June 3rd – 8 more days to go … more like 8 years…

I’m in jail and being re-educated. I can only listen, but not talk. I thought of NgocDung and her 2 years in the communist re-education camp at the young age of 22. How is it possible for one human being to jail another because she grew up under a different political system? To strip her of complete freedom, to rob her from her youth and naivete … We are so cruel to each other, and always in the name of either freedom or religion.

As I walked back to my dorm, the sky was blue and vast, the meadow filled with millions of living plants, birds chatting non-stop, butterflies and bees buzzing around, and I hummed:

Trời cao đất rộng,
Một mình tôi đi
Một mình tôi đi
Ðời như vô tận,
Một mình tôi về
Một mình tôi về…với tôi !

(The sky is high and the earth is vast, I walk alone, I walk alone.
Life seems to have no ends, I come home alone, I come home alone … to me!)

I have a 20-minute break before going into another 3-hour meditation. Geysers and bubbles are  making sound all day as my tummy is reacting to the last 3 days of pure vegetarian food. Organic veggies and fruits, brown rice, no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol naturally, water drawn from wells …

At 4am this morning, I opened my eyes revelling at the thought of 8 more days to go. Well, at 9pm, 17 hours after I woke up, I still had 8 more days to go. The days seem so long here …