Started at Bern...

My travel in Switzerland took some unexpected twists and turns…I was all set to leave the meditation centre and start travelling, Then I met Sandra, a fellow meditator from Austria, she was planning to travel around in Switzerland in car . So we decided to travel together, it was still raining we left the centre and started driving towards Bern. It was nice to drive between mountains and lakes. We stopped at Bern for lunch and a stroll in the old city ,in the banks of beautiful greenish blue river Aare. Also since the city is named after bears, there is a small bear pit, where two poor bears were kept locked, right in the middle of the city. The weather was still bad; we started driving towards Speiz, a small little village again in the banks of greenish blue beautiful lake. We stopped and strolled next to the lake and had a coffee break in the banks of lake Thun. Another 45 min drive took us to the Interlaken, were we booked a hostel and decided to stay for two days or until the weather gets better.

Mont Soleil..

After reaching Mont Soleil, and started meditating, I did not see both Mont and Soleil for at least a week, the mountain(Mont) was hidden by fog and the sun(Soleil) was behind the clouds, but it was so wonderful for meditation, one day early in the morning after meditating from 4:30 to 6:00 , came out of the meditation hall into a big balcony, and saw thick fog surrounding the centre, because of the lightness in mind and body had a feeling of living between clouds. In the breaks, it was so nice to walk in the woods in the wet wild grass. And later during the sunny days we had after noon nap in the grass land surrounded by woods, it was so relaxing for the body and mind. That’s the picture of the meditation centre, taken on the 10^th day, when mediators started leaving the centre. I was also ready to leave the centre and explore the beautiful nature of swiss.

Good Company…

Finally..I got a small break from Switzerland and got a chance to sit in computer to update my blog. On August 2^nd I took 3 trains to reach my meditation centre. I had nice company in my train from Paris to Neuchâtel, I cute little Sri Lankan boy, born and brought up in Zurich, was next to me and talking in very cute Tamil accent. He was telling some nice stories about his life in swiss, his swiss friends and the places he has seen in swiss, that was a sweet introduction of Switzerland, just before me landing in there. We had such a nice time that he wanted me to continue the journey to Zurich, I explained him my condition and his mom invited to stay with them during my swiss trip, after finishing my meditation. Although Zurich is not in my travel plan, I like to stop there to say hai to this my little new friend. That’s the picture taken in the train, when he was showing me around Switzerland with a map. Then stopped and went for a stroll in Neuchâtel, La Chaux-de-Fonds and St.Imier before reaching my meditation center in a small hill called Mont Soleil.

Here it Starts...

Finally.. here starts my summer vacation... I am leaving to Switzerland tomorrow morning for a month. I am first going to a meditation center in Mont Soleil,St-Imier. I am practicing vipassana, a Buddhist type of meditation for past 2 years. About this meditation, there are centers all around the world teaching and practicing vipassana, the beginners have to start with a 10days course. It do have some strict code of contact which we need to follow as a mediator, first is Nobel silence, 9days we are not suppose to talk or communicate by any means with others.The people who know me will never believe that I have spent 20days of my life in complete silence, I initially thought its going to be difficult for me, but its very special to spend few days just listening to yourself, listening to your heart beats and feeling your blood flow etc.... I did my first 10days in Chennai, India 2 years back and last year in Canada, with my parents and brother.Now for the next 10days starting from tomorrow. So, I will be away from my beloved computer, no mails ..no blogs..so I guess I will catch you guys again on 13th of August, when I will come out of the center and start seeing Switzerland, So..here it starts..My Alpine summer...

The Tao of Pooh...

Discussing more about honey...today I had a lunch time discussion with Andy about honey. Me and Andy are so crazy about honey; we have bottles of different types of honey in the lab for tea, yogurt and salads. Discussing about honey, it was so easy for us, the two animation fans to switch the topic over to Pooh, the honey lover. He started discussing about his favorite book Tao of Pooh, he showed me lots of sites and quotes from this book. Some of them touched me very deeply, specially the description of different characters, which can briefly put as in this above image.They just reflect the people we meet in our everyday life. A very good friend of mine, is more like this ‘pontificate owl’,clever but has some unwritten dogmas of life and try to impose it strongly on people around. Then there was a day, when I got bored of discussing over dogmas,the silly 'dos and donts', which sounds absolutely stupid for me. When its so easy to live ‘just like..’ pooh! Why do we complicate our life like this owl and try to control the whole world with the dogmas, created with our little intelligence.We dont need dogmas and long lectures to know the simple way to live, every one is capable of discovering by themselves...otherwise... in terms of Pooh…

To know the Way,
We go the Way;
We do the Way
The way we do
The things we do.
It's all there in front of you,
But if you try too hard to see it,
You'll only become Confused.

I am me,
And you are you,
As you can see;
But when you do,
The things you can do,
You will find the Way,
And the Way will follow you.