Today I'm in Madurai; visiting this city's temple will be our last stop in Tamil Nadu. We've hit four cities in the past four days, which has been completely exhausting. This kind of travel is not the kind I like... but our week in Mamallapuram meant we had to speed through the rest of the state, because we are meeting one of Juliana's friends in Kochi, Kerala on January 1st.
It's funny, Mamallapuram really put us off schedule. Not just our timeline schedule, but our internal clock schedule as well. For two months we have been going to bed around nine or ten, waking up around seven... meditating every day, doing yoga, feeling very centered... etc etc... and then Mamallapuram happened: beaches + booze. On the last day we were there, Juliana and I had a nice walk on the beach and kinda admitted to one another how lost we were both feeling.. and that we really needed to get out of Mamallapuram and move on. But that night was really special; our lovely friends all sat on a rooftop with blankets and candles and hung out for the last time... I had this moment of, "oh, this is exactly why we stayed here one week. duh." What a beautiful group of people.
So we left, finally. We took a bus two hours south to Pondicherry, to check out an organization that we are thinking of volunteering for. Well, let me just say, it's funny how things work out. For this one I need to rewind, this story starts back at Burning Man...
It was late morning on Day 4, I believe, and I was waiting at the HeebeeGeebee Healers Group Camp to get a massage. I left for two minutes to pee, and when I come back I find out that my name had been called, I wasn't there, so the masseuse left and said that I could come back that afternoon. So, feeling somewhat defeated (I had been waiting for at least an hour... and really wanted that massage...), I left. Walked outside, and came face-to-face with the Shaman Camp. No idea what it was, I peeked inside the tent... and saw a bunch of shamans drumming and waving feathers and blowing incense to various people. Of course I was intrigued, so I went in and sat down, not having any clue what to expect.
Eventually a shaman comes over to me. He sits right in front of me, so close we're touching knees, and we start talking.
An hour and half later, after I pretty much share my soul with this man - and my tears, and my hugs - I leave. Some crazy stuff happened in there, not like... weird, magic voodoo stuff... but we had this connection, it's hard to describe. And the things we talked about were just so refreshing, it felt like I was being purged almost. Ok BUT, the point of this whole story... is that at the end of my "healing," he told me three things. The first two are irrelevant to this story. The last was that I couldn't just go to India to bum around. I needed to have some purpose. I needed to help people, because that's what I want to do with my life. He told me I would find someone who is working with microfinancing loans to women, and I needed to help this person.
And in due course of the universe just always seeming to work out....
I was sitting in an internet cafe in Darjeeling, late in the afternoon, when the power goes out. Juliana and I start up a conversation with the Irish girl sitting next to us, and before we know it, she's telling us about this volunteering she was doing in Tamil Nadu; an NGO that works with microfinancing loans to women...!!!
I squealed a little bit and took down all the information. Checked out the website, sent over an e-mail, and ... we had a coffee date with the founder.
So, after doing a little of sightseeing in Pondicherry, we met for coffee. Turns out this man has two foundations - one that does microfinancing, awareness and education for women, the other is brand new. It's more on the environmental side of things. When I told him that I studied Sustainable Development in school, his eyes lit up and told me that he has been waiting for people to get involved with Sustainable Development in this organization. And he wants me to start it. To establish a foundation for the program. !!!!
Oh, how things work out.
We'll be heading back to Pondicherry in about a month to start working. But first, we have some traveling to do. I'm feeling exhausted after these past few days but this is not the pace we'll be keeping after tomorrow. Thank god.
In other news, we've been much more adventurous with street food, and our stomachs have been paying for it. What else, what else... the evolution of my ponytail is something I am proud to show Juliana every day. She's not so into it. Oh! something exciting! For the past three days we have successfully navigated the local Indian bus system... we are very proud of ourselves for this. I feel somewhat accomplished to be the only white people in the bus station. I may not speak Tamil, but I can speak hand gestures and head bobs.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Phase 3
A forty-three hour train ride plus three more hours on two different buses plus bed bugs plus some serious sweating and...! We are in the South of India. Specifically, a small town called Mamallapuram. It's teeny tiny but full of tourists, which I have a feeling will be much more of a common theme in the South.
We thought we would only stay in Mamallapuram for one or two nights, but as things typically go, plans change. It's now day... five? And we'll be here through Christmas. How does one get sucked into such a small and touristy beach town? Easy: Characters. A whole slew of ridiculous characters.
Jack takes the cake of characters. We met Jack the second night we were in town, he was hanging in a hammock at a cafe and we sat down on some cushions next to him. So of course, we start chatting, and, well, Let me just tell you about Kung-fu Jack.
Jack is from New Mexico. He is about ... 45 years old (which we can only deduce from his stories -- he looks 30, maybe 35). He's tall, extremely tan and has a very thick black mustache that curves upward a bit on either side. He attended Stanford University, and then dropped out after a couple of years. He hated Stanford and often visited friends at Berkeley over the weekends, and even hung out at Loth (Juliana's co-op... such a small world, as he is the second person we have met that has lived/partied at Loth) back in the day.
After dropping out of Standford, he attended NYU Film School. I don't really know if he ever got a degree there either -- he said he NYU only likes narrative films, and he just doesn't. So the next obvious step: staring in Kung Fu movies!
