Soulful Sadhak

 Op uitnodiging van de Vlaamse Plum Village Sangha gaf ik een voordracht over sociaal engagement: hoe kan je je engagement in leven houden in een dolgedraaide wereld waar alles mis lijkt te lopen? Waar begin je? En hoe houd je de moed vol zonder op te branden? Ik deel over de lessen die ik trok uit meer dan 20 jaar sociaal engagement, en over mijn vallen en opstaan met perfectionisme, sociale angst en overdreven dadendrang.  Je kan de voordracht hier beluisteren: https://soundcloud.com/soulfulsadhak/dharma-talk-duurzaam

Please call me by my true names So I can see that my joy and pain are one - Thich Nhat Hanh    For a while i struggled with this thought: How can i practice mindfulness and meditation and find peace and happiness, while there is so much peace and injustice in the world? This poem came out of that contemplation. It is dedicated to my brother in the Dharma and activist friend Tom. When i breathe, let me breathe for Eric Garner and all those suffocating under discrimination and oppression And when i breathe, let me breathe for the officer who only knows how to react to challenge with violence When i walk, let me walk for the child in Gaza who can no longer walk home as he lost both his legs in a bomb explosion And when i walk, let me walk for the soldier who does not know  how to walk in peace but sees enemies everywhere When i eat let me eat for the mother in Darfur going hungry to save the last scraps of food for her starving children And when i eat let me eat for the mult...

  A Walk with God Last night i went for a walk with God And as He held my hand, we talked I asked: ‘Where do we go from here, what is the direction? When do we arrive and achieve perfection? He said: ‘There is nowhere to go, nothing to fear Everything you need is already here Look through my eyes and you will see I am in you and you are in Me Everything you touch is already Divine With every step you reach this Kingdom of mine’   And as we strolled a bit further down I could not help but for my face to frown: ‘Lord but there is, so much suffering and pain In this crazy old world, how can we stay sane?’ ‘The road is long and windy, and it’s easy to get lost If you want to reach your goal, there will be a cost There is hardship and struggle on the way But to find your destination, it is worth to pay The toll to reach the other shore Arrive in peace and suffer no more’   His answer made me stumble and wince I could not say I was fully convinced: ‘Where is...

A piece about my life in Sadhana Forest  and how living in a sustainable reforestation community contributes to my understand of Interbeing. Originally written for Wake Up . Adapted from an earlier post . Tree planting in Sadhana Forest The past four years, I have been living and volunteering in an eco-community in South India. We live very simply in thatched roof huts made from local, natural materials. Our community is off-grid and uses only electricity from our solar panels and the water we draw from our well. In our daily life, we practice reforestation, bringing back to life an almost extinct indigenous tropical forest on a 70-acre piece of land, returning water, trees, and life to a once-barren and deserted area. I have learned many practical things about community life and sustainable living practices, but the deepest teaching while living this life has been a very direct, lived experience of the reality of Interbeing. Living this close to nature and actively participat...

 A cloud never dies Photo: Max Pugh You are leaving, but every moment you are still arriving in every step and every breath I take Your eyes are closed, but I can see you more clearly now in the clouds and in the water in my tea You are no longer here, yet I see you everywhere in the smile of a child and the blossoms of spring Your voice is silent, if it weren’t for the singing of birds and the rustling of leaves in the wind There is no coming and no going as you are leaving, you are only returning to us The greater the distance between us, the more we carry you in our hearts You have left a void, which we can only fill with the the practice you gave us We feel an emptiness, but we know we are only empty of a separate self My sadness is beyond limits, but so are the gratitude and love I feel today A bottomless hole is gaping in my soul, from which a wellspring of compassion rises I am at a loss for words, my mind is blank and yet understanding is born: The boddhisattva stands majes...

Social media these days are full of people with beautiful, athletic and strong bodies doing the most impressive yoga poses. As I was stuck in bed for the past two months (and one more month to go at least) with an injury, it was a great reminder to me that yoga is not about how acrobatic you can be. In fact, the past months I might have learned more about yoga than during all those years of practice without injury. Yoga was very much what kept me going during this time of inconvenience. "What do you mean?" I hear you think, "How can you practice yoga with a broken foot?" Well, you perfectly can, I found out. I still had a body, that I could move around, maybe with some limitation. However, it became an exploration to see how I could move my body with the limits I had, and how I could - in doing so - bring ease and comfort to body and mind. And isn't that what yoga is all about? Practicing yoga with a broken foot Yoga to me is about being embodied, about the joy ...

The spirituality of a sustainable lifestyle The environment. It is a big issue these days. Our society lags behind in coming up with the right answers. Even in our own lives it is not easy to become aware of all the problems involved and live a life that is wholly sustainable. These issues are so deeply rooted in our society and it would take such a radical change to break away from all of them. It is easy to be acquiescent and just settle for second best. It can be even easier to just lose hope and settle with resentment. However, I think it is worth the effort to try and live a life the is integrally sustainable, for I belief that is not only good for our planet, but it is also a deeply mindful life, one where every action we take connects us with all living beings on our planet. The restoration work of Sadhana Forest I will share with you my story of how I try to live a life that is fully sustainable. It made me quit my job back home in Belgium and move to India to go and live in a ...

