"It is just like the Present to be showin' up like this"

-Bon Iver

Before:

And so it is that I say adieu to my first Indian adventure...I would not change a thing (which is convenient...since I cant...its always nice when your desires correspond with the inevitable).  This journey was everything I needed it to be...though the lessons didn't always take the form I expected them to take (well of course they didn't...who learns from something they expected or already knew).

I was gonna write a little now...but I head to the airport within the hour and I think it would be a better use of my time to sit for a bit and see where I am with myself and everything that has happened and is happening...it is a Sati (mindfulness) day after all.  I'll talk to you from London.

After:

I am in London...sitting by the bed of the lovely Sir Geoffrey on his 93rd birthday...the Lady of the house is downstairs preparing our homemade souffle and ice cream for later this evening...and in the meanwhile I thought I would get a little bit down on here and say hello in my first blog entry from the west.  Part of me was foolish enough to fall into that trap of placing some arbitrary boundary or border between east and west in terms of learning, but the lessons never stop if I am paying attention to what is happening in the present.  And as I sit by this man who has been bed ridden for the past three plus months, who has been suffering from infections of the body and dementia in the mind, I am able to observe the profundity and continuity of a genuine good-heartedness and deeply founded satisfaction, the momentum of a million smiles and an inner peace that shine through the darkness of old age and sickness.  There is some sadness and there have been some tears from those around...but not from Geoffrey...he is full of smiles and laughs and witty banter and a desire to listen to opera, to do little hand dances to his french music...and even when he's looking up and to the left, off into a realm which I cannot see, speaking to figures in his own private universe...he remains considerate and calm...saying "thank you" and "it'll be alright" in a tone gentle and reassuring.  He told me earlier in the day, with a big smile, that "she is looking down on me"...I don't know exactly what he meant or who "she" is...but that's not really important is it?  What is important is that he is happy...he has the momentum of all his past happiness and goodness which has continued into the present.
From what I understand, many of those who suffer from senile dementia exhibit a good deal anger and fear...an understandable reaction to that kind of disorientation, of course...but I have proof in front of me that anger and fear are not the universal or default human response to disorientation and physical weakness.  Most of us shove our anger, shame, fear, anxiety, heartache, and longing down in a deep dark hole cause we believe that these emotions are bad and other emotions are good, accepting only half of ourselves and expecting a complete balance, and so when we inevitably become disoriented, weak, confused, sick, when we feel that our guard is down...we worry that all the bad stuff we've pushed down will rise back...and often it does, multiplied by repression, and so we freak out. It is not negative or pessimistic to acknowledge that deterioration, inconstancy and pain are inherent in this transient congregation of the psycho-physical aggregates...it is realistic, nothing more, nothing less.  This is the first noble truth.  And because we know that these states of weakness, sickness, confusion, etc. are inevitable in our own existence, isn't it worthwhile to invest time into learning and training in a way that produces a healthier response to these situations than anger?  I am fortunate enough to have before me a living example of what can be achieved when one does live and practice in such a way.
Geoffrey's natural response to things or people unknown, that is to say, the response which is natural to him at this point in his life due to repetition and a lifetime of practice, looks to me to be little less than open acceptance and pure kindness...even if you are in his room and he doesn't know you...or if he doesn't know exactly where he is...he is always ready to greet the present with a smile.  His lifetime of practice has dug grooves so deep that this aspect of his awareness cannot be derailed, though the vehicles through which it interacts with the world as we know it deteriorate.  And it is also a great gift to see a man through the eyes of a woman who he loves and who loves him very much...I am very grateful to be here. 

Peace in the long mind
Achieved by kind moments, stacked
Sweet repetition

So...my last week in India was spent between Reshikesh and Amritsar.  I spent most of everyday in Reshikesh (from my walk into town to my last afternoon there) with a pair of Israelis: Odea and Adir.  If it hadn't been for them I probably wouldn't have been there for more than a couple days, but I ended up there for four nights and five days (of course you never know what would have happened...besides "what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way" -Morpheus).  I was not a big fan of the town for various reasons.  It was just one of those places where everyone was wearing the uniform of a "spiritual type"...but it was all caught up in the massive haze of pot smoke and big-talk-little-walk...it all felt more than a little hollow...but I realize that this is my perspective and many biases shape that view (not to mention the feeling of being locked in myself by the allergies that were attacking me in my last week in India)...I don't mean to pass judgment on the people there, I just didn't really resonate with the vibration of the place I guess...until my last afternoon, more on that in a sec.  I did a couple of yoga classes with a good teacher at the Ashram to which I took the Israelis on our arrival (and where they got a room but I didn't haha)...they were as enjoyable as any yoga classes I've taken.  The Israelis and I spent an afternoon at a waterfall a couple kilometers away from Laxmanjhula (the part of town in which we were staying, Laxman is the god Ram's younger brother...the next neighborhood over was Ramjhula) and swam and talked about meditation in the Jewish tradition (apparently I really need to read Rabbi Nachman), family, money, politics (which I realized quickly was not a conversation I wanted to have with these Israelis or any others for that matter, at least none that I've met so far...and there were a lot of them in India, and specifically Pushkar and Reshikesh since pot is legal in both places as it has religious use).  We ate a lot of ice cream together and they took me to Chabad for Shabbat (I was the only person there...out of 50 or so people who did not speak Hebrew).  I hope to see them both when I am in Israel this summer (yes, I finally got accepted by Taglit woohoo!).
Ok, so back to our last afternoon together...Reshikesh, specifically the Maharishi Mahesh Ashram, is where the Beatles stayed and practice transcendental meditation and yoga (and probably dropped a lot of acid) in their later years, before writing the White Album I guess.  We visited this old abandoned ashram shortly before I was to leave for the train station to catch my train to Amritsar (which I would miss due to staying at the ashram a little longer than I should have...or due to any of the number of things that took an extra minute or two on the way out of town).  The ashram was attended by a soft spoken middle aged Indian man with one leg notably shorter than the other, more than slightly turned out, which made his walk down the stairs toward the gate and us, a rather long one..."Yes, this Beatles Ashram." 
We weren't expecting much...but as we continued through the massive property I became more and more entranced by the quiet, the overgrown trees and bushes and roots, the soft rush of the Ganga half a kilometer away, just the vibration of the place...it was so totally different than the rest of the town.  We wandered through a couple of the scattered yurts (structures shaped like the top half of en egg for doing yoga and solitary meditation) and found out that our voices echoed back at us in this powerful way due to the acoustics of the little room...probably done purposefully to help with mantra practice...I found myself wondering whether George Harrison had been in this one or that one...(I mean, I'm always thinking about John somewhere in my mind but I let George have a few moments at the front, especially since I think that he's the one most known for spending time with TM) and just took in the surroundings.  We wandered through a few abandoned buildings...to the roof of one...they did their smoking thing while I tried to be observant of what was going on in and around me...there was an air of sadness due to our parting after hanging out so regularly for the past five days.  And as we made out way back down from the roof of the building we had been on...we found a room with a wall painted brightly with Beatles' lyrics..."she loves you ya, ya, ya with a love like that you know you should be glad", "blackbird", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (that's where Adir found out what that song was about due to the painter exaggerating the size of the L, S and D haha)...and many others..."number 9, number 9" and "happiness is a warm gun" on a little wall in the hallway...the room brought "Across the Universe" to mind and was a burst of color and joy in a buildilng filled with rubbish and painted in that sterile beige and we could just as easily have missed that wall as found it seeing as there were many a stairway back down...I was very grateful that we didn't miss it. 
We wandered some more and sat in a great big hallway with all the windows knocked out and the walls scribbled with notes in different languages...the three of us sat crosslegged, Odea up on the stage on a little concrete block and Adir and I sat on the floor and together we said the little Hari OM mantra we had learned in class until a couple of other tourists came into the hall and we scooted out.  There was much more exploring to do...and I think when I return to India I will go back to Reshikesh just to further explore and sit in that Ashram...but I bid my new friends farewell and walked in the direction of the gate and the train station while they continued in. 

Ok...moving ahead...I missed my train to Amritsar by a few minutes and was put on the waiting list for a train that night.  I met four Spanish girls at the station who were also on the waiting list, though, due to the language barrier didn't really understand the concept of waiting list and so for the next few hours I did the best I could in my lousy Spanish and getting pretty lousy Italian to help them out and so together we managed to get on the night train.  One of the girls and I were offered the two extra beds in a car reserved by a very kind Indian man and so we had it notably easier than two of the other three who had to share for the night...(we did find out that those beds came with a cost though as we were asked to take a multitude of pictures with their children in various poses and combinations haha).  
We arrived in Amritsar, Punjab (a region in the far NW of India) in the morning around 7:30...only two hours later than our scheduled arrival time.  I bid farewell to the Spaniards as I headed for the golden temple and they for their guest house. 
I arrived at the Golden Temple, the first and most holy of the Sikh pilgrimage sites, by cycles rickshaw and was guided to the dormitory.  I could see the beautiful temple through the archway a few hundred yards from my dormitory and could hear the din from the volunteers cleaning the eating trays next to the Lungar hall ("Lungar" is the word given to the Sikh tradition of a community meal, the hall, the temple complex for that matter is open 24 hours a day and serves anyone and everyone...it was pretty amazing to be in a place where no one goes hungry). The Golden Temple offers a free bed and free food to anyone who requests.  I slept in a big room with what was essentially a 30ft bed on which 15 or 20 foreign traveler's slept.  I met Suji, a south korean girl who offered to let me use a lock and helped me find my way around and was just all around very sweet and helpful, and then made my way into the temple complex, turned in my shoes at the desk, covered my head, washed my feet and got in the rather long line to enter the Golden Temple itself.  The complex is about the size of three football fields of water, "the sacred pool of nectar,"and one on the far side of the complex is a 20ft wide walkway that connects the outer ring to the Golden Temple, located in the center of the pool.  The whole complex is filled with then chants of the priests and readers inside the temple which are broadcast out over speakers.  I stood in line with thousands of Sikh men, women and children carrying offerings of a sweet pudding/oatmeal thing, chanting along with the priest...one of which had a beautiful simple tune and sounded like "Sata guru mitiyallah" (which I'm pretty sure translated to "God is the true guru [teacher]")...many of the men in those bright orange and dark blue uniforms, carrying their little silver daggers, wearing their turbans and giant beards (Sikh men are supposed to have 5 things on them at all times [the five K's since they all start with a K in hindi]: a silver bracelet, a wooden comb in the hair, a silver dagger/sword, a long pant underwear, and the turban) and together we made our way closer and closer to the holy of holies.  Each of the three stories of the temple has one reader reading from the Guru Granth, the holy book of the Sikhs compiled by (I believe) the fifth Nanak...there are many similarities between the Sikh treatment of the Guru Granth and the Jewish treatment of the Torah (I am speaking of the text in physical form)...there are many parallels between the two traditions in terms of their ceremonies and rituals, in the emphasis on family and community service, and even between the role that they fill in their respective societies socio-economically and in that they are both minority religions which have their roots in a specific geographical location.  More on that another time perhaps.  It was an experience.  As was eating in the Lungar hall (they served rice pudding...bottomless rice pudding with coconut slices in it...for those of you who know my relationship to rice pudding...you know how amazing this was for me) and sitting in the basement section of another temple in the outer ring later that night with a group of Sikhs who were far more meditationally oriented it seemed to me...and there was a tree growing out of a stone...it was wrapped in cloth...hard to explain...but it was quiet and still down there...I find that I am much more amenable to worshiping trees and plants than people or anthropomorphic deities or any kind haha. 

