Becoming a Buddha (Part 1)

I started to write this while my Facebook was charging up and then this appeared from my spiritual teacher (my Guru) DarmaYasa.

Life should be about play and laughter when we’re younger. I have many kids, when I’m asked “How many children do you have?” I think “Oh no here we go again”. Because I’ve been blessed with many, at my last count 11 (that I know of). Wow people say eleven, then I have to explain (which in my case could take a lifetime), and at 66 I don’t have all day ha-ha. So before I go any further I will explain.

In my first ‘true marriage’ I first ‘inherited’ 6 children, sure I wasn’t the sperm donor, but I happily ‘took on’ at 23 Oh My God, the Joy these kids brought me. I then had my ‘own’ daughter Sarah (who’s the light of my life). It gets even more complicated ‘cos before Bobbin (my daughter’s nickname) came along I had a relationship with someone else and she gave me another daughter Elizabeth, so Elizabeth is the eldest of my ‘personal children‘. Later my wife and I divorced (long story too long for this post) and I remarried someone with 3 kids, so 6+3+2 = 11 numbers are important…. see Angka meditation for more info.

I’ve learnt a lot as I’ve enjoyed teaching and being taught by my kids through the years, such as ‘I too can become a Buddha‘ and kids know when there’s a swimming pool around especially when they want to go swimming, (I’d be driving along the road and Bobbin would say “wimming pool” she couldn’t pronounce the Ss but she could smell the chlorine in the air, and wanted to go for a swim with her big ‘smiley face’). Even now after some 35 years makes me smile just thinking about it.

So yes I have lots of kids, I don’t like calling them my ‘step children’ ‘cos I knew what I was doing when I married their mothers I ‘adopted’ them, and it’s been a Joy watching them all grow up have their own children, some of whom went on to have even more children. There are now more children bearing my name in the world than ever before (my dad would be proud of his son getting our family name re-established tehe). Sure they don’t have my genes but I hope in some small way I can contribute to showing them the true path, the middle path no extremes are necessary to attain happiness (Buddhahood).

So I call myself a Christian Buddhist, I was born a Christian but later became attached to Buddhism (which to me isn’t a religion but a way of life). It was Bobbin that was instrumental in in bringing me that realization and Leigh her brother that developed it, (long story). But because of all of my ‘earthly’ responsibilities I put this ‘self-realization’ on the back-burner (I had all these kid’s to provide for and what a journey it’s been).

So to the original point I was going to make “You too Anya can be a Buddha” that’s what Chuthima (Anya’s mother) said to Anya when he started moving off that ‘middle path‘ (Anya is my Grandson). It was said on Facebook so everyone saw Chuthima teaching her son a lesson. It amused me at the time but also gave me one of those Aha moments (and there have been many since). Could I become a Buddha? Surely that’s a bit like saying I’m Jesus, and that in Christianity would be a heresy, you’d be burnt at the stake for saying that not so long ago. But Buddhism is much different, The Buddha wanted to teach everyone that no need to go through all these trials and tribulations to reach your Nirvana . I’ll cut through the crap, he would have said in today’s modern lingo and then you can experience true bliss much earlier in this thing we call life (which is just the blink of an eye). So for now its goodbye from me and goodbye from him “all the best”

Customer Service part2

So now it’s down to name and shame, I have given these ‘suppliers’ enough time to redeem themselves, now it’s time to open up the ridiculous situation they have put me in.

DeBono Upholstery.

THE LAST TIME THE AWNING WAS UP..

John DeBono on the face of it appears to be a nice guy, and I’m not so sure it’s with him that I have ‘De Bone to pick’. This whole episode would border on a comedy sketch if it didn’t have such serious consequences, not just for me, but for the organisations my little tea shop was going to help and it’s customers. This ‘awnings’ debacle started with the landlord of the shop Joe Sultana. When I was viewing the shop for the first time he pointed out that the largest awning was damaged in one corner where a bus had hit it. “Insurance I asked”? No he was too late to claim on insurance he says, so I have to sort out the damaged awning (not such a big issue me thinks), famous last words again. He introduces me to two suppliers and I find DeBono Upholstery to be the most ‘convenient’. After a long process we agree the material and colour of the new awnings and a price €1250 to cover both frames, we have the chairs covered at the same time (I do most of the work on those).

They arrive and remove both frames, several weeks later the job is done its looking good and Hug’s Tea shop is finally open for business. But not for long! After a rainfall the ‘Hug’s part of the sign slides off the awning, it’s replaced (I am told) by a butterfly that lands at the same moment on the spot where the Hug’s lettering used to be. “It’s a sign” Margaret one of the ladies there at the time say’s. No,it’s called delamination I replied jokingly, (I used to run a very large paint company, so I do know a bit about paint).

