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Sunday, June 6th, 2010
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11:17 pm - I didn't post for a year
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And what I posted last year was not for public consumption. I'm sure no one looks at this anymore since it has been two years since anything new has gone up.
I'm going to try to start using it a bit again. As a journal as a place to post things that I need to say but I can't communicate. If you read it, you'll see what I mean when I start. But to bed for now.
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| Thursday, May 29th, 2008
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4:44 pm - Around and around
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Since my last post I have gone to Vermont for the first time and visited two old friends. I have flown back to CA and stayed at friends houses: Ed & Heather for 2 weeks, Laura for 5 days, Ruthie for 2 days, Denise for 10 days, Ruthie for 4 days, Marjorie for 3 days, and now back at Ruthie's. I will leave for Colorado in one week. I will be visiting a friend and her family for 2 days and then headed for a retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center for 10 days, then I will visit my old friend Gabe for a few days or maybe go camping up at Rocky Mountain National Park for a day or two.
I've been feeling really overwhelmed over the past 40 days since I have been back. I've been dealing with fixing my car and getting it registered and back on the road and reliable. I've been moving my belongings around and trying my best to leave my friend's homes the way I've entered them. I've been working on the wedding that I officiated last Saturday (working with E & R on their vows and the plans and then doing everything I could over the past week to help them and make the wedding a success and the marriage official), but mostly I've been dealing with my mind. It's been hard to face all the expectations that I had about myself and that I hoped this trip would facilitate. Although after talking to my old therapist I realized that I have had some resistance to simply leaving behind my life in Nepal and India and jumping into the complicated, grueling world of commuting, working 40+ hours a week, and yoking myself to everything that you need to yoke yourself to in order to be "successful" in this society. I have been incredibly blessed by the friends I have who love me and are so incredibly there for me. I am trying to learn to receive their gifts to me without protesting and with gratitude. I am working with my broken heart and my longing for a partner who I can open to and who will open to me. I feel exposed and vulnerable. My first instinct is to find some ground to stand on or somewhere to hide (mostly I've been hiding.) I am hoping that my retreat will help me to abide in the groundlessness without getting lost in the hope and fear.
I have found that most people aren't really interested in hearing too much about my trip or seeing my pictures. A few people have asked but most folks want to know how I am doing now, catch me up with their situation and move along, so it's a bit hard because I feel like I'm just supposed to let go of everything I learned even though it was one of the most important parts of my life so far. I know we all feel that...our parent dies, our child is born, we quit our job, our partner leaves...and no one else is there with us...they can understand but they can't relate and we see how alone we are.
Here is a poem I wrote at Mindrolling Monastery (it is about the transitory nature of existence and the second to last line is about how we try to make it all mean something)
Outside, crows sharpen their beaks on branches
Blessing Pills dry on screens in the sun
with raised eyebrow she speaks of
hope and fear...gain and loss
Meanwhile, a yellowed leaf flashes
turning over and over as it falls to the ground
Like so many coconuts broken in front of the temple
Isn't it?
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| Saturday, April 5th, 2008
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6:12 am
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I was too tired to spend $44 Euros for a taxi to get to and from Helsinki from the airport to go have breakfast for an hour or two, so I had an interesting 8 hours in the airport. They have a zamboni to clean the marble floor and there is a person who squeegee'd down the glass walls for the shops. The airport has several children's play rooms and a wifi lounge with fuzzy pink chairs. You can sit and look at the aspen forest outside through the glass walls. An airport worker glides by on a kick scooter with a woven basket on the front. I went into The Oak Barrel and ordered a Finnish lager which was promptly paid for by a gentleman in a bowler hat. While I sat with my light fruity lager and wrote this, I smiled because Bruce Springsteen came over the speakers as I waited to fly back to NJ.
This was all such a contrast to the past few days. The Delhi airport was totally crowded and disorganized. I waited on the immigration departure line for almost 2 hours. My last day in Delhi I went to Connaught Place to walk around the bazaars. I couldn't walk 10 paces without someone looking for baksheesh, pushing a sale or telling me where to go. All I wanted to do was wander around but it was hard for me to stay open when I am being inundated with that much attention. The day before I was on a bicycle rickshaw and was stuck in a traffic jam (this includes oxen carts, motorcycles, push carts, and cars.) Lots of the people in the traffic (mostly men) were staring at me or making comments because there aren't many westerners and it's very unusual to see a woman out on her own. So coming home from the bazaars that day I took the Metro back to my hotel but I got lost coming out of the station and people could tell I didn't know where I was so every rickshaw was approaching me and a boy started following me but he spoke no English. Then school boy stepped in front of me and said "hi" and grabbed by arm as I tried to walk past him. It was clear that people aren't used to seeing white people in that neighborhood...however Nepalis didn't really behave like this when I walked through remote neighborhoods so I could wander around. After the boy grabbed my arm I wanted to cry for a moment and some boys asked me if the guy who was following me was bothering me and if they should tell him to go away. I saw an honest-looking rickshaw driver and got a ride to the neighborhood I was looking for. I was disappointed that I didn't get to find my way on my own. As I headed for an early dinner I passed a young American woman who was telling an Indian man that she didn't know where she was and he asked if she had a map of Delhi. I turned to give her a map and saw that she was crying. I asked if she was o.k. and she said Yes. She was already getting help and it was interesting to come across someone who seemed to be in the same state I was in a 20 min earlier.
Delhi feels like a place of constant neediness so it is for me hard to say open, it brings into focus for me how far I am from being able to practice the Bodhisattva practices of generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, concentration and wisdom. Plus it is sad because there are lots of lovely people there and I don't want to shut down to experiencing them. I was walking later in the evening and this young man about 15 years old carrying a shoe shining kit. I was thinking what it must be like to have to stand in the street everyday trying to make some money at his age. His clothes were neat and his kit was clean. As I was thinking about him he glanced down and said, "Want a shoe shine?" He smiled sweetly (I was wearing flip-flops!) and said "Maybe next time" and asked where I was from. He said, "You don't look American, you look like an Indian woman" because I was wearing a punjabi suit, sandals and a blessing chord around my neck. I smiled and said "sure" just as we reached my hotel.
I honestly don't know how I feel about India.
One moment I couldn't wait to leave and the next I would be marveling at the oxen braying in the street as they work harder than any animal or man I have seen work. Their struggle would break my heart and then I would see a man driving one jump down and stroke to console the animal like one of his children.
Sometimes the air smells like the strangest perfume (a mix of spices, warm wind, the dusty earth and the smoke from fire pujas.) Other times the air persistently smells like sewage, chemicals and smog.
Every night is a dog barking party and at the monastery at Dehra Dun the peacocks would get in on the action with their barking (which sounds like a giant unhappy house cat.)
Last week I decided to stay at Mindrolling Monastery an extra day so I could be there for the last puja for His Holiness Trichen Mindrolling. I had a train ticket for Saturday but my friend Ashley was getting a cab to Delhi late Sunday night. The last couple days in Dehra Dun were interesting. Saturday was the last day of the parinirvana services for His Holiness and there was a big gathering with all the Tibetans from the settlement. The space was decorated beautifully with tents. The first puja was at 9:30am and the weather started to turn ominous. We got to the 2pm puja and the wind started whipping the tents into a frenzy. It was amazing to have the intense energy of the weather mixed with the horns and drums and chanting. All of a sudden it started to downpour and the crowd started running under the porches of the monastery. The monks started to grab the Tibetan rugs, cushions, the lamas thrones, the instruments and throw them on the porches. They had to cover the Kudang (His Holiness' body) with plastic tarps. Then they were trying to push the bulging pockets of water out of the sagging tent cover. 20 minutes later, the sky was clear and everything was being put back in place and the final puja began. I felt very fortunate to be there.
