ALT:

While preparing for our alpine walk in the afternoon Fritz, the institute’s porter, pulled me aside informing me three Chinese diplomats (verified by showing their credentials)insisted upon seeing me but due to a strict no contact or visitor’s policy Fritz would not let them enter the premises. Although with ten 100 Euro banknotes and a healthy supply of the famed Guangzhou dried mushrooms Fritz did agree to take to me a hastily scribbled note on which a postcard of a sculptured Westie displayed at Suhewan MixC World in Shanghai’s Jing’an’s district was attached.

After our lunch we attend mindfulness training. You might want to say mindfulness now runs in the family as Bob is certified in mindfulness by the University of Toronto and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and has conducted a few workshops on it. Very basically, as this novice canine interprets mindfulness, it is being in the moment. Let’s say you are going for a walk.

In our first group session of meditative therapy Dr. Skilos explained the goal of us learning how to and appreciate the effects of meditation. We had difficulty understanding him when he told us mediation is about being. Once you are in a meditative mind it is you and there is nothing but you. He said we all subject to a racing mind; there are too many distractions in our head; do this, don’t do this, must go for a walk, what is in my bowl for dinner, thinking about chasing a ball and so on.

I can scarcely believe I am in Switzerland undergoing “medical treatment” but then again after my Southeast Asian abduction adventures my life seems destined to be one of a rapid maturity. My philosophy is roll with the punches. Playing along with my abductors in New Jersey, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia saw me through safely so “playing along” with medical treatment may see me through that.

Dr. Skilos has an aura of trust and perhaps a bit too much garlic fumes! He outlined what he thought would be my treatment plan; Meditation: To manage the racing thoughts clouding my brain I was to mediate four times a day, two in a learning how to meditate group. I was to learn that the here and now was what counted not what had been.

RORY DYLAN STEPHEN AIRLIFTED TO SWITZERLAND FOR MEDICAL CARE Bob, Fay and Raffles were very concerned with my uncharacteristic behaviour. Not eating well, apathetic and reluctant to go out on my usual multitude of walks. It was the crying in my sleep and refusal to chase tennis balls that sounded the alarm bells. Bob is not a psychologist, but it smelt not like teen spirit but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

WHY AM I FEELING THIS WAY? I am back in Toronto with Bob and Fay. Raffles, my Singaporean Westie friend is with me on a permanent basis and I have been showing him around the neighbourhood. He is, or at least was, a working dog at the Raffles Singapore Hotel acting as a greeter and rat and mouse hunter in the kitchens of that esteemed hotel.