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

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?

26 Feb 2019

Angkor Temples – Siem Reap, Cambodia

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Sabbatical | 0

It’s still hard to believe that it’s been 6 months that I’ve been traveling through Asia. I am still feeling the effects that I talked about in my last blog, wanting time to recover from such wonderful heart connections. Thought I’d at least write something since it’s been a week or so… I started this blog a few days ago… so if my timing is off… please forgive me.

I’ve now arrived in Phenom Penh last night and will be touring around and getting educated on the Khamer Rouge and the genocide that took place here between 1975-1979. I have no idea of the quantity of bombing the USA did on Cambodia in secret during the Vietnam war. Over a half of a million tons of TNT dropped. WTF!?! I don’t remember this being talked about in history class in high school.

Cambodia was not on my to-do or places to go list. After finishing my time short in Nepal, I had some extra time on my hands and wanted to see more of Asia. Hearing all the wonderful things about Angkor Wat in Siem Reap and doing some homework about Cambodia… the Khmer Rouge communist party and the Killing Fields in the 1970’s and Angkor, the capitol of the Angkor Empire, a UNESCO historical site, I decided to make Cambodia a stop.

It’s been a hit here so far in Siem Reap. Definitely a heavy touristy destination with thousands of people gathering each day at 5am at Angkor Wat temple for the bucket list sunrise over the temple towers. Of course, I had to do that too, right?! The ancient and historic monuments here are breathtaking and a once in a lifetime and must-see experience.

I’m amazed at how these temples have physically withstood the test of time over 8 or 9 centuries through wars and climate changes. I’m even more amazed at how they let the thousands of people step onto the sandstone structures. You can see where the temples have been torn apart during wartime and how difficult it must have been to move all those heavy rocks around all by hand.

The foundation behind the easily carved sandstone exteriors are made of laterite. Laterite is mined while it is below the water table, so it is wet and soft. Upon exposure to air it gradually hardens as the moisture between the flat clay particles evaporates and the larger iron salts lock into a rigid lattice structure and become resistant to atmospheric conditions. Hence the long-standing ability of the buildings.

I’ve managed to strategize my time visiting all of the temples over the course of the 3-day ticket I purchased. It’s so jammed packed with people every day and on my first day after getting a late start, the 100F temperatures and beginning with the most popular spot, Angkor Wat and moving along to Angkor Thom I knew I needed a different strategy for my second day. I started with the 5am sunrise and then immediately moved to the lesser traveled temples before the midday heat. Then I took a break, had lunch and went back to Angkor Thom in the afternoon before they closed at 530pm. That seemed to work for me. I still need to plan my 3^rd and final day tomorrow.

Here’s a cool panorama I took the other day. http://m.360.io/wACy4S

I’m most enthralled with Angkor Thom. Inside there is a temple called Bayon temple. It was the last temple to be built as a Mahayana Buddhist shrine dedicated to the Buddha, though a great number of minor and local deities were also encompassed. There are 216 similar gigantic faces on the temple’s towers to other statues of the king has led many scholars to the conclusion that the faces are representations of Jayavarman VII himself. Others have said that the faces belong to the bodhisattva of compassion called Avalokitesvara or Lokesvara. I’d like to believe the latter. One of my plans is to go back there and play the Rockwell – Michael Jackson song, Somebody’s Watching Me.

Another bit of historical trivia… these temples were created in the 11^th century in the Hindu tradition dedicated to the God Vishnu. About the 14^th century they were converted to Buddhist temples and a lot of the Hindu gods were carved away and replaced with Buddha. In order to support a lot of the Hindu population, there are Hindu artifacts left in the temples to support them. To this day you will find both Hindu and Buddhist artifacts left in the temples. This was a familiar thing I’ve experienced in Kochi, India at St. George church. Where there was a small Shiva shrine in the church acknowledging the Hindu faith dwarfing with the ginormous Jesus shrine. I still find it almost enlightening that centuries ago people acknowledged each other and their beliefs and practices instead of just making their practices illegal.

Siam Reap is also a hip little town with quite the nightlife all along pub street and the night markets. Since the town is loaded with travelers and tourists like me and they cater to their every westernized perceived need. There is no lack for good coffee, mostly of the Arabica variety as they export most of the Cambodian coffee to reap the financial gain as Arabica coffee is cheaper. There is even a local brew pub, one of eight in Cambodia here in Siem Reap.

On my last day in Siem Reap I was invited to go up into the hills of Phnom Kulen National Park. I might write more about it later… in the meantime I want to get this posted for now…

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