The next day there were no pujas so we all had downtime all day and most people sat around talking and getting ready to go and didn't do much personal practice. I took pictures at the amazing stupa at the monastery and walked around with my friend Nora from Germany at the Gelukpa garden where a Sikh gentleman challenged us about why we were spinning the prayer wheels and Nora was carrying prayer beads. Did we really believe there were blessings in these things?...Don't we know that GOD is everywhere? Nora is a cultural anthropologist, so she simply said "I'm quite sure you have something similar in your tradition and you can understand." : )
Ashley and I got to visit with Khandro Rinpoche for a moment before we left and we left at 8:30 pm for Delhi with our friend Antonio. It was a really interesting 7 hour taxi ride passing police checkpoints, dozens of oxen carts hauling sugar cane (I think), camps all along the side of the road that had big fires with rising steam (I think they might have been cooking down the sugar cane.) India doesn't really sleep so at midnight there are dozens of men standing on the side of the road at teahouses. Turbaned men in white squatting by their fires in front of makeshift homes made of tarps. Then about an hour before our journeys end our taxi driver started driving really erratically. He wasn't a legal taxi driver and didn't speak English so it was hard to figure out what was going on. It seemed like he was falling asleep and we had to watch him closely. About 15 minutes before we got to the airport Antonio had to grab the wheel as we veered toward the wall of the highway. The driver got really angry but it was good because he woke up for most of the rest of the ride. It was a little scary. I had been talking to Ashley as we left about the fact that you just have to relinquish control when you get in a cab in Nepal and India because we can't really understand how they drive and worrying about it from the backseat isn't really useful. Well we all definitely got to practice a balance of "not too tight, not too loose" with that ride. We were headed to the airport before my hotel so I decided to get out of the cab at the airport and pay for a different cab to get to my hotel. I didn't want to be alone with him in that car looking for my hotel when I couldn't talk with him, so even though it was 3am I'd rather find a new ride.
There is so much more to tell, but I'm tired and I'm back in NJ trying to orient myself to the fact that I am back. Just before I left Delhi in my hotel room I looked in the mirror, happy and sad that it was time to come back and thought...I did it.
The last day of the Pullahari program Drupon Khenpo addressed us in English and said that our two months together have come to an end and in a little while they will feel like a dream...he asked us to remember that this is just like life. At the end of our life we will look back and think the same thing...it's over so soon; it all feels like a dream and so it is important to remember this and to practice.
I only hope that I can integrate everything I have learned and experienced into the rest of my life...however long that might be and share it. The gratitude for the little things, knowing that I am so fortunate, letting go, practice, openness, and view.
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| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
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8:03 pm - Quiet
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First, I just wanted to mention something that i forgot in the last post. Before we left Pullahari my friend Henny had one of the little monklets come up to him and say, "When you are big, are you going to go to America?"
Well Henny is about 50 years old and he got such a kick out of this. He said, "I already am big but I might go to America."
The monklet then told him that his brother was also a monk and when he got big he left for America and that is what this boy also planned to do. Soooo cute!
I'll be headed to Finland for breakfast in less than a week and then on to New York. I'm not sure how to feel. It's been mostly quiet for me here at Mindrolling studying my Tibetan in the morning and sitting for a while, then more sitting and reading Chandrakirti in the afternoon, then going to the service for His Holiness Trichen Mindrolling from 4-6:30 and then doing kora (circumnabulating the stupa) for an hour before bed. It's going to be weird to be somewhere where there are no monks walking around and no horns and drums to wake me up in the morning and put me to sleep at night. There won't be anything to circumnabulate.
Ed and Heather, can i put Stella in the middle of the living room and walk around her every night?
Oh yeah right, and I'm going to need to get a job.
On Monday we all went to Dehra Dun on a bus with the nuns and monks because they were having a "protest" regarding the situation in Tibet. We could go show our support but we couldn't participate. Mostly they were chanting and praying and then they marched around town. I got some video of the march. I don't know if there is more information to be had about the situation in Tibet but we don't really know much here. Has anyone gotten any good information from the blog world?
Mindrolling is in a Tibetan refugee colony and all the shops here are closed for the next 10 days. I'm not sure it's a good decision for this community and I'm not sure of all their reasons behind the decision (especially since they were closed for 2 days last week.)
There is not much more to say...I should ask for a meeting with Rinpoche before i leave but she is so busy (Penor Rinpoche and a bunch of other tulkus arrive on Friday and Saturday is the last day of practice for her father.)
It's been interesting being here with her sangha and I guess part of the reason I came here was to see if I wanted to ask her to be my teacher. I'm still not sure about that but if i get the chance to talk to her that might become more clear.
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| Thursday, March 20th, 2008
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3:46 pm - Missing Nepal
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Well, Livejournal tells me it has been two weeks since I posted and I got away from the new monastery this afternoon so I better do it now.
Two weeks let's see. I miss Pullahari! The last week I got my final shopping done although I wish I had bought another thanka. I took my final tests and I organized the farewell party. We had the party in the old canteen building and my friend Vassia "dj'd". I got two cakes that said "May we travel to the land of liberation" (which was part of a song that we sang everyday from a Nagarguna prayer.) I went shopping for snacks and drinks and let me say that trying to throw a party in Nepal at a monastery is completely different than trying to throw a party otherwise. Getting the monastery to let us use the space (even though they use it every year); getting music and speakers together, getting decent party snacks, just getting it all gathered and transported. Plus we were trying to get part of the teachings done so we were in teachings for 4 hours every morning and 2 1/2 hours that afternoon on top of the fact that we were all taking our final tests. It was a blast to have all the Spanish and Germans and French and Americans and Russians all dancing together.
I left there last week and I was very sad to say goodbye to everyone and realize I will never see most of them again. It felt like a family at the end. But time to pry this barnacle off the log again and float freely. It is amazing to watch myself get attached over and over again, but at the same time I do know that at least a part of it is because my heart is open and connecting with people. I also miss Boudha in general. I wanted more time there as I was leaving. I was getting tears in my eyes as I smelled the air and felt the breezes and looked down over the valley during that last week.
Anyway, then I flew to Delhi and found my hotel. I really don't like Delhi very much but I got out of town on the second day on a bus trip to Agra. Starting at 6:45am we got to the Red Fort spent 50 minutes there...went to a marble store with a "baby Taj Mahal" which was clearly a kickback stop for the bus company...went to lunch...and then to the Taj for about 2 hours. The line and the police were rude and the security won't let you bring in a book or an ipod so I had to get a locker for them. Then we got in the bus and went to the birthplace of Krishna. I couldn't bring my camera in the temple and I was too tired to check it so I didn't go in (apparently they were singing and dancing in there so I feel like I missed a little something, but it was 8:30pm and I was spent.) Then they took us to another town and had us traipsing around following a tour guide that spoke only in Hindi only to lead us to a temple with a really cheezy alter with stuffed figures of Kali, Devangali and some other god...but it was clear within a minute that the whole purpose of this temple was to get people to give them CASH. By now it's about 12:30pm. We finally got back to Delhi at 3am. The bus drops me off and points vaguely in the direction behind me toward the street where my hotel is. I pay 50 rupees to go two blocks because I have no idea where I am. As soon as I am back in the hotel the food poisoning kicks in and I don't sleep until the next day after I stagger around the street in front of my hotel buying coca cola, water and toilet paper. I watch movies and contemplate not going to Dehra Dun. Monday I feel somewhat better and changing my plane ticket proves to be a hassle so I get on the train.
