Enlightenment...

Jai Guru Deva Om... whatever that means. Though I have to admit that it sounds super cool in a beatles song and I sometimes chant it to give myself some sense of peace.

Finally I have achieved enlightenment, through constant meditation (though not the usual kind) over the past fortnight or so.

The pace here in Luang Phabang is very slow. So much so that I walk slower, I breathe deeper, my heart pulses less, I think slower... pretty much everything I do feels like a Akira Kurosawa film. It takes its time to move, never in a need to rush anywhere.

How so? A typical day here involves me waking up, having a baguette sandwich and coffee in the local coffee shop whilst reading my book; taking a slow walk around town; stopping by the royal palace grounds (which is now a museum) sitting under a tree reading, writing, or thinking... usually I lull around there just gazing into forever; having a fruitshake by the mekong river zoning out as I watch boats pass by slowly; going to the internet cafe; walking around; more thinking, writing, reading; sleeping once in a while; heading to a nice cafe for tea or coffee; sleeping; doing stuff; more walking around, sometimes I go to the library and help out, sometimes I watch a movie at a cafe... Yes, I have to say it is a very hectic lifestyle here.

Such a, if one may call it, 'passive' lifestyle would, no doubt cause one's brain to slow down tremendously. This can be demonstrated in two recent events:
1) When stopped by a stranger asking me for the time, I looked at my watch, scratched my head and it must have took me more than ten seconds to figure out the time... it was 10 minutes to 8.
2) On a night when Luang Phabang was bathed in darkness due to a power failure, I told myself 'Oh, since there is nothing to do, maybe I should get on the internet then.' It took me quite some time for a lightbulb to smash me in the head that the 'internet' requires electricity.

In retrospect, this may cause one to think that my brains have been fried to a crisp. But in reality, this slowness in my thoughts has been a blessing. By thinking much more slowly, I realize that, my thoughts brew, like a pot of soup cooked slowly over a slow fire, and the end result is usually a concoction of ethereal epiphanies on the realities of myself and the world around me, and the way I interact with it. This slowness in a sense, have caused my thinking process to be almost meditative; so much so that I'm beginning to believe that I've reached the highest level of awareness in Buddhist teachings where one is in a state of 'neither perception nor non-perception.' (I may be delusional). Once again in a fight between thingamajigga and whatcamacallit, thingamajigga wins.

Today, I am at complete ease with myself, and for some strange reason for the first time, I feel like I am ready to go home and deal with all the realities that await me. It is strange, but this readiness to go home is usually foreign, almost alien when I travel. This time however, I realize that I am neither a tourist nor traveller, for I am neither touring nor travelling. I lack a route, I lack adventure, I lack all the essential elements that makes one to be travelling. However, this time around, I am a pilgrim. And on this pilgrimage, I believe I have achieved what I've set to achieve.