Blog Full - Maurice Leavitt | Personal Essays, Travel Writing & Reflections

11 Mar 2019

Making The Choice… We Are Born Into Love, We Are Conditioned To Fear – Koh Rong Sanloem, Cambodia

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Love, Personal Growth, Sabbatical, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

I wrote a blog about being stripped of identity and it’s been occupying time and space inside of me these last several days. Not because I think there was anything wrong about what I wrote but, because there was a missing piece in that writing, a part 2 if you will. Something that, during these last several days of being able to completely slow down to a halt here in tropical paradise has made me contemplate even more. It’s amazing what complete stillness can do.

What if everything that happens is perfect? What if that being left hanging at the ferry terminal with no communication from the lodge was meant to happen and perfect for me? What if this experience here in Cambodia is unfolding so perfectly. Ugh… how I’ve resisted that sentiment so many times because of negative emotions that I think I have been able to let go of and then they resurface again. After some time, I continue to come back to the concept of “What if everything that happens is perfect?”, as being completely for my benefit. And then I can eventually see it is totally true.

Why does it take time to come around to being at peace and with accepting what is while I hold on to some of these negative feelings for a while?

Fear Attracts Fear

Why? Because I’m scared, angry, tired, upset or a combination thereof… Why? Because I’m allowing my own fear to get the best of me. I’m scared of being abandoned by the people that said they would be there for me. I spoke about that wound in my other writing stripped of identity. When I get a taste, or even a mere scent of that happening, I get scared and think the world is against me and I feel like I have to fight for the sake of my own survival. As much as I work so hard and want that fear to go away, it actually reveals an underlying belief that nobody will be there for me. Even though I know deep down it is totally not true. I get caught in a vicious circle of my own self-created misery. I realize this is part of being human and everybody that’s willing to admit their humanity has a wound that sometimes has them temporarily stuck.

I’m attracting what I fear.

I fear the energy of abandonment; therefore, I’m attracting it in my life? YES! That which I fear strongly I will be looking out for and find and experience. Like energy attracts like energy—forming “clumps” of energy of like kind. When enough similar “clumps” crisscross each other—run into each other—they “stick to” each other and when that happens enough times it forms “matter”. This built up “matter” creates a belief that fears are true and I should be looking out for it to happen once again. Once energy becomes matter, it becomes “sticky” and remains for a very long time—unless it is disrupted by an opposing, or dissimilar, form of energy. This dissimilar energy, acting upon matter, actually dismembers the matter, releasing the raw energy of which it was composed.

So how do I dismantle this negative and unnerving energy that does not serve me? Or any other adverse fearful energy? How am I going to “create” a reality that is more in tune with who I am? Because, I am not my story, or my history or my fear!

I need to remember that I can be the person I am meant to be and keep on creating the person that I want to be. I can perform the actions and behave like the person I am meant to be. I can have whatever I can possibly imagine for myself in my life. I can be the person who makes connections and doesn’t let my fear drive the bus. Why is it so hard to take my own medicine sometimes? We teach what we need to learn… so I write about it. ????

The Grand Polarity of Love and Fear

Can you feel the opposing forces of polarity that I’m writing about? The negative emotions where I feel my own self collapsing, while at the same time, the realization that life is unfolding completely for my benefit? This is the duality inside of the human condition, as I like to call it. Fear being at the polar opposite end of love. These are the only two places of being on the physical plane: fear and love.

Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation and thoughts rooted in love will produce another. Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, extends, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. Fear wraps our bodies in armor, love allows us to stand naked, vulnerable.

I’m reminded of the spiritual masters who have walked the planet (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Muhammad, and others) are those who have chosen only love. In every instance. In every moment. In every circumstance. Even as they were being killed, they loved their murderers. Even as they were being persecuted, they loved their oppressors. This is what every Master has done. It doesn’t matter what the religion, it doesn’t matter what the faith or tradition. And I’m bitching about not being picked up at the ferry terminal, getting counterfeit money our of the ATM, and being asked not to enter into the kitchen?

