5

"Cathar or Catholic, Kill them all"

one morning in 1243, arnold amery, one of pope innocent the 4th's legates and a leader of an inquisition against the cathars, told his army: "Show no mercy to order or age or sex. If they are Cathar or Catholic, it does not matter. Kill everyone. God shall recognise his own." this took place here in beziers and the inquisition army basically wiped the town out. then, naturally, they filled it back in with a good pope-fearing people. the cathars ran this region, and northern italy for hundreds of years - arguably thousands - and as vegetarians, doctors, apt swordsman and smart finaciers they had a good hold on this part of europe until the pope decided it was his turn. they didnt believe in christ as the catholics did and so this got them into some trouble. their systems of castles were simultaneously invaded, at dawn of a particular friday the 13th, and the cathar way of life got shelved.

The Buddhist Polack

raymond sarkowski - he gave me a ride from beziers to narbonne.

buddhists are an egoistic bunch. like most of them he is generous and he is poor (the sisters of socialism). he has a gold-colored plastic statue of the buddha on his dashboard, and there are little orange-colored cloth butterflies he had apparently made himself. he wears his hair in a ponytail and has pink tinted suglasses. like john lennon, you know. he was a slow sort of braggard. but he did have some interesting travel tales, having been raised in poland and having lived in 8 other countries since and after he went through those he started to preach budhism to me. just like the protestants do in the states, only a little more interesting.

"the buddha tells us that we must work for the well being of others."

because of his thick polish accent and my thick american ears i didnt get all of it, but that's close. "We must learn to set aside pain and pleasure."

what i didnt pick up in the sentence, i picked up over the next 20 minute lecture-series.

but i'd heard all of this crap from roshis in san francisco. i told him that i thought that we should instead learn to like both pain and pleasure and that someone that enjoyed both would be a more powerful force to be reckoned with than someone that sat all day concentrating on breathing.

his thick polish ears and my thick american accent didn't help our conversation, but we parted on amicable terms. weekend buddhists are sissies. he seemed to have a little more sincerity.