He became a kung-fu movie star in Singapore for the next few years, until he had enough money to retire in the Himalayas for fifteen years. Later we find out that by "retire," he meant that he was living in an ashram for some time, and when his guru died, he was appointed the new guru. So among over things, Jack also has thousands of devotees.
He moved down to Mamallapuram a couple of years ago after running out of money, and currently stars in Kollywood films being produced in Tamil Nadu.
This is Kung-fu Jack's life. Notorious in Mamallapuram for walking around in just aviators, mustache and skirt, Jack is quite the show stopper.
Yesterday morning, just as Juliana and I are getting out of bed, we hear a knock on the door. It's Jack. And he asks us if we want to be in extras in a Kollywood film. We'd get paid 1000 Rs, in addition to free food. So although we were planning to leave Mamallapuram that morning, we decide to switch things up, and we say yes.
Our little family in Mamallapuram is growing; last night we shared food and drink at a long table with Indians, Swedes, Brits, Germans, Austrians, and other Americans, laughing about our newly acclaimed movie-star status and then getting thick into some heavy conversation. Joints were passed and the crashing sounds of the Bay of Bengal kept us until 2 am - way past our typical bedtime of 10 o'clock.
This is Phase 3 of our journey. Conveniently, this trip seems to be split up into four phases. Phase 1 was cultural stimulation and feeling overwhelmed and maybe a little lost about the "whys" of me being here. Phase 1 was North India, it was color, and desert and turbans and camels and palaces. Phase 2 was spiritual stimulation. Finding myself within the craziness of it all, acknowledging the constant change of everything - within me and outside of me. Phase 2 blew my fucking mind.
So Phase 3. Beaches. Maybe a little bit more relaxing, maybe staying out a little longer, soaking up the Indian coastline...
Quite a scenery change. It's quite nice.
We thought we would only stay in Mamallapuram for one or two nights, but as things typically go, plans change. It's now day... five? And we'll be here through Christmas. How does one get sucked into such a small and touristy beach town? Easy: Characters. A whole slew of ridiculous characters.
Jack takes the cake of characters. We met Jack the second night we were in town, he was hanging in a hammock at a cafe and we sat down on some cushions next to him. So of course, we start chatting, and, well, Let me just tell you about Kung-fu Jack.
Jack is from New Mexico. He is about ... 45 years old (which we can only deduce from his stories -- he looks 30, maybe 35). He's tall, extremely tan and has a very thick black mustache that curves upward a bit on either side. He attended Stanford University, and then dropped out after a couple of years. He hated Stanford and often visited friends at Berkeley over the weekends, and even hung out at Loth (Juliana's co-op... such a small world, as he is the second person we have met that has lived/partied at Loth) back in the day.
After dropping out of Standford, he attended NYU Film School. I don't really know if he ever got a degree there either -- he said he NYU only likes narrative films, and he just doesn't. So the next obvious step: staring in Kung Fu movies!
He became a kung-fu movie star in Singapore for the next few years, until he had enough money to retire in the Himalayas for fifteen years. Later we find out that by "retire," he meant that he was living in an ashram for some time, and when his guru died, he was appointed the new guru. So among over things, Jack also has thousands of devotees.
He moved down to Mamallapuram a couple of years ago after running out of money, and currently stars in Kollywood films being produced in Tamil Nadu.
This is Kung-fu Jack's life. Notorious in Mamallapuram for walking around in just aviators, mustache and skirt, Jack is quite the show stopper.
Yesterday morning, just as Juliana and I are getting out of bed, we hear a knock on the door. It's Jack. And he asks us if we want to be in extras in a Kollywood film. We'd get paid 1000 Rs, in addition to free food. So although we were planning to leave Mamallapuram that morning, we decide to switch things up, and we say yes.
Our little family in Mamallapuram is growing; last night we shared food and drink at a long table with Indians, Swedes, Brits, Germans, Austrians, and other Americans, laughing about our newly acclaimed movie-star status and then getting thick into some heavy conversation. Joints were passed and the crashing sounds of the Bay of Bengal kept us until 2 am - way past our typical bedtime of 10 o'clock.
This is Phase 3 of our journey. Conveniently, this trip seems to be split up into four phases. Phase 1 was cultural stimulation and feeling overwhelmed and maybe a little lost about the "whys" of me being here. Phase 1 was North India, it was color, and desert and turbans and camels and palaces. Phase 2 was spiritual stimulation. Finding myself within the craziness of it all, acknowledging the constant change of everything - within me and outside of me. Phase 2 blew my fucking mind.
So Phase 3. Beaches. Maybe a little bit more relaxing, maybe staying out a little longer, soaking up the Indian coastline...
Quite a scenery change. It's quite nice.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Mother Ganga
Benares is a a place that makes you question everything the Western, rational scientific way of thinking has ever taught you to think.
Built alongside the Ganges River - or the Ganga, as it's known here - pilgrims flock from all over India to cremate their loved ones in Benares's cremation ghat. It's a city built to honor one of the holiest rivers in Hinduism, The Mother Ganga. The Ganga is a goddess, it is a tradition, it is creation, it is destruction... it is impermanence.
Pilgrims bathe in the Ganga, they drink the Ganga, do their laundry in the Ganga, deposit corpses and ashes in the Ganga... Hindus worship everything-Ganga.