BEFORE WORK BEGAN

I contact John DeBono we have a problem. Now I come to think of it even though my Guru Prabhu has come to my tea shop in Gozo from Bali and blessed the place, perhaps this is indeed a sign and I should think about giving it another name. Hug’s teashop has barely opened its door when the sign comes down and we agree a new name ‘The Divine LOVE Teashop’ this is not only a name agreed to be a good one by Prabhu, but also Father Gerard from Ta Pinu.

Now the ‘fun’ begins. I chose a new graphic but have to get Aaron at Gozo Creations to make a 3 part stencil, so that John DeBono can do the job. I spend hours going backwards and forwards sorting out these issues. I buy the paint to do the job. Paint that won’t slide off at the first sign of rain. This is not only costing me a lot of money in materials but each time I have to close the shop to do what these suppliers should be doing for me I lose custom and money. But I kinda figured that not having a sign above the door to tell people what we are, isn’t going to help pull the customers in.

I collect the stencil from Aaron at Gozo Creations, he’s not there but his guy hands me the stencil with the invoice attached. I take both to John DeBono, at this stage I’m not sure who’s responsible for the €50 cost of the stencil. I detach the invoice and leave the stencil with DeBono. I return to the tea shop only to find a message from Aaron saying why didn’t I pay the bill??? Hang on here who’s the customer? This is about customer relations. It then transpires that he goes to DeBono, gets the stencil off him and takes it back to his shop. These people are absolutely effing crazy, customer service? They wouldn’t recognise customer service while they have a hole in their backside. Angry.. well I’m trying very hard not to be, but this whole episode is disturbing my Karma. I go, pay the bill (cash as always they accept no other form of payment). I retrieve the stencil for DeBono. At each stage of painting they ask me to make sure they are doing it right, so at each stage I close the shop to drive into Rabat (Victoria).

Eventually after a very long process the awning is finished. It’s looking good (not great) but better than nothing. Now I’d already paid €625 of the bill for the awning, so DeBono is owed the other half. No problem I have the money (despite having no customers). He initially agree to collect the money when he brings the awning to fit, then keeps changing his mind. I’m getting a ‘tad’ bit impatient. I’m losing a LOT of money here, all of my pension is invested in this, and this is no joke. So now we have a standoff, my attorney as far as I’m concerned should sue the arse off him, teach him and whoever is behind this a lesson. I want compensation for loss of earnings, distress, materials supplied etc. PLUS what about the theft of my awning frame?

THE HUG’S SIGN

I am Buddhist and believe in peace but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire and I firmly believe this is one of those times. So here I am I open the teashop proper in July 2016 and January 2017 still no sign. Enough said….. click here to see the place>>>>>>>>>> Before I moved in

The landlord ‘Joe Sultana’ is a small man with a ‘complex’. He enjoys flexing his skinny muscles especially when the ladies are around, he’s around 70, wears gold earrings, he has a ‘Russian’ wife and two small children. Nice kids, nice wife, but as his wife confided once to Lidia (my own, now ex Russian business partner) he’s not all he appears to be. The ‘restaurant’ that he used to run, is filthy when I move in, I mean really filthy. He used to prepare food in the basement. If the health department had seen the conditions down there he would have been closed down. Jeffries was a health hazard, and apart from anything else it took many hours to bring the place up to scratch. I worked day and night (helped by Lidia) to paint, move walls, sort out plumbing …the list goes on. I eventually got quite ill and spent 6 weeks recovering. But hey, onwards and upwards (LMAO). Now this Joe Sultana is a crook there’s no other way of describing him. While I’m away he persuades Lidia (my partner) to pay him €50 cash for utilities?? First of all that wasn’t our utility consumption, secondly he was taking advantage of a lady, and this Crazy Brit draws the line there.

We have a contract I stick to the contract, he completely ignores a contract ‘that his attorney’ drew up. He arrives without warning demanding rent, bawling and shouting in front of my customers. I try to calm him down, “I’ll go to the bank and get your €600 (I don’t keep that sort of money in my back pocket)”. He also wants a utility bill paying (a bill for supply before I even moved in). I am in grave danger of losing my temper and believe me if that happens I wouldn’t want to be around.

Now when I came to Gozo I came to rest, relax, heal and retire. I’d had a pretty rough time with my ex-wife in Texas, she took me for every penny I had, and I arrived with very little money in Gozo at the start of May 2016. But I worked hard and made something, not just for me but for society. Now Gozo is going to experience another crusade because I have absolutely nothing to lose. I have named and shamed everyone so far. I will continue until this place is running in a way to deserve its place as the leader of the EU…we shall see??

