MR FUN VISITS THAILAND - JUNE 2008

A Monkey Mind Multi-Arts Spontaneous Day-Dream Fun

(A reader will be reading and Stephen/ Mr. Fun will be acting out the words).

Stephen/ Mr. Fun tonight will be spontaneously acting out with movement- poetry- dance- painting- meditative theater. Besides an anchoring painting he will also be showing the large paintings he completed in Bangkok during his six months living there. The focus tonight is to allow monkey mind day dreaming thoughts the Space to play in a kind of Cosmic KinderGarden, a meditative action adventure--- just for fun."Serious Fun"! Stephen also invites you to "live in the moment and --- write down your own thoughts/feelings and/ or draw what comes up for you or take a nap! And there will also be a short concentrated time at the end for more if you wish.

Once upon a time

Our day-dream story begins in 1965 at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Seminary, Menlo Park, California, USA, planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe.

Black cassock-robed seminarian Stephen Kelly slowly walks the chapel garden cloister breathing more relaxed now after his weekly confession.... "Bless Me Father for I have sinned... my last confession was one week ago... I took partial pleasure again, yet again in "impure thoughts".

Now as he walks in existential leisure in the cloister in the half moon light... "Leisure: The Basis of Culture" by Joseph Peeper was happily recommended to him by his insightful philosophy teacher. It gives him "space" to contemplate the "Big Mind" question:"Who am I really? He muses on the Mystery of the Cosmic Christ... and the words of French evolutionist priest Teilhard de Chardin in "Building the Earth".

"Love is the most universal, formidable and mysterious of cosmic energies... the attraction which is exercised upon each conscious element by the center of the Universe... the call toward the Great Union. Love is seen as a primitive and universal psychic energy which gives significance to everything around us. ... Through woman the Universe is really advancing toward man... man must perceive the Universal Reality which shines spiritually through the flesh... woman is put before him as the attraction and symbol of the world. He can unite with her only by enlarging himself in turn to the scale of the world....

And because the world is always larger and always unfinished... and always in advance of us... to achieve his love man thus finds himself embarked on a limitless (con) quest of the Universe.... Man can reach woman only through the consummation of the Universal Union."

(Musical Break)

Once upon a new time

Time travel 42 years into the future... to 2007 Bangkok, Thailand, southeast Asia, planet Earth, Milky Way galaxy, Universe.... Nana skytrain waiting platform... waiting... slow dancing Tai Chi in full moon; hot Big Mango/Bangkok/City of Angels night, musing in this "Leisure City" a base for East/West culture, a Land of Smiles where he can more fully emotionally and sensually relax into the Now and ask once again... Who am I?... really? What is Christ-Buddha Consciousness? Chuang-Tzu whispers:

"All that has sound, form and color can be listed under the heading of "things"... but one can achieve "Formlessness" and vanquish death... How can mere things compare with what is in possession of the Eternal?"

How to dance this paradox... things and Formlessness... here and now... on this skytrain platform in Bangkok... or anywhere in the Universe? Christ Consciousness... Buddha Consciousness... flesh and spirit, emptiness and evolution.... How to deal with this.... Everything and No-thing dancing?

The Answer Right Now

Everything matters

Nothing matters

No-Thing is always "mattering" and "anti-mattering"!

Paradox Celebration

Conrad Hyers writes in "The Laughing Buddha: Zen and the Comic Spirit":

"The comic spirit is a capacity to be serious... yet not too serious... to be earnest... but not caught up within earnestness... to be actively involved... while not determined by this involvement... nor attached to the outcome... to be sincere... but not imprisoned in one's sincerity... to live intensely... yet not tensely... a living in the world without being conformed to it or bound by it...."

And Ken Wilbur's integral, evolutionary spirituality points to personal ways of integrating our personal identities, dreams and preferences with evolving Cosmic Consciousness... SuperConsciousness... integrating body- mind- spirit- shadow, mixing them together... moment by moment... to higher and higher states and stages of Consciousness... all paradoxically within Emptiness.

Here tonight in "Mr. Fun Visits Thailand" Stephen/ Mr. Fun muses on all this in the form of a public confession.... "Bless me Universe/ mySelf.... I have explored the following... naturally with various levels of "success" Now let the Monkeys loose... freedom.... Beyond Anarchy! Here is an invitation to look objectively and compassionately -- with perhaps even humour at your own life.

BODY: I did alot of walking in Bangkok --- even though there are way too many polluting cars and motorcycle taxis EVEN on the very uneven sidewalks.... We need ecocities NOW... but there is this wonderful, new skytrain system that takes me around the key areas of the city including to the Chao Priya river ferries that go to the Patravadi Buddhist inspired theatre center where I twice joined in spontaneous dance, flute and poetry.