How could I have possibly forgotten what that voice of love sounds like? Here’s a reminder just in case. The highest voice inside is always the thought which contains joy. The clearest choice of words are those words which contain truth. The most glorious feeling is the one that is called love. Joy, truth, love. These three are interchangeable and interconnected, and one always leads to the other. It matters not in which order they are placed. The make the circle of life feel complete.

Creating vs. Discovering

I (we) have been put here on this earth to “create” my own reality and not believe I am a product of my family or my history. I am here to experience and discover all that the world and life has to offer, which is one reason I went on this sabbatical. Many people have told me that this sabbatical-travel is to help me realize my own becoming or for discovering more of who Maurice actually is. Uhhh, No. I’m here to create the self I want to be in this world by experiencing all that the world and life has to offer.

I want to be a creator of who I am in my life, not a discoverer of myself. I am here, we are all here, to experience in our lives the highest feeling of love that we can possibly imagine and extend it back out to everyone and the world. This doesn’t mean diminishing or discarding the negative feelings or emotions (hatred, anger, lust, jealousy), but to feel and experience ALL OF IT. All of the polar opposites. The everything that life has to offer. How can I choose love if I have not experienced the absence of love? How can I learn how to forgive until I know what it’s like to be merciless? How would I know what success is unless I’ve been unsuccessful?

Who am I if I am not the things that I may have identified myself as on this physical plane? The same as who you are too. I am goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. I am peace and joy and light. I am forgiveness and patience, strength bravery and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. I am the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. I have had moments of my life where I have known myself to be these things. I am continually given more and more opportunities to choose to know myself as these things.

It’s my job to make the choice. To choose love like the spiritual masters have done in every situation… to choose the best of who I am, the truth of who I am… without condemning or doing harm to myself for not choosing “right”, or thinking I need to attack someone, or reject somebody else’s perspective, or making a religion or teaching “wrong”. I do not want to do harm to the things I have not chosen in favor of my own perspective. By doing that, I am selfishly making my half… the entire whole. How can I possibly understand my half when I’ve just rejected the other half?

Make the choice.

now!

Now!

NOW!

… and choose love once again!

We have shown that hearts can change and a different future is possible when we refuse to be prisoners of the past.
– President Obama 2018 – Hanoi, Vietnam

Side Note about Cambodia and Vietnam…

Cambodia

Cambodia was a French protectorate beginning in 1863 before it gained independence in 1953. The Vietnam War extended into the country with the US bombing of Cambodia from 1969 until 1973. Following the Cambodian coup of 1970 which installed the right-wing pro-US Khmer Republic, the deposed king gave his support to his former enemies, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge emerged as a major power, taking Phnom Penh in 1975 and later carrying out the Cambodian genocide from 1975 until 1979, when they were ousted by Vietnam and the Vietnamese-backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea, supported by the Soviet Union in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War (1979–91). Following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, Cambodia was governed briefly by a United Nations mission (1992–93). The UN withdrew after holding elections in which around 90 percent of the registered voters cast ballots. The 1997 factional fighting resulted in the ousting of the government by Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Party, who remain in power as of 2018.

Vietnam

During the 3rd century BC, ancient Vietnamese people inhabited modern-day northern Vietnam. In 179 BC. Vietnam became part of Imperial China for over a millennium from 111 BC to 939 AD. An independent Vietnamese state emerged in 939 following Vietnamese victory in a battle against the Southern Han. Successive Vietnamese imperial dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century.