I was totally suprized at how great the train was. Getting into the station was easy and finding the platform was easy. The train car was nice, the other passengers were nice and I folded down my bed, pulled my curtains and slept most of the way, except for being awoken by the occasional smell. In this respect my experience of India is a bit like NYC where Liz and I used to joke you can be awoken in the middle of the night by a smell which was usually caused by a urine convention. India has smells that will wake you up. It's worse than Nepal. People burn things in Nepal but here there are toxic burning smells and excrement smells. I think that it's excrement I can't really explain it otherwise but I will say that when I got to Dehra Dun I was in my room and I opened my Nalgene (which I filled with bottled water in Delhi) and the air trapped in the top of my Nalgene smelled unmistakably like Delhi not like the air in my room.
Anyway I got a taxi to Clementown and the cab driver didn't know where the guest house was so he just brought me to A guesthouse and dumped me. Luckily the Tibetans who where up at 6:30am in the village took me around to try to help me find it. I ended up in a basement kitchen prep room with a bunch of boys at the monastery while I drank tea they argued about where they thought the guesthouse was. I started walking with one of them and he finally told me he had a phone so I called Jigme and she met me.
There are about 25 Westerners here (including a friend of Vassia's and someone who knows my friend David from Shambhala Mountain Center.) My roomate is a fabulously beautiful French woman named Mahalia. She is 52 and has a 17 year old daughter but you would never know it. She is totally gorgeous, sweet and put together. She has been a student of Khandro Rinpoche's for 17 years.
Rinpoche has been giving us teachings each morning at 10. There is a puja from 2-3:30 and a service for His Holiness Trichen Mindrolling (Khandro Rinpoche's father who died 41 days ago) from 4-6pm and then we clean the shrine room and refresh the flowers. It is a wonderful service and I just had it explained to me yesterday. I am hoping I will get my copy of the service today so I can chant along tomorrow. My body has been killing me sitting for that long though. It's mildly embarrassing to be in a shrine room full of monks and shifting my legs every 20 minutes. I don't think the circumstances of this trip (the cold weather, the lack of a hot shower for 3 months, the hard beds, the lack of room to stretch) have been very good for my legs.
There is the possibility that the Dalai Lama will come in the next week or so to pay his respects to Trichen Mindrolling but with everything that is going on in Tibet it will be difficult and he has not been feeling well. Penor Rinpoche is supposed to arrive two days from now with a group of other Rinpoches. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche was here before I came. We will also be participating in a silent March for the Tibetans on Monday. All is well and I'm glad I came. As always Rinpoche has very helpful things to say even though it is in a talk to all of us; she seems to say things that address exactly what has been on my mind.
Until next time.
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| Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
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2:13 pm - Drawing near
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Before I start with this week I just have to say that last week right after I posted I was standing near the Great Stupa with my friends Lea, Sky and Ani Chudron and a big clay tile fell from one of the roofs and smashed on the ground right in the middle of us less than 2 ft from each of our heads. We all just looked at one another and said, "That was close" and the girls went off to get a foot massage.
We have been having problems with the girl that I mentioned when I first got to Pullahari, she is pretty delusional and came in to the shrine room with balloons and a cake singing Happy Birthday in the middle of the teaching last week and she has been obsessive about Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and no twelve year old boy needs a crazy lady hanging around his house even if he is a Rinpoche. She has since left the dorms but she keeps coming back and last night she arrived at 3 in the morning and was fighting with Khenpo Chokyi for an hour. It's heart-breaking; especially since I have been through this before with other people and I know how powerless it makes people feel.
Anyway, besides that and my internal crisis of faith about Buddhism that I'm stuggling with...things are good and flying by. I am organizing the farewell party for next Tuesday; I have an exam on Sunday; I'm flying to Delhi next Thursday and I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row with a hotel and the monastery in Dehra Dun. I told them that I will stay until the 23rd but I don't know what I'm going to do after that. Maybe I'll stay for the rest of the ceremonies for Trichen Mindrolling's parinirvana or maybe I'll go to Dharmsala or maybe I'll go to Corbett Tiger Reserve for a couple days and then go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal for a day or so. I'm about to fly by the seat of my pants but that's o.k. because I have to stop shopping (I got a chuba, a thanka and I'm trying not to buy these antique earrings.)
Gotta go cause this is my last day off before I fly to India.
Namaste!
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| Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
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2:26 pm
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Last Friday I went with another student to the city of Bhaktapur were we spent the afternoon and found a guest house for the night (we didn't arrive there until 2pm so we decided to stay.) It's a beautiful old city and I just wandered around looking at the architecture and seeing how people live. David and I met back up for dinner and some more wandering. In the morning he decided that he wanted to go to Patan so we walked down to the 'river' for some last looks around this city and came upon the Hanuman ghats. Next to the river was a pig who decided we were a bit threatening (he had a female pig and some piglets behind the fence near him and as we walked back toward the road he decided to get up and act like he was going to charge us. Another adventure in mi vida loca. David is actually friends with my friend Amy through Shambhala, he studied aikido for many years and he has applied to a PhD program at UC Berkeley so we had plenty to talk about. We went to the next city, Patan and David went off shopping for statues and I shopped for jewelry, took pictures and visited more temples.
Today my friend Henny and I went to Pharping to a cave where Guru Rinpoche meditated and melted his hand print in the rock wall outside the cave (it's really unbelievable!) I had a very interesting experience going into the cave since I wasn't expecting much. It was quite small and there were butter lamps lit so it was warm in there, but the moment I walked into the cave I felt faint. A minute or two later I felt a bit overcome and I had tears in my eyes. It was strange because I wasn't really in a particularly spiritually inspired mood. We then when to a Vajrayogini temple that was not that exciting and then to a Kali temple where they normally have sacrifices but this is not a sacrifice day so we were spared the bloody scene. Henny and I had a lovely lunch on linen table cloths none the less, and got to know each other better. He's the perfect combination of snarky and sweet.
O.k. the above message was from last week and I couldn't get it through. This week things with the political sitation have gotten worse and the fuel situation is linked with it, so now it's hard and expensive to get taxis and the Indian border in the Terai is essentially closed because no vehicles can come through...the fuel crisis is going to get worse. I am still going to go to Dehra Dun but I don't know what things are going to be like. I am actually contemplating taking a train from Delhi to Goa and sitting on the beach for a week depending on how things work out. We all rented a bus and went to a Kagyu Monlam today at a nunnery. There were about 200 monks and nuns chanting and it was a lovely day with about 20 people from Pullahari. I'm really bonding with some of them and I'm going to miss them when I leave.
