6. The will to deepen

 

Gone to this centre with the intention to stay for a few days, I left two weeks later. Then I had to return to Paris to manage stuff. Enthusiastic, curious, motivated, I wanted to deepen the experience, to multiply the encounters. A name was repeatedly coming back during the chats : Manjushri. The name of this tradition’s headquarter. A place, on the English coast, near the Lake District and Manchester, where dozens of people were living since the seventies. A place where hence hundreds of teachers are trained. Where thousands of followers go, notably for spring and summer festivals.

 

A couple of weeks later, here I am in Manjushri, willing to push this experience further, far from Paris, and in English. Because when you change your words, you change your world.

 

Speaking in another language enables you to realise language is an interface. An object you put between you and reality. For better or worse. Speaking my native language, French, I had this tendency to get lost in the details, in the aesthetic, the style. Either in talking or listening. Speaking one’s own language, one tends to culturally assess based on the accent, the diction, the vocabulary, etc.

 

With English, my focus point tends to move from the style to the meaning. To being understood. And to understand others. I say more than I talk. I listen more than I hear. It forces me to feel my deep intention. My direction. And the other ones intention.

 

 

 

7. Concrete results

 

Having planned for a week in Manjushri, I stayed 5 weeks. Each day, in English, I attend practical and thoughtful teachings, I have hours of meaningful discussions, without taboo, with people coming from all over the world. Whether they dedicate their life to spirituality or they dedicate spirituality to their life, most of them are going through, went through and / or plan to go through massive challenges: new countries, new life orientations, new philosophies, new problems, new solutions, new ambitions. My adventures, my medals and my scarves don’t either impress or repulse anyone. Some already have the same ones, or even played in bigger leagues.

 

 

I thought leaving the comfort of my parisian apartment behind would be a massive impediment. It was the opposite. It was the opposite. Collective life, limited internet access, interdependency and regular hours were a liberation.

I’m introduced to gold leafing which I carry on for a month on sacred objects going to the new Portugal Temple.

Locals give me simple advice to ease the back pain which sadly has prevented me from jogging for 8 months, despite many osteopathic sessions. Within a few days I can run again. And breathe.

 

The 4th week, I subscribe to a meditation-oriented week-end. Most of the attenders come from all over England, including London, 460 km away. It is a good opportunity to meet new people. Three or four times, from completely different people, I hear the exact same words : “I had a very busy week. I almost didn’t come. I wouldn’t have come if I hadn't already paid. Next week is also very busy. I’m exhausted.”

It made me feel like I was listening to myself, a couple of weeks before. Pressurised, stressed, tired. Sometimes by a job which doesn’t have a deep meaning for us.

I did help large corporations to generate more profit for 15 years. I had a lot of tense moments. Tight deadlines, last minute changes, stressed clients,  being fed up of working for days, for weeks on the same mass market product, or focusing on a dense 80 slides PowerPoint presentation that I’ll have to email to another intermediary contractor I never met in real life.

 

To be honest, I also had moments of “satisfaction”. An oral presentation putting everyone on my side, a quick but sincere thank you with an eye contact, an ad campaign including some of the recommendation, a slide marvellously summarising the key findings, a client who price-negotiated less than expected, a shorter than announced train delay, a temporary workplace being only 1 commuting change away from home, a money transfer on my bank account.

 

Ok, I’m being ironic. But, through the contact with these people newly arrived from the city, I could measure to what extent, in only three weeks , I have become peaceful and happy.

 

Yet I wasn’t on holiday, under the sun, on a beach chair, drinking mojitos. Nor in my comfortable home. I was volonteering more than 35 hours a week, sharing washrooms, a dining room and a dormitory.

 

 

 

8. Anything is possible

 

It is hard to summarise the scale and the repercussions of this stay in Manjushri, in February 2013. But if I had to do it in one sentence, it would be this one :

Anything is possible

Really

Since only two and a half months of such a different lifestyle have been this good to me, my margin of progression is probably colossal.

And, since, as it is repeated in the teachings, the world is perception, if one masters his perception one masters the world.

Anything is really possible.

And, notably, change. Experiencing more happiness, inside and around us.

My story sounds like a commercial testimony. It makes me smile. It doesn’t matter. I leave Manjushri with the will to initiate a real change. Above all – more original to me – the conviction that it is truly possible.

 

 

 

9. The choice of a deep and quick change

 

As I write these lines, in September 2015, it’s been two years since the realisation of early 2013. Everyone has his own rhythm, his own conditions. For my part, I choose to initiate a deep and quick change, because:

• my circumstances are favourable: I’m single, my 20-year-old daughter is doing super well, and I have some savings

• I like intensity

• For 10 years I have the feeling that I’m only partially enjoying my potential happiness. And I can’t wait to experience it

• Time is running out, and anyway I’ll drive into the wall if I don’t change

 

 

 

10. Deconstructing

 

The most important change is the one from within, the one of the driver, of the mind. The director. The one you always keep with yourself, whatever the conditions are. But, because I don’t master my mind well enough, I know I have to start by changing my environment, my lifestyle and habits : job, leisure, material goods, relationships. I know I must go in the deep, the fundamental layers of my mind, my diet, my sleep. And by doing so, to try to reach sort of a core. A fundamental mechanism of the body and the mind.

 

Thus, I choose to do on a large scale what I did for two months in Toulouse and Manjushri. And this is what I can say two and a half years later.

 

On the material side:

• I quit the apartment connected to my family

• I sold or gave away all my stuff. My whole material life shrank to two or three cubic meters (thanks to those who store them)

• In four months :

  • I ceased the professional activity which was my source of income for the last 15 years, not finding interest in it anymore

  • I quit Paris, where I lived the last 24 years, for abroad, starting with a city I had never been to, 8000km away, 15 months in Vancouver, then six months in Montréal, three months in England, two months in Mexico

• I lived in a dozen different places, of which 14 months in shared apartments, 12 months in a community, of which four months of dormitory and one month of camping

• I repaid my mortgage and have almost no more monthly outgoings

 

 

On the health side:

• My lifestyle is 10 or 20 times less risky (e.g. party, motorcycle…)

• I have been living in way less polluted and stressed environments, and spend way more time in contact with nature

• I have resumed sport on a regular basis and have been doing of plenty of new good things for my health: 150 yoga courses, a hundred meditation sessions, as many Buddhist teachings, 10 days of fasting, 10 days of Vipassana silent retreat, and I continue to explore diet, notably a more alkaline one

 

 

On the relationship side, I:

• Have met tons of new people, seen tons of news things

• Have spent more quality time with my family

• Have spent most of this time living in English

• Have done more volunteering and good actions than ever J

• Have done a TV journalist job I had never done before, which was in Vancouver for a year. Then left this job to continue my exploration

• Have lived from my photography for a couple of months, even if modestly

 

In parallel to this deconstruction of my habits and of my material life, I opened my doors to three new things: yoga, meditation and spirituality. And I paid closer attention to my diet and my breathing. The idea was to get deeper into myself. To consider the fundamentals I had ignored or neglected. Buried under my external distractions.

 

I don’t have the time here to emphasise the benefits of yoga, meditation, diet and breathing. Do your research, try and persist! All I can say is that these practices, cheap or free, can literally change your life. Can diminish or eliminate problems that have dragged on for years. And I’m a complete beginner. My lifestyle hasn’t stabilised. To each one their own pace.