French Indochina saw the Japanese occupation in 1940 amidst the escalation of World War II. Following Japanese defeat in 1945, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War. On 2 September 1945, Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France and therefrom established a provisional communist state. After nine years of war, the Vietnamese declared victory. The nation was thereafter divided into two rival states, communist North—the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and anti-communist South—the Republic of Vietnam. Conflicts intensified in the Vietnam War with extensive US intervention in support of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. The war ended with North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

I was wondering why abandonment might have surfaced so strongly while I am here in Cambodia and transitioning to Vietnam while I’m in the middle of watching Ken Burns Vietnam War TV Series. Then as I did a little research about the history of these countries, pieces began to fall into place. These countries have experienced many wars and occupations by foreign countries, only to be “abandoned” by these countries and left to their own devices to develop once again. That’s what happened in Vietnam by the USA and what happened in Cambodia by the French.

It’s never too late to keep on choosing love over fear.

7 Mar 2019

Developing Countries (Cambodia), Everything is a Dream – The Island of Koh Rong Samloem

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Personal Growth, Photos, Relationship, Sabbatical, The Human Condition | 0

It’s a new moon… night of darkness. A reminder of what might be working astrologically speaking…

The Aquarius New Moon cycle ends and the Pisces New Moon cycle begins. The New Moon in Pisces is a good time to commit to personal goals that express the positive energies of the sign of the Fish. These include taking a leap of faith, accepting imperfections in ourselves and in others as a different kind of “perfection,” starting a project that requires imagination and visualization skills, consciously putting time aside for peaceful and rejuvenating activities, and sharing a dream with another. With this potent Pisces energy, we have the chance to make important changes in our lives.

This New Moon is especially creative and imaginative with its conjunction to Neptune, square to Jupiter, and sextile to Mars. We are likely to feel very inspired, and this New Moon can motivate us to take a leap of faith, but we also check in with reality with Saturn’s sextile to the lunation. It also occurs shortly after Mercury stationed and turned retrograde and Uranus entered Taurus, and some instability or lack of clear judgment is likely now.

This phase of the Moon occurs at 15 degrees and 47 minutes of Pisces, affecting people born with personal planets and points at approximately 12 to 20 degrees of the Mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces) most significantly.

From one bliss after another, huh Faye? ???? Oh man, do I want to be in that mind set at the moment and write all about how blissful I am and how absolutely fantastic this entire journey is. Here I sit on this gorgeous island in Cambodia and forced to deal with myself to find a more peaceful state of mind, so I thought I’d write about it… to get the bitterness and negativity out of me and also try to use some of the dharma I’ve learned and hope to practice, on myself. I am not looking for any sympathy or any “I’m sorry” that you have to deal with this kind of thing. I’m using this venue to let go of any of my own self-created torment that I put upon myself (it cannot come from anyone else) and find a place of relaxation into what is altogether.

After spending three weeks in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh I wanted to fulfill a desire to go sit on some pristine and mostly untouched beach with white sands and turquoise waters that I thought I would be able to accomplish in Thailand. I decided on the island of Koh Rong Samloem in Cambodia and to stay at the Jungle Bay Eco-Lodge. I was drawn to this island because I heard it’s only been about the last ten years that they have been developing and building on this island. And because the bungalows are built on the ocean was something I always wanted to experience.

Up to this point I seem to have done pretty good with acceptance of what is when it comes to traveling to foreign countries, dealing with the survival/scarcity consciousness of some people in poor cultures and with some of my accommodation issues. When I was in Siem Reap I had a wonderful experience staying at a gorgeous villa with kind and generous hosts. When I went to Phnom Penh I stayed at a place in a fabulous central location, but the mattress needed to be replaced, I don’t think the floor has been cleaned in weeks… and I was getting caught between the host/owner of the building and his tenants who were somehow taking on some hosting responsibilities. ONWARD to the next…

I was so excited to get out of the city and come to an island that I heard was under developed and live in a hut on top of the ocean. Sounds wonderful, right? Firstly, I have been making decisions on my Airbnb stays based on the properties having “super-hosts”, people that have gotten stellar reviews from people that stay there. After doing research on Koh Rong Samloem on Airbnb and other booking sites, there were mixed reviews for a lot of the properties here and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.

