Abiding in calm and mindful self-sufficiency [Journal]

[Morning Dew]

These are the sounds and scenery i wake up to lately every morning (vs. previous city sound)

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g294/Duskob/44394d10.mp4

May we all be happy may we all be free from suffering.

[Mungo]

Just a little bit different than my morning. All I get is a big machine hammering in concrete poles from 7.00 am across the road. This is the kind of environment I could just sit and watch all day.

Thanks Dusko

[Andrew]

How do you sit with all that blasted nature making such an infernal racket? Give me the neighbors car alarm at 3am and harley davidson at 6am any day!!

I just have to comfort myself by realizing you are probably freezing you nuts off...

[Morning Dew]

Mungo
I had the same as you when i lived in Dublin. I decide no more of that circus. I will do my best to get permanently out of the city my the end of next year and live like a selfsufficient farmer.

Good luck with the Harley Andy

May you be free from suffering

[Morning Dew]

I read the Metta from a book called Beyond Mindfulness every morning just before the formal sitting. This morning i broke into crying and could not even continue sitting afterwards. It feels like grieving.

I had a very dark dream. I dreamt that some soldiers came into the house and forced me to kill my dear cousin (this cousin was actualy killed in the war by muslim soldiers around Sarajevo)  If not they would kill us all. So i did kill my cousin with an axe while he was a sleep.
They hid the body. The next day my family was asking about my cousin and i said i didnt know where he was. I felt so lost trying to keep this terrible secret for my self.

When i woke up i wad glad this was just a dream.

I feel very tired. I worked for 9 days. Now off for 3. I think i will go and sleep some more now and meditate later on.

Thank you for reading.
May you be happy, may you be free from suffering, may no harm come to you

Dusko

[Andrew]

They sound like long days too, did you say that you are still on the train at 8pm?

[Morning Dew]

I leave the summer house at 8.15 in the morning and am back home at 8.50 in the evening.

When going to work from my city home it takes only 7 minutes by car. But i meet no people i see no new landscapes, i get no feeling of adventure, i dont wake up suronded by the sound of birds and breez in the trees and stilness at times covered by the mist.

This was my choice and a good one.

My wife is coming today and will stay for the weekend.

May you be happy and may no harm come to you my friend

[Morning Dew]

The raddishes are almost ready for eating



The onions are growing strong and the Carrots shots are coming up but slowly



There is so much Ground-elder here i could feed at least two pigs with it. There is also alot of Nettles which i will dry for tea



Be well

[Andrew]

Abso-frickn'-lutely awesome!! I love it Dusko! So quick too.

My potatoes have been in for 3 weeks, and I sowed the onions and pak choy last week. 3 beds so far, I'm going to prepare another on the weekend. Do you have friends that are interested in what you are doing and can help out?

Community is what will really get the urban farms revival moving. "All they have to do is walk away"...after sitting on their arse of course!

hug and high five,

andy

[Morning Dew]

Do you have friends that are interested in what you are doing and can help out?

I have no friends in sweden for some funny reason. Yes it would be easier to be part of the birds of fether stick together community. Will look out for one though.

I will also try to stick a few potatos in the ground this sunday just to test and see how it grows.

I was once a city punk now im to become a farmer boy. Man there is so much to learn. My wife and i talked that if we are to keep sheep we must learn how to cut their claws, cut their coat, make wool, butcher etc... If you cant do this yourself it just becomes too expensive to keep them.
Maybe we might skip the sheep and stay with chicken and pigs. Two pigs can feed you all winter when smoked.
Ah, just brain storming about the new farmer life to come. We know so little about farming.

Be well

[Andrew]

chickens and mushrooms for protein, also an almond tree are also good I think. I would stay away from raising animals to eat, apart from chickens, the conversion of energy is very low (you need alot of land to just get a kilo of lamb) and the work in keeping them disease free etc

One of the biggest reasons western lifestyles are unsustainable is our love of beef and lamb. they take massive amounts of land to raise, very inefficient. I think it is something like 20;1 ratio, ie you could feed 20 times the people from the same amount of land. (I really should google it, but I can't be bothered to reach for the mouse...)

oh alright   http://www.ultimateselfrealization.com/Meat_and_the_Environment/

"About 20 vegetarians can be fed from the land it takes to feed 1 meat eater."

