Breathing Deep on Vulture's Peak: Rajgir/Rajagaha (and Nalanda)

Rajgir was the first place Nick and I settled down for a few days and gave up the rather intense pace at which we had been moving.  We needed to recover from our illnesses, get our practices kick-started once again and I assured him that Rajgir was a far better place to accomplish those goals than Varanasi.  Old Rajgir, especially as seen from Vulture's Peak (the setting of numerous important discourses delivered by the Buddha and home to Ananda's and Sariputta's Bodhi caves) is a hilly, beautiful town, decorated with Hindu, Buddhist and Jain shrines and temples, and is usually rather quiet...usually.  This time however, in keeping with the preceding few days (or the preceding couple months for me) it was not quiet.  There was indeed a Hindu holiday or festival of some sort during which it was deemed appropriate to blast, sometimes deafeningly, from more than a dozen loudspeakers strapped to telephone poles all over town, swamiji's personal conversation with the Maharaj ("Great King") or Mata ("Mother"...I believe usually a reference to the goddess Durga) from 5 or so in the morning to 11 or so at night.  (Got to give a guy credit for stamina.)  I have often let the noise get to me on this trip...it has really changed from the last time I was here.  It seems like the culture that did so much to develop the contemplative, silent sciences is systematically destroying one's ability to find a silent locale, conducive to contemplation and investigation.  That being said, I have been learning, though it isn't always easy to see, tolerance and patience from the discomfort/dukkha that arises from my own frustration...as well as a deep appreciation for quiet times when I can hear the leaves in the wind.  It also reminds me of how much of my life I have spent "loud-ing" over others hoping that the volume of my voice would make the words or views they were wedded to more legitimate.  Perhaps reflecting on this dynamic would be more skillful than complaining...or fantasizing about snipping electric cables.  

In any case...Nick and I got out the ear plugs when we needed to sleep and were generally OK with the noise after a while.  We also escaped up the hills to a much quieter Vulture's Peak, where we sat twice in Ananda's Bodhi Cave and chanted with some Thai monks and pilgrims.  Over and over again they chanted the qualities of the Buddha, "Iti pi so bhagava, arahan, samma-sambuddho...",in a seemingly primordial tone and rhythm that revealed the OM for a short time.  Nick and I are working on the Pali now so that he can join in fully next time).  We also took the long, steep uphill climb to Saptaparni Cave, home (theoretically) to the site of the first council, where five hundred arahants (there's no way 500 dudes fit in that cave, hence theoretically) are said to have standardized the Pali cannon.  We also spent some time sitting in Venuvana/Veluvana (the Bamboo Grove), the site of the first Buddhist monastery.  We hitched a ride on a tractor (the driver of which wouldn't accept any money from us...a rare...really rare thing in this part of the world in my experience), ran into the bushes to get away from the Indian police, rode the "famous" (slash locally known) Rajgir rope...ski-lift thing, up to the Shanti Stupa/peace pagoda and met some cool people along the way. 

We also took a day trip to the ruins of Nalanda University, the first Buddhist University (roughly fifth to thirteenth centuries CE...though I'm still trying to figure out how this timeline works since Nagarjuna, a significant Buddhist philosopher, founder of the Madhyamika school and formalizer of the all important notion of shunyata ["emptiness/void"] as viewed by the Mahayana branch of Buddhism, who lived in the second and third century CE was supposed to have served as the head of the University for a stint...I'll have to look more into that in the future).  These ruins were far more impressive than I was expecting them to be.  (You get used to Buddhist ruins being a pile of red brick with a sign that says something about destruction during the Mugal invasion in the 13th century...but at Nalanda they have done a lot of work to unearth and, in a limited way, reconstruct enough so that you get a sense of the size and significance of the campus.)  This University was the Alma Mater of such big Mahayana names as Atisha, Naropa, Padmasambhava, Xuanzang, Shantarakshita, Chandrakirti and on.  Nalanda was also the birth and death place of the Buddha's disciple, foremost in wisdom, Shariputta and one of the temples on campus is said to be a reliquary for this great historical figure.  Nick and I did a short sit facing the temple from within one of the ruined cells.  It was certainly a worthwhile excursion. 