Until next week,
Cheryl
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| Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
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1:48 am - Happy New Year's Eve
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Tomorrow is the first day of Losar so tonight is New Year's Eve and the store was packed. I had to get a new hot water kettle because I nearly burned down my room with the one I had. I turned it on and the electricity went down. I didn't remember to unplug it before I went to class. My Scottish neighbor broke down my door when the smoke from the burning plastic started pouring out the window. Thank goodness for burly Scots!
Yesterday there was a big fire at the Monastery as the monks had a procession, a lama dance and then put a giant Mahakala torma into a big bamboo teepee and burned it to mark the end of their week of pujas to Mahakala. I got a protection cord from the torma and made a khata offering to Mahakala to remove obscurations this year.
The weather was beautiful and it was a really wonderful day. Again I felt really lucky to be here and get to experience all of this. Now we have three days off and I'm hoping to get around a little bit but things are getting really difficult with the fuel scarcity and the high prices (we don't have any hot water at our dorms now and they don't have fuel to run the generator so when the lights go out...they are out.) I bought my plane ticket to fly back to Delhi on 3/13 ($192, ouch.) It had to be done...now I'm considering going to the Tiger Reserve about 6 hours away from Dehra Dun for a few days and staying in retreat at Dehra Dun instead of going all the way to Dharmsala, but I have plenty of time to make up my mind.
We are going to have a puja in the morning and a big lovely lunch tomorrow to celebrate the new year. We are all getting more familiar with each other and it's starting to feel like a funny little family at the Monastery. I wish we had more interactions with the monks so the lunch tomorrow should be good.
The teachings have been getting good this week, so I'm excited about the next four weeks and how much I will be learning. This has been a really good trip to strengthen my basic knowledge of dharma in general and the Madyamika in particular.
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| Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
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1:53 pm - 3rd world living
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It's about a week from Losar (the Tibetan New Year) and yesterday the monks started their Mahakala pujas that will last for a week. Mahakala is a wrathful protector deity and the protector of Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche (the lama who lives at Pullahari Monastery.) The monks made a 5x5' sandpainting and lots of large torma (sculptures made out of barley flour and butter for the occasion. The main shrine room is beautiful and the big drums and horns and chanting goes on for about 5 hours each day from now until Losar. I had class and a quiz yesterday on the first day and this morning they were practicing from 1am until 8am so I didn't make it there today either. I hope to go tomorrow.
I just finished a book about the 16th and the 17th Karmapas (head of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism). This morning I started Patrul Rinpoche's "The Words of My Perfect Teacher." Lots of reading but I probably should be spending more time reviewing the teachings that we get from the Khenpo each day. They are doing some filming at the Monastery (apparently for some kind of promotional video), so we had a film crew in the teachings on Monday morning. I renewed my visa today and I went to buy a plane ticket to Delhi but apparently it's some kind of holiday today...last Wednesday there was a taxi strike and street shut down to protest the price of petrol and people were in the roads burning trash and old tires. Many eople here wear masks all the time because of the air quality but it doesn't seem that they really have a clear sense about how they contribute to the problem...even though most people don't have their own car people are constantly burning things. Also, there is 3 to 5 hours of electricity "load shedding" everyday so you can't get much done when there is no electricity. I must say I am become more baffled with the political, economic, and social situation here the longer I stay.
Petrol is now at 80 nepali rupees a liter...it's comparable to the price of gas in the US but the economy here is completely different. Many goods are not nearly as cheap as you would think. Labor is incredibly cheap. Every Nepali I talk with about this bemoans how much aid Nepal has received over the years and they are not really sure what it was spent on because so many things are in bad shape (the roads, the economy, the water situation, the air quality, the energy situation.) I am unsure what kind of effect people think will having a one day taxi strike will do and I'm not really sure if they understand that there probably isn't much the government can do to bring the price of petrol down. Apparently two weeks ago there was a pipe bomb explosion in Ratna Park in central Kathmandu (I got a warning from the Embassy but Pullahari is so far away from everything there isn't really much for us to worry about.
We haven't had any hot water at our residence buildings for the past 4 days because they are having problems with the boiler. I am very grateful that my friend Laura has a kettle here that I am using while she is not at the program this year; yeah for hot water...well when we have electricity that is. I wash my laundry in a bucket and for the past few days that's how I've been bathing as well.
My Tibetan is getting much better but one of my classes is fairly frustrating and the other is really challenging because almost everyone has been studying for a year longer. The teachings on Buddha Nature are very academic and structured so I'm learning a lot.
It seems like such a long time until I will be coming home and sometimes I long to be back but I feel really fortunate to be able to study and not have to be working right now. Until later....
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| Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
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11:38 am
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I'm feeling more settled at the Monastery. I'm getting to know some people and we are settling into the core of the teachings after spending a week talking about the preliminaries for a week.
I have already gotten to the point where I started generating some hope that I could actually really learn some Tibetan, then I get frustrated with myself in one class and frustrated with the teaching style in another class and have to figure out how to relax again and move forward. Ah the mind is a fascinating thing!
This week I managed to register for a 10 day retreat in Colorado in June at the Shambhala Mountain Center; Mr Sassyass did my bidding and purchased me a Burning Man ticket for August; I am starting to try to formulate plans for after I leave the Monastery (I may go to Mindrolling Monastery for the Tsechu ceremony in mid March with Khandro Rinpoche's nuns.)
Otherwise I am studying and learning how to read. I am actually feeling really good about the prospect of leaving Nepal with a good bit of tibetan under my belt if I keep studying like I have been because it has only been two weeks and there are 7 more left. Learning vocabulary is going to be the most overwhelming part.
I'm going to try to practice a bit more each day and I think I may start going to the pujas in the Golden Stupa shrine room each night at 7. Even though I have been making plans for when I return the experience that I am having from the extended stay her and the separation from my habituated "identity" is bringing up some strange feelings...earlier this week I was meditating on the teachings that we are receiving on the seven vajra points and I couldn't get past the third point on the sangha, the community. I kept getting distracted by thoughts from the past and occasionally feeling anger. Then I would stop myself and start over again to have the same thing happen again, over and over. Last night I had a really profound experience of emptiness while I was contemplating the 4 reminders while I was studying the root text...to be honest with you it scared the shit out of me. I couldn't catch my breath.
I hope I get a chance to write again in the next few weeks but I am planning on going hiking to another Gompa up in the hills and I am also planning a trip to Pharping to visit Padmasambhava's cave with my South African friend Henny.
Send me a note I would love to hear from you (I can check email from the Monastery but the connection is so slow I can't really write to anyone.)
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| Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
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11:33 am - After the first week
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Here's the skinny on the shedra.
there are about 45 of us from all over. 7 from Russia, 8 from Spain/Portugal, 6 from the US, England, New Zealand, Canada, Holland, Denmark, South Africa, Germany, Poland, Malaysia, China, some of these people live in India now. there are two nuns, one monk, and one man who is going to take ordination this year enrolled in the program. I haven't met everyone and mostly I'm being quiet and studying.
we have dharma teachings from 9am - 11:30, tibetan class from 11:30 to 1, lunch at 1, root text/language class from 2:30 - 4, dinner at 6 and homework.
I am actually beginning to be able to spell which in Tibetan means that you look at the prefix letter, the root letter, the superscribed letters, the vowel, the suffix and the post-suffix letters and come up with a short sound, perhaps 5 or 6 letters may make up the sound "kye".