Alright, there's always more but Syvia is back now and I have to do a few things before I head to the airport and to New York to see the Peanut and the Signore Tony and a few others...

I hope everyone is doing well...I will not be missing you for much longer...:)

O, O, Hari Hari...Monk-ease in the Jungle Breeze by the Coconut Trees, Wild Elephant Growls and the Three Klesa Dogs' Howls, Stupa Seats and the Black Ants that Sting My Feet: Ten Days on the Island of Sri Lanka

Haikus from the train from Gaya to Delhi:

There he sought to be
Knower, a cristalline truth
Just to find himself


Oh great tree of trees
Refuge of Awakenings
May your roots spread wide


Be skillful in war
There's fight in your surrender
Practice right effort


Eight spokes of a wheel
Carries its rider to light
Generous teaching

"Kindness is weakness"
Then death is life and life death
Open up your heart

Alright, I'm giving myself an hour to get this down and then I am off to do some hit and run traveling around the north in my last week here.  My time in Sri Lanka was very full and since we're getting to the point now where I can tell you all stories in person in a couple of weeks...here is a little snipit summary thing. 

I arrived in Delhi after a 14 hour train ride from Gaya...made my way over to Jagajjyoti ("light of the world") Buddha Vihar since thats where the chief monk from the meditation center in Bodhgaya had a room arranged for me.  I was taken over to see the giant Lotus Temple (a Ba'hai place of worship around the block) and the Iskcon Temple (a Hare Krishna house of worship...I chose to stay after on my own and see a light and sound show about the Bhagavad Gita and some of the tenets of the tradition...long story short...I have never been more freaked out by a tradition's show and tell and don't think I will ever bow to Krishna again...and no, to answer your next question...I have never been trapped in a room with the Scientologists so there is still room to be outdone).  Got up early and headed for the airport to catch my flights down south and then to the island.

Bhante (pali: "Teacher":) came to pick me up at the airpoart when I arrived and took me to his friends' temple in Colombo.  There I met Mangalam Thero (the chief monk and a friend of my teacher's since their 20's) and Sarda Thero (who cracked me up almost the entire time we were together even though he spoke almost no english..."no happy biscuit" haha) who were very kind and offered me food continuously and with whom I watched much cricket...though I had no idea what was going on...(but I did learn a little while I was there...you are kind of a freak if you don't know about cricket in Sri Lanka, so we extended my education passed the mere meditational/philosophical into the sporting realm).  Bhante and I spent the next couple days seeing some of the Temples around Colombo, going to the Zoo (and the hospital where I tossed a third of my budget for the trip seeing a doctor who didn't listen very well and getting some tests...but I feel awesome now on the plus side...still got one week left in India though...knock on sandlewood), and hitting up Kandy town to see the Tooth Relic temple and hearing some crazy magical stories which have sort of worked their way from the Sri Lankan folk realm into the Dharma.  One night I asked, "Is that in the tripitaka (pali: "three baskets" referring to the Pali Cannon comprised of the suttapitaka: the teachings of the Buddha to the lay community, vinayapitaka: teachings of the Buddha to the monastic community, and the abhidhammapitaka: Buddhist philosophy-psycology/commentaries on the Buddha's teachings by prominent disciples and teachers after the Buddha's death)?"...wondering why I had never heard about any of these stories of the Buddha in Sri Lanka before...and he informed me that the source for the stories that were depicted all over the walls of the temples etc were from the records of the early Sri Lankan kings...and it all made a little more sense.

Then we made our way to the Anuradapura area, into the jungle/forest adjacent to a village (known only by the name "small village"), to Bhante's temple/two bedroom, no bathroom brick structure.  It was beautiful and quiet and filled with green and the sounds of Sri Lankan wildlife.  (The entire island is a tropical botanical garden...other than Colombo and Kandy...everything is covered in green...its warm all year round and Bhante told me that they actually try not to plant trees since you can drop a seed anywhere and it grows wildly in record time).  I had my doubts for a bit at first but once the teaching started I could see that I had made the right decision to go down there.  Bhante is a very good teacher and has clearly found some things out and been able to integrate them into his life and mind.  I will not go into detail with regard to the specific practices and discussions since I have gained a respect for the privacy, for lack of a better word, of the teacher-disciple relationship and the necessity of context for certain practices and aspects of the Dhamma...and becasue there isn't much time here and to brush over even generalizations would be a diservice here.  I will say that the analytical meditations he had me doing were incredibly difficult for me at first and caused me a great deal of frustration...which I was able to work with later.  I have realized that Metta practice, especially toward myself, is going to have to comprise a large portion of my practice for a while to come...I have underestimated its importance and will have to continually reshape the practice in the future...it must evolve as we do.

On the second day in the woods, Bhante invited me to visit the school at which he teaches English and I got to teach the "itsy bitsy spider" and hand out candy.  From the reaction of most of the kids crowded on the walls looking into the classroom (the rooms are not enclosed since, with the whether on the Island, there is no reason to have them enclosed haha...that and money probably doesn't permit it) I was the first foreigner they had ever seen.  We had a blast there and the principle invited me to come and teach next time I was in the area...then he gave me cream soda and chocolate wafers...it was yummy. Long story short...I will be looking into ways to begin fundraising for Nepal and Sri Lankan schools and for Suren's medical school fund when I get back...and anyone that can offer some help/advice/money/whatever is welcomed with open arms.

I was ordained as a samanera (pali: "little renunciate", novice Buddhist monk) on the 16th of March, 2011 and given robes and the name Sobite (one of the Buddhas in the line of 28 in this age...to be honest I don't know much about the name other than that he is described as the Buddha of virtuous/good works according to Bhante).  I followed dasasila (ten precepts which include the five lay precepts [no killing, no taking that which is not freely offered, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to tell lies and not to inbibe intoxicants] but the sexual misconduct vow changes to a Brahmacariya vow [one of celibacy] and then five more are added [no eating after mid-day, no sleeping on high or luxurious beds, no wearing of garlands, no body decorations, no handling of money] and we did puja by chanting, lighting coconut oil candles and offering jasmine flowers and incense at the ancient stupa and shrine opposite the temple, which was also were we did sitting meditation (this was also the first time I had done regular outdoor meditation, which also added to the difficulty but was a welcome change and a good experience.  I liked eating my bland food out of my begging bowl and not having to wonder what I was gonna wear and living in the quiet jungle with a good teacher (and one other monk who didn't speak much English and who was recovering from an injury and who I won't get the chance to talk about here) and monkeys and peacocks and those aweful wonderful horrible dogs that embodied everything paniful in physical existence, who taught me so much and allowed me some clarity into my own mind and instincts and unnecessary suffering, though it was difficult to always be present with the lessons.

Ahhhhh!...there are so many more things and places etc to relate to you but I gotta get outa here and be on the move again up north.  In short, I learned a lot, plan on visiting again before too much time passes, saw many cool sights, the Island is beautiful, the people there were consistently the nicest I have met on this trip, I was proposed to in an ice cream and tea shop haha and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to go...I have no doubt I made the right decision...though it looks like I will be completely bypassing Dharamsala (though it was one of the main reasons I originally set out to India...things change...something for next time) and Amritsar (home of the Sikh golden temple and an ugly bit of British violence during the colonial era fight for Independence)...but I am going to try to see Reshikesh (birthplace of Yoga and very near to the source of the Ganges, Dehradun and Chandigarh before heading back to Delhi to fly out on the first of April. 

I'm off.  Be good...be well...breath and smile and I'll write again soon...and see you soon :).  My phone is having some difficulty so unless I get it figured out there will not be any more pictures up on FB until I get back/get it fixed...it also means no pictures from the last week of this trip and that email will be a little more difficult for me so forgive that please.  Peace from the East...and Metta to you all.

May you be healthy in body and mind
May you be free from anger
May you be free from suffereing
May you achieve unbound happiness and lasting peace

Touching the Earth, Entering the Stream: Bodhgaya

Aneka jati samsaram
sandhavissam anibbisam
Gaha karakam gavesanto
dukkha jati punappunam

Gaha karaka ditthosi
puna geham na kahasi
Sabba te phasuka bhagga 
gaha kutam visankitam
Visankhara gatam cittam
tanhanam khaya majjhaga ti 

Through many a birth
I have wandered this samsara (cyclic existence),
seeking but not finding
the builder of this house.
Sorrowful is repeated birth.

O house builder! You are seen.
You shall build no house again.
All your rafters are broken.
Your ridge-pole is shattered.
My mind has attained the unconditioned.
Achieved is the end of craving.

