So, when I came, it was August. July, August is fully alive, so I thought, “Oh, it’s a nice place. Small but lively.” Looks nice, people sit almost on the street. You see all the restaurants. So, you’re free to explore around. Get to know your house, neighbors… […]
I originally wanted to buy this piece of land. They buy it for you to bring hammocks. And at that time, they did not want to sell. And now they cut all the trees, it’s only three or four left. At that time, they didn’t want to sell. And then later they say they want to sell, but they want the money; it’s same like the hotel here. The hotel has rooms, has house, has everything already – same price as the piece of empty land over there. They make me trouble. I just want a piece of land for you, and not for myself even. I don’t know why they give me a hard time. How can a piece of empty land be the same price as a hotel that already has everything? Tell me.
What did you eat? Is it good? (Yes.) Have to make it simple. Morning, breakfast. Evening, lunch. That’s it. Too much eating… Put the garb on the stuff. Tell you what it was. Maybe eat congee, we can do that. Put that over here. But nobody eat? Still a lot left! Later you eat more? (Yes.) You come back and eat more? (Yes.) Why not? If you want. You should buy wholemeal bread, no? (That’s very sweet.) OK, some. This is for toast, right? We haven’t got a toaster. (No.) Oh, dear. We’re going to have to buy some toasters. It’s just simple life. Many people – how you toast. (Yes.) It’s also difficult, right? But we can try and buy some. Anybody in charge here? The money taker, where? Buy me ten toasters. Ten or 20 toasters and we do what we can. Some can toast, some cannot. At least somebody has, somebody [doesn’t]. Take turns. You have to register for toast.
Hey! Give me some space. Out of here. I want space, space. (Thank You. Thank You.) Why don’t we just sit in here? It’s so cool. (Yes.) Put a chair and we all sit. But it’s very… A little bit dirty here for you to sit, right? (You can sit. Chair. Yes!) How about everybody else? (Master, Master.) (Master, we have a chair for You.) How about everybody else? Sit here, so they have room. (Oh, yes, yes.) Are you going somewhere? Do we have enough room? (It’s better to stay here because it’s fresher.) Fresher, OK. But it’s so dirty for them, how are we going to…? (No, we can stay here.) (Yes, we can stay here.) It’s cool. (Are You OK, Master?) I’m OK. (Maybe put this down.) What? (Take it out?) No, never mind. They don’t have room out here. It’s not too bad, I mean. OK? (It’s a very nice place.) What is that? Where from? Never mind. You’re welcome.
How much did they tell you to pay to stay here? (Thirty euros.) Thirty per day? (No, total.) No need. (Microphone?) Yes. We will see how much we really need. And the rest, just give it back to you, or we buy (vegan) chocolate. (No, Master, it’s very little.) (Yes.) (It’s very little money.) Because this house I bought already. So, no need to pay anything more. (We are so happy here. We are happy here.) So just a little bit for food. (Yes, yes.) Whoever has money, put it for food to eat together, that’s all. My food, I pay. No, really! I don’t ever take your food. Mostly any Center I go, I eat, I pay. I put money in the box. But here I don’t have a box, because it’s my house. So, maybe we need the minimum. Like $5 per day, something like that. (It’s very little.) (It’s very little.) (It’s good, very luxurious.) Very luxurious. Is it good?
(We have bathroom and…) Of course, you have. If it’s very hot, you can take a shower, but quick. Or use a wet towel, quick. Just because we’re too many, it’s not because I control you. Too many and it takes so long. Many people, if everybody takes a shower every day, can you imagine? When we meditate? We don’t even eat. No time to eat, no time to sleep, just queuing, like me queuing in the train station. But this is too far from everywhere. Just too far. (No. It’s OK.) It’s OK? (It’s OK.) (We are very happy.) You are happy? (Yes.) How? (We still have a big home.) Is it big enough? Loud enough here? (Yes.) Can you hear me? (Yes.)
Yes. You know what? Originally, when I first came, I came right next to… I came in right through the junction where all the people sit there drinking, eating, happy, I thought, “Wow, this is the place. Nice!” And then when I came back later on, it’s around winter or something – nobody! I changed my mind. But I already signed, already paid. So I thought OK… Originally, I also thought maybe we get a better hotel, a bigger one. I looked around, there were bigger ones, more expensive. But has a beach, owned, private, across the street; you walk across. It’s nice also. But doesn’t have a (big) room. Doesn’t have a meeting room. Just rooms, small, small rooms and a small dining room, about the size of this dining room. Smaller. Can you imagine? Bigger hotel, 60 rooms. Nice. On the beach, but farther from the town.
This one you walk a little bit, you’ll go to nearby the town, no? Walk a little, no? (No.) (It’s so long.) No? You didn’t walk, or it’s not near the town? (Twenty-minute walk.) What? (Thirty-minute walk.) No. Really? You know, there’s a hotel. Anybody [went] there yet? (No.) The people who live here? (No.) No? Where are the people who live here? I mean, who occupy my house. Did you pay for the beach over there? (Yes.) It was already included, every day. (No, have to pay every year.) Every year. Did you pay? (Yes.) Since we buy it? Because I want to arrange it so people here can go and bathe there. But you take turns, OK? You take turns all day. You organize with each other. Like, twenty people want to go in the morning and two hours later, another twenty people – going and coming. I don’t know how because mostly they don’t have that many people just go there.