May there be many more forests to grow people - Sadhana Forest I am the forest I am the trees I am every single leaf I am the birds and the bees Nesting on each branch Humming in each flower All thirst I quench Shade and shadow I shower I am a thousand years old Yet born this very day More precious than gold Made of earth and clay I will always be there I am sky and space Here there is fresh air And everyone has a place Breathing out, you breathe in Breathing in, you breathe out We are the same kin Without any doubt As our roots intertwine Here I set you free Put your little hand in mine Come now, come grow with me

I just want to stop worrying all the time, worrying about whether I am doing things the right way, even worrying about whether I am being mindful enough. I want to stop getting caught up and carried away by ideas all the time. I just wish I would be a little more solid. I wish I could just feel a little more relaxed. I just want to live a simple life, and try to make the right choices, do good for my neighbour, and not worry too much about whether it is good enough. I know that the most important thing for me, is just to keep my mindfulness, because if I don’t, if I think that there is something so urgent that I have to leave all my resolutions behind, then I know in no time I will end up somewhere with my head in the clouds, and stress in my body. I know that if I can keep my attention here, I will be fine, things will turn out all right one way or another, and I will be safe from harm. I will not lose myself. And I will not achieve great things, the kind of things you read about in b...

My mind is an ocean To her all the world does flow On the surface that may cause motion But she is still deep down below There is nothing she doesn't embrace She encompasses all Whatever she may face She faces and stands tall The ocean does not discriminate It takes in all you give It's always in the same state just live and let live The ocean does not go anywhere It has no future and no past It has always been there And forever it will last Come and sit by my side, my dear And watch the waves roll in And when you've overcome your fear You can begin to swim

"How did you find the practice of mindfulness?" someone asked me recently. I answered him: "I found it when I stopped looking for something." He was confused: "When did that happen?" "Oh, only very recently, long after I arrived here." You see, what I had been doing was whenever an unpleasant feeling would arise, I would just try to become very 'mindful' in order to make it go away, and I would tell myself that I would have to practice even harder in the future to prevent this from happening. But now matter how hard I tried, unpleasant feelings would still arise, which after a couple of months, made me quite desperate. It was only then that I realized that this was not what the practice was about at all. I was just running away from things I did not like (unpleasant feelings) and holding on to things I liked (pleasant feelings). In the end, this was not different from what I had been doing before whole my life. In fact, it is how most peo...

I surrender. Today 23th of November shall henceforth be known as the day of Armistice, the day I stopped fighting. I have been fighting so long. So long I have been building walls and fortresses. And everyday I kept making the walls thicker, hiding deeper and deeper inside, until nothing could touch me anymore. But still, no matter how hard I tried, the fortress was never untakable. Each time I increased the defenses, something was still able to creep in and I had to increase defenses again. On and on it went, until... Until I realized that this was a battle I could never win, in fact, there was no point in fighting it at all. Why was I hiding there in my fortress, while life was going out there? So I decided to abandon my fortress and just go out. I decided I would no longer hide away from anything, but would accept whatever would come, surrendering completely to whatever was coming my way. And you know what is funny? Never when I was crouching behind my thick walls in my tightly cont...

I sometimes hear people say around here that it is so hard to practice around people that are not practitioners and that they need to find a more practice-suited environment. This always confuses me a bit. Off course, it can be helpful to find favorable conditions for personal growth, but in the end, if you do away with everything that does not help your practice, just to replace this with things that you think do suit your practice, you are no better than all those people you left behind. We do not practice to replace all things we think are 'bad' with things we consider 'good'. We are still trying to get rid of the things we don't like in order to replace them with things we do like. We are still caught up in hatred and greed. We are still caught in attachment. You can even be a monk and have done away with all worldly affairs, just to become attached to the simple monastic life and still not be a real practitioner. No, we do not practice to replace good with bad,...

Weet je, heel mijn leven lang droeg ik een zakdoek in mijn broekzak. Waar ik ook ging, wat ik ook deed, ik had altijd mijn zakdoek mee. Zelfs toen ik een tiener werd, en zakgeld kreeg, dan dacht ik er toch nog eerder aan om mijn zakdoek in mijn broekzak te steken dan mijn portefeuille. En toen de gsm opkwam, durfde ik mijn gsm wel al eens thuis laten (ik was nooit iemand die met de massa meeheulde, weet je), maar mijn zakdoek, nee, die moest ik altijd bij hebben. Zo had ik het van mijn vader geleerd. Hij had ook altijd een zakdoek bij zich. Altijd als ik voelde dat er snot in mijn neus zat, moest ik snuiten. Dat snot hoorde daar immers niet, het was vies, het irriteerde me. En elke avond, wanneer ik weer maar eens naar een volgesnoten zakdoek keek, dacht ik: "Dat blijft maar komen. Wanneer gaat dat nu eindelijk eens gedaan zijn? Wanneer ga ik nu eindelijk eens vrij kunnen ademhalen?" Nee, ik deed het niet voor mijn plezier die zakdoek in mijn broekzak steken. Eigenlijk wou ik...

(geschreven voor B-magazine , studentenmagazine Taal- & Letterkunde)   Je moet niet alleen, om de plek te bereiken thuis opstappen, maar ook uit manieren van kijken. Er is niets te zien, en dat moet je zien om alles bij het zeer oude te laten. 'De Plek' – Herman de Coninck Vorm is leegte. Leegte is vorm. Vorm is niets dan leegte. Leegte is niets dan vorm. Alle dingen zijn leeg. Ze kennen geen ontstaan en geen vergaan. Hartsoetra 5u15. Opstaan. Te vroeg, ik wil nog blijven liggen. Ik zie hoe de gedachte om te blijven liggen zich vormt – wat een opmerkelijke gedachte – en weer we ggaat. Alles gaat voorbij. Dat is de enige zekerheid die je hebt. Ergens vaag in mijn achterhoofd hangt het bewustzijn dat ik moe zou moeten zijn, dat ik me aangevallen zou moeten voelen door het geluid van mijn wekker zo vroeg in de ochtend, dat ik me zou moeten verzetten. Andere gevoelens, andere strijd, andere tijden. Ik kom overeind en haal drie keer diep adem. Ik leef! Mijn lichaam z...