-Udana Gatha/Paeon of Joy (utterance of the Buddha after Awakening beneath the Bodhi Tree)


...And so Siddhartha Gautam, after his journey outside of the palace walls, having seeing the four sights of old age, sickness, death and the ascetic wanderer, left his wife, Yasodhara, son, Rahula (who would later become a fully realized arahant and one of the Buddha's chief disciples), and all the worldly wealth and pleasures of a life in the palace, to search for liberation from the suffering of cyclic existence, to achieve nirvana, the unbinding.
He learned the first four dhyanas/jhanas (meditative absorption states) from one teacher, the next four from another...and though these gave his mind some release, it was only a temporary escape; eventually his awareness returned to a state of craving, enslaved by the impurities which remained at the root level of his mind.  Dissatisfied with the results of the practices he had mastered so quickly, and much to the dismay of his teachers who had wanted him to stay and teach in their names, Siddhartha left to join five ascetics (who would later become, formally speaking, his first five disciples and the recipients of his first teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path at the deer park in Isipattana/Sarnath) in their austere practices.  For six years Siddhartha practiced extreme self-mortification, eventually surviving on a grain of rice per day, sleeping outdoors in all weather in nothing more than an earth colored loincloth, holding his body in difficult positions for extended periods of time...all in the hopes that if the body were denied its pleasures and basic needs, that the mind would be freed from its prison.
One day, Sujata, a village girl (a deity by some Mahayana accounts) saw Siddhartha in meditation, emaciated and close to death.  Out of compassion and reverence, she offered the frail ascetic a bowl of khir (super awesome Indian rice pudding) and Siddhartha accepted the gift and ate.  It was then, feeling the strength return to his body and mind, that he realized the necessity of a middle path between an over indulgence of sense pleasure and attachment to form, and the torture of the body by denying its fundamental needs.  He saw that a healthy mind is founded on a healthy body...that the body is a window and a vehicle through which we experience the world and that we are stuck with it as we move through this life and so it must be taken care of if we are to practice mindful living and if we are to interact with others in a skillful way.  When his five companions shunned him for what they considered to be an act of weakness, Siddhartha continued on his own. 
As he walked alone, a memory came to him.  When he was five years old, he had wandered off on his own in the palace orchard...he had found a tree and sat cross-legged at its roots.  There in the shade, focusing on the rhythm of breath and the feelings in the body, he had quickly entered a deep and peaceful state that had left him feeling refreshed and clear headed.  It was with this experience in mind that, near Gaya, Siddhartha Gautam, not yet the Buddha, found a great Banyan tree and sat at its roots.  He took a vow of adhitthana ("strong determination") that he would not move from beneath this tree, bones be scattered, until he had achieved enlightenment.
Hearing the nature of this vow, Mara, lord of illusion and ignorance (the personification of all the afflictions within the human mind), came before Siddhartha and, in the hopes of dissuading him, offered every worldly pleasure (including material wealth, palaces and kingdoms, and even his three foxy daughters), and when that failed he attacked with his fiercest armies (of the five hindrances: anger/ill will, sense desire, doubt, sloth and torper, and restlessness and anxiety)...and though the battle raged in every corner of the young prince's mind, he was unshakable in his resolve, in his sati (mindfulness) and upekkha (equanimity).  Through the three watches of the night, the meditator had various insights into the nature of cyclic existence (life, death and rebirth)...of his own past, and that of all beings.  He observed the twelve steps of the chain of dependent origination...and saw where this chain could be broken.  He saw that if the cause of suffering is eliminated, the suffering does not arise.  And as the morning star rose his awareness penetrated the subtlest reality and then understood the nature of mind and matter, the totality of existence and that which is beyond existence...there was release from all craving and attachment...the other shore had been reached.  Thus was the Buddha, the "awakened one," born.
Exhausted and defeated, Mara said, "There is no one here.  Who will bear witness to this event, this liberation you have achieved?"  Seeing that there was no human around, the Buddha asked that the Earth herself bear witness...and he reached his right hand down and as his fingers touched the ground the Earth rolled and rumbled in consent (if ever you see a depiction of the Buddha with the fingers of his right hand extended toward the Earth [in Bhumisparshamudra: lit "touching the Earth gesture"], you know that this is the historical Buddha at the moment of enlightenment).  The Buddha then spent the next seven weeks meditating on what it was that he had discovered (the first he remained beneath the Bodhi tree, the second he choose a small mound a few meters away where it is said that he stared unblinkingly at the tree which had sheltered him during his battle, purification and awakening for the entire seven day stretch, the third he spent doing walking meditation, and so on).
After this 49 days, the Buddha debated with himself (and the gods Indra and Brahma) about whether what he had realized was too subtle, too simple, too contrary to standard human thought constructs about the nature of reality, about relationships, instincts, pleasure and pain, craving and aversion, life and death, love and peace...whether there was too much dust in the eyes of humanity for them to really hear the Dharma and achieve the goal of full liberation.  In the end he saw that the veil over the eyes of some was very thin...that it might be lifted...and so out of compassion for all sentient beings, he agreed to begin his 45 year teaching career.  He knew that the five ascetics with whom he had practiced for six years, though they had abandoned him and, at the moment, thought him weak for taking food, would be the most apt to understand the teaching...and so, having seen with his omniscient Buddha eyes the location of his former companions...he began his mindful walk toward Isipatana, where, in the deer park, he would set in motion the wheel of Dharma and bring joy and freedom to countless beings...

As so goes Asher's super duper abridged version of the Life of the Buddha

....so now then....this is gonna be a bit choppy but here we go...

I could try to give a history lesson about this place...and it is pretty interesting how it has gone from the center of pilgrimage and the most significant place in terms of Dharma history to a pile of rubble and back...but I don't want to write about dates and destruction...at least not of that sort.  My arrival in Bodhgaya was pretty epic internally.  It seems like a long time ago now but I remember getting off the bus with the Burmese pilgrims, bidding them farewell and thanking them for their kindness...ending up at the International Meditation Center and then walking over to the Mahabodhi Temple complex.  As I got closer I felt the emotion and thought build inside me...and then I walked in and saw the great big tower of the Mahabodhi Temple and all the monks and the pilgrims...and as I began to move around the upper level it felt like something broke inside me and I was ecstatic.  During my first sit here my whole body lit up with pleasant vibrations...I had insight into anatta (essencelessness, no-Self) and I was able to clearly utilize a meditation technique I had rarely even employed (Shinzen Young's reworking of the classical five aggregates [pancupadanakhando-the "five clinging aggregates of body-rupa, consciousness-vinyana, perception-sanna, feelings/sensations-vedana, mental formations-sankhara which make up the mind-matter phenomenon which we refer to as "I" and through which we experience physical reality and thought] model into "feel/image/talk") before now.  It hasn't been like that every day of course...things have moved up and down, in and out as they do...but it was a nice welcome. In fact, most of the significant lessons I seem to have learned...to be learning here revolve around pain and my relationship to discomfort...but maybe more on that later.

In writing about my retreat in Jaipur back in November, I mentioned that lightening had struck so near the center that I thought something had burst outside my window, and that thunder had shaken my room.  On the third day of my retreat here in Bodhgaya I was doing walking meditation on the roof of the center when a flash caught my eye off to the left.  Though there was no rainfall where I was, I could see that an electrical storm was in full swing not too many kilometers away, in the direction of Gaya.  I thought to myself, "Interesting that the only two lightening storms I have seen while in India have been during retreats...though this one isn't quite as dramatic as the last."  I watched it for a little while, staying mindful of my breath and the weight on my legs and feet, and then headed back downstairs for the group sit.  I sat down next to my fellow meditator (there were only two of us on this retreat), crossed my legs, wrapped myself up, closed my eyes, and tuned in to my body and to the present moment.  About twenty minutes into the sit, I saw, through my eyelids, what would have been a blinding flash had I not already been sense-blind due to my eyes being closed...and then there was a deafening roar...and the building shook...and then the second wave shook it harder and I felt the movement roll through every inch of me...and tears came out of my closed eyes... I am tempted to say that it was something like awe that brought them forth, but I doubt if there was even enough time to have had a proper emotional response...if it was just the continuation of the movement.  And then the power went out till the generator kicked in...and we continued for the rest of the hour in silence, except for the soft sound of the rain.  I don't know what it means if anything...just thought I'd share.  Maybe I'm electromagnetically charged when I'm on retreat haha. 

During my last retreat, I marked in my journal the first time I had made it through a one hour sit cross-legged (as opposed to sitting on a little bench) without moving. (I am aware that this may not be a great feat for some people, but I am a very inflexible person and less than a year ago it was a major challenge for me to sit for 20 minutes like that).  I remember it being a struggle and that I was excited to have done it.  On this last retreat, I did 33 one hour sits (six sits a day for five days and a few more on either side) and didn't budge after the second day.  It's not that I'm bragging or anything...its just that I feel my body adapting and settling into posture...into the practice, and it makes me happy. 

I have so many questions about the practice...about frequencies and waves and vibration...the absolute value of pleasure and pain...about the nature of sense perception and the limitations of the intellect and the depth of the mind...and as has been true on every retreat...I've wanted to write it all down and discuss and all that jazz...but I know that the answers lie not in words or in discussions or in teachings...but at the roots of my own mind and so I will not spend my last couple days here on the computer trying in vain to verbalize...maybe on one of my weaker days haha.  This retreat was a different style of Vipassana from anything I have done in the past...I mean its still Vipassana as outlined in the Mahasatipatthana sutta...it is still insight meditation with an emphasis on objective observation of the four foundations of mindfulness: body, feelings, mind and mental contents...but there were some significant differences...labeling for one.  Goenkaji is strictly anti-verbalization and anti-labeling...and while I understand that that has its place...it was interesting to experiment with this style.  I saw different things.  Something I began to work with in the Jaipur retreat was that the eyes don't see, the ears don't hear, the skin doesn't feel, the tongue doesn't taste and the nose doesn't smell...that this is a misleading linguistic shorthand which contributes to our ignorance of our own nature.  The eyes don't see any more than the lenses in your glasses do...the ears don't hear any more than your earphones listen to your music...and so on.  They are tools...the mind...the mind, through these windows...these tools, experiences external reality...we make up stories and get caught up in them and think that they are real.  During this retreat we learned to simply label "hearing, hearing,"  "chewing, chewing"...etc...and the story slows down.  I recognized with greater clarity the extent to which I was creating my reality...which is total.  There is only vibration...the difference between light and sound is simply frequency...the difference between pleasure and pain is frequency...its just waves and we cling to them and think them material and meaningful...we try to turn the impermanent into permanent and then we suffer as a result...this is an aspect of the primary avijja (ignorance).  What's more than that is that, in order to be perceived by sense and mind, that is, to participate in physical reality...a thing must actually be totally vibratory with no inherent, separated essence...I believe this is a large part of what is meant when Avalokita speaks to Sariputra in the Heart Sutra, "form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form"...Ahhh this all sounds hodge podged now...thats part of why I didn't want to get into all of this haha...no time for transitions...but I am just trying to make some notes and talk a little so I can organize later...just let you know what is going through my head.  I was able to recognize part of what it was that the "Mind Only school" (a major contributor to Mahayana Buddhism and Nagarjuna's Madhyamika philosophy 500 years or so after the Buddha's death) saw and what the Buddha was speaking about at the beginning of the Dhammapada about mind preceding all things.  I am learning a great appreciation for walking meditation (another big difference on this retreat is that it included walking meditation as part of the daily practice...five or so hours of it).  Experiencing the air on the top of my foot as it passes from "lift" to "touch". The tattoo on my foot a constant source of joy as I felt that I was bringing the light of awareness to every step.  There's so much more...but its for later I guess...or to be developed...its all still in its infancy anyways...its always hard to remember that every idea is outgrown eventually. 

