About my journey

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, I used to believe in an all compassionate being called God. We had then a very special relationship and we use to meet at the edge of the rainbow, in the dew on petals of the morning flowers, on the colourful stones as I walked to the mighty river... One sunny afternoon, as I was picking chamomiles from a forest nearby, I looked up to the sky and saw a dark formation of clouds moving furiously into the shape of the devil. I felt very scared and run back home as fast as I could, carrying with me the fragrant chamomiles. When I arrived all was different, my mother was walking away with a big suitcase... My father was watching through the blinds, crying... Definitely, no matter how fast I had run, the devil has entered the house on that day. Although I tried to justify my friend, and forgive him for his neglect, in time, other personal and no personal tragedies made me realise that something was not right about this world; the things that I was told didn't fit in what I was experiencing... I needed to find the truth...

For a long time I struggled with the guilt of abandoning my friend, and even though I managed to become a functional grown up on my own at the price of  a massive mechanism of defences in charge constantly reacting to a world that was becoming more and more  frightening to me, there was always that yearning for something I couldn't name... 

In 1993 I went to my first Buddhist retreat and that was the big turn of my life. The teaching of the Buddha put into perspective all my longing, doubts, and unanswered questions; the external pain had a reason that satisfied my intellect, but the ego found its way into the sacredness of my new perceptions and I turned from "blaming others, to blaming myself", from "being the victim of any circumstance", to "be the victim of my own judgment". At the edge of my third marriage breakdown, the collapse of my business and endless family issues, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2009. I knew instantly that this was the only way my body was able to tell me: stop

After two surgeries and many infections in between I decided to follow a natural treatment. With the help of a great friend and much research, I put together a plan that made sense to me when at the same time it opened a door to a new dimension and understanding of what health is - the inter- connectedness of all that is. Nothing could be seen separate, not even cancer itself.I have been free from cancer for 7 year now, and today, and since three year ago, I am an anagarikaa. A candidate in training to enter the monastic life of the Theravada Sangha.

This is just the external representation of what I can call "me". In fact, during these three years, somehow I found myself back in that chamomile field, panicking at the devil in the clouds, only to find the evil right in the heart of my own home... I am looking for my teacher, and I cannot find her.... Whenever I feel I have found him, the black clouds come, and my teacher walks away with the big suitcase... Moreover, new losses have deepened the wound of guilt and anger, and sadness became the new friend. My diet became compromised, my concentration weakened, my mind defiled...

I have realised that by focusing in the search for my teacher I have forgotten the very reason of my search... I have been walking  in the wrong road... The devil has tricked me again.

I was told the cancer markers are very high now... and the tests show a suspicious thing in the liver... I am not scared of death, but I am scared of pain. My diet is back and even more strict; my faith stronger than ever... but the mind... 

Have you noticed whom "your will" responds to? 

What is the point of having choice if there is no will? 

And what can be the outcome when the will is in the hands of the devil?

Written in Winter, 2016