Written on 12 Nov 03

I met this man at a bar the other night, and it was the best conversation I've had with anyone other than Lisa since I've been down here. He was well-educated and spoke excellent English, stunningly beautiful and dressed well for his body and class. He said he had seen me earlier in the week, while he was walking with his girlfriend and his mother who was up visiting him from Colima; he turned to his lady and said 'that guy has something (beautiful work, ink)'. So when he saw me in the bar, watching Lisa play pool, he came up and politely asked about my buddha tattoo. He knew it was Buddha, which I thought was unusual as there's not much recognition of Buddhism here, and we started talking about the Path. It's not limited to one religion, they all have many truths to them and it's not the religion but the truth that people on the Path seek. He had studied many religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as learning his people's history and religion. We talked about how the Path changes you, how you suddenly have this fire in you and this ability to project your energy instead of just ignoring your birthright, your responsibility: to wake up. That most people sleepwalk through life, failing to notice the power they have inside themselves, this unnameable thing that makes your eyes shine when you talk about it (talk around it, really, because you can't talk *about* it).

We talked a little about how this other thing happens when we start to wake up and we touch other people, really touch them, when they're ripe, and their lives change, often powerfully and drastically. He agreed wholeheartedly, said that when you touch someone with your power and love it will change them, maybe wake them up a little so they start to seek, too. I had thought that I was unique in that, well not that I was unique but I hadn't ever really met anyone else who talked about having that experience consistently and changes came large enough to notice. I talked to Lisa about it later, about how I purposefully come with a warning label so that those who are interested in keeping their sleepwalking idea of comfort can run, maybe before they change irrevocably in ways they didn't want. 'Cause sometimes it happens when they aren't ready, well usually it happens when people aren't ready, but if it happens and they don't open to it it often causes great suffering. these changes usually cause great pain, because growth is painful and the sleepwalking dream insists that it is more real than you are. The body insists that without it, we'd be nothing; like a codependent partner trying to keep you from leaving.

He and I talked a little about death, that I'd been reading about it lately, and the reality is that you die as you have lived. If you have lived a life that brought peace and love, and your main focus was on the Path, then you would also die with a sense of peace and the knowledge that you were still on the Path, just changing vehicles.

He mentioned to me a few times that it is so good to meet other people on the Path, people whose eyes shine and their presence cannot go unnoticed. He was almost 35, and in talking about this his eyes shone and his face seemed so angelic; I didn't want to look anywhere else. He seemed ageless, and I felt/ saw that he was much, much larger than the compact muscled body he walked around in.

We also talked about how we are taught that God is something outside of us that we cannot ever hope to touch; but the reality is that we're already there, god is already inside us just waiting for us to notice.

He hugged both me and Lisa, strong and loving, on his way out. He put his hand on my chest and said, Love, love is here. I wasn't afraid of his hand on my chest, and I think that's the first time I haven't been afraid of a hand on my chest that didn't belong to my Family.

But maybe, maybe he does. I want so much to talk with him again, to sit and listen for hours to whatever he wants to talk about. I want to know what his People say about learning from death, and what they say about being a warrior of the Path, and anything else they want to say. I want to have community with people like him, and I don't care if they're Catholic or Mormon or anything, I just want to be around someone whose eyes shine like that when they talk.