Somewhere in the course of the retreat, there occurred a shift in terms of how I see myself and this journey, in this place, on this path.  I realized that I no longer fancied myself a pilgrim...this is not the Hajj and this journey is not something I do once so that I can say "I did it" and make a photo album and then go on with my life. I am not here just to chant, pray, make offerings, leave flowers...I mean, those things don't bother me...I do not look down on these practices...and sometimes I participate in them...but its not why I am here. I did not come to pay homage to the stream...I came to enter it.  I am a meditator and a seeker.  Besides, there is no greater respect one can show a teacher than to live in accordance with his teachings. Neither Christ nor the Buddha said "build churches in my honor and make all kinds of sweet smelling offerings"...they taught compassion, meditation, generosity, morality...what they taught was skillful living...they gave a practical blueprint for how to live well with others and with ourselves...and that's all I'll say about that for now.

Some things are becoming clearer...some possibilities are presenting themselves...some of them frighten and excite me...they shake some of my attachments at their roots and challenge my preconceived notions of what my life is "supposed to be."  I know that I feel like I am living up to my potential...that I am happy when I am mindful and quiet, living in the present moment, concentrated...I am tired of scratching at the surface with short retreats...I want answers and I need a closer look at what is going on inside and all around.  I have some deep rooted stuff that needs to be dug up and a few days ain't gonna cut it (no pun intended...alright, maybe a little one).  I will be applying for a long retreat in Burma with a great teacher who studied under Mahasi Sayadaw...a renown monk and meditator, now deceased ...whether or not they will accept me...whether or not I will end up there is in the future, and the future as we all know, is uncertain...but for now I will do what feels right and move with this momentum.

...So last night, I got permission from the head office, bought myself a little netted sitting tent as protection from the mozzies...and spent the night sitting beneath the Bodhi tree...well, alternating between sitting a walking meditation.  There is a little thing that I have been saying over the past few weeks...it really got stuck during the retreat I think, but it doesn't really have a concrete verbal formulation...its a little like..."May I learn the lessons that must be learned...whatever form they take...in order to find true happiness and achieve that which I seek..."  I think part of the reason that it doesn't have an exact formulation is because it is supposed to be a little open...maybe because the unawakened mind, a conditioned view of self can't fully grasp the possibility of a qualitatively different ontological status...but there must be some inkling, otherwise I wouldn't bother trying.  But honestly I think the real reason is because it frightens me...it frightens me because I know how severe some of these afflictions, impurities and obstacles are...and I know that the lessons will have to be equally sever in order to remove them...but...there is a kind of solace in the fear...the fear is a sign that I am pushing toward something real...if all the things that I wish for myself were within my comfort zone...I would never evolve.  I believe that we have to challenge ourselves to goodness (though paradoxically, I see goodness as our natural state...so it seems strange that I would have to push myself so hard to get there haha)...it will not happen unless I work for it.

And tell me, people of Orphalese, what
have you in these houses?  And what is it
you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals
your power?
Have you rememberences, the glimmering
arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart
from things fashioned of wood and stone to
the holy mountian?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only the comfort, and the lust
for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters
the house a guest, and then becomes a host,
and then a master?

Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook
and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart
is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your
bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and
lays them in the thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the
passion of the soul, and then walks grinning
in the funeral.

But you, children of space, you restless in
rest, you shall not be trapped or tamed.

I went to visit the Sujata stupa (a dilapidated brick stupa similar in appearance to the Ramambar stupa in Kushinagar that is said to mark the location of Sujata's house) and the Sujata temple (which is supposed to mark the spot where the Buddha accepted the rice, milk and honey from the young woman). It doesn't matter to me that much whether or not these are the actual sites...either I feel a connection to the place or I don't...it's what it brings to mind.  I like the character of Sujata very much...she reminds me of Mary Magdalene in that humble-penitent sort of way...I can imagine the awe and total respect...the joy of giving or serving greatness...when Mary washes the Christ's feet with her hair...when Sujata offers the rice, both with downcast eyes, huddled on the Earth.  If it hadn't been for Sujata, there might not be a "middle path."  (This probably is going to feed the whole "behind every great man..." bit haha).
Anyways, I was circumambulating the stupa...a little off from having been up all night and then having slept into the afternoon...a little uncomfortable by how many aggressive little beggars and phony charity-wallahs were trying to get at me.  Without going into too much detail, my mind wandered into thoughts of different variations on corruption and injustice and various socio-economic and bureaucratic political nonsense...and then seeing that I was becoming a little worked up...took a step back and experimented with some perspectives and tried to find some equanimity with the state of the world, with the state of my mind, and with the uncertainty that the future holds.  I must learn to be satisfied with as little as possible...to be content with what is and not what could be (I would like to preemptively clarify that statement and say that I am not speaking about external passivity or inaction, but about acceptance and an appropriate response based on mindful consideration...if positive change is possible in a given situation, I work for it...but one must learn to be equanimous with those things that cannot be helped...otherwise, as Shinzen Young would say, one of the burn-out/bum-out/freak-out trio is inevitable).  I must develop the eyes to see the breath as my home...the sensations of the body as my closest and dearest friends...compassion as my religion...the health of the body as my greatest wealth.  I must see hearing, tasting and smelling as sense and accept with gratitude that which the Earth and other beings offer me as I move through daily life.  I must develop the eyes to see in this way.
Making my way with my bicycle rickshaw driver from the stupa to the temple...we ended up driving through a dirt poor farming village...(I had been warned about this area just a few hours before).  "Hello money?"  "From where, money?"...that was the chant...closed down schools and boarded up health clinics and small children with no pants...it was difficult and I recognized that stress was present, helplessness and anger.  A friend used to tell me when we'd discuss certain people and situations and misery in the world that it was their karma and that to some extent, though it may be in indirect and complex ways, people choose their environment, etc....and I'm not saying that I disagree outright...but that was never enough for me...and what I saw today after thinking about the above...is what I see as the flip side of it...a key element of the Buddha's teachings is that anyone can achieve lasting happiness and liberation.  There are happy rich people and miserable rich people...there are happy poor people and miserable poor people...I do not see a direct correlation between material wealth and satisfaction (in fact, sometimes I think that there is an inverse relationship looking at America).  I felt less of a need to turn away from it when I recognized  that anyone can achieve happiness through their own efforts...that the only real obstacles lie in the mind...not in the external world. Shinzen also talks about "being the master of every situation"...that there are times in our lives where we feel like we have no control...where we feel like slaves...but that it is possible, even then to be the master of the moment.  We make a choice every moment to be in the present, to acknowledge and accept, to actively participate...or to blind ourselves to reality.  For most of us, the choice is so subtle and we've been so conditioned to feel helpless that we don't even know we are making it...but it is there.  (That being said...this whole idea is still at war with the fact that a human being does need some basic necessities in order to live healthily and work well...the ascetics in the time of the Buddha lived off of the kindness and generosity of a community that supported their work, who acknowledged that what the Sangha was doing was important...that it benefited all beings...created a better quality of life for everyone...this was of course before the great darkness that is modern economic theory as developed by Adam Smith in which an almost total misinterpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory dominates and competition is thought to actually be of greater service to the individual than sharing and mutual support)...Alright, I'm getting a little far afield...I told you it'd be choppy...there are just so many things that go through the mind...and I enjoy sharing.

Oh...and I'm going to Sri Lanka!! I leave Bodhgaya in a couple days on a train bound for Delhi...and then I leave Delhi for Colombo.  I will spend just under two weeks with Bhante Matale Wijewansa Thero (the monk I met in Lumbini) at his monastery, where he has kindly offered to teach me and guide my practice, and then will return to Delhi with a week or so to decide whether or not I want to zip around the north before coming back your way.  I planned on writing more about this...the change of plans and the re-change of plans...what it was that cleared up and what it was I had to let go of but...like most other things I planned to write to you about...it will be a story for another day.

Good lord...now that that small percentage of whats been going on in my head is out there...I hope you are all well...I am going to go enjoy my last 48 hours in this most sacred of places...

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa

Mosquitoes, Murder and Monasteries: The Return to India

"As you embark on the practice, and as you stay with the practice, it's best to think of it as a voyage of discovery.  After all the Buddha says, the goal is to see what you've never seen before, to realize what you've never realized before, to attain what you've never attained before.  So you are going into the unknown.  This means that we are going to have to deal with risk and uncertainty, which requires an interesting mix of attitudes...on the one hand you need confidence and on the other hand you need humility.  The confidence is...in your ability to deal with unknown factors as they arise.  The humility means that you can't expect everything to fall into your preconceived notions...that the path is going to stretch your imagination and ask more out of you that you might originally be prepared to give.  So on the one hand you need the confidence that yes you can do this and that yes this is a good place to go...and the humility to realize that you don't know beforehand what its going to be like...
...and there's going to a period of discomfort, there's going to be sometimes a sense of frustration when things are not quite working out the way you wanted them to.  And you need the maturity to learn how to deal with that.  This is not a path for immature people.  This is a path for people who know they're in a very precarious situation already, and that their ideas and their assumptions are precarious.  That they are the ideas and presumptions of a materialistic world view, which is what we're brought up in...[and that these views] have a very limited range, or that they offer a very limited range of happiness.  Whereas the Dharma offers a lot more.  And it is up to us to decide whether we're willing to make the sacrifices and take the risk to see if what the Buddha had to say is true." 

-Thanissaro Bikkhu
Dharma Talk entitled "A Sense of Adventure"

Where were we...

