But yesterday, emergency. I thought we’d stay in the air forever. Stay in heaven, forever. I told you the joke, yeah? I told you the joke. And then you stay here on Earth forever, I stay in heaven forever. What to do? I’m helpless. I’m in the airplane, all tucked in, trapped. Can’t even move, can’t even stand up, can’t even open. Because they don’t let you at that time. Everybody has to stay put like this. […] The lady next to me, she was… And her feet just stamping on the ground. I [saw] her toes come in like this. […]
Now is not really season yet. 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…
I still don’t know yet how to handle this because this is a hotel. So, if we register it as a hotel, then we have to operate every day and I don’t know what to do yet so… whatever. Whatever. We’re legal, fine. I asked, and they said below five days you can gather, it doesn’t matter. So, we have a party, birthday party. And if somebody asks – we have a birthday party. “Whose?” “Buddha’s!” It’s the truth! A birthday party. That’s what it is. We’re not telling lies ever, no? (No.) Do we? (No.) Anyway. So, that’s that.
For now, you’re OK? (Yes.) Alright then. Never mind, then we come and go. You just come and go. It’s sure – you don’t stay, no? And nobody pays any money to the hotel. You don’t. You pay for your food only. You put money together and cook and eat. (Understood.) I don’t take any. Truly I don’t. Anybody takes money? The money is for food only, for them only. (Yes.) For them. Hotel, already paid for, no need. Tax, electricity, I pay. And you pay for your food. (Thank You.) It’s good enough. I don’t want to pay everything because then you’ll be like a baby. You’re not babies. You must learn also to be a dignified grown-up. Take care of yourself. No? (Yes.) Just buy your own food. That’s it. I also wish I could buy it for you, but I have so many expenses. And you must pay for yourself, a little bit. (Yes.) We have to be honest.
Yesterday, I went on a train. Finally, I got on a train. I was so tired and I didn’t want to sit with everybody else. So I said, “If you have a whole cabin free, I’ll pay for it.” He let me in, and so he just put one bed… no, two beds downstairs and the rest he put it up, so nobody’s in and he put it “occupied.” And when he charged me, he charged me only one ticket and one bed. I said no, I told you I’ll pay the whole thing and I will pay it. He said, “No, never mind. It’s empty anyway.” I said, “No, no, it is different when it’s empty or when I take it. That means nobody can come in.” So I paid [for] the whole thing.
But he didn’t want to, he charged me only for one person, one ticket. And he said, “Oh, it’s too much for You.” I said, “Yeah, maybe, but I must pay what I must pay. And that’s that.” Because he liked me, he thought I’m very nice and all that, didn’t want me to pay. So I said, “I pay this to the company, not for you. You have no right. You have no right to refuse. You are very nice to me and you want to save my money. I appreciate that very much, but my duty is to pay. I must pay for what I take. And that is normal.” So, I paid full price. He was very reluctant to take it. He said, “It’s too much, too much. You still have to go a long way. Do You still have money?” I said, “I have. Otherwise, I don’t dare to come out.”
But he said, “I worry You don’t have enough money. Because You travel with airplane, then You come all the way here, and now You travel here. I don’t know if You have more money to go further.” I said, “I also have a credit card, normal. No?” He said, “How about You take this money, so that You have enough money to go further. And when You go home, You pay to me.” To him, you know, “send it to me.” I said, “How do you trust me? I’m just a passenger.” He said, “I do trust You.” I said, “Thank you, thank you.” He really did like that. He’s just an attendant in the cabin, very nice. But he’s in charge at night, he’s like a conductor at night. So, I said, “No, no, I’m fine. I’m fine. I really am. I must pay. I must pay.”
And then when he brought food… Because I gave him tip also. And I gave for all the cabin, paid everything, full price. Full price for the whole cabin. Six-bed, you know, six-bed… You know the train cabin, six-bed. Can you believe that? But I paid the whole thing. It’s a long drive, so it’s very expensive. One bed is about 60 euros. A bed. A small bed. Six together in a small cabin, 60 euros. But because it’s a long distance, like ten hours. So, OK never mind, I paid everything. And so because I paid a lot, when he brought me food, like a little (vegan) sandwich, he said, “Come, eat something.” And then I said, “OK, but how much is it?” He said, “No, no. Don’t pay.” Because I already gave him tip also. “Don’t pay.”
Later he brought (non-alcoholic) drinks, also: “No, no pay.” And then later, what else did he bring? Some other (non-alcoholic) drink and “no pay,” but I didn’t have mood for drinking and eating. But he brought, so I just took one bite and then I left it there and he said, “Sandwich, no good?” I said, “Well, you know, train sandwich.” So, he laughed, it’s OK. You know, in England, it’s famous the railway tea. Very lousy. Everybody says like that. So, I made a joke, I said, “How about if I go on the train, I just order water and sugar, and the tea leave it.” Because it’s supposed to be lousy, the way they put a lot of water in it, or something like that.
Anybody who doesn’t understand? Do you have somebody to translate for you or not? Who cares. Look now, listen later. (Yes.) I know you. You don’t care; you’re deaf, dumb, and blind. You have only eyes. (Yes.) You don’t care about the rest. Smelly room, and hear no translation, don’t care. After you come out, please open all the windows. Let it be fresh for a while, because many people, somehow the process of oxygen [and] nitrogen, it’s just very confusing. I don’t mean you’re dirty. I don’t mean that. Even if you bathe every five seconds and you go sit together, it still smells. How come? What kind of karma? But never mind, you’re happy. (Yes.) So, if you’re happy…
But the thing is when I first came here, I fell in love with the region, because of the See (lake), it was nice. And people sat on the street – very happy. So I thought, “Oh, this is a nice place for you guys to come and enjoy.” Not just meditate all the time, but you could also walk around and have a (vegan) pizza if you’d like to. If the food (here) is lousy, I don’t blame you because when they meditate, they put too much salt, they don’t even know. Maybe too much salt, too much sugar. But if you like to enjoy also a little holiday, then it’s fine. You deduct your food money later, you bring a (vegan) pizza home and you say, “Look here, today I don’t eat here. OK? So, give back the fifty cents, or something. Deduct the money. Or stay a few hours longer to eat your money.