All come from here. We could pay them more, ask them… Sometimes we have a big party; we don’t always use it because up to now we paid but we didn’t use. So, you go and talk to them to see. But now we have a party, so people come and go. Possible [that] we go still? Or if you want, then we pay more or anything, because we didn’t use it all the way up to now. So, it’s balanced actually. We haven’t used it for how long? When did I buy it? Since when? (Last September.) (Last year.) Last year! You see? Well, we had to repair, and roof, and make things nicer. It wasn’t as nice. It wasn’t as nice. It was… But I like it because it’s near the See (lake) here. Even if you cannot see, but the breeze is different. (Yes.) You feel cooler than when you live a little bit further inland. It’s different. Different air. It’s not so fresh air. You take it for granted, but it’s different.
And originally, I told you, I wanted to buy this piece of land, but they didn’t want to sell it. And later I already went away; I broke my arm at that time, I couldn’t sign anyway. And they wanted money as much as the house here! What, are you kidding? The land is maybe bigger or similar, and no rooms, no buildings, nothing. And wanted so much money. Are you joking? I mean, I’m not stupid. Maybe most people, they are stupid, but not this one. There is always an exception to everything, Isn’t it? So I thought, “OK, I’ll think about it.” Maybe they sold it already. (Yes, recently, Master.) Ah? (Recently, recently.) Sold it? (Yes, to the neighbor.) So, they’re going to build something? Because they took the trees away and mulched them, and put it... (Yes, they started but they had to stop because it’s the season.) But they wanted to build something. (I don’t know, Master.) It’s terrible. How much was it? (I need to ask and then...) You should ask if they lowered the price or not.
Never mind. When I came back in winter, there was nothing going on and it looked so dead, so I thought, “Oh, I don’t know if we’ll really like it here.” So, I wasn’t very enthusiastic anymore. And you’re lucky, you’re here now but maybe we’ll have something else better or maybe we just keep it. This is enough. (Yes.) It would have been nicer to have a (place) over there, to hang hammocks or something. But now they cut all the trees off. Ah! They want to build things, that’s why. Is it allowed to build there? I’m sure. You know? (I think they want to buy and build something, yes. Because they started, as you said.) Will be noisy, huh? My God! (The realtor told us that he paid a lot more, he offered a lot more money. So, the owner sold it to him.) Sell it. It’s always something. So long time nobody buys. And then I bought here, and then somebody go and get it, just behind my back.
Never mind, it’s OK. We will [be] OK here, for now. (Yes.) More room, more to take care of. Just now we have here and already don’t have enough people to take care. I mean, now you come in a lot, but you just come to enjoy a few days and then you go away, take your butt off and then somebody has to come here, has to start cleaning and washing and all that. And take care, so that it’s fine. Never mind, it’s OK. If we have more people in the future, then we buy more. Otherwise, the more (we buy), the more [to] take care [of]. (Yes.) We had to repair this [for] a long time and spend more money. Should spend even more than that, but I wasn’t interested.
I didn’t know whether we’ll really like this place. I’m not sure if it’s good enough for you because it’s so small. Small. I looked around, but nothing good at that time, or similar like this, or even worse. Or big, but no room. I mean, no big room for you to move around. Not even a big garden like this to eat. Do you understand me? No! Many rooms, but no meeting room, no garden to picnic. We need a garden. We like to hang around, to walk around a little at least. Sit all day, who can bear it? Good excuse to walk around. But it doesn’t matter that much. At least here we have room to run around. And even if we don’t have that place, it doesn’t matter. You walk around. Around here is all free. Walk anywhere you want. You own the whole town.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter. And if you feel like the food here is so lousy, you go next to the hotel. Only pay $50, and you have room, you have everything – swimming pool. Or you just go there, drink some[thing] (non-alcoholic), if you like, You’re free. I want you to enjoy, and then when you feel ready, come back, meditate. Of course, you don’t come here to go there and drink (non-alcohol) all day, no? I don’t hope so. I hope you’re not that stupid, but you’re free. You’ve grown up enough, you decide a little bit for yourself.
If you want to go [to the] next hotel… It’s 30 minutes? No. How much? (It’s like 15 minutes.) Fifteen minutes, so far? (Walk, yes.) I thought only ten. OK, 15 minutes. That’s where downtown is. Downtown consists of a big hotel, about a hundred rooms and a couple of pizza places. That’s downtown. Where you see a lot of people; I think the whole town is not as many as here. So, they all gather in there, in downtown around these two, three restaurants and that hotel. Because they have only a hundred rooms. They don’t have that many people and not everybody comes at one time. Now is not really season yet.
August, July, maybe half. June and July, it begins. July, August, and then September dies down. And then dead. (December.) December, January, February – dead. March is half dead, or three-quarters dead; a little bit waking up, a little. And April, “Mm-ah.” May, OK, a little bit. June, alright, fully awake. And July, August, it’s alive. So, when I came, it was August. July, August is fully alive, so I thought, “Oh, it’s a nice place. Small but lively.” Looks nice, people sit almost on the street. You see all the restaurants. So, you’re free to explore around. Get to know your house, neighbors…
Photo Caption: Be Proud of Your True Self