I went against what I’ve normally done for Airbnb. I chose a property that did not have a superhost, but it had mostly good reviews. I had a decent initial first communication with someone who also told me that they would welcome me to play in the kitchen and for my input considering this is only their second season in operation. So, I decided to book the place for a week. After that, it’s been going downhill… the host on Airbnb stopped communicating with me in email messaging and as it turns out, is not physically on the property. After being told I was going to be picked up at the ferry dock, I was left hanging there, they did not answer their phone when I called, and I decided to walk the 20 minutes through the beach and the jungle to the lodge. Not a good first impression. After spending one evening helping out in the kitchen which seemed to go fine, I was told by one of the volunteer workers that it would no longer be possible for me to be in the kitchen. I think it’s just a personality conflict.

Here I sit on my second full day on this gorgeous island and I’m going to allow myself to feel bitchy and irritated? It sounds completely stupid and even reading my own writing about it and looking at myself in these words seems even more ridiculous. There is a sore spot/wound within me that is being rubbed the wrong way and hurts after all of this. This open wound is very inconvenient and problematic now. I don’t like it. I want to be tough, to fight, to come out strong, so I don’t feel I have to defend any aspect of myself. I would like to attack the people running this lodging facility right now, single-handedly. I would lay my guilt trips on everybody completely and properly, so that I do not hide any of my hurt. That way, if somebody decides to attack me back, I am not wounded. And hopefully, I won’t get hit on that same sore spot, that I got hit on in the first place.

Yet I truly believe that our basic human makeup… the basic constituents of our human mind, is based on goodness, kindness, passion and compassion… all at the same time. But, however confused I might temporarily be right now, however much of a cosmic monster I might become, there is still an open wound or sore spot in me… always… no matter how much work I may have done in group or individual therapy or publicly at retreat centers. I continue to be vulnerable and accessible and I’m not covered in a suit of armor. And here I am sitting in it all. Fantastically Wonderful… right? UGH!

I’m determined NOT to sit here and be irritated by what is happening and out of my control and feel sorry for myself. It’s not really about the circumstances, is it now?!?! So, then what? Wat To Do? I need to remember some of my own medicine.

One of the practices in the Buddhist tradition (Buddhadharma) is to regard anything that happens as a phantom or a dream. That nothing ever really happens. It means that whatever life experiences happen—pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness, grossness, refinement, sophistication, crudeness, heat, cold, or whatever—is purely from our memory. What is perceived is a product of the mind that uses the bodies senses to create perceptions.

There is this other teaching/dharma I recall from vipassana, meaning “awareness”, that helps support this idea that everything happens is a dream. When reflecting on the breath during meditation, suddenly meandering thoughts begin to arise: the mind begins to see, hear and feel things. But all those perceptions are none other than my own mental creation. In the same way I need to see that my irritation for what’s going on at Jungle Bay Eco-Lodge, the missing I experience for my friends, my attitude towards the Cambodian bank for dispensing me counterfeit money, how I want to experience cultural cuisine during my travels, are all a part of my discursive thought process that my mind is so good at.

The vipassana practice is about awareness of the breath and the body. The practice coupled with that is about mindfulness (shamatha). Joining these two covers most of our entire existence, behavior patterns and daily life. This is where meditation and post meditation practice meet. Where mindfulness and awareness happen simultaneously, all at the same time. Where a sense of friendliness to everything is developed.

Sitting here on the beach appreciating the beauty of the island I’m surrounded in, while dealing with my open wound and perceived negativity that my mind is bringing to me. I am being harshed and gentled all at the same time. I COULD have a tender heart in this situation and offer a heart that does not ask for anything in return. It’s obvious that I stepped on someone’s toes. I do not have to get on my high horse and get all sensitive about it.

Can I try to feel better towards the people at the bank who gave me counterfeit money and to the people at the lodge I’m staying? Can I try to extend that sense of gentleness, goodwill and gratitude in attempt to make myself soft and reasonable?

