After a little more than a month in India, I’m back in Hoi An, Vietnam. As always when I come back from this incredible country, I have learn a lot about how we can manage our psychological and spiritual self, as we are confronted with passionate and emotional people in a society evolving around such a complex cultural background.

My first stop was in Varanasi, the city of Shiva, to meet with old friends for Holly, the day of colours, and get rid of old clothes as we all spread red, green, and blue powders at each other like children!

Meditate along the stone ghats of one of the oldest city in the world is always something special, as we confront ourselves with the ever changing energy of the Ganga. A place to listen and to think, to understand who you are and where you are going next, in the middle of the crowd or alone in a temple.

A melting pot of cultures and beliefs, hard core merchants, artists and religious people, backpackers and seekers of all genres that involve to be ready for self questioning.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (left) and His Holiness the 17th Karmapa.

The second stop was for Dharamsala, the city at the feet of Himalaya where the Tibetans in exile found refuge – thanks to the only government in the world witch had the guts to face China – around their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Dharamsala is always a wonderful opportunity to go deeper in the Buddhist world and to meditate in the face of the greatest mountains on earth.

What an amazing vu, with its everlasting snow at the top and the feeling to be lighter, closer to the sky! Mountains than most of the nuns, monks and civilians of all ages had to cross in a dangerous quest for freedom. The medias and the political world have forgotten Tibet for a long time now, in spite of the terrible repression and destructions still happening on “the roof of the world”. A situation so dramatic that two new persons since the beginning of 2016 add their names to the 147 humans that already put themselves on fire in a hopeless tentative to attract attention of the medias on the Chinese exactions in Tibet. Self-immolations that traduce more than any thing else the profound despair of a population of farmers, nomads, nuns and monks that just wants to be able to practice the teaching of the Buddha peacefully, like they did for centuries.

This teaching is so deeply engrave in their way of life that the Tibetans people are still praying right now for the karma of the Chinese people that imprison, torture and even murder them. A brave and beautiful reaction that shows how lucky we are to be able to learn and practice the mind training the Buddha formalise for the world to feel better, free of our thinking and actions!

We cannot change the world alone, but we can change the way we look at it. Every single moment of our lives is a good moment to start to better ourselves! Some of us still think they have to behave a certain way, to follow the line traced for us by some people who believe they know better than we do, but the truce is that freedom is in our heads. Freedom is a conscious decision to find the way that suite us the best, to open ourselves to others and to try to see the good hidden in front of us in every situations. We can face the world enslave by our emotions and cultural background, or we can decide to see it thru the lance of rationality and consciousness. We can learn compassion, find love and refuse to let go to frustration and hatred in our everyday life by taking control of our thoughts, actions and speech. This is not an easy thing to do, but with meditation and mindfulness we can achieve a little more everyday and take the benefits of a mind at peace right now! May we all find peace and love in our lives!