We don't actually have any scheduled practice time probably because everyone is doing different practices. I do sitting meditation before the talk in the morning and I walk kora around the stupa in the late afternoon reciting Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso's perfect purity chant. Sometimes I sit for a while before I go to sleep after I do my homework if I'm not shivering too much. I am grateful that my friend Laura said that I could use her belongings while I'm here and she isn't. She has a hot pot so I can make myself tea. The rooms are comfy enough but they are not heated or insulated and they are built on the north side of the hill...so it's cold.
Without all the normal opportunity for distractions I have found myself eating a lot more than usual. I know I usually eat once a day and that isn't normal, but three times a day AND I'm craving chocolate...which I rarely eat?!? One of the other students and I agreed that the mind will look for any potential distraction when the normal ones aren't available.
Mostly things have been good and I really like studying. The dharma talks are very rigorous so we have only made it through the title, the author's homage and intention, the translator's homage and the outline during the first 22.5 hours. The first day Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche the 4th gave us a Manjushri empowerment to help us with our studies. He's about 12 years old and has adorable chubby cheeks and glasses.
There is a woman in the program who has definitely been having a hard time with the academic nature of the program and it has become clear over the past week that her mind is very aggitated in general (she starts talking over Drupon Khenpo, our teacher, while he is lecturing and complaining that she is bored.) I don't know if she is going to continue in the program but she is definitely having some mental struggles and my heart goes out to her.
I wish I could post some pictures here but I don't have a paid livejournal account and I don't have time today to change that.
I got up early today and went to the Monkey Temple...it was nice but I live at a beautiful Gompa and I've seen so many temples and chortens and shrines. There weren't as many monkeys as I expected but I had a good walk and it is a trip to be back in the thick of Nepal because Pullahari is like a sanctuary and driving through the city is a re-education. I'm off to have lunch, gather some supplies, get a new book (I need a novel to take a break from the dharma...right now I'm reading This Precious Life by Khandro Rinpoche) and I'll hike back up to Pullahari.
I am so grateful that I have this opportunity to practice like this. I'm excited because I am going to be able to go to Colorado to finish the Shambhala Sacred Path in June. I need to register and look into plane tickets. I think I might just get a temp job for a little while when I get back to California so I can do that 10 day retreat and perhaps go to Seattle for a week to visit Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso.
I've been very engrossed in my activities at the gompa but it feels so clear and close to me how fortunate I am to have my beloved community and friends and how much love I have in my life.
Have a Heavenly Day!
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| Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
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8:00 pm - Heading In
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O.k. this is probably my last post for a week or so.
On Monday I went to Pastupatanath (I know I'm spelling that wrong.) It's the most important Hindu temple in Nepal. It was about a 25 minute walk and I just found my way with a tiny bit of help from an incomplete lonely planet map. The do public cremations there on the riverside. There were a few going on when I got there but I didn't go over in that direction. I preferred the back part of the grounds with many Shiva temples (Shiva lingams and cow statues everywhere.) It was much quieter and there were lots of monkeys running around. I ended up attracting a young Nepali guy named Progress, who was very slick and wanted to show me all around (not as a guide as a friend.) I prefer to explore alone because I can pay more attention, but he didn't want to leave and he was pretty funny so I hung out with him for about 30 minutes. He gave me his email and his number and wanted to give me a ride home on his motorbike. I declined and he said he would wait for my call. Ah a young Nepali player! It was kind of fun to get the attention although he made me laugh so hard that I became self concious because after all we were in a sacred site with cremations going on downstream.
I didn't make it to the monkey temple across town yesterday because I got caught up at Shechen talking to a French Canadian, Jean Marie, who is here working on a film about Mathieu Ricard (who I saw this morning.) Jean Marie is a musician and a member of Montreal Shambhala and we had a two hour chat and then decided to meet later and do "kora" around the stupa. We had dinner on at a rooftop restaurant after that and then walked around Bouda and the hysterical supermarket here (where you can buy food, shoes, clothes, ipods, rugs, and all sorts of things...it's a bit like the Longs Drugs on Pleasant Valley road that Joy refers to as "raver longs") We had a great time although he insisted to stop to buy a CD of this infernal "om mani padme hum" song that ever CD store blares all day long and then proceeded to try to give it to me. I told him I would prefer to wait until he remixes it. Now I have a new friend in Montreal!
This morning and went and sat in the gompa for 45 minutes...with the giant gold Buddha behind glass.
I did manage to walk up to Pullahari and it is beautiful! Way up in the hills with an incredible view, two stupas on a hillside and beautiful buildings and pathways. It takes over an hour to walk there and I must say that I have been so happy to have an actual hot shower for the past couple of days. I'm guessing the shower at Pullahari is going to be 'not cold' but after 3 weeks of occasional 'not cold' showers I haven't gotten used to them. I have to head up there this afternoon, because we have an orientation tonight. I'm a little nervous about being in such a quiet setting, but I'm sure it will have an interesting effects on me.
I'm almost finished with my book about Tenzin Palmo.
There are now scheduled power outages everyday and I think we are having a few unscheduled ones as well, but it's not really a big deal.
I just had a great and yummy lunch at the Yak restaurant for Amelie's birthday and her new friend Nicki from England came along. Nicky is a homeopathic doctor who will be working and researching at a clinic on the other side of Kathmandu but currently lives up near Pullahari. She said I could stop by her house if I want to get away.
Until I emerge next week, take care and enjoy yourselves!
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| Monday, January 7th, 2008
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10:08 am - A few more memories from the trek but I'm back in Boudha
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I keep remembering little things that I wanted to share, so I'll just keep adding them so I can read them a year from now and remember.
When we were in Muktinath there were some children at the guest house. Two lived there and one was a two or three-year old boy who was visiting. They were playing vigorously and I sat and listened to their giggles and squeals. There was an adorable playful puppy there also so I was just basking in the sun and view of the sky and mountains and the energy and playfulness of it all. The small boy was fascinated by me when I came down (probably because he thought I had candy) but he wanted to see in my bag. First I took out a tissue and gave it too him because his nose was running down his face. He wiped it and gave the tissue back to me...not that it really mattered because his hands and his face were literally caked with dirt; I'm sure he hadn't had his face washed in days. I showed him my camera and he loved pressing the buttons as children everywhere love to press buttons. I showed him the carabiner that was clipped to my bag and showed him how to take it off and put it on. I gave it to him and he struggled with it in his tiny hands. Hukum was watching us for a while and I looked at him and said "motor skills!" Eventually the little boy was able to master pressing down the clip and navigating the loop into the opening. Of course he was pleased and he did it a few more times and handed it back to me. Very good manners because I was sure he was going to want to keep it. A minute later he ran over to his friends pencil box and picked up the sharpener and hid it behind his back. I guess the manners were reserved for strangers.
The children here are definitely I highlight for me. I love watching and listening to them play so freely and they are really adorable, mostly they smile at me and aren't too terribly shy. It makes me feel a little less shy.
The puppy was equally fun. He was all bouncy but he didn't bark much at all. He would bite and me shoes and when I pressed my finger on his muzzle to say NO he would look up at me and be still. I tried to teach him how to fetch but there wasn't really time. I'm sure the Nepalis thought I was totally strange to be spending so much time playing with a dog, but I was having fun.