Now for something I read in Lonely Planet: The water in the Ganges River contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml, 120 times the official limit of 500 faecal coliforms/100ml that is considered safe for bathing. So people are bathing, drinking, doing their laundry and leaving their deceased family members in one of the dirtiest rivers in the world, a river swimming in infection, sewage and industrial waste.
Tell this to a devotee, knee-deep in The Mother Ganga, praising Shiva - The Destroyer - for all that is life and death, and rebirth, and The Cycle... and that devotee will call YOU crazy. What do you mean dirty? This is sacred, this is what life is about.. this IS life. Drinking and bathing in the Ganga can purify your soul of past sins and alleviate all sicknesses.
And it is full of feces.
Juliana and I took a boat ride along the Ganga to watch as the sun rose over Benares. It was surreal - shocking, pulsing, beautiful - it was everything. And at one point, Juliana said, "I can't imagine anything worse than to fall into this river. I would need to be rushed to an emergency room, stat."
I agreed and shivered thinking about all of the disgusting scabies I'd acquire if I just touched this water. Ew.
And then you look up and watch people completely immersed, hands up, tears streaking their faces, so thankful to be in this holiest of holy rivers. Makes you question everything.
Built alongside the Ganges River - or the Ganga, as it's known here - pilgrims flock from all over India to cremate their loved ones in Benares's cremation ghat. It's a city built to honor one of the holiest rivers in Hinduism, The Mother Ganga. The Ganga is a goddess, it is a tradition, it is creation, it is destruction... it is impermanence.
Pilgrims bathe in the Ganga, they drink the Ganga, do their laundry in the Ganga, deposit corpses and ashes in the Ganga... Hindus worship everything-Ganga.
Now for something I read in Lonely Planet: The water in the Ganges River contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml, 120 times the official limit of 500 faecal coliforms/100ml that is considered safe for bathing. So people are bathing, drinking, doing their laundry and leaving their deceased family members in one of the dirtiest rivers in the world, a river swimming in infection, sewage and industrial waste.
Tell this to a devotee, knee-deep in The Mother Ganga, praising Shiva - The Destroyer - for all that is life and death, and rebirth, and The Cycle... and that devotee will call YOU crazy. What do you mean dirty? This is sacred, this is what life is about.. this IS life. Drinking and bathing in the Ganga can purify your soul of past sins and alleviate all sicknesses.
And it is full of feces.
Juliana and I took a boat ride along the Ganga to watch as the sun rose over Benares. It was surreal - shocking, pulsing, beautiful - it was everything. And at one point, Juliana said, "I can't imagine anything worse than to fall into this river. I would need to be rushed to an emergency room, stat."
I agreed and shivered thinking about all of the disgusting scabies I'd acquire if I just touched this water. Ew.
And then you look up and watch people completely immersed, hands up, tears streaking their faces, so thankful to be in this holiest of holy rivers. Makes you question everything.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Darjeeling Debrief
We came to Darjeeling to rest. The quiet hill town, full of tea and snow-capped mountains, was meant to rejuvenate. And yet, it was incredibly overwhelming. Not in the way India is overwhelming... but because in the way it is so un-Indian.
It was a long, 24-hour journey. We left Varanasi around 4 pm sometime last week with mixed emotions. Varanasi is an incredible, spiritual, pulsing city, but our non-refundable train ticket and limited cash meant we were headed to the Himalayan Mountains, whether we liked it or not.
After getting yelled at by the Station Manager for asking too many questions, we found our train and met our newest batch of single-serving friends; our train birth was complete with the quintessential French couple, a Punjabi man in the Indian army and a Delhi businessman selling PVC pipes (which were fully stocked in his briefcase).
Juliana and I, now pros at Indian conversation (i.e. every personal question you can imagine about marriage, jobs, income, and caste), easily make new bffs. The Frenchies took some warming up... I think they were a little taken aback when I started asking them really personal questions, and Juliana reminded me that even though we're in India, not everyone is okay with this.
The Punjabi guy pulled out his liter bottle of home-made sugar-cane alcohol and wanted to start a party. Food was passed around and our little family birth was born. Perhaps most notable was the PVC salesman telling us a story about a time he got too drunk, poured his roommate's shampoo down the toilet, flooded the bathroom, and never drank again... ???
Fast-forward fourteen hours and we arrive in Siliguri. We find a shared jeep with the French couple and take a bouncy three-hour ride up the hill to Darjeeling.
After finding a hotel, etc etc, we do a little walking around town, when Juliana stops and says, "Do you realize what's happening right now?" I didn't know what she was talking about. "What?," I said. "No one is talking to us."
I didn't even notice. But holy shit, no one was talking to us. There was no, "Madam, madam, come look at my shop, you want scarf?" There was no, "Madam, madam, where you going? You want rickshaw?" ... Nothing. No one was staring. No one was hassling. We were totally confused. We were not in India anymore.
We were in Ghorkaland. Little did we know that Darjeeling is part of a fairly intense separatist movement, trying to establish Ghorkaland as a new state. In Ghorkaland, no one speaks Hindi - Nepalese is the local language - and most of the population consists of Tibetans and Nepalese. Buddhist monasteries abound the region and most people practice some mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. Northface gear and tight black jeans are the norm and young couples hold hands on the street. People are allowed to get love marriages (instead of arranged marriage, which 99% of the Indian people we've met thus far have), and the caste system is diminishing as more and more people with different faiths and castes intermix.