I’m still learning and practicing…

- - How to be open and accepting
  - How to love in the face of being my own cosmic monster
  - Realizing that others can actually be more important than me
  - Practicing compassionate communication
  - Being without expectations

These are some of the hardest things of all for me to learn. (This writing has helped immensely.)

Everything that is happening is a dream that I am making up in my own mental creation. I am creating my own reality at every moment. Only I am the only one responsible for how I feel. There is nothing standing in the way for me to choose peace and love. Why do we make things so complicated sometimes when they should be so easy?

2 Mar 2019

Jungle to Genocide – Phnom Penh, Cambodia

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Photos, Sabbatical | 0

On my last couple days in Siem Reap I wanted to go on a road trip into Phnom Kulen National Park which was the place where Jayavarman II had himself declared chakravartin (King of Kings), an act which is considered the foundation of Khmer Empire. And to the temple Bantãy Srĕi—citadel of the women, or citadel of beauty— which is probably related to the intricacy of the bas relief carvings found on the walls and the tiny dimensions of the buildings themselves.

I was able to accomplish the national park after meeting a new friend who said there was an extra seat on a group tour they were taking to the mountain. It was on a Saturday and the ride was about an hour and a half up the hill and into the park. Because it was a Saturday, the park was very crowded with locals. Foreigners are required to pay $20 for a day ticket while the locals get in for free. We arrive after about a 90min drive to the park. It is very busy with people enjoying the atmosphere and their “holiday”, meaning it’s Saturday and a lot of the shops are closed observing a day of rest for all.

The temple, on the other hand, is part of the Angkor ticketing which means $37US for a day ticket – $62 for 3 day – $72 for a week pass and you must buy your tickets inside Siem Reap and not the temples which takes a little more planning and financial resources for the foreigners going. As like the national park, locals get in for free. I’m sorry that I missed that particular temple.

I’ve noticed something about myself after arriving to Cambodia, that I’m a bit of a germ-a-phobe. It’s not that I’m constantly applying hand sanitizer or need to have a toilet seat cover or anything like that. It’s that I’m looking around at the conditions in which food is being sold and prepared, and the conditions of my surroundings and living arrangements. I’m even particular about training my students and making them aware of how sanitary they are keeping their space and themselves in the kitchen, an important part of being a cook.

I spoke about being a germ-a-phone in the van on the ride up into the national park and decided I was not going to go swimming after seeing all the garbage, public urination and all the people in the water. I had a similar experience when I was in India as well, not eating meat, eating raw fruit/veg from items that are peeled and making things I eat are cooked and served hot. In Thailand it was much cleaner there than in India and Cambodia. Cleanliness is next to godliness… oh I’m not sure anymore.

Then I arrive to Phnom Penh and before I got here I watched the movie “The Killing Fields”. I wanted to make sure I was all brushed up on my history before I got here and arranged for a tour to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the memorial site of the S-21 interrogation and detention center of the Khmer Rouge regime. And the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, the site of a former orchard and mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge – killed between 1975 and 1979 – about 17 kilometers south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed over one million people between 1975 and 1979.

I found it such a dichotomy how I could go from this celebratory environment of a Saturday weekend holiday in a beautiful national park and a couple days later wind up in historical landmarks marking the Khmer Rouge genocide. It’s as real as life gets here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I have found that being in the bigger cities when I’m traveling less desirable than the smaller ones. No surprise seeing that I live in Maine and in a small town just outside of Portland. After about 3-4 days I feel pretty complete. I have a few more days here in Phnom Penh and will be taking a river cruise, maybe a half day bike tour of the islands outside of the city and visiting a few more of the markets before I head to Koh Rong Sanloem and the Jungle Bay Eco-Lodge. You’ll find me on the beach for a week or so snorkeling the coral reefs and soaking in the luminescent plankton at night before heading to Hanoi, Vietnam.