12/2/11

I get onto a 7pm bus from Kathmandu to the Birganj (Nepali side) - Raxaul (Indian side) border crossing.  I have been told numerous times by numerous people that, unless its necessary, I shouldn't cross there...Prassana told me it was like going to the worst place in India...but it is, geographically speaking, the most direct way to get down into Bihar (the region of India that contains Nalanda, Rajgir and Bodh Gaya and the remainder of my pilgrimage proper) and going all the way back up to Sonauli (the border crossing near Lumbini where I crossed into Nepal) would add half a day at least onto my journey...or so I thought.  The bus starts moving around 7:30 and we're off...we are supposed to arrive in Birganj around 5am.

13/2/11

The ride is uncomfortable but I get a ten minute nap here and there.  We stop so that the drivers can get some tea around 2:30 or so.  I'm woken up at 3 or so by a poke poke at my arm just after dozing off...the driver tells me that, since there are only three or so of us that are going to Birganj...he doesn't really feel like going all the way.  So he tells me that the bus behind ours will take us the rest of the way.  So I grab my stuff and make my way to the other bus.  I end up sitting on a small stool in the aisle for a half the journey or so...not comfy but it could be worse...(it does get worse haha).  We arrive at Birganj around 4:20 am...its dark...and this place is a dinge pot...I hire a cycle rickshaw to take me to the border.  We launch down the mile-long straight away...and about half way there the power goes off and the whole town is black.  Its misty and cold and a little creepy, but I lean as far back as I can with the backpack and look up at the stars and feel a little better.  We get to the border and I start to walk across.  I make it to the Nepali guards who tell me that I have to wait for the office to open so they can stamp me out.  The office opens at 6 am.  I am a little tired but in no big hurry, and am pretty contented to be on the road again, excited to for my second round with India.  I sit off to the side next to a little old guard shack...then I hear the buzzing...I forgot about the mosquitoes.  I don't know if Nepal has some sort of bilateral agreement with the mosquitoes not to enter their territory, but they seriously wait for you at the border...I wonder what Nepal promised the little blood suckers to keep em out.  I eat my remaining bananas and play my guitar for a few minutes...the guards are pretty fascinated.  And then I take a look inside the guard shack...clearly not used anymore...dusty, small, filled with spiders and the like...but the wooden planks were looking like a pretty comfy bed at this point...so I bring my things inside and take a nap for maybe 20 minutes or so until the guard comes in to tell me the office is open.
I am stamped out and, with a big smile on my face, say goodbye to Nepal and head across the bridge to India.  (aside: I remember when I was little I used to like it when my uncle came over...he was always pretty animated and entertaining...but...I knew that when he came over...he was going to pull me up by my head and shake me about...I don't know why he did it, but he did it all the time...he just liked to lift children by the head.  I didn't really like this tradition...but its something I had to go through if I was going to spend time with him...like a rough handshake or a just-too-much pat on the back from an old friend...and then the rest is easy...I share this memory with you because it's a little what it felt like to be reunited with India after our two month separation.)  Well...I walk through the cloud of mosquitoes and the gag on the smell of whatever is down below the bridge...I didn't see a sewer per se...or any animal corpses through the mist...but woah man!  I make it to the "welcome to India" guy...I meet an interesting young American inside who is just coming from Bodh Gaya.  We talk for a minute, wish each other a pleasant journey and then are on our separate ways.  I warn him that if he can hold his breath for extended periods to do so on the way across the bridge.
The next step is to get to Patna, a decent size city which acts as a travel hub for the region.  I am pointed in the direction of the bus...pay my ticket and sit in the back most row of a pretty dilapidated bus around 7am...and we're on the way.  The window is stuck open and it is a cold and misty Indian morning.  I was told that the trip to Patna is about five or six hours (the American said..."yeah, but it'll take a lot longer dude") and that the first two or so hours is the bumpiest road around. The road did indeed cause me to lift up out of my seat quite a few times.  After three plus hours of driving through the rural landscape...we get on the highway and the flying up out of my seat stops.
...Then we stop...I am told (though in very broken English...which is a lot more than anyone else has tried on me since I got passed the guy who stamped me in) after quite some time that there was a murder on the road a couple kilometers up ahead and the villagers have blocked the highway...when will we be back on the road?...who knows, that's when.  There are vendors popping up all over the road selling peanuts and grapes and the like.  I wander about the road in a shaky daze for a while...I feel the exhaustion of the last 28 hours starting to take hold...but I manage to be present with the anxiety and, because there is no resistance, it loses its strength.  I get back on the bus and try to curl up on the back row with my bags to take a nap.  I think I got about a half hour but its hard to tell.  It got hot while I slept...and now we're on an open highway with no shade and the temperature is climbing.  After some time, I see some men grabbing their things and heading off the bus over to another bus...one of the men tells me that that bus "going Patna."  I take him to mean that the other bus will, for whatever reason, be heading out before this one so I grab my things and am given a seat behind a door, which forces me in a 3x3x8' compartment with all my luggage...it wouldn't have been so bad if we were moving, but the bus becomes an oven and no one gives any sign that we will be moving any time soon.  I try to nap...not happening.  I read for a bit, but the concern, which hasn't even occurred to me until now, that I don't have very much water left and that its only getting hotter and I'm still on this evil chemotherapeutic medication which declares war on my tummy...and I'm getting pretty hungry...and so on starts to get to me.  I recognize this as an interesting opportunity, meditationally speaking...due to being tired and not having slept really, I can't remember whether it's a samadhi (meditative concentration) day or a viriya (energy/strength) day...but then I realize it doesn't matter, because today, in this situation, right effort and a right use of my energy is to practice deep concentration and reserve the strength I have.
Long story short...after 5 hours and with two sips of rationed water left...we start to move...I don't know if the wind on my face has ever felt so good.  Aniccia aniccia aniccia.  We get to Muzaffarpur (another city, not quite the size of Patna) after 3 or so hours...I think its Patna cause, sans the time stopped on the highway, it has been 6 hours...I don't care about that though...I care that there is a guy selling eggs and toast just outside the bus...I eat two and feel like a living human being again.
It would have been two more hours to Patna but there is a traffic jam a couple k from the bus station...finally we are there...its dark now.  I don't know anything about the city, didn't invest much time researching since I was planning on being in Rajgir by now (and because I asked one teacher if I should see it and he told me it was a "shit hole").  I hire a rickshaw after the usual fuss and hub hub at the bus station...make my way to a not in my budget hotel, since I really need a decent bed for one night after all this craziness (and I was hoping for a decent shower, but....).  I order some Veg Kofta in the room...man I almost forgot how amazing Indian food is!...and out.

14/2/11

Today is the day that I realize that I am in love with India...I don't really know how to explain it...there wasn't one moment where it hit me.  I know I said that I had mixed feelings about returning when I was in Kathmandu...and I don't know if its because it's the country I've dreamed about visiting for so long, or because of the pilgrimage, or the food, or the smells, or what lay ahead, or if I am on a high of being on my own schedule again or all of it or none of it...but despite (or because of) the dirt and the craziness and the delays and the noise and the bargaining and the complications...I find lately that where I am challenged, my Love seems to follow.  I don't mean to belittle my time in Nepal...it was a meaningful and valuable set of experiences from which I learned much...I don't think I shall ever forget it...and I would like to go back and visit and continue to help in the region...but much of the time there I felt far from home (it is not lost on me that while staying with a family in a home environment, spending time with many who are in an established network of social relationships...it is perhaps easier to recognize the absence of one's own established network of freinds, family, etc.)...I was caught up in thoughts constantly...I did not have as much strength as I have here (I'm not sure of the exact nature of the causal relationship between that psycho-emotional weakness and my body's sickness while in Nepal...it seems likely that they played off of each other in both directions)...and its not that I feel "at home" in India exactly...but I don't feel far from home...if that makes sense.  I said I didn't know how to explain it...but I am so happy to be back.

...anyways...

I wake up at a reasonable hour so that I can get a few things done.  I talk to my Dad on his birthday and get to say hello to my grandma which is nice.  The guy at the desk gives me a Valentine's day discount on my room, which although small, is appreciated.   or I make my way over to the bus station and hop on a bus to Bihar Shariff since there are no direct buses to Rajgir.  It is another six to seven hours before I arrive in Rajgir...glad I didn't try it the night before.  I'm there after 36 hours on one of six buses.  I make my way to the Burmese monastery to inquire about a room...the head honcho tells me that they are mostly full with Burmese pilgrims but that he has something for me.  I see the accommodations and smile...(I remember when I was having a pre-trip meeting with one of my teachers at his home in LA and he asked me, "How are you at sleeping on tables?"...I told him that I didn't know especially, but figured probably not very good since I can't sleep on my back...the first time I slept in one of the Therevada monasteries...I understood what he meant.)  The light doesn't work.  There is no bathroom inside.  And the beds are literally tables with a thin mat and a blanket on them (and when I wake up the next morning I feel like I have been beaten up in my sleep...but the familiar minor bruising is welcomed...it makes me feel stronger in the end.), but I am back on the pilgrimage route.  I make a phone call to my Valentine which brings much joy and then to bed.

15/2/11 (Rajgir)

Shortly after shaving off his hair and doning the earth-colored mendicant's robe for the first time, Siddhattha walked 600 kilometers from Kapilavatthu to Rajagaha (Rajgir), hoping to find a teacher amongst the numerous ascetics that congregated in the forests and mountains surrounding the city.  One morning, King Bimbisara saw Siddhatta walking through the town slowly on his alms round, dignified as a lion passing through a jungle.  The king was immediately attracted by Siddhattha's nobility and followed him to his cave...
After a few minutes of pleasant conversation, the king learned that Siddhattha came from a royal family, and offered him a high position in his court.  "Recluse, your hands seem fit to grasp the reigns of an empire, not a begging bowl.  Come join me in ruling the country.  Despise not wealth and power, but enjoy them with wisdom and discretion,"  said the king to Siddhattha.  The Bodhisattva looked into the king's eyes and politely replied,
"Thank you for your generosity and prudent words, but i have severed all ties to search for deliverance--the highest treasure of all.  Just as a rabbit rescued from the serpent's mouth would not jump back into it to be devoured, I cannot return to the world of illusion.  If you really do feel affection toward me, then please do not try to entangle me with new duties and responsibilities."
The king was disappointed, but understood Siddhattha's refusal.  "May you find what you seek, and after finding it, come back and show me the way," the king said to the mendicant.  Siddhattha replied, "I promise your highness, thank you."