J & I needed to debrief. We sat for two cups of Darjeeling tea in a very British bakery and once again, couldn't believe our eyes. There were women working at the bakery, and there were more locals than foreigners eating there. Trust me, I know how ridiculous this sounds from a Western point of view. But it's different here. I never see women working at the forefront of a business. Never. And although we do try and go to local eateries as much as possible, there is a certain type of person (i.e. tourist or very Westernized Indian) who eat at such European-influenced restaurants. But not in Darjeeling.
I just didn't understand. All of these nice luxuries were so affordable in Darjeeling. All the kids went to school in uniforms, the roads were maintained, I saw maybe two beggars the entire time I was there... it just didn't make any sense. Why was the rest of India ... so poor?
I mean, I guess it makes some sense. Darjeeling exports an insane amount of tea all over the world, in addition to supplying 25% of India's tea. And, when the British set up Darjeeling, they established infrastructure - railroad, schools, hospitals, etc... which is, I'm learning more and more each day, essential.
So anyways, we decided to take a new perspective. We had left India. Mini-vaca to Nepal, and we didn't even need to visa.
Darjeeling certainly had its fair share of characters. Perhaps taking the cake was the "Five-second lady," who describes herself as the five-second lady, claiming her world-status for brewing tea in five seconds. Her tea plantation sells tea exclusively to Harrod's, but she sells under the radar, out of a big burlak sack in her living room. Classic.
We also met the most enthusiasic travel agent in the world. After realizing that we couldn't buy train tickets out of Siliguri from the inept Darjeeling train station, we stumbled into a travel agency - which was one tiny room, with one desk, with one enthuastic man, with an even more enthuastic mustache. Everything he said, he said with such passion, his eyes almost popping out of his head, his mustache bouncing up and down. When we were having some trouble finding an affordable ticket from Varanasi to Chennai, he cried out loud, "Oh this is SO HORRIBLE! Isn't this HORRIBLE, Juliana?! ISN'T THIS HORRIBLE?" And then he would pull out his giant map and start plotting new train routes, as if he were Sherlock Holmes and no matter what, he would find a way to get us there !!!!
I could go on with the character list, but Darjeeling turned out to be much more than that. We visited monasteries, accidentally attended a wedding after-party, and cozied up next to fireplaces, actually feeling like winter was upon us for the first time.
Homesickness crept in with the cold weather, and so Darjeeling also became a time of internal reassurance, and external gratitude. I've found that almost anything can be cured by Vipassana and laughing.. separately, of course.
Separatist protests for Ghorkaland forced us to leave a day early. Tourists and locals alive left in masses yesterday morning. So now I'm back in Siliguri, about to get on a train, back to Varanasi. For the third time.
It was a long, 24-hour journey. We left Varanasi around 4 pm sometime last week with mixed emotions. Varanasi is an incredible, spiritual, pulsing city, but our non-refundable train ticket and limited cash meant we were headed to the Himalayan Mountains, whether we liked it or not.
After getting yelled at by the Station Manager for asking too many questions, we found our train and met our newest batch of single-serving friends; our train birth was complete with the quintessential French couple, a Punjabi man in the Indian army and a Delhi businessman selling PVC pipes (which were fully stocked in his briefcase).
Juliana and I, now pros at Indian conversation (i.e. every personal question you can imagine about marriage, jobs, income, and caste), easily make new bffs. The Frenchies took some warming up... I think they were a little taken aback when I started asking them really personal questions, and Juliana reminded me that even though we're in India, not everyone is okay with this.
The Punjabi guy pulled out his liter bottle of home-made sugar-cane alcohol and wanted to start a party. Food was passed around and our little family birth was born. Perhaps most notable was the PVC salesman telling us a story about a time he got too drunk, poured his roommate's shampoo down the toilet, flooded the bathroom, and never drank again... ???
Fast-forward fourteen hours and we arrive in Siliguri. We find a shared jeep with the French couple and take a bouncy three-hour ride up the hill to Darjeeling.
After finding a hotel, etc etc, we do a little walking around town, when Juliana stops and says, "Do you realize what's happening right now?" I didn't know what she was talking about. "What?," I said. "No one is talking to us."
I didn't even notice. But holy shit, no one was talking to us. There was no, "Madam, madam, come look at my shop, you want scarf?" There was no, "Madam, madam, where you going? You want rickshaw?" ... Nothing. No one was staring. No one was hassling. We were totally confused. We were not in India anymore.
We were in Ghorkaland. Little did we know that Darjeeling is part of a fairly intense separatist movement, trying to establish Ghorkaland as a new state. In Ghorkaland, no one speaks Hindi - Nepalese is the local language - and most of the population consists of Tibetans and Nepalese. Buddhist monasteries abound the region and most people practice some mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. Northface gear and tight black jeans are the norm and young couples hold hands on the street. People are allowed to get love marriages (instead of arranged marriage, which 99% of the Indian people we've met thus far have), and the caste system is diminishing as more and more people with different faiths and castes intermix.
