Tel Aviv, Israel, February 1st

Wow.. I feel so good that I find it hard to find the words. My heart feels open, I feel powerful and quiet. It feels like I have found a key, the key to my strength. And I have found the door I want to open.

What happened? I guess it was the adding up of a couple of things. Yesterday I felt crappy.

I had left the Chassidic wedding to crash at the friend of a friends place. This in itself is tremendously cool, by the way. After staying with Riphael and Adinah I spend one night at their friends Reuven and Yehudith. Because I had no place to stay in B’nei Brak Reuven called a friend of his and explained I was a traveling Buddhist writer blablabla and needed a place to sleep (it was really impressive to hear how Reuven elevator-pitched me, he should be my agent). The guy at the other side, also a very religious man, was supposedly thrilled because it was an opportunity for him to do a good deed. This is absolutely the cool side of strong religious practice; to have an attitude of really wanting to do good, to embrace the opportunity when it comes along.

Anyway, I slept nicely and woke up early. After morning meditation my host still hadn’t woken up so I decided to leave quietly. I jumped in a bus, got stuck in traffic and found myself an hour later at the wrong train station. I wanted to work on my post about the wedding because I recently noticed that I can only write about something when I can still feel it. So I realized I was losing time and was putting pressure. Then I got lost and couldn’t find wifi. I wanted to be all cool about it and the coffee is good here so I treated myself on a cup of coffee. Then I had to buy another because I found wifi at a coffeeshop. I’m sensitive to caffeine and started feeling stressed out. Security people were obnoxious, that didn’t help either. I found a place to work but with the email coming in it starts to pile up. Blablabla.

I reconnected with Miles, dropped my bags in the dojo and went for a workout to get rid of the caffeine. Then I meditated for about 40 minutes. Later that night I joined the meditation class: another hour and a half of meditation. Guess what? I felt brand new. More importantly: I feel that I have found my secret recipe. Two hours of meditation and an hour of exercise: when I give this to my system, it flourishes. It’s up to me. If I stick to this discipline my bullshit will go away.

I had a strong email exchange with a Jewish friend. I said some confrontational stuff, called him on his shadow. I signed with my full name (including my spiritual name): Atalwin Sho-Jitsu Pilon. Atalwin means Noble Friend, Sho-Jitsu means Truly Straight and Pilon means mortar: a truly straight, bullshit crushing, noble friend. It’s a strong name. I realized that want I want to do this year is own my name: become more and more clear, leave no room for bullshit, be straight and be a noble friend. This realization together with the recipe feels incredibly powerful.

I am two weeks on the road now. I am ready.