28 Feb 2019

Stripped of Identity… “Who am I?” – Phnom Penh, Cambodia

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Personal Growth, Sabbatical, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

Is it a coincidence that I’ve been pondering the concept of “who am I?” while I’m in a place like Cambodia? Where the French occupation, Khmer Rouge genocide and the Vietnam war isn’t so far in Cambodia’s historical past and as the people are bringing back their culture, society and countries identity? I don’t find it such a coincidence, if there are such things as coincidence.

Its been six months of traveling and I could feel how easy it was to walk through the main outdoor local market in Phnom Penh yesterday versus the main market in Varanasi, India back in September. I don’t speak any Khmer and hardly anyone spoke English. The broken concrete roads littered with garbage and blood from the butchering of meat and fish that do not get washed away by any humans as they did in Thailand or by the rains of mother nature in the dry season. And I managed to get everything I wanted so I could cook food at “home”. I found a young man running a shop for his elder mother who spoke a little English and he was happy to have a conversation with me. I felt peaceful and part of the big picture, even if I did have moments where I thought the people were talking about me. ????

Having experienced the depths of inclusion with many different families, groups and cultures is stripping away any remainder of a belief that I may have had left inside of myself that I must only be associating with those who look like me, talk like me and believe the same things as me. This old and isolating belief has become redundant, counter productive and more importantly, impossible to maintain as I travel like this through multiple countries and cultures. We have become global citizens in ways that our grandfathers and grandmothers were not. We are being stripped down of our beliefs of who we think we are culturally, religiously and personally and transcending into a more respectful and understanding way of acknowledging each other’s differences. We are all the same… remember?

I have become one of those modern global nomads traveling great distances in short amount of times. Visiting world landmarks like Angkor Wat, the Ghats of Varanasi, The Emerald Buddha, The Killing Fields, and The Himalayas. As I begin to overcome old ingrained concepts and ideas of separations and divisions between people, physically and spiritually, there has emerged an opposing reaction, the fear of losing my identity in a world where it’s so easy to move around in and in a constant state of change. Losing my identity… who am I anyways?

Identity? What identity? Self-Identity? How I see myself in the local community of Maine where I have been living for 25 years? Or, now in a world of communities? Do I really identify myself through my work as a culinary arts professor on sabbatical? The son from a middle class, Chicago, Illinois, Jewish family? A middle aged, overweight, privileged white westerner? I might be seeking to identify and define myself by my cultural traits, religious upbringing, family orientation, geographic attachments, personal lifestyle, spoken language, eating preferences, physical attributes and many more. Am I using these qualities to define who I am, give me some idea of self-identity and give me some security of who I might be in relationship to the world as a whole? Who am I anyway if I am not any of the aforementioned?

We have seen the collapse of the Berlin wall and are currently seeing more walls rising in the USA and the middle east. Why do we still even see genocide in the 21^st century? It’s not the desire to preserve one’s own identity that is the problem. The problem is when our identity becomes a tool or a direct way for the exclusion and dis-empowerment of others.

As I sit here in my third story room directly across the street from the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh I get the opportunity to ponder how I might perceive my own self-identity after these 6-months of travel. I have been transported beyond any idea I may have conceived about myself which has left me feeling liberated, with a sense of freedom and an escape from any restricting thoughts. I’ve had moments of riding through the rice patties of Cambodia and thinking, am I really still in this body of mine? As if I am joining with something else that my mind cannot understand. I become part of the whole, the whole becomes part of me and I know I am not separate. In that moment, I have temporarily given up the limited awareness of any kind of label through which I may identify myself as and I have lost the fear of oneness with the whole and of my own death.

I am certain of the truth of who I am (my identity) because any thoughts and words I could possibly use to describe myself could only be limiting. The love I have for myself and the world has replaced any thoughts or preconceived worldly concepts. It’s where you and I BOTH become limitless together. I have become one with something beyond my own self-identity and body, simply by not letting any limitations of the thoughts in my mind get in the way.

Who are YOU?

« 1 … 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 … 44 »