J & I needed to debrief. We sat for two cups of Darjeeling tea in a very British bakery and once again, couldn't believe our eyes. There were women working at the bakery, and there were more locals than foreigners eating there. Trust me, I know how ridiculous this sounds from a Western point of view. But it's different here. I never see women working at the forefront of a business. Never. And although we do try and go to local eateries as much as possible, there is a certain type of person (i.e. tourist or very Westernized Indian) who eat at such European-influenced restaurants. But not in Darjeeling.
I just didn't understand. All of these nice luxuries were so affordable in Darjeeling. All the kids went to school in uniforms, the roads were maintained, I saw maybe two beggars the entire time I was there... it just didn't make any sense. Why was the rest of India ... so poor?
I mean, I guess it makes some sense. Darjeeling exports an insane amount of tea all over the world, in addition to supplying 25% of India's tea. And, when the British set up Darjeeling, they established infrastructure - railroad, schools, hospitals, etc... which is, I'm learning more and more each day, essential.
So anyways, we decided to take a new perspective. We had left India. Mini-vaca to Nepal, and we didn't even need to visa.
Darjeeling certainly had its fair share of characters. Perhaps taking the cake was the "Five-second lady," who describes herself as the five-second lady, claiming her world-status for brewing tea in five seconds. Her tea plantation sells tea exclusively to Harrod's, but she sells under the radar, out of a big burlak sack in her living room. Classic.
We also met the most enthusiasic travel agent in the world. After realizing that we couldn't buy train tickets out of Siliguri from the inept Darjeeling train station, we stumbled into a travel agency - which was one tiny room, with one desk, with one enthuastic man, with an even more enthuastic mustache. Everything he said, he said with such passion, his eyes almost popping out of his head, his mustache bouncing up and down. When we were having some trouble finding an affordable ticket from Varanasi to Chennai, he cried out loud, "Oh this is SO HORRIBLE! Isn't this HORRIBLE, Juliana?! ISN'T THIS HORRIBLE?" And then he would pull out his giant map and start plotting new train routes, as if he were Sherlock Holmes and no matter what, he would find a way to get us there !!!!
I could go on with the character list, but Darjeeling turned out to be much more than that. We visited monasteries, accidentally attended a wedding after-party, and cozied up next to fireplaces, actually feeling like winter was upon us for the first time.
Homesickness crept in with the cold weather, and so Darjeeling also became a time of internal reassurance, and external gratitude. I've found that almost anything can be cured by Vipassana and laughing.. separately, of course.
Separatist protests for Ghorkaland forced us to leave a day early. Tourists and locals alive left in masses yesterday morning. So now I'm back in Siliguri, about to get on a train, back to Varanasi. For the third time.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Well, we tried
It sounds pretty hard-core.
Juliana and I were trekking in the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, on our way to see a panoramic view of the highest mountains in the world, including Mt. Everest. Unfortunately, we had not acclimatized enough... even after spending three nights in Darjeeling.. and suffered some pretty gnarly altitude sickness, forcing us to turn around.
In all actuality, being sick was pretty shitty. We had a night of tag-team vomiting that I wish didn't happen.
On the upside.. we did get an incredible view of Mt. Kanchenjunga, the world's third largest mountain... and its surrounding range, which is also known as the Sleeping Buddha. We also spent an extra night in this little house in the mountains, owned by a Tibetan family who were amazing in every sense of the word. The father, who spoke English fairly well, told us about his father's stories in Tibet (who was also living there, after escaping Chinese prison from jumping out of a third story window), and we ate momos and drank fermented oats (also known as Tibetan wine), nursing us back to health.
Getting to know our 22-year old guide, Nashant, was also a huge plus. After he drank three goblets of fermented oats (and to put that in perspective, J & I split one), he told us all about the Buddhist girl he plans to run away with and marry in the mountains (he, being Hindu.. makes this a bit scandelous). We explained to him that WWF was indeed not real, and how American football is actually played, both of which he was very thankful to know.
One of the most memorable moments during our stay with the Tibetan family was when I woke from an afternoon nap and walked by myself to the monastery down the hill, which looked like it were sitting in the clouds. Being there in complete silence, and stillness, left me feeling like being sick was totally OK. Adorned with prayer flags, the monastery was also decorated with little signs... which are certainly making more sense to me post-Vipassana. I took a picture of one of them, which said:
"May travelers upon the road find happiness no matter where they go,
And may they gain, without the need of toll, the goals on which they set their hearts."
Juliana and I were trekking in the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, on our way to see a panoramic view of the highest mountains in the world, including Mt. Everest. Unfortunately, we had not acclimatized enough... even after spending three nights in Darjeeling.. and suffered some pretty gnarly altitude sickness, forcing us to turn around.
In all actuality, being sick was pretty shitty. We had a night of tag-team vomiting that I wish didn't happen.
On the upside.. we did get an incredible view of Mt. Kanchenjunga, the world's third largest mountain... and its surrounding range, which is also known as the Sleeping Buddha. We also spent an extra night in this little house in the mountains, owned by a Tibetan family who were amazing in every sense of the word. The father, who spoke English fairly well, told us about his father's stories in Tibet (who was also living there, after escaping Chinese prison from jumping out of a third story window), and we ate momos and drank fermented oats (also known as Tibetan wine), nursing us back to health.