I also did some Tai Chi and hatha yoga, sometimes in my new studio apt ($180/month) with a nice view and near Benjasiri park, the skytrain and an air conditioned shopping mall with 2 bookstores, restaurants and a movie complex.

Once a week I visited Englishwoman Storm Walker for a preventive health acupuncture session by donation.... I usually gave about $15... that included often a political/ spiritual discussion with Storm and Tom, a young English teacher from England. He recommended a book: "The Compassionate Revolution: Radical Buddhism and Activist Politics" and after reading it I decided to return to full vegetarianism because of how animals are raised and killed.

I also did EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), a 3 minute acupressure tapping therapy that turns a half empty emotional glass into a half full emotional glass!

Mr. Fun will now do a brief demonstration. (pause)

Finally I got many massages each week in this "Massage City"... $10 to $20 dollars per hour of pure pleasure, easy communication and Mantak Chia's "micro-cosmic orbitting meditative practice.that moves energy with breath from the hips up the spine to the brain and back down the front to energy storage in the belly button area-- the "dan tien" chi center. The poet Rumi writes:

A woman entirely spirit
is projecting our desire into agony
and the sea of compassion surges
willingly or unwillingly we all melt into God and
the lovers melt together in the mingled light of a 100 lamps.

MIND: Re-reading Douglas Hardings's "The Science of the First Person" and "On Having No Head: Zen and the Re-Discovery of the Obvious" re-inspired me to vitally reconnect with Douglas' extraordinarily simple, profound, mysterious and fun Headless Experiments. I have kept returning to these since I started doing them 33 years ago. They are so simple, easy and difficult, because it is all about living from Boundless Aware Spaciousness moment by moment.

Douglas died at 98 last year. On his 97th birthday he said: "Do not go ungrateful into your everlasting Bliss... but let your gratitude surface with your mounting amazement that anything at all exists... and that only the first person singular present tense is really and truly awake and none other than the Love that makes the world go round and leaves no one whatsoever out".

So I decided to do work/ playshops every two weeks to share these experiments with others and to keep fresh this "seeing" a reality for me and not just another idea! I did these events at my Thai language school I went to 3 times a week with limited success because I didn't practise outside of class much. I wanted to keep it fun! The owner Thai artist Khun Jim let me use it free on Sundays to do "Awareness-Ecocities-Art Playshops": first an hour of "Spaciouness Seeing", then an hour on why ecocities are important and finally an hour of Cosmic Kindergarden spontaneous art: no talking (singing and poetry ok) -- drawing, journalling, and at the end optional "show and tell".

I would like to share now a 3 minute Spaciousness experiment with you now. (Stephen/ Mr. Fun leads this). Close your eyes if you wish and take 3 slow long deep breaths. Now drop the past and future and BE in this moment. Breathing in and breathing out. Now notice where your in-breath is coming from? I will share my experience and you can compare yours. Dropping past and future my in-breath is not coming from any kind of room nor happening in any kind of mind or body. It is coming in this moment from a vast boundless Spaciousness. This Spaciousness has no color, its not moving, its simple, formless. Its Nothing actually --- yet a very AWARE No-thing! And because its Nothing It has never been born nor will die.

"Having realized his Self Nature is Space... the sage without attachment or desire... clings to No-thing". (Sankara).

Breathing in and breathing out. I AM the Unchanging Awareness in which breath and all activities happen.

Now slowly open your eyes and notice that this room and our activities are happening perhaps in this same Boundless Aware Spaciousness.

While in Bangkok I also continued to be inspired by Ken Wilbur's "Integral Spirituality". To me Wilbur's focus is a living out of Emptiness that paradoxically and mysteriously integrates No-Thing and Everything right now. I find "What is Enlightenment?" magazine is very helpful in this process. I also read the monthly "Asian Art News" and Newsweek, Time or The Economist and the daily English newspaper Bangkok Post or The Nation to get my mind "around the world" somewhat.

SPIRIT: So "Headless Seeing"/Boundless Aware Spaciousness is my "main" spirit focus that includes everything. As St. John of the Cross said: "To know everything.....seek to know No-thing".

I also got into Art of Living breathing exercises taught by Shri Shri Ravi Shankar here in Bangkok --- 20 minutes of slow and deep breathing that's very energizing. And I continued to be inspired by my 7 years of planetary workshops with Paul Lowe that focus on living moment by moment --- not knowing and sharing "inner dialogue" --- expressing the things you usually only think and don't say... if the situation is open enough, how one is really feeling and who one is attracted to, afraid of, judgemental towards, etc.

Also Paul Lowe's meditative toning sounds I find helpful in connecting with Cosmic Consciousness. Here is an example. (Mr. Fun does toning).