You just pool money together to go shopping, eating, transportation and decoration, cleaning up, all these expenses. The rest I pay. I pay the hotel, I pay the tax, I pay electricity, everything else. So you just come and put food together and eat, that’s it. Otherwise, if you don’t want to pay money, you bring your own (vegan) sandwiches, man. It’s very simple. That’s also OK. It’s free. If you don’t want to pay the kitchen, you take your own box. Every day you take out one (vegan) sandwich and eat it to show them that you protest the system of the kitchen. I don’t mind. Anyway, we don’t really come to eat but if it’s nice (vegan) food, it’s nice. (The food is nice.) Yeah, it’s good? They cook with love, I’m sure. If some day they cook without love, then you put love in it. Bring a bottle of love with you all the time, garnish the food. What else to do?
I also have to put up with it. Every day at home also, when I eat some nice food from them, I say, “Wow. It’s like winning lotto today.” Because mostly it’s not nice. I have to cook for them. If I want something nice, I cook for myself and for them together and we eat. Otherwise, if I sometimes have some nice food from them, then it’s considered like a lucky day. Always have to consider like that. There are always lucky days and unlucky days. The Chinese people believe it, and the Europeans also believe a Friday 13th is a no-no to go anywhere. But I’m not sure, I travel anyway. I don’t even know what day is good or not, because I cannot control it. I just go. I just go.
Maybe yesterday was an unlucky day. How come? (Friday.) Yesterday [was] Friday? Yeah. But it was 25th! Is it? Twenty-fifth is not 13th. So, it is no good, is it? Worse than 13, my God. No taxi, no airplane. No two taxis, no, and no two airplanes, and airplane kaput (broken) two, three times. Before waiting long hours and then kaput again in the air. My God! (Oh!) I told you. I just told you today. You didn’t hear? (Yes.) And OK, fine. Then we go, return, fine. Return, cannot come down. Airport, zu (closed). The whole airport, closed. Suddenly the weather changed so bad, they closed the whole airport. Can’t even come down, last minute! OK, turn around, go find some other airport. Cannot come down also, because too many airplanes already go there. No free runway, no free land. (Yes.) You have to have land to land. (Yes.)
And you have to have the operator free enough to tell you, “OK, 25 degrees east go down and slowly, standby…” Whatever. And some people waving the light, or something like that. There is a system. You can’t just park anywhere. It’s not a car. Even the car, you must park where it’s designated. You know that. You can’t even park anywhere, let alone a big airplane. And the runway is limited even. You must come down at a certain hour, so people expect you and tell you from a long distance already. Now you begin to cool down the engines, slow down the speed and blah-blah-blah, get prepared for landing. And then some people have to stay there waving the light or something like that. All kinds of things. And people bring the car, bring the bus to bring the passengers, bring the luggage, everything. That is if you have a free lane.
But yesterday, emergency. I thought we’d stay in the air forever. Stay in heaven, forever. I told you the joke, yeah? I told you the joke. And then you stay here on Earth forever, I stay in heaven forever. What to do? I’m helpless. I’m in the airplane, all tucked in, trapped. Can’t even move, can’t even stand up, can’t even open. Because they don’t let you at that time. Everybody has to stay put like this. And everybody’s praying. The lady next to me, she was… And her feet just stamping on the ground. I [saw] her toes come in like this.
And I was thinking of the joke. (Yes.) The joke that if all the… because the first engine kaput (broken), then… you know, that joke. The first engine kaput, the captain said, “We have to be delayed for one hour because one engine’s kaput.” Some airplanes have two engines. Some have only one, but that is just a sport one. Normally two engines, three, four – four engines. So, if one kaput, the others can still go. So, he said, “One engine’s kaput, delay one hour.” And another engine kaput, delay another hour. Another engine kaput, another three hours. And the old woman, the country woman who never goes on airplanes, said, “My God. If the last engine kaput, we will stay up here forever.”
So, yesterday in that situation, I was thinking of that joke and I laughed. And people who were sitting next to me, “What are you laughing at? Is it funny?” I said, “Sorry, no, not really. No, not funny at all. You continue praying.” And then later I laughed again. I couldn’t help it. Give me some napkins. Because I remembered another joke. Oh! They were circling a long time, I had a lot of time to laugh. What else do I do? If I cry, would it help? But it was really scary. You feel very controlled, very restricted because there’s nothing you can do in that situation. It’s just like you are in a prison, and you can’t even feel the floor because it’s in the air, and nobody there to help you. Nobody can.
And that airplane is only equipped for so many hours. Normally, it flies one hour only, and maybe maximum they put another half an hour extra (fuel), or one hour extra, but it’s not forever. The petrol, the fuel won’t last forever. (It’s dangerous.) If they cannot come down… It happened before, one airplane could not come down and they had no fuel; they just died, just crashed and died. (Oh!) It [has] happened many times - different situations. (Yes.) So, of course, people were very panicked and I laughed and it’s very “sinful.” But I just remembered so many jokes about airplanes.
Photo Caption: Same Moon, Same Time, But Playing Different Mood! We Do Too Often.