Getting to know our 22-year old guide, Nashant, was also a huge plus. After he drank three goblets of fermented oats (and to put that in perspective, J & I split one), he told us all about the Buddhist girl he plans to run away with and marry in the mountains (he, being Hindu.. makes this a bit scandelous). We explained to him that WWF was indeed not real, and how American football is actually played, both of which he was very thankful to know.
One of the most memorable moments during our stay with the Tibetan family was when I woke from an afternoon nap and walked by myself to the monastery down the hill, which looked like it were sitting in the clouds. Being there in complete silence, and stillness, left me feeling like being sick was totally OK. Adorned with prayer flags, the monastery was also decorated with little signs... which are certainly making more sense to me post-Vipassana. I took a picture of one of them, which said:
"May travelers upon the road find happiness no matter where they go,
And may they gain, without the need of toll, the goals on which they set their hearts."
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Vipassana Meditation
Juliana and I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana Meditation course, as taught by S.N. Goenka, in a small Buddhist town called Sarnath, about 10 km outside of Varanasi.
Just as a set up... I have never meditated seriously before, the longest time I've sat for was 30 minutes. Sure, I've taken a few meditation courses through my university, but it was never getting deep into a specific type of practice... they've been more of survey classes. So when Juliana told me about this course, and what kind of impact it had on her life (she has taken one in California), I didn't really think what it meant to be meditating for 10 hours every day, for 10 days, in complete silence. No talking, no writing, no reading. Every day wake up at 4 am, and lights out each night at 9:30 pm.
I could not have been more unprepared. To begin with, I had no idea why I was there. I knew that I liked meditating, I liked yoga, I liked spending some time by myself, but I did not realize just how serious this practice was.
And looking back, I don't know if there was anything more meant for me, at this particular time and place. We forget how little time we spend looking inward. I can't remember a day of my life I spent by myself, with no distraction. Even if I were silent for an entire day, I was still distracted by external forces... the Internet, the television, advertisements... it could be anything. The amount of time we spend looking at an external reality -- a superficial reality -- is almost every minute of every day. And I don't mean to blame it.. I don't mean to come down hard on myself or anyone else for living in such a superficial reality, because how can we help it? It's funny, both Juliana and I thought about Sex and the City at one point during the retreat, and it's sad really, what emphasis externalities play in the happiness of those characters. And I grew up on it. I grew up identifying with one character or another, wanting Carrie Bradshaw's wardrobe or job, thinking in terms of making my surroundings good, so that I could be happy. This is our society. This is how we deal with our problems -- externally, and not internally.
I cried four times while at the center.
On the first day, I sobbed, in my own room, and plotted my escape. I decided this was not what I wanted and I had no idea why I was there, and I couldn't believe I was wasting my precious time in India to be locked up in this center, and I even broke the rule that says you're not supposed to read, and I looked up some different Yoga ashrams in Varanasi that I could stay at when I left in the morning.
Then I watched the Discourse that night (every night, we watched a 90 minute video of Goenka explaining the practice and philosophy of Vipassana), and I settled down. Goenka has this way of saying exactly what you're thinking. He talked about how so many human beings are on this mission their whole lives to find real truth and happiness... and they talk about it, and they read about how to do, but they do not do it. They do not do. Here it was -- here was this path to enlightenment, to real truth, to breaking the chains of attachment -- and I was complaining and crying about how my back hurt. I always talk about doing, I'm a huge believer in it... and yet there I was, refusing to do. Goenka also said something like, "You think you cannot do it. Your body wasn't made for sitting for this long. But that's only because you aren't used to it." I realized at this moment I had to stick it out.
Day 3 I cried again, after our teacher called us up individually for some Q&A, and he commented on how I cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes. He said, "You move every 1, 2, 5 minutes. How can a mother bathe her child if the child's always moving around?" Kind of a funny example, but I wondered, why couldn't I sit still? Why could I not control myself to just sit still? A lot came up. I went pretty deep into myself, my "subconscious"... and I questioned this. A lot came up. Feelings that I have suppressed for years came up, feelings that I never wanted to look in the face. Well, I finally did. And I sat with these feelings, and looked at them objectively, and let myself go deeper.
Goenka often describes Vipassana as surgery of the mind. Like in surgery, if there is a wound very deep, one must cut through other wounds first. And as one goes through these wounds, puss comes up. And it's not pretty. Well, I was going through these gnarly-looking puss-filled wounds, and watching them ooze out.
And in every one-hour sitting after this moment, I did not even flinch.
On Day 6, I cried again. But this was a different cry. I was eating lunch and all of a sudden, I was completely overwhelmed. I was thinking about the past few days, what I had gone through emotionally and physically, and I was simply shocked. Tears started flowing, out of pure happiness. It was this moment that I realized, Every moment, every single emotion and conversation and happening of my entire life, has been leading up to this moment. And this moment is perfect. I knew this thought, and this feeling, were not permanent, I knew it would pass away. But I was filled with a calmness that I cannot even describe.