(Seven years later, after his Enlightenment he returns to Rajagaha to fulfill his promise to King Bimbisara to teach the Dhamma) 

...King Bimbisara requested the Buddha to give them a teaching.  The Buddha was glad to see his old friend again and to have the opportunity to fulfill his promise by sharing what he had discovered under the Bodhi Tree.  The Buddha then taught the king and his ministers the progressive instructions on:  (i) the benefits of charity, (ii) ethics as the foundation for liberation, (iii) the harmfulness of overindulging in sense pleasures, (iv) the futility of conceit, (v) the bliss of renunciation, and (vi) the Four Noble Truths.
The eyes of the listeners grew brighter by the moment as they absorbed the Buddha's...words.  Feeling their hearts open and their doubts vanish, the entire audience entered the stream of liberation.  "Most glorious is the Dhamma taught by the Tathagata!" the king cried out.  "He sets up what has been turned over; he reveals what has been hidden; he points out the way to the lost wanderer; he lights a lamp in the dark so that those with eyes may see."  The elated king then invited the entire Sangha to the royal courtyard for the next day's meal, where he offered his pleasure park, the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana), to the Sangha.  The Buddha accepted the donation and it became the tradition's first monastery.  From that point onwards bikkhus (monks) were allowed to dwell in permanent monasteries.

-from Along the Path

Other teachings from Rajgir:

It is not life, wealth, or power that enslaves a man, but the clinging to them...You must be like the lotus flower growing in the mud, but at the same time, unsmeared by it.

(Spoken by a monk when asked "Who is your teacher and what is his philosophy?") 
In short, the Great Monk has shown the cause of all causally-arisen things, and what brings their cessation.


Abstain from immorality
Cultivate honesty,
Purify the mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

One possessing forgiveness,
Remaining calm under criticism, abuse and punishment,
And developing patience as one's army--
This person I call a Brahmin.

Rajgir is the home of the first monastery of the Buddhist Sangha, and is therefore the site of the first monastery in known history (if Robert Thurman's claim that the Buddha is the founder of monasticism as we know it).  It is also the place where Ananda and Sariputta attained arahant-hood (arhat/arahant: lit. "one who is worthy;" conqueror, used by the Buddha to designate one who has conquered the impurities and afflictions within; a liberated person) and where the first council after the Buddha's death to organize his teachings was held.
On my first full day in Rajgir, I end up with a horse cart driver who takes me out to the giant Shanti ("Peace") Stupa, almost identical to the one in Lumbini (which makes sense since it was built by the same Japanese Mahayana sect), on top of a hill a couple kilometers down the road.  They actually have a chair lift that takes you up to it.  The Indians have a little bit of trouble with it...I don't think they do a lot of skiing round these parts.  The view, the stupa and the temple are all lovely.  My "meditator's guidebook" tells me that the cave in which Ananda became an arahant before the first council is just down the hill a ways so I walk on down...the heat has given me a pretty severe headache (some leftovers from my encounter with the bus/oven from the border) and the fall out from the meds and the sickness is manifesting in some rather painful sensations in my stomach, but I make my way over to Vulture's peak, a neighboring mountain from which the Buddha used to teach, and Ananda's cave.  After some walking about beneath the prayer flags and looking around I see the cave...though there is no sign designating it as Ananda's cave, it matches the description in the book and the candles and gold stickies all over it say this is the place.
I brought my meditation seat/sleeping bag and supplies so I take a seat inside the little nook. I sit for difficult half hour and was going to get up, but I decided to push myself a little farther today...I know that if I always give in when I hit that wall of discomfort, I break through nothing; I develop no equanimity with the discomfort in body and mind and am therefore training myself further in the art of giving into cravings and reacting to my negative emotions.  I push on a little bit longer and am happy that I did so in the end.  I was pleasantly surprised during the sit to find that very few tourists and pilgrims came into the cave...though it is just off the walkway, I guess many don't bother with the slight detour...but at some point during my sit (I don't remember whether it was during the first or second section) a group of pilgrims came to the mouth of the cave with a guide. I continued to watch the breath and the body but a little bit of my mind was caught up in their presence.  They spoke a SE language but I couldn't place it...not Thai, not Vietnamese...wasn't sure.  The guide had come into the cave ahead of the group...saw me off to the side and immediately went back to tell the group in a whisper that I was there meditating (there are certain words that are similar in all the languages in the region due to their source in sanskrit [vis. dhayn is still "meditation" in hindi and nepali and other some other asian languages])...I heard the guide tell them about Ananda's awakening.  They did not stay for long but I got a couple of flashes in the face from cameras before they left.  They were not a bother and I was happy they had come in...(aside: I have learned that during meditation...an outside "distraction" is really a gift...it gives me a point of reference for my present state...if I are deep in the present moment, aware of all that is happening in the mind, in the body, then the presence of a new sound does not disturb [since the main disturbance is that of surprise...of being pulled back into the present moment from wherever you were in past, future or fantasy], and if I am somewhere else then I thank the "distraction" for showing me that I should come back...interesting that a "distraction" actually becomes its opposite with only a slight shift in the point of veiw.).  When I finally get up and put my things away, my stomach pain is gone and I feel much less dehydrated.  I take a steady walk down the hill with new eyes and grab a couple of samosas...(let me say again how much I missed Indian food).
Alright...this is going on a little bit and I want to go wander the temple grounds...so here's the summary of the rest.
After the horse cart and I make our way to the Bamboo Park, the site of the Sangha's first monastery, which is lovely but is a little cluttered by tents and what not for a Dharma gathering or festival or something that was to begin a couple days later.  Skipping ahead...Back at the Burmese Vihar I am reading and charging my electronics in the hallway of the monastery since there are outlets that work there...when I meet George.  I can see immediately that George is awesome...he is a 74 year old Burmese refugee with crazy salt and pepper hair and a cool laugh who lives in D.C. and has devoted his life to making people aware of the plight of his country and the cruelty of the military regime that rules it.  He gives me a lesson on the history of Burma (the country's independence from British rule, the brutal repression of the protests by the military regime, and then the Saffron Revolution in 2007 where the government shot numerous monks who were demonstrating peacefully)...some of which I had heard before, though most of it was new to me.  George introduces me to some of the others in his pilgrimage group...Burmese that have moved to America, Australia and the Netherlands.  They are all very kind and introduce me to one of the monks that is guiding them around, a native of Bodh Gaya.  We all talk for a little bit about my desire to visit and do a long term meditation retreat in Burma, other travels, etc...and the girl with whom I am speaking tells me that her father organizes such things for people...we trade information...then the monk asks the girl with whom I am speaking a question in Burmese and they both look at me...and then she asks if I was the one meditating in Ananda's cave earlier that day.  I laugh and nodded...it was just perfect.  Apparently the language I wasn't able to place earlier was Burmese and apparently the world is very small.  She told me that the monk was very proud of me and that they were too...it filled me with joy.  They offered to take me to Bodh Gaya the next day on their tour bus and I told them that I was planning to spend the day in Nalanda the next day and then to Gaya afterward...but I changed my plans, the situation being what it was and the universe giving me a pretty clear sign.


16/2/11

I wake up early since I had an appointment with my horse cart driver to go and see Nalanda, pack in advance since the group is leaving at noon...I inform the driver of the change of plan and so we decide to tour the Jain temples in the area (since Rajgir is also a major pilgrimage site for Jains).  I enjoy the tour of the temples and sites (one of the newer ones in the Svetambara [white clad] tradition was filled with convex mirrors and created a really interesting environment visually speaking).  Then I told him I wanted to see the cave which housed the 500 arahants during the First Great Council and he points the way...its a long hill and a hot day...I pass many little Jain temples along the way and eventually make it to the temple having stripped off most of my clothes and sweating a ton...I missed the Indian heat...(how much things have changed in the past few years).  The cave is attended by a group of pilgrims and a few chanting monks.  Some corrupt cops lead me into the pitch black cave and then ask me for money...typical India.  I like the environment and the view off the cliff but I can't imagine more than 20 people fitting in that cave...and even that wouldn't be too comfy.  I make it back to Vihar after the walk down the hill and the ride back in time to hitch a ride with my new Burmese companions.  They introduce me to the head monk and he approves and we're off.
We stop at a couple of sites on the way out.  Hahaha...sorry I still can't think of this without laughing...the first site at which we stopped, we took some pictures...and then George grabbed a monkey's tail...I mean he just grabbed its tail...the monkey screeches, turns in a circle and shoves George as if to say, "What the hell is wrong with you?  How would you like it if I grabbed your ass?"  George just laughs and says..."fast reflexes huh?"  One of the monks gets out his camera and calls me over smiling...he shows me a picture of myself meditating in the cave...it didn't surprise me at all that he was one of the ones that took a picture...I think of all the people that have taken shots of me sitting...more than half have been SE Asian monks).  Then we stop at another site where we chant as a group...the Burmese pronunciation of Pali throws me off and I just decide to sit and listen mindfully.  After one more stop we are on the way to Bodh Gaya...they offer me so much food on the way...I find out that Burmese food is awesome as well.  I appreciate the lift they gave me since it was through Bihar (the poorest region in India and the only one I have been consistently warned about...though I am of the opinion, upon further research, that these warnings are based on outdated information...either way, I probably won't be traveling much through Bihar at night), but the whole Pilgrimage by Tour bus thing...it ain't for me...you miss too much...so now then... 

I am arrived in Bodhgaya...where Buddha became Buddha

Present Time:

It is a Sati day...

Tomorrow, I will be starting a retreat at the International Meditation Center for a week or so...I would like to take some time to soak it in before I write about this place. 

"Maybe I will tell you all about it when
I'm in the mood to lose my way with words."
-John Mayer

Being here now...I would not change the way the pilgrimage was structured at all...this needed to be the last of the four.  Thank you to all of those people who have helped me to get here and who have sent words of support...to those who have kept up with my travels even though they have busy schedules and lives of their own...it makes more of an impact than you know.  I send you all goodness and Peace and Metta and the Samadhi power and my deepest Gratitude...

"Breathe, you are alive."

Some Reading, A Little Deja Vu, and the Next Step

Because I was alone however, even the mundane seemed charged with meaning...And my emotions were similarly amplified:  The highs were higher, the periods of despair were deeper and darker.  To a self possessed young man inebriated with the unfolding drama of his own life, all of this held enormous appeal.

