The End and The New Beginning
For all my life I've been a spiritual seeker and for all my adult life I've been a spiritual practitioner. I've meditated and done yogic practices about 30 000 hours and taught professionally since late 2008, for almost 13 years now. This project has been a priority and central focus of my life, always basically, and other things including relationships, financial security, other interests like hobbies and other career choices, and even my own family have come second to this. I knew I was making big sacrifices but I had to because I had no choice due to the constant existential pain that I was in. I was suffering of an illness of sorts. It was a struggle from day until night until day, over and over and over.
There is so much, a whole biography packed in the past 42 years. Those who know me closely, my students and close friends know how all this has been both a struggle and a journey of discovering practices and developing a method that has the power to actually smash the self-based confusion no matter how bad it gets. Oh gosh... Looking at it in retrospect, it was a hell of a struggle, loaded with relentless inner and outer obstacles and difficulties.
I feel the need to express how sorry I am for spreading my pain, frustration and anger on others, my students, ex-students, friends, ex-wives and girlfriends. I was in great pain and I could not prevent myself from spitting my poison on others. It was so hard to so many people that I've sworn to never to do what I've done again, in circumstances such as these. I could go on for the rest of the day just talking about the difficulties but that is not why I started writing this little update. Anyhow, I want to apologize.
So,
all my life I've been a seeker and for the past 18 years I've been a
full time teacher and practitioner. Then came a day when the whole
project collapsed because the small self, in all of its expressions,
ceased to be. Suffering, the sense of something being off, out of
place or murky, stopped. It has been like this for 4 months to date,
since my 42nd birthday. There is so much I have already
written and talked about this over the years and of course there are
the talks and commentaries from people of history so I'm not going to
discuss this in depth here. I actually didn't even mean to write
about this publically because I started to write about what I am
going to say next but what I'm about to say next wouldn't make sense
without saying this.
I've
never sat in prison but perhaps I feel now like someone who after a
long sentence is taking the first steps in freedom. It seems like a
different, foreign and a whole new world, not in a woowoo kind of way
but because the meaning of my life has entirely changed. I put my
focus and energy into practice for such a long time and now when that
is not necessary anymore, suddenly my attention and energy are no
longer associated with the search. Therefore it's available for
something else. With that comes a discovery of all these other things
that life and the world has to offer, many of which I skipped or left
without attention before. At 42 years and 4 months of age, it feels
like my life has really just started. All the spiritual and
existential stuff and meditation I don't need to worry, think or do
at all anymore, and bloody hell, the absence of them is like a big
empty canvas, suddenly waiting... simply available for something to
be expessed.
I think I will continue to teach but I think that the way of it will change. I have established Pemako and taught tantric buddhism for many years but I think I won't teach (much) tantra anymore. I have trained and continue to train teachers who can continue teaching Pemako tantra.
Other than that,I don't know what I'll do... Suddenly my old love, martial arts, have come back into my life but I also feel like I might (finally) go to school and study something. Maybe I'll finally learn fine carpentry or study painting. Maybe I'll do something with animals. I don't know yet but all these options have been in the back of my mind for a long time. I'm just here, eyes and ears open, waiting for the most interesting fish to bite the hook.
I want to wish you all well, and I want to thank you for support and friendship over the years.
Kim, 12.7.2021