PEACE & LOVE

We talk about Peace and Love but how do we find it?

This week has been full of surprises some good some not so good. Technology and noise have been a major distraction. I’ve had unexpected offers of money, not yet taken, only to find that a company I was working with on my blog is a scam and had been withdrawing money from my account. Money has never been of particular importance to me so long as you have enough to do the things you want is really all anyone needs. So I realised that if I just sit back and allow nature to take it’s course then things will become far less stressful.

I found a site all about forests, just watching the video made me calm and I realised it’s been such a long time since I truly submersed myself in nature. The healing forest click here is a wonderful idea and makes me want to leave right now and get into the forest. The only problem? There are no forests and very few trees here. My life right now is amazingly complex, I came to Gozo to ‘retire’ and not to get involved in something that would take even more of my time and energy. I’ve worked since I was 15 and now I’m 65 soon to be 66 that’s 50 years of work! (Now the mind may be OK but the body is very tired), so I think I should take the time to recharge these batteries. Having watched the movie ‘Healing Forest’ I think my plan to go to the ashram in Bali next year is the best idea I’ve had for a very long time.

SURE GOZO IS A LOVELY PLACE BUT CAN YOU SEE ANY TREES?

When I get to the ashram I know what to expect. I’ve spoken to the people there on Facebook and they’ve become my friends (good people). I’ve even seen inside the bamboo huts thanks to Gayle a young lady who published her video. But most of all Bali and the ashram is where I will find my Guru, my teacher, my brother and friend Prabhu. The teashop is the place (which with love and care) I believe will run easily and make a profit so..With all this why am I still here when I can find PEACE there? That’s because of LOVE.. I have to stop here until the projects I’m working on will work on their own or with very little intervention from others. I run a small teashop The LOVE teashop. That small teashop will become something important one day.

The LOVE teashop soon getting it’s new sign

This island of GOZO is full of surprises, it has good people and like anywhere else bad people, but trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff is really draining so it’s time for the young’uns to take over. I know I would have loved the challenge a few years back but now I need to GO. So Bye Bye for now..

WORLD WIDE WEB

Years ago I tried starting to write blogs like anything else its a learning curve and I’m learning new stuff everyday. Someone mentioned something that reminded me of the old post so I wanted to share and update:

Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee — **SIR TIM NETT WORTH $50m**

Bill_Gates_June_2015 — **BILL GATES NETT WORTH $79.4 billion!!**

Now I accept that Bill Gates already gives away a lot to Charity, and he’s said that when he pops his clogs everything will go to charity, but that kind of wealth is not only obscene, but compared to the man who gave him his opportunity, it’s more than ironic. (By the way Malta’s GDP was $9.64 billion at the last count). But I’ll bet you one thing I’m probably the wealthiest of them both, not in money but other STUFF.

Someone once said to me that www was another way of saying 666 (the sign of the devil) I laughed at the time, let’s face it without the web we couldn’t survive, we the human race are dependent on it. I got this from Wikipedia which ironically is only available on the web

Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA, DFBCS (born 8 June 1955), also known as “TimBL”, is a British computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989 and he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol client and server via the Internet sometime around mid November.

Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web’s continued development. He is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, and is a senior researcher and holder of the Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).[10] He is a director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence.

In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work. In April 2009, he was elected a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was honoured as the “Inventor of the World Wide Web” during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in which he appeared in person, working with a vintage Next Computer at the London Olympic Stadium. He tweeted “This is for everyone”, which instantly was spelled out in LCD lights attached to the chairs of the 80,000 people in the audience.

I’m going to try closing up my laptop for a week to see how that affects me. I’ll have to make sure I’ve paid all my bills before then as bill payment online is essential for me.

THAT WAS THEN BUT TODAY I WANT TO ADD:

It’s quite sad that like other things in life people/companies like Google Yahoo Microsoft etc are making billions out of what Sir Tim gave us for free. It is the greatest technological leap forward for mankind yet not many people know his name.The Crazy Brit is 4 years his senior and when the CB was 15 his mum asked him would he ‘like to learn about computers’ C.Bs reply “what are computers mum?” Thank god I didn’t know, I wouldn’t want to have B.Gs millstone for… well lets say $79.4 BILLION..think of all those zero’s

Maybe Sir Tim was naive or maybe just another crazy Brit, but as Steve Jobs (Apple another mega company making money off Sir Tim) quoted:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Tag: crazybrit