In Sitges, Dharma is served in a tall wide glass, rimmed with pink and white sugar sprinkles. Accord- ing to the cocktails menu, it contains Tequila Silver, Grenadine, and orange juice. And hey...Dharma is yummy.
The Budda Bar is a new bar in Sitges. It's on the main drag looking out at the beach, and like its neighbor down the street, Nirvana, it's got a cool name. That's a good thing in a bar when you're looking for one to sit in and write for a while. And unlike Nirvana, this bar is not filled with Yuppies. It's got an interesting clientele, even after having been open only a week. And the cocktails menu is way cool, too, if I wind up sitting here and doing a lot of writing this Fall. I get to choose from drinks called Nirvana, Karma, OMM, Blue Monk, Zen, Mantra, Angkor Wat, Ayutthaya, Shiva, Dharma, Lotos (Lotus), and Mandara. Cool. And such a deal. For six Euros (cheap for a beachfront bar), I can get a big, tall drink that lasts almost exactly as long as the battery in my laptop does. Would there be a bar like this, with this bar's name and the names of its drinks, if Maharishi hadn't made meditation a household word? It's a good question, one that we will never know the answer to, because he *did* make meditation a household word. And I, for one, thank him for doing so. Although I had done some meditation before I met him, both during my Better Living Through Chemistry period and after it, I never really approached meditation as a regular practice until I met him. In a very real way, he introduced me in this life to the flow of Dharma and the joy of surfing that flow, and that's cool. So I raise my glass, this fine perfect-temperature afternoon in Sitges, and toast his memory with a glass that is still full, 41 years later, of Dharma. Good move, dude. And here's another toast to my new "Click Next the instant I see a BPD poster's name in the From line of a post" resolution. I've been keeping track of the number of times I clicked Next without reading a word of the post, and so far today this resolution has enabled me to avoid a total of 30 time-wasting and energy-wasting screeds by four compulsive idiots spoiling for a fight and trying their best to start one, just so they'll feel alive. I guess that's a kind of Dharma, too, but I'm tellin' ya...I prefer the variety they serve at the Budda Bar. With any luck, and at this rate, the four of them will be gone by Monday, and the rest of the "posting week" at Fairfield Life will be as much of a party environment as the town of Sitges is this weekend. The rest of us will have fun and actually have a few pleasant conversations, while the BPD compulsives are off in some dark funk feeling persecuted because they can't fantasize about persecuting us any more. If they go *really* insane and "post out" while I'm still sitting here with this drink (which everyone but them knows is a distinct possibility), maybe I'll even order a second drink. But I'll make this one a Nirvana to celebrate, because celebration will feel appropriate.
