you really do trust and love to be kind with you. I hope you could consider me as one of them.

And if you can and wish to take it all from what I just kindly declared to you, please take the time to say a "little peaceful friendly hello" and send it to me. Please please double please little bees, feel free and easy to do so if it pleases you too, and if you really really do do please it too, please do do it as soon as possible.

With love, tenderness and kindness Yours

Patrick H. France September 2016 http://hautrive.wordpress.com

Letter to Ishtar : The Lotus Dream, page 91/91 http://hautrive.wordpress.com