On my butt again

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February 21-March 4

Well, I´m back in the kitchen again but with one little difference. That´s right, you´re now reading the travel blog of...the kitchen manager! We´re supposed to be here working to dissolve our egos, and now my head is big it can´t even fit in the kitchen to tell my slaves...er, coworkers...what to do and to do it faster and quieter.

It´s a lot of work but familiarity with the kitchen and the menu saves it from being a total disaster. The kitchen crew was mostly Spanish this time, allowing me to speak more Spanish, and we all worked well together. We even got cocky, making our own desserts without following the menu book, substituting ingredients where necessary, and adding artistic flourishes whenever possible. In short, it was great fun.

I continued to learn more about the meditation technique and myself. I learned that I take a very analytical/intellectual approach to meditation, while others may have an approach based on faith, concentration, determination, etc. Almost every day I seemed to work on a theme based on something I read the previous day, and it was quite a nice little exercise most of the time.

There were two big revelations this time. One was that I´m thoroughly sick and tired of always making the same damn mistakes over and over again in my life, and I experienced the strong desire to make a determined effort to stop making these mistakes and live a more sensible, peaceful life. The other revelation was a faith and belief in the meditation technique and philosophy. One aspect of learning and understanding the meditation is seeing how it actually works and experiencing the logic and practicality of it and seeing that little changes start happening immediately. I have never believed in God and organized religions and I have always felt envy towards those who have real faith and devotion in their religion, while I muddle through life the best I can. But now I have this wonderful faith and trust that if I continue to practice and learn this meditation and the philosophy behind it, I can work out any problem and, short of decapitation, there is nothing in this world that can really hurt me. All this from sitting on my ass! Who would´ve thunk it?

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