“Observe the reality as it is, not as you want it to be”

The desert extends until the horizon. A straight road crossing through it. There are a few houses on the side of the road, two or three delis. The morning light penetrates my closed eye lids. It’s day ten and we can now talk. Tomorrow the meditation course will be over. The three of us: Mike, Yazmin and I feel renewed after spending three days isolated from the world. It’s as if everything had changed... although maybe is just our perception what changed. I feel I have recovered the ability to see, as if I would never again need glasses. I see everything more clearly. The three of us feel shaken. Tomorrow Mikey will fly back to England. Yazmin and I decide to stay two more weeks in the center to serve. The course is free and sustains itself only with donations, so we volunteer our time and energy to pay back.

What is Vipassana? I can’t explain it. It can only be understood by experience. Each person must do their own investigation and discovery of this adventure. I can only say one thing: If you feel confused or lost, if you’re looking for a way to find yourself, Vipassana is an ideal way to walk away from distractions and learn about yourself. It is a journey inside of your own self.

Here a little teaser about traveling without money in Mexico made by Marissa. She is traveling with us now in the U.S. and plan on making a documentary about traveling without money! 

Enjoy and lot of love for all!

Entering the U.S...

A long queue, hundreds of people waiting, patiently. We pass them, Mike, Yazmin and me (Benjamin) with our 3 backpacks. they don't have any expressions on their face, they have been there for hours and yet, no anger, no frustration. They are used to it. All these people have a visa that grant them the entrance to the United States for one or two days only. It is different for us, the line is smaller for a longer permit. The border officer who receive us is really nice, he tells us his entire life while stamping our passport. He insists on the fact he has not always been a border officer, he has traveled and speaks four languages. We tell our story but the cost is the same for everyone. 6 dollars, Yazmin has some "safety money" and pay for me. There is no other legal way. The officer adds that "in this country, you have to pay to breathe".

through the desert...

The desert expands off into the horizon and the sun is a heavy presence. In the distance an enormous train cargo train eases along the landscape. There has been next to no traffic… only two cars have passed in the last hour. We´re just two lonesome, pale, bearded foreigners lost in the desert. These are the moments when doubt creeps in. Someone will pick us up, someone always picks you up, but cold hungry nights in the middle of nowhere are starting to wear thin especially now the girls have left us. I gesticulate frantically as the pick-up truck speeds passed us and Benji starts berating the driver for leaving two young men to toast in the desert. Which he must have heard, because he stops in the distance and reverses all the way back up to us. This moment, of excitement and elation after a long desperate wait, is a characteristic of this part of the trip and one of its highlights. We spent a lot of long, hot, dry afternoons to get to the most northern part of mexico but we lived to tell the tale.

On the road again...

My name is Mikey and I have just spent a month travelling with Benji. I met him and Raphael at the COP 16 in Cancún in November 2010 and kept in touch with Benji, sharing Ecodepa and Klimaxforum adventures throughout the year. I decided to give up using money for a month and join Benji on a trip hitch hiking through the notorious northern deserts of Mexico to a 10 day meditation retreat in total silence. What follows is a description of that trip.

We were in a town called Mixquic for the symbolic celebration of the “Day of the Dead”. Benji and I sat with our friend Xavier in silence, high upon the wall of the cemetery, contemplating the ocean of candles below us. Once a year millions of Mexicans light candles around the tombs of loved ones and spend an evening together with their family. It´s an incredible display and represents an admirable acceptance and celebration of death which is in stark contrast to the fear and solemnity it is treated with in Europe.

However, on the other side of that very same wall was the embodiment of the aggressive consumerism characteristic of life in Mexico; the street is swamped with street vendors and one particularly obnoxious man is yelling into a microphone about how cheap and wonderful his rugs are. That´s right, rugs. Thousands of tourists come to Mixquic for this day and the whole centre of the town is geared to sell them heaps of junk food, junk souvenirs and just plain junk (…rugs?). Personally I feel pretty ashamed to have contributed to this desecration of such a wonderful and spiritual event by attracting all this tacky shite, and I tell myself if I am in Mexico for this celebration some other year, I will slink of to a remote village somewhere and appreciate it with more respect.

For us it was also marked the end of a chapter; for me the end of my life in Mexico, the start of something new, and the return to the road. After a year here I had taken the decision to go back to Europe, to my family, to old friends and new adventures. We were to leave the day after. We didn´t know exactly where to, or when we would arrive, but we were leaving. I knew the next month was going to be one of the biggest of my life; hitch hiking with absolutely no money through an area internationally renound for its violence, and then spending 10 days meditating in total silence. The reports of drug related violence were daily in the region – executions, decapitations, dismemberments, massacres… but in our year in the country we had seen not even a trace of this. Absolutely nothing. We wanted to talk to the people who were living it.

News and changes!

Dear Friends, brothers and sisters,

First of all, I would like to give you some news about what happened during the last months. Raphael and Nieves went back to Europe hitchhiking and "fly-hiking" to get back to Berlin where they found a nice house to raise their new born daughter, Alma Lucia. They are now three to look for a better way of life trying to find alternatives to live in a more sustainable way in Berlin. They recycle food, move with bicycles and keep on sharing their philosophy and ideas with the world. As an example, you can check this video of Raphael Fellmer.Nachtcafé
Benjamin decided to stay in Mexico, he participated in different project such as the Ecodepa (ecodepa.blogspot.com), an initiative where they were looking for alternatives to live as much as they could outside the system, "scavenging" food, saving water and energy, having a rooftop garden, a free shop and offering the space to do workshop and free vegan dinner. He was also participating to the KlimaXforum (www.klimaxforum.tk), a free and alternative event where people could gather in the nature and share workshops, conferences about ecology, health and society with the idea of sharing and finding individual and collective solutions for a better life in harmony with ourselves and the planet.

Today, I (Benjamin) am leaving Mexico city to be on the road again. I will be leaving this week with Michael another citizen of the world who has been traveling for the last year with little money and wants to experience a life without any money! Together, we will head north and visit some places in Mexico before to take part in a free meditation course in California in a Vipassana Center (Website).

I would like to thank all the people who have been following us and are interested in what we are doing. We are the change! I wish you the best and hope you will find your own path to get to a better life in harmony with yourself and the nature.

Thank you and see you soon...

Want to be a heroe?

When one starts to feel concerned about the world and what’s going on around him, a logical sequence is the will to change the world. Everything is so unfair, so crazy. Why are we not doing anything! I know what we should do...and it starts, a pursuit of an unachievable happiness in the look for change. One can merely get satisfaction for it...a selfish satisfaction. The world didn’t change and you are in a black hole wondering what you are doing.