SHADOW: The Shadow is anything you are not aware of or conscious of that is running your life. It is the greedy, fearful ego, the "pain body" that seeks periodic suffering in oneself and in others. Shadow energy can become your energizing friend if it is brought up to the surface of consciousness and seen objectively.

Shadow elements in my life in Bangkok centered on 2 women... and planetary denial issues. I met the "Canadian Model" last year in Bangkok. She has worked in different Southeast Asian cities but mainly Bangkok. She seemed very friendly and open and very sensitive. I gave her a copy of "A New Earth" by Echkart Tolle last year that centers on "The Power of Now". This year I met her spontaneously on the street and she immediately told me about a life and death situation she had with a "high So" --- high society --- "druggie" man she got sexually involved with and then his wife that could have got her killed. She related an intense chase dream she had about it and I invited her to my room to paint the dream and dialogue about it.

Some months later when she returned from a modelling job in India I helped her find an apartment in my building. She came to one of my Shri Shri Ravi Shankar meditation meetings, an"Awareness Ecology Art Playshop" and even put an event on the "Bangkok Ecovillage Calendar of Free Events" I helped start --- "The Real Life of an International Model".

And then... I got a surprising night crying panic attack call from her. She yelled she had kicked her apartment door in and was suicidal. She got more deeply into her torment and anguish of having been raised as a child in a satantic cult in Canada. She felt a ghost was constantly tormenting her about it and she couldn't stand it anymore. I listened... and listened... it felt like a "never ending" story that I myself had experienced in my own 5 1/2 year suicidal depression some 19 years ago. And even now since the depression ended with a heart opening experience with Jesus Christ I still had depression "no-exit" dreams periodically --- but once I woke I felt fine. So I felt much compassion for her. I told her about a reiki healer I knew that could perhaps help, referenced Tolle"s "power of Now" and the Art of Living breathing. But she kept expecting me to keep listening to her more and more as she detailed her "problem".

I finally said I felt I was indeed being "used" and that her "problem" was not a "problem" but a "situation". She went ballistic and told me I didn't care about her. She said I was no longer her friend and to get the "fuck" out of her life.

I later talked to Chinarut my Thai-American friend and fellow Bangkok Ecovillage Calendar partner. As a current participant in a Landmark Education foundation course that I had done 15 years ago and he asked if I had really been sensitive enough? Did I ask her permission to share my insights with her. When I said no... I realized what had happened --- I had imposed myself on her to "solve" her problem. I felt embarassed and upset at myself --- "Mr. Sensitive"... and soon sent her an email apology to her... obviously I had given unasked for and unwanted advice. She later accepted my apology. I left for Bali and Singapore soon after that and sent her an email last week asking her how "things" were going. She wrote back a complaining email about her life --- but she is still alive!

The other woman that brought up my shadow was the Tokyo Muse --- and Chinarut's new girl friend. Chinarut and I had talked often about the importance of "living in the moment --- not knowing the Japanese Muse came to visit him in Bangkok from Tokyo for a few weeks. After a big energy connection at a Five Rhythms spontaneous dance class I invited her to do an "I-Ching Poem Portrait" with me in the park near my apartment --- with Chinarut's blessing.

After the portrait I hugged her goodbye and pleasantly surprising to me we both kept hugging. Finally I said I was really enjoying this but I didn't want to "push things" and if she wanted to stop anytime to let me know. We kept hugging and then kissing. And I wrote this poem and many others a day later and emailed it to her.

Freedom and Intimacy

moving up and down chakra spines
micro-cosmic orbits spinning
each free to BE with intimacy
into-me-you-see
this moment seeing/being Source Emptiness in a
100 Billion galaxy evolving Universe

here/now sitting in front of a small tree swaying in the breeze.

About 2 weeks later --- the day before I was leaving for the planetary global warming meeting in Bali --- she came to my apartment for a painting/ modelling session. It turned out I had a subconscious shadow agenda... of again kissing with her --- which we both seemed to enjoy last time and this time seemed to get right into the kissing... and I wrote again more poems to her.

About a month later Chinarut emailed me in Singapore that he was upset when he found out from her that she felt I had basically "taken advantage" of her. At first unresponsive to this charge,.. I slept on it --- and realized he was right and realized I had "assumed" that she wanted to kiss me again... and I again didn't verbally or non-verbally ask permission and... indeed I had been unconscious pushy and "greedy" for my own personal/ cosmic pleasure/ art inspiration. My shadow/ pain body had appeared. I apologized. She and he accepted my apology. Chinarut and I continued to communicate but the Tokyo Muse didn't want to continue connecting at this time. They are now living together in Tokyo.