-Jon Krakauer



20/1/11

Sick day again.  Read a little in the morning, went for a short walk to the platform down the hill just now...watched the little dances at the village down in the valley, reminds me of Israeli dancing.  All tribal dance leaves so much space for expression...the joy of the harvest, the sorrow of the famine, the humility before Nature, the worship of the great spirit...it was nice to watch.  Some brief taiji and qigong to get the blood moving before fatigue sent me back up to the house.  I tried to pull some strength up from the Earth on my walk back but my concentration is inconsistent and the thick fog dampens my spirit....

The Deja Vu:

It was the most severe episode I've had since Dr. Powell's class my sophomore year.  Sitting cross-legged on my bed wrapped in my jacket, the children screaming outside, the cold, the view, the book in my hand...slits of light coming in through the uneven wooden windows, my sick feeling throat, thoughts of her in the back of my mind...I've been here before...between a dream and a memory, a memory of a dream...reading page 28 of Red Earth & Pouring Rain is what triggered it:

'My life has been a dream,' Benoit de Boigne was often heard to say in Parisian drawing rooms as his life drew to a close, and was understood by the fashionable, secretly contemptuous inhabitants of those rooms to mean that his adventures in the faraway, unreal land of Hindustan now seemed fantastical and fictional.  But when de Boigne, wiping his face and passing a hand over his eyes, muttered, 'My life has been a dream,' he meant that he had encountered, in that faraway, unreal land called Hindustan, the unbearably real sensations and colour of a dream, had felt unknown forces moving him as if around a chessboard, had felt the touch of mysteries impelling him from one town to the next, from one field to another.

I am glad it happened...it is always disorienting but I believe that it means I am exactly where I am supposed to be...it has stripped away some of the fear.  I don't know exactly whence this faith has come, but I have learned its importance.

25/1/11

Lost seven pages seven or eight pages of the Kathmandu entry yesterday (yes, if you can believe it, it was even longer before) due to computer problems...wasn't my happiest but I am not as upset as I thought I'd be...a willingness to accept the signs of my environment, perhaps.  Today is the sickest I've been so far and so I've been a little emotional...wanted to call, but the fear won out.  Today is the first day I have been able to see Charikot, three hills away, in a week.  The wind has blown that ugly fog out of the valley and now the sun shines warmly and the breeze initiates a smooth dance in the stalks and the leaves of the bamboo and sugarcane...even the stiff pines lean and sway to the rhythm.  The terraces grow greener and the sky bluer.

26/1/11 Katannu Day

Finally getting better...thoughts on light and darkness.  An overabundance of light and its total absence both blind,  conceal...but while darkness obscures form, light dissolves boundaries.  Another perspective--blackness accepts all and rejects none (greed or non-discriminatory wisdom?), light reflects everything back and keeps only an emptiness.
Thoughts on writing--writing is not a problem per se.  The problem is writing instead of doing, instead of living...let logos inspire ergon.
.
30/1/11

Graveyard day with Suren...galaxies from the health post rooftop.  Happy as a child.

6/2/11

It is my last afternoon in Mirge.  Surendra and I walked up to the top of a hill on the border of Mirge and the village with the graveyard and looked out onto the terraces and spoke of family and future among other things.  I have learned that there is a rhythm to listening as well as talking...I hope that this experience and my relationships out here will translate into the great wealth I can only imagine: paying attention to another without agenda.  I said goodbye to his parents who, though they don't speak a word of English, have been very kind and our communication, since it is limited to handing me a straw mat to sit on and some roti to eat, has not felt as though it is lacking anything due to the language barrier.  There is a soft springtime gloss on the place today...We walked back toward the school and stopped at the village for tea...in the tea house I ended up writing the English response to an email for a villager who is trying to get a job set up in Germany (one of numerous times I was asked either to explain something, help with homework or write a letter by people I had never met before).  One of Surendra's friends told him something in Nepali, he looked a little surprised and quite serious.  I asked what was said.  Surendra told me that a young man, younger than myself, "expired" in an accident earlier that day...that a tree fell on him.  The bittersweet shine of early spring is echoed in marriage celebrations and young death.
--

My favorite book is The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.  It is the only book I brought with me that I haven't shed.  Though it is a short book (only 96 pages with large type and only a small part of the page taken up by words), and though I have read it a number of times, I started it again when I left on this trip and only finished it on my last afternoon in Mirge.  I sat on the roof of the health post and read:

People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I then the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, 
begin no day where we have ended another day; 
and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of a tenacious plant, 
and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart 
that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
...
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese,
but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, 
then let it be a promise till another day.
Man's needs change, but not his love, 
nor his desire that his love should satisfy his needs
...
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom.
I came to take of your wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.

There are no graves here.  
These mountains and plains are a cradle 
and a stepping-stone.

Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid 
your ancestors look well there-upon, and you shall see yourselves
and your children dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.

Others have come to you to whom for golden promises
made unto your faith you have given but riches and 
power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet
more generous have you been to me.
You have given me my deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that 
which turns all his aims into parching lips and all 
life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward,--
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink 
I find the living water itself thirsty; 
And it drinks me while I drink it.
...
If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things,
but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me  as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist 
and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
...
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you
is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not the breath that has erected and hardened 
the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you
remember having dreamt, that builded your city
and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath 
you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream
you would hear no other sound.
...
After saying these things he looked about him, 
and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the 
helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
...
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended. 
It is closing upon us even as the waterlily 
upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we
come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.

---

Present Time from Kathmandu:

I've been at a place for the past couple of days where I could either sit in my hotel room and feel sick or I could write and feel a little bit better so I decided to include a little bit from my readings and writings above...hope you don't mind.  I am feeling better now...though it really depends on when you catch me...the medication is some rather unpleasant stuff...but its better than I was feeling before.  I have spent an absurd amount of money between the hospital, the post office, and food that is tummy friendly in restaurants that I feel are safe.  I am trying to let go of some of the self-imposed pressure about getting back into India.  I had considered joining a retreat in Bodh Gaya that was to begin on the 14th after a day or two in Nalanda and Rajgir but it looks as though that plan is a goner...so be it.  Maybe I can serve a few days there at least...though I feel that one should be in a solid, positive place to serve meditators and, though I am feeling better, there are many fluctuations.  (As an aside, I was told some time ago that the position of cook in a Zen temple was once reserved for great masters as it was considered to be one of, if not the most important position due to the effect that would be felt, however subtly by all of the other monks upon taking the food he prepared.)  I would like to be in Bodh Gaya for the full moon a few days later though...I imagine that to be a pretty special experience, but will accept the dictates of my stomach.
I have mixed feelings about going back into India.  I remember crossing the border into Nepal and noticing almost immediately, certain changes...and the next day in Lumbini, the change in general demeanor was significant...smiling...Nepali people smile.  When you say "Namaste" they say "Namaste."  They were, on the whole, much much kinder and more helpful people...I feel like Lumbini brings that out in people though.  Their little mannerisms were a welcomed change...but I feel ready to head back into it...ready once again to experience the unbearably real sensations and colour of a dream...to be given to the wind.  I have concerns about my stomach...I have already stayed in Kathmandu two days longer than I had planned and will probably stay for a third to give myself some time to recover...hopefully this is the final phase of more than two months under the weather.  Send some healthy vibes for insurance haha.  I have tried to recognize the humility training, the push toward developing shelter in a non physical realm, the inconstancy of the health of the body and the lessons therein, acceptance of aniccia (at least with respect to a single manifestation)...I feel sometimes like I am failing all the way around my wrist...but I remember that even if its only a moments glance at a word on the lotus and a mental shift toward its meaning, a single breath in concentration, a brief step back...its more than was before...and it will continue to grow.
Trying to be patient with myself...doing battle with the mind, doing battle with the body...sitting again and am less afraid to feel what is actually going on.  I think in the deepest of the deeps, the loneliest of the lonelies, the saddest of the sads, angriest of the angries, the most scattered of mental states and most broken of hearts, the obnoxious noises and the harsh silences...what has gotten me through most notably, is this:  I have gotten through this before.  This knowledge is a great force.  And so here I am...and the journey will go on.

That being said...I miss you very much.  I hope you are all happy and healthy.

Today is an Upekkha day...Equanimity...and there is work to be done.

Galaxies, Graveyards and Goodbye-for-nows

"Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things you do"

-Coldplay

There are so many events and happenings and thought constructs that, at the time, seem to warrant whole pages and detailed descriptions, theories that branch out into sister theories and what ifs...but time passes and they become bullet points or footnotes due to this or that unfolding of time.  I left Mirge the morning before last...I would have written sooner but due to computers crashing (and taking with it a decent chunk of the work I had done on the final exams for the kids), 14 hour power outages and poor health, it has taken a little longer.  I am still pretty out of it so forgive the rambling, weak writing and poor excuses for transitions...for there will be much I am sure. This may come out in the form of an interesting spatter pattern to be organized and analyzed at some later date.

My last few weeks in Mirge were difficult and satisfying...full of miscommunication, little celebrations, illness and hidden tears (some happy and some sad), new discoveries, painful realizations, arts and crafts, and music...there were very few, if any, moments where one clear emotion held sway...everything seems to have been painted with swift and passionate brushstrokes...where the bristles had not been washed clean of the previous three colors...a piece of art that seems, even now, the work of another, though the brush was always in my hand.  The sickness in my body has been felt in the mind, and the pain in the mind has taken its toll on the body.  With as much vigilance as I can muster up, I await a clear sign to guide me to the breaking of this vicious cycle.

Surendra took me to a "Love marriage" (as opposed to an arranged marriage) in Mirge the other week.  (There must have been a wedding every other day...January and February is wedding season in rural Nepal.)  I would have liked to see the ceremony but I only really caught the party end of it...people passing by the seated bride and groom who had the grueling task of sitting for hours in the sun while hundreds of people threw rice at them and tried to stick it to their forehead (a symbol of future prosperity).  Four or five generations sitting on straw mats in a field, eating Dal Baht, the older men playing a native drum made of animal skin and wood, the younger men dancing to modern Nepali music...the token drunk, jumping about the circle to some disoriented beat all his own.  I told Surendra that it was only the second wedding I had ever been to...he looked pretty surprised.  I ended up getting followed around by three young boys for a while until I had had enough of that and told them I'd be back later and went wandering off on my own for a bit. 

