Chapter 7: Walking Through Walls
A Journey of Addiction, Music, Healing, and Rediscovery
Day Seven: Friday August 22nd, 2003
Well, this is the day. Later this afternoon I will meet the abbot, Luang Por. I’m excited, but hope my mind is in a better state when I meet him than it is now.
The fear of getting back to bad habits
Because I’ve been submerged into a wilderness of goodness and positive energy, it’s only natural that it should occur to me that the ‘bad thing’ has gone away. There is nothing to suggest my body or my mind are still contaminated, until last night when the first clue is given to me!
After thinking about Soho, I get a twitching in the middle of my forehead.
This has only ever happened when I am either doing drugs, or doing none at all after a long period of time. Either way, I believe it to be directly associated with the drug. These muscle spasms in my forehead have started again. Thinking about Soho brings up the feelings that have become the bed of emotions that spring out of my sadness. I imagine myself hopelessly sitting at the laptop trying to write something that someone in the industry gets excited with, but giving up and going out to score instead.
I realise I now have no props at all, and I understand it makes sense to let the individual find complete independence from anything or anyone that is in danger of becoming their emotional crutch, including acknowledgement of my music.
My paranoia had also disappeared until yesterday. Sudden thoughts of “what have they been talking about?” “Who’s spoken to whom?” “What lies have been told?” It’s horrible really, especially for someone like me who has been guided by the power of instincts all my life. To not know when to trust one’s own instincts is frightening, and when, on one hand you know that people only have your best interests at heart, it’s easy to suddenly switch to thinking “That’s what they want me to think so they carry out their dastardly plan!” I’m convinced some of my close friends (and even family) have taken advantage of me in some way in the past. But I guess it’s just my paranoia.
This is not how I am thinking now, but it is evidence of my psychosis. The hangover of which is taking quite a while to disintegrate. I’ve spoken to the other guys about this and G, the American guy who runs an organic farm says that, with enough time, the brain will repair itself. He is very knowledgeable and probably the wisest patient here. It helps me feel more comfortable about this situation which I must accept. My mind is, actually, a little damaged. I think it comes from the fear of not being able to control my life. The reason it would bother me if other people were intentionally trying to manipulate me, comes from having no control of the life I live in.
The Buddhist philosophy is useful here, as it is a given that one should accept: the only thing we can control is ourselves.
THE ONLY THING WE CAN CHANGE IS OURSELVES
And fear of not affecting all that is around us is a pointless pastime. I am worrying for nothing. The next step is to perceive the triggers of my fear like ghosts. They are not real unless I make them real. Next time I see them I will tell them I don’t believe in them anymore and I may re-read this section of my Journal.
I had a nice big fry-up this morning and have already drunk a litre of water.
Afterwards, I had a nice chat with K who I probably get on best with, what with being a Londoner. He makes me laugh a lot. Very sharp witted and full of hilarious stories of drug induced madness. He is a bit like the ‘charismatic bully’ I used to always get on with at school. Very no-nonsense and quite fair about stuff. It’s still only one patient’s view of another, and in London we might be completely different people.
But I get a good vibe from him. Also, he is the spitting image of John Lennon during the Hard Days Night/Help period which is very cool. He’s not as myopic as me but still wears glasses. He is a good listener and I would call him a friend while I am here.
I watch the ‘vomit’ show today, that is done in front of forty Thai school children. After this I am asked to play some songs and, as crazy as it sounds, sign autographs afterwards!? Very camp!
3 p.m.
I am taken over to meet the abbot by Miss. Rambhai, who briefs me on the etiquette on greeting him. I put my guitar down immediately so I can cup my hands in prayer and bow before him. After this I sit down on a bench with Miss Rambhai.
‘Laisen’
The abbot is in his 70s and looks very much like all the other monks. His right eye looks in the opposite direction than the left, so it is impossible to look him in the eye. I look around his head when I speak. With Miss Rambhai acting as translator.
We discuss my ideas and he tells me that making music with this method can stop wars. He wants me to do the tracing of the ‘rock cracks’ for myself so I can learn the process of creating the music. Miss Rambhai tells me it is called ‘Laisen’. Amazingly he gives me permission to use his sacred method and all his discoveries, and despite my questions to clear up what is appropriate and ‘ok’ with him, I am told that it is up to me now. He is very humble and says he is just a monk. But the energy I’m getting from everyone else who is present tells me that he is no ordinary monk. I can feel a strength coming from him. Overwhelming. Phra Hans and the other patients arrive to join us. They stand and just listen, before they sit down. It’s as if they’ve been told something important is being discussed, as I’m talking to this holy man who we have only heard about until this moment. I feel very unworthy.
The abbot says he has moved on from the music of the Earth into a form of ‘mind travel’, and has to keep moving forward. But if others want to develop his ideas, that is up to them. He then suggests that one of the nuns teaches me how to create my own tracing of patterns in nature. Patterns that will eventually become music.
