On The Anniversary Of Ten Years Living In Mexico: A Letter To The World

I am so fortunate to have spent the last

ten years of my life living in Tepoztlan,

Mexico. With all it's chaos and lack of a

strong central government, Mexico is really 

much more of a free society than the

United States has become. My Buddhist

teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, a Mahasiddha

of the Twentieth Century, encouraged his

students to leave the USA in the late 

Eighties, because he saw what was coming

to America, the insanity, and wanted them

to go to Nova Scotia, where he felt people

there still retained a sort of naive human

goodness by nature, by the way they just 

were. He decided against Mexico, because

the people here are less sophisticated than

Canadians and less similar to Americans, so,

the enculturation process would have been 

much more difficult. I chose to move to 

Mexico instead, because it was always warm,

and it was cheaper...I could afford to live on

social security here, which would not have

been the case had I moved to Canada. 

I haven't watched television, except on rare

occasions, for the ten years I've been here.

i have been on the internet constantly, both

to publish my poetry and to observe the 

continuously degrading spectacle which is

called "The United States", as well as the

worldwide disintegration of environment and

decent human values. This is an old, Spanish

conquered, Catholic town, but the values of

the indigenous ancestors never really 

disappeared from Mexico, as they did in the

USA. The Spanish weren't very efficient in

destroying culture the way the English and 

Germans were in the USA. In fact, many 

Mexicans are conflicted because many

Spanish married the local people. It's why

they don't like to lie, but also, don't like to tell

the truth. 

I live directly behind a church, in a house that

is down a private alley, about three hundred 

feet off a side street, and at the end of that 

alley, so, I don't see anyone if I don't want to.

What a luxury. My neighbors are incredibly 

decent and kind people. I sometimes watch

American football at the local tienda, run by

a family of four, and have become fond of the

owner....a sort of neighborhood go-to-guy. 

The family I was going to rent the house (I'm

now in) from took me to him so he could check

me out and make sure I was OK....which he

immediately did. I love living in the middle of

lush trees, bougainvillea, many flowers and

many colored birds. If I feel a little lonely, I walk

a short distance to the center of town, where

anyone will talk to you, and there is a feeling

of life as unpressured....which can be 

inconvenient, at times, but which I'll take any day

over the speed, aggression and general lack 

of awareness of the people of the big US cities. 

I've learned to relax here incredibly, because

any other approach just doesn't work. Things

get done...usually not perfectly, but good enough

and in their own time. 

When I became an adult in the USA, I learned

plumbing, because it seemed one of the last

refuges of an outlaw in America. And I drank,

to put distance from Americans that, already,

seemed branded and molded into their lives

like they were all produced in some weird

factory somewhere. They seemed like fish that

had grown up in polluted waters, but, since that's

all they knew, they accepted that as if it were 

normal. 

The people of Tepoztlan cherish their 

independence and their way of life. There was

a documentary done about them not allowing

a golf course to be built here...the whole town

physically getting in the way of its construction.

Another time, they threw out a corrupt mayor of

the town (some versions say they killed him),

and bulldozed his house and got rid of all the 

police. For at least two years, there were no 

police in Tepoztlan. Even now, they are 

mistrusted. When someone I knew died from

an overdose, the ambulance drivers told the 

people around him not to call the police....that

they would take care of it...and they did. 

I'm sixty six, and I quit drinking and smoking 

pot two weeks ago. This came as a sort of

painful revelation during my Buddhist practice.

But, after it occurred, I realized that I didn't have 

to drink anymore to mitigate and counteract

the effects of the poisonous culture of the

United States that I had grown up in. I'm having

a great time in my newfound life, and it wouldn't

have happened if I had stayed in the USA. 

I read some articles in CNN today...mostly about

celebrities and their various problems. The one 

that grabbed me the most was the ongoing fiasco

of Tom Cruise and the "Church" of Scientology,

invented in whole cloth by a writer of science

fiction. That Church controls billions of dollars

they got based on a fairy tale. And I cannot express

strongly enough my contempt and sorrow for Tom

Cruise, whom, with all his success, is perhaps the

poster child for sociopathic brainwashing. All their

money and luxury lifestyle is only pushing them

further down the drain. They will not be happy

campers in the long, and maybe in the short run,

I have a great bed to sleep in, plenty of simple 

space,  locally grown non-Monsanto food, am
around people who have not lost their minds.
When someone who has comes to town, they
are made to leave. I can't think of a better paradise
on earth at this time. I am so lucky to have stuck
to the Buddhist path for over forty five years, and
followed the teachings of one of the most incredible
beings you'll never meet, if you hadn't. But his
Wisdom lives on clearly in his books and his

videos....Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. If you want

the truth, try starting there. 

And, on this anniversary, I wish, specifically, for
my fellow US citizens the good fortune to begin
to break free from the bonds of mentally slavery
that have been developed and imposed on you,
seriously, since, at least, the 

beginning of the Twentieth century.

Put that in your i pod and tweet it.