Day 9... oh, day 9. The retreat was nearly finished, I had worked through some pretty serious issues that had been hiding in the depths of my mind, and I was feeling very content. Then there was this moment. I just finished eating lunch, and I was sitting outside, on a brick stoop, and I look up to see one of the elderly Indian women sitting on another brick stoop across from me. She had long, gray hair and held her face in her weathered hands. She sat there, in silence, but looked as though she was about to cry. I realized at this moment, what impermanence truly means. During the entire retreat, Goenka always emphasizes impermanence. Everything is impermanent, rising and passing away, rising and passing away. Every emotion is impermanent, always changing, which is why we cannot become attached to anything, and this is how we become liberated. For me, this meant my thoughts were impermanent, these deep-rooted emotions were impermanent, and I was working to let them go. But for this Indian women, who had to be well into her 70s, maybe 80s (because you really can never tell with Indian people), all this talk about impermanence ... well, she was probably thinking more about the impermanence of life, rather the impermanence of emotions.
The impermanence of life -- death. Who has not experienced it? Who will not experience it? Every single living being will someday die; that is the law of nature. So why cling to anything that is impermanent? It will pass away, rise and pass away. Change is the only constant.
Vipassana meditation has no mantra, nor does one use any visualization. Rather, you just observe what is. As it is.
Just as a set up... I have never meditated seriously before, the longest time I've sat for was 30 minutes. Sure, I've taken a few meditation courses through my university, but it was never getting deep into a specific type of practice... they've been more of survey classes. So when Juliana told me about this course, and what kind of impact it had on her life (she has taken one in California), I didn't really think what it meant to be meditating for 10 hours every day, for 10 days, in complete silence. No talking, no writing, no reading. Every day wake up at 4 am, and lights out each night at 9:30 pm.
I could not have been more unprepared. To begin with, I had no idea why I was there. I knew that I liked meditating, I liked yoga, I liked spending some time by myself, but I did not realize just how serious this practice was.
And looking back, I don't know if there was anything more meant for me, at this particular time and place. We forget how little time we spend looking inward. I can't remember a day of my life I spent by myself, with no distraction. Even if I were silent for an entire day, I was still distracted by external forces... the Internet, the television, advertisements... it could be anything. The amount of time we spend looking at an external reality -- a superficial reality -- is almost every minute of every day. And I don't mean to blame it.. I don't mean to come down hard on myself or anyone else for living in such a superficial reality, because how can we help it? It's funny, both Juliana and I thought about Sex and the City at one point during the retreat, and it's sad really, what emphasis externalities play in the happiness of those characters. And I grew up on it. I grew up identifying with one character or another, wanting Carrie Bradshaw's wardrobe or job, thinking in terms of making my surroundings good, so that I could be happy. This is our society. This is how we deal with our problems -- externally, and not internally.
I cried four times while at the center.
On the first day, I sobbed, in my own room, and plotted my escape. I decided this was not what I wanted and I had no idea why I was there, and I couldn't believe I was wasting my precious time in India to be locked up in this center, and I even broke the rule that says you're not supposed to read, and I looked up some different Yoga ashrams in Varanasi that I could stay at when I left in the morning.
Then I watched the Discourse that night (every night, we watched a 90 minute video of Goenka explaining the practice and philosophy of Vipassana), and I settled down. Goenka has this way of saying exactly what you're thinking. He talked about how so many human beings are on this mission their whole lives to find real truth and happiness... and they talk about it, and they read about how to do, but they do not do it. They do not do. Here it was -- here was this path to enlightenment, to real truth, to breaking the chains of attachment -- and I was complaining and crying about how my back hurt. I always talk about doing, I'm a huge believer in it... and yet there I was, refusing to do. Goenka also said something like, "You think you cannot do it. Your body wasn't made for sitting for this long. But that's only because you aren't used to it." I realized at this moment I had to stick it out.
Day 3 I cried again, after our teacher called us up individually for some Q&A, and he commented on how I cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes. He said, "You move every 1, 2, 5 minutes. How can a mother bathe her child if the child's always moving around?" Kind of a funny example, but I wondered, why couldn't I sit still? Why could I not control myself to just sit still? A lot came up. I went pretty deep into myself, my "subconscious"... and I questioned this. A lot came up. Feelings that I have suppressed for years came up, feelings that I never wanted to look in the face. Well, I finally did. And I sat with these feelings, and looked at them objectively, and let myself go deeper.
Goenka often describes Vipassana as surgery of the mind. Like in surgery, if there is a wound very deep, one must cut through other wounds first. And as one goes through these wounds, puss comes up. And it's not pretty. Well, I was going through these gnarly-looking puss-filled wounds, and watching them ooze out.
And in every one-hour sitting after this moment, I did not even flinch.
On Day 6, I cried again. But this was a different cry. I was eating lunch and all of a sudden, I was completely overwhelmed. I was thinking about the past few days, what I had gone through emotionally and physically, and I was simply shocked. Tears started flowing, out of pure happiness. It was this moment that I realized, Every moment, every single emotion and conversation and happening of my entire life, has been leading up to this moment. And this moment is perfect. I knew this thought, and this feeling, were not permanent, I knew it would pass away. But I was filled with a calmness that I cannot even describe.