How is that for a memory?!

may all beef eaters be happy and peaceful and realize nirvana soon...

andy

[Quardamon]

My wife says, that oak leaves are too sour to make compost from. You can do a part oak leaves, but not a great part. I read on a Dutch site, that it can be done if you add enough concentrated lava, or "steenmeel" (finely grounded stone). (These are very basic, as opposed to sour.)
Good luck!

[Masauwu]

Maybe we might skip the sheep and stay with chicken and pigs. Two pigs can feed you all winter when smoked.

Killing a living being is inflicting suffering, it`s not a skillful thing to do. If my life would depend on it then i will do it, but if i have a choice of hundreds of sorts of food then i would rather not kill just to feed my craving for meat. Could maybe look into trading with other farmers if i am 100% sure they would have slaughtered their animal anyway and they have surplus they would trade for other goods. Of course i could still keep a cow or goat if i wanted fresh milk and chicken for eggs. They can even be fun to have around. Except for the roosters because they break noble silence way too often.

There are plenty of foods that can be stored for the winter. You can have wheat/rice, honey, dried fruit, dried mushrooms, beans, jams and jellies, pickled vegetables/legumes, nuts of all kinds, seeds (like pumpkin and sunflower seeds), syrups; plus fresh items that can be kept for a long time with the right environment conditions: apples, potatoes, onions, carrots and other root plants, cheeses and so on.

I feel like a hobbit listing all these. A drooling hobbit.   

[Morning Dew]

Thanks Quardamon for the info i will look further into it.

Masauwu thanks for the warning.
This is a matter of preference. Some vegans would find you radical and unskillful for killing a chicken egg and even the milk is for the calf not for humans

I am very much for organic self sufficient farming (permaculture orientated). Im no Buddhist and no vegan. Im a homo sapiens with eyes placed on the skull in such way which indicates that we are a hunting beast a carnivore, well omnivore in our case. Do you think a tiger is hunts in a unskillful way? I dont think so.
Im actualy considering to become a certified hunter too if im to live self-sufficiently.

I am against mass production of meat or any other product. Such production waste a lot of meat. Meaning animal life is taken in vein. So much meat gets old on the shelves and thrown away to make space for new fresh meet etc

If i kill 2 piggs for the winter trust me all will be used to make food

May you be free from suffering my friend

[Matthew]

....
I will also try to stick a few potatos in the ground this sunday just to test and see how it grows.
...

Once I was planting runner beans. You need a good trench filled with compost under them to get the best crop. As I was pouring in the compost I noticed a few bits of partially rotted potato skins fall in. Six months later they produced an amazing crop

When you plant your potatoes don't just stick them in the ground. Cut each into pieces with every piece having a root growing or eye where one will come from. This way you get three or more plants off each seed potato.

There is much to learn.

Be well,

Matthew

[Morning Dew]

Yes Matthew there is much to learn even more so if one has to work most of the days in the city and has limited time to do the land but this too will change

I decided to do a one day solo-retreat tomorrow. I will make a plan today and decide how many hours im to practice and what activities to perform in both a case it is shiney or rainy.

I collected Nettles today for tea and hanged them for drying;


May your wisdom eye like a sharp sword slice through the veil of ignorance and greed.

Your friend somewhere on the path,
D

[Matthew]

Dusko,

You might want to try nettle soup - it's delicious.

Gladdened by your progress in every way my friend.

Matthew

[Morning Dew]

Yes my wife and I already made the nettle soup once mixed with Ground-elder. Its nice and healthy.

Gladdened by your progress in every way my friend.

Matthew

Funny you say that today, now that im experiencing a very strong aversion towards meditation. Today i couldnt sit for more than 20 minutes then got up, i couldnt sit anymore. Got this very strong aversion. So strange. I always had enough determination and discipline to sit. What is happening? Will see how tomorrow goes.
There is this sadness present again.

