The Saga of Mirge Begins

"Backbeat the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before but you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how

Cause maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me
Cause afterall, you're my Wonderwall..."

-Oasis (Wonderwall)

Hello everyone,

It has been a little while.  Internet has not been the plentiful resource it was on the tourist trail and, more relevantly perhaps, I have taken a rather hard hit from that side of the globe emotionally which diminished my desire to spend time online...but time and this journey dance onward and I think sharing my experiences is a beneficial and healing practice.  Entries on Kusinagar and Lumbini are in the works and will be up soon...who needs chronology anyhow?

I have arrived in Mirge (pronounced Meer Gee/Gay depending on who is saying it), Nepal.  It is a farming village of a few hundred families in houses scattered across a few hillsides a couple hundred kilometers and a nine hour bus ride north-east of Kathmandu.  This is where I will be living and teaching for the next seven or eight weeks. If and when I find the little blurb that introduced me to the town I will copy it here or attach the website link. 

I live in a house with the principal, Mahesh, his brother Surendra, his wife Supadi, and two of his three children (the other, his oldest daughter, goes to school during the week in the nearby [2 hour bus ride] town of Charykot).  The house is the second and third story of the school house which holds the classrooms of grades K through 2 (so you can imagine the fun songs and noises that drift up from below during the day).  I teach English, Computers (there's a text book, and its pretty much rote...so quit your laughing) and General Knowledge to grades 3 through 5.  So far, grade 4 and I have hit it off really well (and they are super cute when I ask them if they understand and they do that head wobble as a whole).  Grade 3 cant seem to stop talking to each other, at least the middle row can't but we had a good lesson where I jumped all over the classroom and poked some students in our lesson about prepositions, verbs and nouns.  I only have grade 5 once per day so we'll see how that unfolds...some of the older kids are in that class and I might have to work a little to earn their respect.  Every time I walk into a classroom all of the children stand up and say "Good Morning/Good Afternoon Sir!"  and then I say "Good Morning class.  How are you?"  "We are fine sir! And you?!" "I'm doing quite well...now bassa bassa ('sit sit' in Nepali)."  Something similar happens when I leave the room as well.  They stand up every time you call on them and won't sit down until you tell them too.  Michelle and Jeff, the last teachers here, with whom I met in Kathmandu a few days ago, have taught them some Spanish songs and some basic terms and I am teaching them some Italian and they are teaching me Nepali and some Tamang (the language spoken in the home of many of the families, including Mahesh's...kind of amazing that some of these kids are learning their third language). 

The balcony just outside my room, to which the staircase down to the school is attached, faces out to the valley and the opposing series of mountains which, in the late afternoon, roll like four waves-gradually fading out in color and detail due to winter mist, as though Constable or Freidrich had come along and purposefully applied an atmospheric perspective to this rural Nepali landscape.  The sun sets around 5:20 now and then the power goes out at 5:30 everyday for about 15 minutes (which after the 4 to 6 hours of power outage per day in Lumbini is not really a big deal)...(haha, I wrote that before today...the power was out for most of the last 24 hours, which was actually pretty great considering it allowed me and Nikesh, Mahesh's 12 year old and my 5th grade student, and Bim, the 17 year old math teacher who is also a refugee from Bhutan, to have a little play date...some Volleyball, some table tennis and then I taught them HORSE and the Magic Johnson hook shot [of which I made two in a row thank you very much...[have to thank my dad for that one haha]...I mean, anyone who has seen me play knows I am not a basketball player, but its easy to look like a pro on a rim built for people half my size...I can comfortably 180 dunk haha). 

My room is pretty fantastic.  Its relative luxury (and the power went out for the third time while trying to write this)...my feet don't even hang off the end of the bed for one of the first times since coming to the subcontinent (I don't know if Nepal is considered part of the subcontinent).  I have a double gas burner in my room and I bought some food supplies for the next couple months in Kathmandu...but I am also invited to most meals upstairs with the family...which sometimes leads to me eating two breakfasts...though Nepali breakfast is the same as every other Nepali meal: (salt with a side of) "Dahl Bhath," which is RICE, lentils, a vegetable (cauliflower, potatoes, spinach or some combo of the three) and sometimes meat (goat) for the family...so it feels more like I eat breakfast and lunch in super quick succession rather than eating a second breakfast.  Anyways, my books and food fit nicely on the shelf and the bed is comfortable and I sleep well here with head to the north (until Hero the dog starts barking a few meters from me at 4:30 or so but I go back to sleep with the earplugs...which have been invaluable on this trip)....and another power outage...rrr.

The village is about half Hindu, half Buddhist (I didn't realize that 90% of Nepal is Hindu before coming here).  The Pakhrin family falls on the Buddhist side and so there is a lovely little Buddha statue in dammacakka pavattana mudra in my room which I have since adorned with the katas (traditional white scarfs presented to an honored guest) given to me by Mahesh, his wife, his mother and his father upon our respective meetings, and some of the flower garlands that the children had placed around my neck on my first day of school (since removed due to the fact that I am allergic haha), and the sandlewood mala (prayer beads) from Sarnath.  I have a nice meditation space that I am breaking in right next to my bed and in front of the Buddha.  I use the space as often as Nikesh, Mahesh's son and my newest guitar student, will let me without knocking on my door ever so quietly, hiding behind the curtain, giggling to himself and then saying "guitar?," making a little strumming hand motion.  I've never seen a more dedicated child...he spends hours sitting in my room just strumming away (in fact he's in here right now while I write this draft).  You would think he's never seen a guitar before...oh wait...musical instruments are not exactly a common household object around here aside from the drum at assembly every morning...I understand there is a tamborine somewhere but I haven't seen it.  Nikesh is a good kid and quite bright.  We are learning Wonderwall by Oasis, hence the above quote...though it has other dimensions as well I suppose.  He calls in the "I don't believe" song, since thats his favorite part since my voice gets all loud and he thinks its funny, and asks me to play it constantly.  No one has asked me to play (or more notably, to sing) this much since the person who was there when I first picked up the guitar a few years ago so I'm still getting used to it. 