That night I met a guide named Sonam (good luck in Tibetan). He speaks English well and he used to live in a monastery so he was writing in classical Tibetan in my practice notebook (confusing me really.) He lives not to far from Boudha and when I met him again at the hot springs in Tatopani he gave me his cell phone number and said if I wanted to go to Bhaktapur or visit his little village outside Boudha I should give him a call.
The flight back from Pokhara yesterday was bumpy, but I like turbulence...it reminds me that I am not just sitting in a chair somewhere. Looking out the pilot's window of the tiny airplane going to Jomsom and watching the horizon in front of us go up and down with the plane's movements was great.
Anyway, I'm back in Boudha trying to decide what to do with my few days of freedom. Amelie's birthday is on Wed and she asked me to go to lunch with her and a friend. Maybe I'll head across town to the monkey temple today.
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| Saturday, January 5th, 2008
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10:28 am
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Well there is nothing quite like feeling alone when you have two people you can't communicate with following you around everywhere.
The trek was beautiful and it felt really good to get the work out but I had my very own Bengali Tea Boy with me (there is a story that when Atisha went to Tibet he heard that all the Tibetans were so kind that he brought with him an annoying Bengali Tea Boy so he would be able to have someone around to work with his irritation and practice...of course he didn't really need him because there were plenty of annoying Tibetans.)
Anyway, my guide was a terrible communicator and when I asked him questions or asked him to translate to the porter he would say 'yes, yes' and then ignore what I asked. He also added 30 minutes to our trek two of the 9 days because he went the wrong way. I can't blame my irritation on him though. I was feeling homesick and missing everybody right before New Year's eve. Having two people hovering around me at the guesthouses watching me eat and work on my Tibetan and asking me where I was going if I wanted to walk in the tiny village and Yet not being able to really talk or connect with them was making me feel all the more lonely. The entire trip was definitely an amazing way for me to watch how my mind works. On the 6th day we had a 4 hour uphill climb (a lot of the trails are laid out in flagstone and marble and you spend a lot of the uphill and downhill climbing high stone stairs) and at one point I was pushing myself and breathing hard as we got higher in altitude...but I was also stewing a little bit about Hukum's refusal to tell Laxmi where we were going to meet her after I asked him to twice, then I started to hyperventalate a little bit and I realized that I needed to stop pushing myself and chewing on my thoughts so I sat on a stone wall and meditated for 15 minutes.
I had a lot of crazy dreams while I was up there. I wish I had taken the time to write them down but we were on the trail by 7:30 each morning. A lot of the dreams were bloody or suspense-filled and I'm not sure what that was about...sometimes I would wake up thinking that I was dreaming wrathful bardo visions.
I don't want it to sound like it was a bad journey because I saw lots of amazing things when I could look up from the trail and not trip on a rock.
I loved having the pony caravans go by all day with their bells jingling. Most of the ponies looked like they were in fairly good shape but it's definitely a hard life for them. I saw lots of yaks, chickens with their chicks, goats with their kids, cows and waterbuffalo. The Lonely Planet refers to the Annapurna Trail as the Apple Pie trail because it's served in many guesthouses (the village of Marpha is an apple orchard) but I think it should be called the dung trail.
Up in the Mustang area, there are women spinning yak wool as they sit in the path with their neighbors and children. Women sit outside their homes in the sun and weave Tibetan style cloth. Children play cricket or make toys out of old bicycle wheels. Three year olds parade around with their infant siblings on their back in a sling...it's funny watching a baby carry around a baby. On the fourth day, my crappy guest room had a laminated picture of Niagra Falls on the wall!??! On the 5th day we got to Tatopani, which means hot water, and I had a beautiful lodge room that opened into a garden with oranges, lemons, hibiscus, and pointsetta...a path lead to a stone gate where stairs decended to the river's edge. About two hundred yards from there were the hotspring pools on the riverside. It wasn't quite hot enough for my liking but my legs and back were very happy. It was nice to be out of the city but even in the villages people prod you to come into their store and try to convince you to buy or barter with them. One day two 11-year old girls in their school uniforms asked me a question on the trail...Hukum said they wanted me to take their picture. I did and when I showed them the pictures they started yelling at me insisting that I give them money...perhaps I am mean but I looked at them and showed them as I deleted the photos. Every peice of literature put out by the Conservation agency says not to give begging children anything...it's annoying sometime but every once in a while the really little ones saying "Allo! Sweets?" is really adorable.
The landscape itself was really diverse as we moved along. First we were in a high desert above the treeline mostly, then we were in very wide sandy arroyo for an afternoon. It was incredibly windy and dusty the third afternoon. Slowly we came down into a pine and spruce forest that reminded me a lot of the Sierras. Then it got lush and rhododendums were everywhere. We ascended again and it was rocky and colder and mostly with mostly brush instead of trees. I made a video on New Year's day with
Annapurna in the backround, when I get back to Kathmandu I'll see if I can post it somewhere.
I've been back in Pokhara for two days and I read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and I'm almost finished reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I have The Kite Runner and I think I'm going to get A Cave in the Snow and The Life of Pi. I should be practicing my conjunct consonants for Tibetan class, but I've got the regular letters almost down. More tomorrow before I leave for Kathmandu.
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12:25 am - Trekking continued
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I can only really stand to be in this internet place for an hour at a time...even though the red winged swallows that fly around inside the shop are cute.
So a little more about the trek. There were not very many people trekking so I didn't really meet many people. I hung out with a woman from Holland and her dad a bit and a man from Korea and his porter/guide trekked with us one day and we went up to Poon Hill to watch the sun rise in the view of six peaks the next morning at 5am.
I spent a good amount of time doing this chanting practice that Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche gave us two years ago and it was good practice because there are 108 verses and three versions of the main part of the chant so I really need to memorize the words for the 108 verses. I'm pretty good up to about 80 now.
Watching all the porters go by with humungous loads on their back and a strap on their forhead makes my neck hurt. Everyone carries everything this way, large cone shaped baskets filled with just about anything and everything, huge bundles of bamboo or grasses and they are all running up and down these rocky hills with flip-flops on! It clearly has some serious effects though because so many of the old people are very stooped over and I passed some old woman who only came up to my waist...Nepali people are generally short but not that short. I got to watch a man in his yard weaving one of these amazing cone shaped baskets. I also got to see a farmer in his field plowing with an ox! The villages high in the hills were often a maze of stone-paved alleyways; all the houses and shops are connected and there are stone walls anywhere there isn't a building...they are structured this way to be a windblock from the winds off the peaks.
Since I have been back in Pokhara I have mostly been sitting in cafes reading and walking around town. Yesterday I met a Tibetan woman selling crafts from her backpack; there are lots of women doing this but Tenzin was really sweet and talkative. She talked to me while I was eating my breakfast in a garden and when I was finished I climbed over the wall and sat on the lake's edge with her. We talked about dharma, our families, politics in Nepal, the Tibetan situation, the nature of a happy life and the crafts she had. I bought a few pieces and we talked some more before I went to leave...she then gave me a bracelet as a gift. It was lovely.
I've been thinking about renting a boat and rowing around on the lake for an hour or so, but it's overcast today and I just feel like it would be more fun if I had someone to go with. I really like rowing but the lake is really still and I feel like it would be nice to have someone to sit with out on the water. I have really been wanting to go horseback riding because there are so many horses here and I haven't been on a horse in 5 years, but I don't think there is anywhere that will just let you rent a horse and go and I don't really want to go with a guide just by myself.