As usual, it is my first thought to say “I’ll do it later”, but I feel too afraid to say no. It was then I noticed the monk who gave me the book who I felt a connection with, is filming my meeting. He looks very serious. Filming me whenever I talk to Rambhai and filming the abbot when he speaks. Something is going on here. Why are they filming me? I trot off to trace cracks in the Earth with a nun who speaks some English.
The nun walks me towards The Hay, along with some monks, all curious to watch a foreigner make his first attempt at making music with their sacred practice.
She has a strong English vocabulary, but without much variation in her intonation, so it’s a little hard to understand, but I get used to it. She places the tracing paper over an almighty crack in the ground which looks like something that’s grown over years of dramatic weather conditions, like a bolt of thunder has struck the ground or something.
Once the paper is covering over the crack, she puts a red marker pen into my hand, nods and smiles. I put the pen at the start of the crack and look at her with a question on my face. She nods again, so I start tracing the line with the pen.
I immediately feel something special is happening. It’s like a scene from Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I half expect beams of light to come out of the sky and land on us. I feel elated. I am ready for enlightenment.
Then I realise I am still smoking a fag.
It doesn’t fit the picture AT all. I put it out and carry on tracing another line as the nun smiles more warmly, which I’m sure has something to do with me chucking the fag away.
We return to the abbot and proceed to translate the tracings into notes which, since my music theory is rusty, the nun helps me with.
Eventually I have three bars of music after 15 minutes. I then convert the standard notes into letters (A, B, C etc) that I can read (instead of the Thai numerals), and work out the melody on my guitar. I am gob smacked. It is a tune!
I am a little self-conscious, but make sure I am just polite (and resist lighting up another cigarette). I play the abbot the tune and he smiles a very warm smile. I talk to Miss Rambhai about maybe finishing the other bars and the rest of the song when I get back to my room, until he interrupts me and says something to her in Thai. She tells me that he wants me to finish it now. I am so scared of getting my theory wrong but I persevere all the same.
He records my first little tune from the cracks in the earth. I play him two of my own songs as well which seems to be appreciated. He gets the monks to record everything I do. He seems to be taking it very seriously, which is making me take it even more seriously. After locking myself in a bedsit in Soho, writing and recording songs for years without anyone really caring, three bars of music for one monk and I am overflowing with gratitude and relief. I don’t feel worthless. I feel like it’s ok to be me.
He suddenly gives us all rings of silver snakes with a spherical stone in them. Meant to symbolise a snake egg. He has chosen a blue stone for me.
I have not realised the time, but my meeting with Luang Por has lasted a little under three hours. I say thank you and return to the treatment centre to go to the sauna. I feel inspired, exhilarated, and fucking knackered. I don’t know what just happened to me but it’s the strongest natural high I’ve ever had.
7.30pm
Tonight we attend a meditation in the cave at Thamkrabok, which is lit beautifully with candles and incense burning everywhere. It’s totally transportive. It’s surreal for most of us to actually be taken seriously and treated so warmly.
This becomes the first time the actual ‘Treatment’ kicks in.
Everything I have done up to this moment has been relatively easy and given me an idea of achieving the rehabilitation without a problem. But the meditation is the hardest thing I have ever done, and reminds me that I am only human and my mind is a way off fully repairing itself. No matter how hard I try to let it happen, I cannot empty my mind of images and thoughts. I cannot sit comfortably; I fidget, and the moment Phra Hans says
“Pay no attention to anything that is outside yourself, they are only sent as tests”,
a mosquito lands on my fucking cheek which I instinctively swat.
Well, I guess I failed that test!
I realise, although it is positive, I have kept myself busy with activities to stimulate me while I have been here. And it saddens me that for forty minutes I cannot sit comfortably and just do ‘nothing’. This is the challenge. I must achieve this in order for all other opportunities to flourish. I am confident, but out of everything that I need to become fully functional, this is the hard bit. I will be joining Phra Hans for the daily meditation tomorrow and everyday till I leave. God, please give me the strength I need. I want to live my life again.
I was about to go to bed, but then I thought of just carrying on the music from the tracing.
I use the second line that runs with the first line to create the chord sequence. This will act as a bed for the melody of the first line. The trickiness lies in getting into flattening or sharpening chords to compliment the melody. I do three more bars and I am dumbstruck that they follow similar patterns (but not identical) to those weird chord sequences I used to try and emulate from some of John Lennon’s weirder songs. I always racked my brains to work out where he got them from. I still don’t know, but this is a way I can create them because the pattern is already there for you. To a musician, at first glance, you just think the random notes of the pattern make no musical sense, just like when you break down a Beatles song. But if you take some faith, suspend your disbelief and replace it with the energy it takes to play the notes, you start to hear that all sounds make sense when they are arranged in a pattern. At least that’s my experience.
And there are thousands of patterns you can discover using this formula. I feel a bit blessed and bloody excited. I’m going to be writing songs every day, forever, after this!
Good night all. And thank you whoever is making this all happen.
I support these organisations who are shaping a system change to integrate mental health awareness and well-being into the music industry. Please do read about their work.
The Creative Well
Music Mind Matters
Waterbear College of Music