His little sister Sushmita is possibly the cutest and goofiest child I have ever spent time with.  She is 9, looks 5 and has the mannerisms of an 80 year old.  I wish I understood more Tamang cause I get such a kick out of just watching her.  Her little hands digging into the rice...I mean, I guess its something you can't really appreciate if you haven't seen how Indian and Nepali people eat.  Everyone here eats with their hand (singular since they use the other as toilet paper) and this has made for the creation of a very specific style of mushing your rice with your lentils to create a sort of goop (you like these technical terms ay?) and she is just a little pro.  To watch this munchkin mush her food around and then shove it in her face while bossing her uncle around, "O Baba, Dhal!"...its fun with every meal.  I too eat with my hands when I eat with the family.  I was doing it sometimes in India depending on what or where I was eating, but I was inexperienced until I got my first real lesson from my very cool Nepali friend, Prasanna, whose name also means happiness, who I met in the van from Lumbini to Kathmandu...and now I can finger eat at a 3rd grade level.  Which is a bit better than my reading and writing of Devanagari, the script used for Nepali and also for North Indian Sanskrit based languages like Hindi.  I studied during my retreat in Jaipur...don't tell Goenkaji.

I put up a prayer flag from Lumbini in the room, which brings in some color and joy.  The family seems to like what I've done with the space.  My habits regualar meditation, abstaining from meat, saying something over my food, in addition to the facts that I have taken the Buddha statue out of the corner of the room and show it respect and that I am on pilgrimage have lead to the family referring to me as a "real Buddhist."  They are both mildly entertained by and quite respectful of my practice, which has, in certain respects, created a fairly healthy atmosphere for development.

If the householders life is what is in store for me, I could see being very happy with someone else...living in a quiet place like this, where its cold but not unbearably so in the winter, where its hot but not unbearably so in the summer, where there are rivers and mountains and clean air, and people that know each others names...no car horns or helicopter claps to be heard in any of the ten directions.  But that conversation is for another day I think. 

I was right, I got a lot of joy writing this entry.  Sometimes I am just joyful to be here after all the planning and correspondences and coordinating, etc...and there have been some great surprises, like my family calling last night when I couldn't sleep.  Much of the time, especially that time spent on the cushion, or laying in bed after waking up or before going to sleep (I think anyone who has ever dealt with serious depression or loneliness knows the depth of the stillness and the silence of these times of day...luckily that stillness and silence can be utilized to bring about a light instead of a darkness, but I am bumbling about with that process much of the time) has been spent with my mind swaying between a sadness and that peace that comes from penetrating sadness and arriving at something more fundamental than sadness...or fear, or jealousy, or ill-will, or joy or maybe even love.  But it is difficult to remain that focused when there is so much to take in here and when there has been such immense emotional stimulation with few familiar crutches.  I feel as though I am in a rush alot even though there is little reason to be...I come back to the present, find my breath and slow it on down...and I do this tens or hundreds or thousands of times a day...so much of the practice is just coming back...being patient and forgiving with yourself and saying, "Be Here Now."  I also have found that Metta practice, even though it can seem impossible at times, is the most helpful with anger and sadness...genuinely wishing the happiness of another when you are in pain has a healing power, it is a great light in the midst of darkness. 

I keep working.  Meditation is work, despite what it may look like from an outside perspective. In fact, it is the hardest work I have ever done...and also the most worthwhile.  When I got emotionally blindsided from across the Atlantic, close to the start of my year abroad in Italy, I had nothing...and so I self destructed...turning to unhealthy crutches that controlled much of my life for the next few years.  But now there is some shelter.  Than Geoff's "A post at the edge of the sea," Shinzen Young's "A place to stand," Thich Nhat Hanh's "The island within myself," call it God if you want...there is a refuge, no matter what the name. There is some insight into the nature of what is actually happening in my mind and body without feeling completely overwhelmed by it...I have found somewhere that I can sit and watch the storm...though, at this point, I still get tossed around quite a bit.  I don't know if I included this in the entry about Plum Village but over my bed there was a calendar with quotations and meditation from Thay's teachings...and one that has spoken to me throughout is, "Breathing in, I observe the coming and going of the waves.  Breathing out, I observe the no-coming, no-going of the water."  Akin to this is his teaching on the nature of the fully awakened one: "The tathagatha is free to come and go, because the tathagatha is not limited by the ideas of coming and going."

The first noble truth is that there is dukkha (suffering) in life.  Any battle must be acknowledged in order to be won.  When it has gotten a little overwhelming, I have gone to many places for help, both internal and external...to gladden the mind and soften the heart.  These pockets exists all around us, and within each one of us, without noone as an exception...we must develop the eyes of wisdom to see them.  One cannot see goodness if one is not looking for it.  Remember that, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."  -Gibran

I wish everyone health and joy.  I am very grateful to those people who have sent kind words in the midst of busy schedules, and to those who have both lent and accepted support as they are two sides of the same coin and are equally beneficial practices.  May we all find true happiness.