I guess certain things feel more comfortable for me to do when I am alone than others.
I'm debating about buying a thanka painting that I saw last night. It's $100. It's a kalachakra mandala and it's in a light color pallette with clouds, water and 4 of the auspicious symbols in the corners. I don't even know how I would transport it everywhere, plus I could probably save the money and come back to Pokhara in March and go paragliding.
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| Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
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11:26 am - Earth, Water and Wind
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I arrived in Pokhara on the 24th after flying in a tiny plane with some Japanese tourists who where really funny. The girl sitting next to me kept wanting grab my arm because she was afraid of the turbulence but she was too shy so she kept holding her hand out next to my arm. I found out when I got to my hotel that I didn't make it on the flight to Jomsom on Christmas day so I will be flying up on Wed (which gives me another day for my lungs to clear...I'm still coughing and wheezing at night.) I'll be fine; I just wish I had remembered to bring some Ephedra tea.
Pokhara is a welcome change from Kathmandu it's a shore town on a lake. The air is a bit better and the traffic is better and people are less pushy. I met my guide (Hukum) and my porter (Lakshmi). They seem sweet, kind and a bit shy; Lakshmi doesn't speak English because she just arrived at Chhetri sisters 6 months ago from a remote village. The owner tells me that Hukum is well educated but he's a bit hard to understand and Dicky says that makes him a bit shy. Dicky (one of the Chhetri Sisters) is all about training and giving opportunity to young Nepalis especially women. I don't have a female guide because all the senior female guides are getting ice climbing training from some Poles this week. The whole town is excited for this opportunity for young women to become not just trekking guides but mountaineering guides! The sisters also have a training center to teach young Nepali women handicrafts and they also have a children's home. I am definitely glad I spent a little more money to go with this company and I feel like my money is not just being spent on an adventure for me but in some small way contributes to the future of some of these young people. Dicky asked me to be very communicative with Hoku and Lakshmi in order to insure that I enjoy myself and so they have the opportunity to communicate well, develop confidence and become more professional. It's easy to go for long walks here and I had a good conversation with a cute Irish lad at dinner last night. More after I return....
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| Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
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10:02 am - Rambling
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Yesterday I walked and walked. First I went to Durbar Square in Kathmandu and I just wandered down all the adjoinging streets. I ended up walking up to Thamel and then back to the square. I took some pictures but for the first two hours or so I didn't see any other westerners so it felt a little ostentatious for me to be busting out my digital camera and snapping photos while people go about their day.
I met a young man in Thamel who walked me to the bus station. His name is Rakesh and he is a tour guide as well as a student getting his bachelor's degree in management. He was really nice and seemed genuinely interested in having a real conversation with someone from the US. I'll email him when I get back from Pokhara.
Back in Boudha in the afternoon I had lunch in a terrace restaurant that looks over the great Stupa. It was warm and sunny and I watched a family from Holland have lunch, a group of nuns drinking tea and giggling, and a young couple bickering (thye were very amusing) while I practiced writing Tibetan letters. After that I tried to find Pullhari again to no avail, but man did I get in a hike. I hiked way up into the hills and looked down over the city. It was a lot like California up there. Slate and clay soil. Many plants in the catnip family, mugwort, liapantis (sp?) and many other similar plants, plus all the smog below.
On my way down, a group of boys on three motorcycles stopped and asked if I wanted a ride down. Ha! Artyom if you are reading this, do you remember me on the back of your bike? These kids wanted to know if I wanted a ride down a rocky hillside path on a bike with two other people and no helmet, not really my style although I felt like I missed an interesting opportunity by saying no. Oh well.
One more night at Shechen. I met a woman named Brigit at breakfast this morning. She is a doctor volunteering at the clinic there for a bit. She gave me some good information. I hope to see her again before I leave. She says that Mattieu Ricard is around. Tomorrow afternoon to go trekking for 10 days in the freezing cold. Flying up to 9,000 ft and hiking to 11,000 feet the first day. Pray I don't get altitude sickness.
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| Thursday, December 20th, 2007
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6:27 pm
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Wed night I was walking around the stupa after dark and a monk came up and asked me where I am from. I said NY (it's the easiest answer) then he told me that he lives on 77th St in Manhattan. His name is Tenzin Kalsang and we chatted for a while (he is a Gelugpa monk; which means he follows the Dalai Lama.) We ended up doing "kora" (walking around the stupa) and then he was running late with lots of bags so he asked if we could meet in the morning and I if I could hold on to a few of his bags. He came Thursday morning around 9:30am and took me to breakfast at a Tibetan restaurant. He's been a monk since he was 10 and he is 37 now. He lives in NY most of the year but spends 4 or 5 months in Dharmsala and Nepal each year. Plus his sponsors and friends send him all over to teach and talk. He lives a blessed life really. He left for Dharmsala today.
I moved from Hotel Padma to Shechen Monastery's guest house today. The room is not as nice and I don't have a phone but it's cheaper and there is a lovely garden to sit in. I also took the plunge and bought a plane ticket to Pokhara. I fly on Monday and hopefully I will be trekking on Christmas day. I am going to go with an outfit called Chetri Sisters because it will cost me $30 a day for a guide AND a porter and they specialize in treks for women. They also have a hotel in Pokhara and they will pick me up at the airport. There has been some snow in Jomsom so the flights are not flying everday but the gentleman from Chetri Sisters said it would be better to fly to Jomsom and trek down (and he assures me the altitude shouldn't be a problem.) I'm spending a lot more money on this than I anticipated but I'm here it would be silly not to do it. So I fly on the 24th and my return flight is for the 6th (because I really don't know how long this is going to take, but I can change the flight if I want to come back earlier.)
I walked up to the hills yesterday (getting lost mostly) but I made it to Kopan Monastery but I still can't figure out how to get to Pullahari. I think I'm going to have to take a cab to find out how to get there. Walking the streets is such a trip. There is garbage lying around, people are pumping water from PVC pipes in gutters, there are huge houses on the hills as well as little wooden stalls that are stores. Many of the children are filthy dirty; everyone blows their nose out on the sidewalk and there are cell phones everywhere. Oh yes and you can get Masala flavored Lays potato chips at every little wooden food stall.
One thing that is becoming more clear to me is that Water is going to be The issue of the 21st century.
Being alone all the time with very little social interaction is starting to work on my mind a bit. I was actually bored for a little while yesterday. I can't remember the last time I was bored. It didn't last long though...I started practicing writing the Tibetan alphabet and learning the sounds. My practice paper looks pretty funny. I can't wait for the monks to make fun of my letters.
Today, I got an email from a friend who is traveling and his mother passed away unexpectedly this week. He seems to be o.k.; he's an incredible person. I only mention this here because it reminded me to be grateful and to be generous with my love.