I discovered two of my favorite things to do in Mirge in the last ten days there...which I could have been frustrated by since I might have found out about them a lot sooner if I had been able to wander about on my own a bit more, but I was glad to have found them, since they were both pretty magical.  I was mostly referring to these two activities when I made my earlier reference to events that warrant pages, etc...but these few lines will have to do for now.  The first of the two is what I have come to call "The galaxy on the hillside."  One of the things I have missed most about the LA (I know, missing LA, who'd a thunk?...but along with the physical sickness and exhaustion has come some homesickness as well, though I am not saying that the former is the necessary condition of the latter) is sitting in the Planetarium at the Griffith Observatory or the IMAX theater at the Science Museum...leaning back in my seat and taking a  ride through the stars...experiencing the vastness, the infinity of the universe, which mirrors and is one with the infinity in our own minds.  I discovered that Mirge had its own version which required no fancy machinery or calculations...only mountains, light bulbs and a starry sky overhead.  You see, in the planetarium...you only have a half-sphere to look at...and even if you are out in the desert, you have to lie on your back or crane your neck upwards...but in Mirge...it is dark enough to see the starry sky overhead...and in addition to this...all of the opposing hillsides are smattered with little villages and houses and markets, each structure across the valley with a single light bulb out in front, each one a star for him with just a little imagination...and so I had a starry sky and a starry hillside, Coldplay in my ears, and the constellations were mine for the naming...there were a pair of fallen soldiers, Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest), various little animals and abstract shapes for which I could invent no story or name but was satisfied just to observe...I'm sure someone with a more vivid imagination than my own would have come up with much more.  When the power went out, I just lay back on the roof of the health post and looked up and that too was satisfying. 

The second of the favorite things was going to a local graveyard with Surendra the weekend before last, and then again the day before I left, when we took Pramod as well.  It was a thirty minute walk or so from the school, across the village and up a little hill...it over looked valleys and hillsides terraced up for hundreds of feet, you could hear a small river down below.  A lama's house stood adjacent to the grounds and scattered all around on different steps were stone structures marking the cremation sites of the last however many generations, decorated with Om Mani Padme Hum and other mantras carved on slabs.  There were tall stalks of bamboo (which were climbed adventurously by the four young boys we met on our second trip there, with whom we shared our sugar cane plant and bananas) and grass growing out from between the bricks on the little stupa-esque constructions.  There was a ruined school beside the yard which added significantly to the feel of the place, which could be described as "Gothic," though it would have to be a very different Gothic than that described in the west...in fact, most of the defining characteristics of the Gothic style: the emphasis of the natural in the man-made, the allowance for light and space, the relationship between personal and divine and on...seem far better suited to what I saw in that graveyard, and in most of rural Nepali society...it is effortless for them whereas, we as a "civilized society" have to strain to remind ourselves and each other that we are part of nature...we seem to think that its some kind of an artistic statement or hippy sentiment to be one with the earth, it borders on a "white man's burden" mentality toward the planet ...but when you look out at the way that they farm and build and live...when we farm we flatten everything, turn the soil with our enormous gas guzzling machines until it turns to clay, and then we call in Monsanto with their cancer causing GMO's...when we bury our dead we do it in big gaudy caskets that could double as bomb shelters trying at all costs to prevent our participation in the richness of the soil, denying source...but they accept the shape of the earth, the quality of the soil...they work with her, all the way up the mountainside...they know the temporary nature of the body, and though they may weep for a time when it separates from mind or soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it...they give their ashes back to the soil and mark the would-be graves with words of compassion and happiness...no names, no dates...for these are forgotten, the only real legacy we can leave, it seems to me, is how far we traveled toward and brought about peace in our lives and in the lives of others.  I spent some time alone there both times...to read and to sit.  Adding to the surrealness of the experience was reading a section of Red Earth & Pouring Rain while sitting among the old rocks, death and new life...it begins with a conversation between Sanjay (our main character) and Yama (the god of death):

'You again,' Sanjay said.  'Yama, I despise you still.'
'I am your friend.'
'You are nobody's friend.' 
'I am your's.'
'I don't need you.'
'But we meet again and again.' 
'Yes,' Sanjay said.  'I know I will be reborn, that there is no escape from you.  I know my life well and I know that I have not found liberation.  I will have to come back to you.  But remember when I die, I do not give up to you, I renounce this world.  This world in which nothing is clear, where there is horror at every turn, I am sick of it. I know I will be reborn into it. Since you say you are my friend, I will ask you a question.  Does it get better?'
'The world is the world.  It is you that makes the horror.'

...

They walked on, and now they were among mountains, among steep black cliffs of rock, and there was a river ahead, a stream that was swelled by the rains into a roaring current.
'I leave you now,' Yama said.  'We will meet again.'
'I have no doubt of it,' Sanjay said.  

When he looked back all he could see were thick banks of mist, and so he walked on alone; he followed the sound of the river until he found a flat rock poised above the gorge, and there was a tree that grew over the rock, its branches hanging in space.  Sanjay sat there, crosslegged, and the rain fell on him, the water fell on him from the leaves above, and as he took breath in and out the sound of the water grew so loud in his ears that it receded into a kind of silence, and in this pool of silence he gazed until he saw his childhood, his friends, his parents, and then he saw his youth, how he knew passion, and he saw all this and then he gave it up, he let it go, and he felt it leave like a spart from the top of his head;  and then he thought about his enemies, the ones he hated, and how he despised them, and he gave that up too and it flew away from him; he remembered his crimes...and his offences clung to hm but finally with a sigh he let it all go; and one by one all the things that tied him to life dissolved and vanished and he felt his soul floating unfettered and close to the white frontier of death, but still there was something, it held him back like a thin chain; and suddenly he remembered the student's face from London, the thin boy whose name he had asked, and he cried into the water, you children of the future, you young men and women who will set us free, may you be happy, may you be faultless, may you be soft as a rose petal, and hard as thunder, may you be fearless, may you be forgiving, may you be clever and may you have unmoved faith...may you be neither this nor that, may you be better tan us, I bless you, may you be happy; and then he felt the last cord break, the last spark of desire leaving him, it was the hardest, but the bond of pride then vanished and he was free.
The pale body under the tree leaned forward, and then it slipped to the side and toppled down the slope into the spray of the river, and the water took it speedily down the curving course, and it turned over once, and then it was gone.

There is so much more there but it will have to wait.

On our way back toward the school (where we actually stopped at a second graveyard, very much like the first but in a valley instead of on a hilltop) we passed a group of slender trees for which Surendra couldn't remember the name in English but said that they were called "Uti" in Nepali...he said that they were always found at the site of landslides for some reason, though he didn't know why...and then he told me a little native story (to which I have added a detail or two since there were tiny gaps due to the language barrier).  Once upon a time, in the winter, Uti's father told him that it was time to marry and that he should go ask for Rhododendron's hand in marriage.  Uti did has his father said and went to Rhododendron...but as it was winter, she had not bloomed and at the sight of her simple and undecorated form, Uti said that he was not interested and went home.  A few months later he was told that he must try again, that if he did not, he would be cut off and that would be the end of him...so he sulked over to Rhododendron again...but now it was Spring and she shown bright and beautiful and full of life...he fell for her right then and there.  He asked for her hand, but she had not forgotten the insult from the winter, she did not forgive Uti's shortsightedness and shallow interests...and she denied him.  In his despair, Uti jumped from the cliff.  I guess this is how Nepalis explain the appearance of this kind of tree wherever there is a landslide...reminds me of many of the old Greek myths.  I liked it...it might have just seemed special and magical due to the day. 

Moving on.  Grades three, four and five gave their concert and did me proud...they were a little nervous but they sang it out and did their little hand motions (I never thought I would put hand motions to Blackbird but they are ten so cut me some slack...plus it was cute) and every one seemed to like lyrics to the new Laligurash song...and here they are:

We all love our school Laligurash
It sits beautifully on the hillside
We all love our school Laligurash
We will carry our knowledge far and wide

A place for learning
A place for growing
A place for playing
To exercise our bodies and minds

We are the happy students of Laligurash
Where the teachers are so sweet and kind
We are the happy students of Laligurash
Where we come to fill our hearts and minds

A place for learning
A place for growing
A place for playing
To exercise our bodies and minds

We all love our school Laligurash
It sits beautifully on the hillside
We all love our school Laligurash
We will carry our knowledge far and wide

I took video so if my phone makes it back in one piece or if I learn how to get a video up on facebook you will be able to see it.  There are many many pictures from the past couple months which I hope to start putting up when I cross the border back into India soon...but I will not be traveling until I feel better...I had wanted to be in Bodh Gaya by the 14th of February after spending a couple of days in Nalanda and Rajgir each but there are priorities.  The trip from Mirge to Kathmandu would have been almost unthinkable if it hadn't been for Surendra's support on the busride.

Here is the link to the website that Mahesh and Dot and Lynn have set up for Mirge volunteering if anyone is interested...plus there's a picture of me on my first day with some of my fourth graders putting garlands around my neck.

http://www.volunteerruralnepal.org/

I have added "The Land of Rhododendrons" and "The Fall" to my repertoire of original songs...along with "The Laligurash Song" (but all credit there really goes to the fourth graders of Laligurash Bright Future Enlgish Boarding School).  There are a million snap shots and sounds that dance around in my mind still...endless hours of ping pong with Nikesh, Surendra, Pramod and all the other teachers, the first time that fourth grader who never knows the answer underlined the auxiliary verb and did his homework (seriously had to choke back tears on that one), when the third graders remembered how to define a preposition...and when we were singing Blackbird and a blackbird landed on the tree next to the classroom, when I took the kids outside on the afternoon when it hailed and we talked about meteorology, the Indiana Jones bus ride down the mountain, the endless noodle soup, all the colorful clothing and the women who carry huge loads by way of a strap around their foreheads, the little "dirt children" (as my sister Rachel would call them) who followed me around and said "Namaste, what is your name?" over and over again...so many others...there is so much more...

I meant to write a bit about my health situation and about some of what has been going on in the past 48 hours but maybe I will get to that tomorrow...and I can let you know where I am at with regard to my travels then as well...not sure about Sri Lanka yet...silly visa nonsense with India.  Oh, bought a plane ticket back to the states too...a bit strange...a bit soon...but there is much time in which to learn and journey as well.  I have been in a difficult place but I feel better now...for the first time since arriving in Kathmandu...so thank you for reading and supporting in your own way. 

May you be happy.