May we all be free from suffering

[Morning Dew]

My so called solo retreat is over. Well i can hardly call it a retreat. I was in solitude but could sit only 2 times.
Since the wake up time 06:00 i felt this to be a hell of a day. I suddenly couldnt get out of the bed. I suffered from Jepeers Sindrom. I put the alarm for 07:00 instead and fell a sleep again. I never had such issues in life. I am disciplined and dedicated but something is going on since yesterday. I woke up 07:00 and still i felt strong aversion towards getting out of the bed so slept till 08:00. Catastrophy.

Anyway, i woke up with a strong aversion towards meditating. And i mean STRONG!
I walk the dog. I ate breakfast. I felt like crap. I ended up watching a DVD 9 oclock in the morning  . What the fcuck is going on?!! I simply went with it. Ended up watching two movies in a row 

I could clearly see two personalities fighting one another. The one was my pre-meditator self prone to escapeism and the other is the dedicated and disciplined self the meditator. The pre-med wants to hold onto something very much so and the meditator one knows there is no way back.

I ended up sitting 2x 40 mins. Then got a Very strong migraine all day long which still hurts.

I cant hold onto any thought yet there are so many in the mind. The self feels confused, loosing the ground beneath the feet.

I re-read the stage in Dark Night called Re-observation and it discribes my state very well. Go to the page 193;
http://www.interactivebuddha.com/Mastering%20Adobe%20Version.pdf

I weeded out the garden today. I ate a few radishes;


Walking in this nature sure helps calm down the situation. I made a goid decision to move here;


May we all be happy, free from suffering, may no harm come to us

Wrecked,
Dusko

[DerDomi]

hi dusko,
it seems like you are in the dumps a bit. I was there too yesterday it will pass eventually, you are on your way with your practice and you are going to reap the rewards. Meanwhile, there is equanimity and patience to be learned. Have compassion with yourself when you fall off the wagon with your practice or when you get caught up in thoughts and emotions. It's human and we all have it, youre not the only one experiencing this

I hope you can see some light. Keep up your journal and sharing with us how your journey goes

Best
Dominik

[jernej]

Dusko,

as my therapist used to say:"you always want to stop right before you are about to make progress". Could that be the case with you?

Be well
Jernej

[Andrew]

Hello brother!

Ready for a slap?

Sleeping in for an hour or two, big deal!

A couple of movies when you wanted to be meditating, big deal!

Got a headache, big deal! Why don't you go and get some real problems!

I like you alot Dusko, now that I got over the whole 'Scary Dusko' might tell me off thing! These things you describe are perfect! Just what you needed it would seem!. There is no need to get over them, sort them out, work out what is going on, blah blah blah.

You know that, you just wanted to be told!?

hug and play wrestle

Andrew


Edit: Cool pdf. Arahat he says! Good for him.

[Morning Dew]

Danke Dominik
Yes you are right. Patience and equanimity is to be learned there is no other way but face the crap as it is, without judging it.
Hop back onto the horse and keep on rideing lonely cowboy towards the city of Eldorado

as my therapist used to say:"you always want to stop right before you are about to make progress". Could that be the case with you?

I think your therapist wants more money from you by making you dependent on his/her therapy many therapists use that "stay a bit longer you r making progress" crap to keep the customer in the shop. I was there once.

Andy, you fart alot someone open the window please!
Thanks for the slap though, it sure can wake one up

Glad you dismantled the "scary dusko" mate

Im off to meditate now.

May we all be free from suffering

D

[Andrew]

Farty Andy says Friendly Dusko should stop going to meditate and BE meditation. I read that somewhere once...

Smart-arse Andy is very please with himself, though he is about to say hello to Self-doubt Andy.

I feel like a fart now...


Andrew

[jernej]

I think your therapist wants more money from you by making you dependent on his/her therapy many therapists use that "stay a bit longer you r making progress" crap to keep the customer in the shop. I was there once.

Or that kind of interpretation could be a trap, setting you back from making progress; the ego fighting for its existence projecting bad things on others, to protect itself? It is what it is. Or is it what you want it to be?

Be well
Jernej

PS: I closed that chapter some time ago. Looking back, on many occasions she was right.