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| Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
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4:32 pm - From Doing to Being
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I have been going to bed at 6 or 7pm and waking up at 6am (I wake up in the middle of the night and read a bit.) AND, I am just realizing that I don't have a job for the first time in 11 years. I am also realizing that I don't have to make this trip into a project if I don't want to. I can feel the slow transition...but it's still slow, I am trying to figure out where I am spacially in the city (because I live here now) and what I need to take care of. I registered at the Embassy and Lisa Wild's friend Amelie and I went out today and she showed me the place to get the best rate for money, a good restaurant for Nepali food, she got me a good deal on gear for my trek, introduced me to her travel agent and walked me around Boudha so I could find a cheaper hotel. I will probably move to Shechen monastery which is $11 a day including breakfast (and it's quiet!)
My hotel now is right at the Stupa so all day right outside my door (especially in the morning at sunset) there are 100's of Tibetans circumnabulating the stupa, clicking their malas (prayer beads), doing prostrations and socializing. It's a wonderful way to wake up in the morning and do some practice. I'm working on a practice that I received from Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamsto Rinpoche two years ago.
I thought I would be able to walk to Central Kathmandu from here but the roads are winding, narrow, rocky, are not named or marked and I would probably get lost even though the walk is only 3 or 4 miles. It costs about 3.50 to take a taxi each way and today Amelie showed me how to take the mini bus which costs about .25 but you are jammed like sardines in a minivan and I am still not sure I wouldn't get lost once I get down to Central Kathmandu.
Yesterday I walked about 2 miles from the Embassy to Thamel to try to orient myself (even though when I asked for directions at the embassy the police officer told me I couldn't walk to Thamel it was "too far".) During my walk I decided I will definitely not be eating meat while I'm here as I got a glimpse of the "meat markets" which are by the side of the road, open air in the dust, beef, whole chickens and whole fish lying on wooden tables out in the sun. Yum!
I am not sure about the trek to Annapurna right now. I would have to leave by Friday or Saturday and the flight to Pokara is about $100 more than I anticipated. Also the flights out of Jomsom have been spotty this week because it has been snowing. I have a little tickle in my sinuses today so hopefully I will have more clarity about this tomorrow. I talked to Hal & Gail's friend Charles yesterday briefly and he said he might know another person who wants to do this trek right now and he might be able to coordinate something. If not, I will probably pick a hotel in Pokara, fly there, see how I feel about doing the Jomsom trek, how easy it is to arrange and how much it will cost me. If there are too many obstacles, I'll trek to Tatopani (which is only 5 days or so) and sit in the hotsprings when I get there (I know about amoebas so you don't have to warn me.)
It was good to hang out with Amelie today and I think she liked having a westerner to talk to as well (she teaches at a monastery and is with Tibetan monks all the time.) Yesterday I was definitely feeling the pinch of having no one to really connect with for a week except for a 1/2 hour or so with Elizabeth and Richard at Wongdhen. It's going to continue to be an interesting journey that bit.
Well that's all for now. It's beautiful here and somewhat dirty (but a lot less dirty than Delhi.)
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| Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
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9:00 am - 109 Days
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While working on my budget I realized that I will be on Asian soil for 109 days...the number of beads on a Mala (prayer beads). There are 108 plus one for space and gratitute for the practice. We will see where I am on my 109th day.
23 hours of travel from my parent's door to the door of Wongdhen Guest House
Delhi - I stayed in the Tibetan Refugee colony which is a maze on the outskirts of Dehli, someone on the street said "that is not a good place" but it feels like India more than central Delhi: stands lining the roads leading up to the colony and the narrow alleyways of the colony, dogs lying everywhere and barking and fighting at night, cows in the middle of the road. Behind my guest house is a slow brown river and on its shore are homes made of thatch, tarps and scraps of wood. There are plotted gardens all along the shore and conical hay stacks. The children play in the dirt and in the evening women carry great bundles on sticks on their heads for firewood.
Delhi seems so homogenous to me (I'm know I am clueless about the ethnic differences that are present) but I am used to NY and SF with people from all over the world walking around speaking many languages on the street. Here I am a spectacle (no, not for the usual reasons) simply because I am white. People stare at me on the metro and giggle to one another, some people come over to say "hi" or "what country?" and when I respond run away giggling. I don't mind being a specimen so much, but constantly being approached because people believe I have money was tiresome. The other day three bicycle rickshaw drivers started fighting when they all approached me and I had to just walk away. I also had a woman approach me to tell me about the school she teaches in but she didn't actually tell me anything; she simply pinned a paper flag to my coat and insisted that I give her 1000 rupees. I've had children follow me for blocks begging or performing. I do sense irritation from some people when I don't buy what they are offering or give them what they are asking for. I've been on the receiving end of cultural anger before and while I'm fine accepting it and not delving into some form of self-absorbed guilt...the whole exchange makes me tired after about 5 hours of it over and over again.
It's a shame because I can feel my self closing down a bit over the course of the day. I want to connect and stay open but I end up going back to my room both days and reading.
I met a sweet couple in the restaurant at my hotel. Elizabeth is Dutch and Richard is Irish and they bought me dinner on the 15th. They are volunteering for a conflict transformation organization and spent a month in Dharmsala. They were in Delhi for a conference with Indian and Pakistani youth in dialogue. I love what they are doing!
I went to the National Musuem and saw sculpture, artifacts, coins and art from 3000 BC to the present. The collection was pretty good considering how run down the museum is. Unexpectedly going through the Buddhist Art room, I walk up this magnificent 40" pure gold Thai Stupa under glass. I read the plaque and it was a gift to the Indian National Museum from the Thai government. In the tall spire are the Relics of the Buddha (at least 8 bone shards)!
Well if someone had warned me I would have taken my shoes off outside the room. I did prostrations and circumnabulated the stupa a few times. I was really beautiful.
I had a dream on Saturday that I was playing in Kathmandu with some kids and this one little boy was really sweet and we were having a really great time. When I said I had to go he looked dissappointed. I said I had to go to a monaster and he asked "which one?". When I told him Phullahari, his face lit up and he said "that's my monastery!"
I looked at him again and I thought, 'oh you are the fourth Kontrul Rinpoche, you look older than the picture I saw of you.'(In the picture on the website he is about 5 or 6.) I told him I was staying for 2 months and we were both happy. Pretty cool dream, huh?
I am at Hotel Padma in Boudha now and I had a hot shower for the first time since last Thursday. My hotel is right next to the Stupa and everyone was circumnabulating this morning and lighting yak butter lamps. I like it here but my shyness is really overwhelming me at the moment (I know, I know you don't believe I am shy but I am.)
Observations:
* Delhi driving makes the Bay Area traffic look like a Drum Corps and Kathmandu driving makes Delhi traffic look like synchonized swimming (at least they have lanes and lights in Delhi even if no one follows them.)
* I saw a man on his bike with his Langur (monkey) riding on the back holding on to his shirt (watch your tail in the spokes, dude!)
* I want to know where the cows come from in Dehli because there are no Bulls roaming around (that would be scary)...do people bring them there from farms and drop them off?
* The side of an outdoor open air stand in Delhi advertizes "MEDICINES, SURGERY, COSMETICS, GENERAL ITEMS" ahhh, surgery? Well you can get a shave and haircut outside right next to this stand, so why not take care of that pesky mole while your at it, I guess????
* I love momos (steamed Tibetan dumplings) and I think I had yak butter this morning and it was yummy!
* Not being able to speak any Hindi or Nepali feels to me like I have a handicap, everyone I interact with has to accomodate me in some way. Ugh.
Off to try to figure out if I can make a trek or not. Love from 7000 feet!
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