The other shadow element that came up in Bangkok was my growing frustration with the "stupidity of people". This was connected with my first frustration about the fact that Americans had voted in 2004 for "the stupid, arrogant, snide little imperalist war criminal twerp," George W. Bush. And here I was in Bangkok to a "time out" from on and off/ constant political frustration in the USA. Yet there and here I felt like though I was planting "eco-seeds" in Bangkok, that they were not being "watered" much at all.... I felt there was a real lack of interest in global warming/ global survival. It was a question of "expections" in different forms.

And I started to recite often "The Guest House" by Rumi often as I walked the car filled streets.

This being human is a guest house
every morning a new arrival ---a joy,
a depression, a meanness, some passing Awareness comes
as a new visitor
greet and entertain them all...
even if they are a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture
Still,treat each guest honorably
EVEN IF THEY ARE GEORGE W. BUSH
he may be clearing you out for some new delight;
the dark thought, the shadow, the malice
meet them at the door LAUGHING
and invite them in, be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from Beyond.

So after 6 months in Bangkok I decided to visit Bali, Malaysia and Singapore to see if there people we more willing to really deal with the ecological crisis/opportunity.

At the planetary global warming conference in Bali the words of Lester Brown, founder of Worldwatch Institute kept coming up for me.

"The biggest obstacles are the sense of social inertia and a failure to realize the gravity of the situation we're in. Forests are shrinking, deserts are expanding, water tables are falling, fisheries are collapsing, species are disappearing, temperature is rising...."

Brown thinks the single most important thing we can do is get the market to tell the environmental truth. For example the true cost of gas is close to $12/gallon. This would discourage the use of oil and encourage investment in alternative fuel.

While in Bangkok I wrote and performed a mini-play called "Mr. Death Meets Mr. Fun: The Ecocity Challenge" at The International High School of Bangkok. This was part of a series of "Eco-Arts Fun Theatre" I continued during my 2 months in Singapore with grammar school students. I would like to introduce you to Mr. Death now! (Mr. Death is acted out --- "Death to Planet Earth"... and then Mr. Fun appears to talk about creative opportunities such as Dongtan, a 500,000 people ecocity, being built on an island in the harbour outside Shanghai, China. "Long Live Planet Earth").

Body- Mind- Spirit- Shadow are the core element in Ken Wilbur's Integral framework that help us to evolve into Superconsciousness and deeply aid our evolution on planet Earth.... Here is a poem Mr. Fun wrote about the integration of the Big Four and also the secondary but important areas of work-ethics-sex-emotions-relationships:

Mr. Fun's Integration Explorations

He Tai Chi dances on this his home planet's BODY
in parks and streets and sky train platforms
with wind and stars

His MIND is open to integral holographic evolutionary leisure
and eco-practicality.
Big Mind possibilities.

His SPIRIT is zen fresh full of daily surprise and loving bewilderment that anything at all actually exists.

He dreams his SHADOW back from beyond denial
into the light of Awareness ---
he dances and paints it.

His eco-politics crys out for social justice ETHICS ---
his ability
to respond calls for planetary ecovillages and ecocities.

His WORK is play---
"Awareness-Ecology-Art Playshops" and Sage eco-investments
providing financial abundance in his life and sharing with others.

His SEXUALITY is tantric from sex to
SuperConsciousness and back micro-cosmic orbiting
up and down the chakra spine.

EMOTIONS are explored through multi-arts and sensitive/direct
listening/sharing
Inner Dialogue intimacy is "into me you see".

RELATIONSHIPS with individuals and planetary communities
happen moment by moment
without attachment as much as possible
celebrating heart open love of "what is"
just as it is
just for FUN.

While Mr. Fun was walking the Nana Skytrain platform
a lot had been happening and is happening right now.
Who am I really? What is evolving Christ/Buddha Consciousness?
How can No-thing and Everything Dance?
At this present moment on this present planet
how can we "Build the Earth"?

We return to Theihard de Chardin:
"Love is the most universal, formidable
and mysterious of cosmic energies
the attraction which is exercised
upon each conscious element
by the center of Universe
the call for the Great Union.

Who is my LOVE? Mr. Fun asks and St. John of the Cross whispers:

My Beloved is the mountains
solitary wooded valleys
strange islands
silent music.

St. John of the Cross

And American poet Walt Whitman sings:

Sail forth
steer for the deep water only
Oh reckless Soul and I exploring
for we are bound where mariner has not gone before
and we will risk the ship, ourselves and all
Oh daring joy
but safe
are they not ALL the seas of
GOD?

Mr. Fun smiles
We can mysteriously
dance Emptiness
a cosmic
seriously comic dance on a beautiful
dangerous and fun planet.

Andrew Cohen writes in "What is Enlightenment? magazine:

LONG LIVE PLANET EARTH