Day 9... oh, day 9. The retreat was nearly finished, I had worked through some pretty serious issues that had been hiding in the depths of my mind, and I was feeling very content. Then there was this moment. I just finished eating lunch, and I was sitting outside, on a brick stoop, and I look up to see one of the elderly Indian women sitting on another brick stoop across from me. She had long, gray hair and held her face in her weathered hands. She sat there, in silence, but looked as though she was about to cry. I realized at this moment, what impermanence truly means. During the entire retreat, Goenka always emphasizes impermanence. Everything is impermanent, rising and passing away, rising and passing away. Every emotion is impermanent, always changing, which is why we cannot become attached to anything, and this is how we become liberated. For me, this meant my thoughts were impermanent, these deep-rooted emotions were impermanent, and I was working to let them go. But for this Indian women, who had to be well into her 70s, maybe 80s (because you really can never tell with Indian people), all this talk about impermanence ... well, she was probably thinking more about the impermanence of life, rather the impermanence of emotions.
The impermanence of life -- death. Who has not experienced it? Who will not experience it? Every single living being will someday die; that is the law of nature. So why cling to anything that is impermanent? It will pass away, rise and pass away. Change is the only constant.
Vipassana meditation has no mantra, nor does one use any visualization. Rather, you just observe what is. As it is.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
the beginning
I can't explain exactly what prompted starting a blog.
Maybe it was the absence of my journal at the meditation retreat I just finished. Maybe it was my sudden desire to start writing in a new way.
Either way, I realized my journal writing and mass e-mails wasn't enough.. anyone who knows me well knows that I love stories, so maybe this will just be my new outlet.
So just some background.. I'm backpacking around India. This is my second long-term overseas adventure, the first being an eight-month trip around Western Europe, Morocco, and Southeast Asia. The main difference between that trip and this one is that this time, I don't have to go back to school in September. I don't have a return flight home yet, and really have no idea where I'll be next week. I'm just going with the flow, and living very much with the present.
My attitude to be in the present moment has been developing more and more in the past few years, but it was certainly this meditation retreat that brought it to a whole new level. That shall be my next entry.
As for the title of this blog, and the quote at the beginning... well, those who know me well know it's my favorite passage, and quite fitting for an attitude of Be Here Now. Unfortunately the 500-word limit will not permit me to write the entire Tom Robbins quote at the top, so I'll do it here:
"Bonk! went the clockworks, and then it went poing! And unlike the chimes of a regular clock, which announce, on schedule, the passing - linear and purposeful - of another hour on the inexorable march toward death, the clockworks chime came stumbling out of left field, hopping in one tennis show, unconcerned as to whether it was late or early, admitting to neither end nor beginning, blissfully oblivious of any notion of progression or development, winking, waving, and finally turning back upon itself and lying quiet, having issued a breathless, giddy signal in lieu of steady tick-and-tock, a signal that, decoded, said, "Take note, dear person, of your immediate position, become for a second exactly identical with yourself, glimpse yourself removed from the fatuous habits of progress as well as from the tragic implications of destiny, and, instead, see that you are an eternal creature fixed again the wide grin of the horizon; and having experienced, thus, what it is like to be attuned to the infinite universe, return to the temporal world lightly and glad-hearted, knowing that all the art and science of the twentieth century cannot prevent this clock from striking again, and in no precisioned Swiss-made mechanism can the reality of this kind of time be surpassed. .........................................................Bonk!"
Maybe it was the absence of my journal at the meditation retreat I just finished. Maybe it was my sudden desire to start writing in a new way.
Either way, I realized my journal writing and mass e-mails wasn't enough.. anyone who knows me well knows that I love stories, so maybe this will just be my new outlet.
So just some background.. I'm backpacking around India. This is my second long-term overseas adventure, the first being an eight-month trip around Western Europe, Morocco, and Southeast Asia. The main difference between that trip and this one is that this time, I don't have to go back to school in September. I don't have a return flight home yet, and really have no idea where I'll be next week. I'm just going with the flow, and living very much with the present.
My attitude to be in the present moment has been developing more and more in the past few years, but it was certainly this meditation retreat that brought it to a whole new level. That shall be my next entry.
As for the title of this blog, and the quote at the beginning... well, those who know me well know it's my favorite passage, and quite fitting for an attitude of Be Here Now. Unfortunately the 500-word limit will not permit me to write the entire Tom Robbins quote at the top, so I'll do it here:
"Bonk! went the clockworks, and then it went poing! And unlike the chimes of a regular clock, which announce, on schedule, the passing - linear and purposeful - of another hour on the inexorable march toward death, the clockworks chime came stumbling out of left field, hopping in one tennis show, unconcerned as to whether it was late or early, admitting to neither end nor beginning, blissfully oblivious of any notion of progression or development, winking, waving, and finally turning back upon itself and lying quiet, having issued a breathless, giddy signal in lieu of steady tick-and-tock, a signal that, decoded, said, "Take note, dear person, of your immediate position, become for a second exactly identical with yourself, glimpse yourself removed from the fatuous habits of progress as well as from the tragic implications of destiny, and, instead, see that you are an eternal creature fixed again the wide grin of the horizon; and having experienced, thus, what it is like to be attuned to the infinite universe, return to the temporal world lightly and glad-hearted, knowing that all the art and science of the twentieth century cannot prevent this clock from striking again, and in no precisioned Swiss-made mechanism can the reality of this kind of time be surpassed. .........................................................Bonk!"
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