There is a great deal more to say about Rajgir and about how the practice has continued to develop since the retreat and my re-entry into India, but its time to get back to our ashram and the internet spot is closing down soon.  Posts on our four days in Bodhgaya, site of Siddhatha Gautama's Awakening to Buddhahood, our travels through Ayodhya, the birthplace and setting for much of the Ramayana (though to tell you the truth, its a pretty unexceptional place nowadays and I probably won't write that much about it...it only remains special because it reminds me of a wonderful summer studying Sanskrit with my two beautiful friends Aaron and AJ), and hopefully a part II of my retreat haikus will be forthcoming.  I make no promises...we are doing a lot of moving around again.  Be good and be well. Thank you for participating. 

P.S. I played cricket for my first time today (in Ayodhya)...we won...I still don't really know how or why...but I definitely scored a lot of runs and bowled reasonably well.  I will continue trying to decode this game. 

P.P.S. Oh...and I am doing pretty well healthwise. Thank you for asking :)

Catching Up and Slowing Down: From Pokhara, Nepal to Rajgir, India...almost

There is something profoundly uncomfortable and (I suspect...eventually) radically liberating about this journey and this self not being the ones that I had previously envisioned.  There are moments when I can let the old mirages go and just be with what is really here, but the truth is that those moments have not made up the majority of my travels this time around.  Even on good days it often feels like I am staring at a Monet from three inches out.  It may be that from some angle, from some perfect distance (or time), there are indeed excellently executed water lilies, floating beneath a Japanese bridge in some serene garden, but, for the most part, I see only a collision of color.  I have always wanted to see myself and to be seen by others as standing tall on the other side of some series of challenging events so that I can look back with my 20/20 hindsight and say, "Ah, yes.  I see now what I could not before and now I understand how it all fits together.  I have grown in such and such ways and this is the wisdom I can offer."  But of course, sometimes you actually have to be in it...you can't always be just beyond...and I am in it.  I do not know what the implications of this trip will be for the rest of my life, for my relationships, for the future of my practice...I don't have answers and I am learning the hard way to let that be OK.  Even at that simple task...I don't know...success is difficult to measure right now. It is good that I have remembered and actual kind voices whispering in my ear.  It is also good that I have been traveling for the last 12 days with my Dhamma brother, Nick, who is filled with wonder, energy and devotion...and who is learning, sometimes the hard way, about this magical, crazy, filthy, beautiful mess called India.

I don't have very much time and am desirous of catching you up to where I am currently on the trip so that I'm not living in the past any more than I have to.  Plus, there are only another two weeks to this part of the journey so best not to lag. If I have any more time in the coming days I may try to go into more detail, but the chances of that are pretty slight considering how much moving around we are planning to do in that time.  It has become painfully obvious that the pace and general atmosphere of this trip is fundamentally different than the last and that it is silly to hold myself to the same standard of sharing my experience on this medium with the same degree of detail if it inhibits engagement with my immediate environment.  Four years ago I was on a seven month journey with no retreats longer than 11 days and I was able to settle into towns, cities, and temples, get my bearings and then share some of my experiences. This time around is different in so many ways.  Forty out of ninety days was occupied by a single retreat and I am on a much less leisurely schedule overall...but I still find myself wanting to use this medium to stay connected, to share some of the difficult and fragile moments of doubt and grace, and to sort through these experiences and generate/discover some coherence...but again, I will have to be patient.  OK enough of that for now.  Here are some rough brush strokes of the last couple weeks.

Pokhara, Nepal: Healing the Body, Hunting the Sunrise

"Perhaps the truth depends upon a walk around the lake." -Wallace Stevens

"Strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky are next to mountains anyway." -John Mayer

I had been told that Pokhara was the most beautiful place in Nepal...and it is as far as I've seen.  It was a place of notable physical and psychological healing for me after the retreat.  I have always loved being near water, especially lakes, and Pokhara, the starting point for many of the treks for which Nepal is famous, is situated on the lovely lake Phewa. When the skies are clear it has a spectacular view of numerous Annapurna peaks. On my first full day there, I woke up at 3:30 so that I could walk the seven or so kilometers up to the peak of Sarangkot to watch the sun rise over some very misty Annapurnas.  It didn't matter very much that I didn't have the perfect, ultra-clear view of the mountains...it was perfect for me at that time.  I had been in need of a tiring, sweaty climb toward something beautiful for a long while.  Apparently though, that first climb wasn't enough, because that afternoon I decided that I would spend hours hiking through (and getting completely lost in) the woods and up the hill on the other side of the lake to the Shanti Stupa (Peace Pagoda).  This was where I felt the first inspiration/faith of its kind in quite some time.

This part of the trip (around Pokhara) also included a wonderful day of fasting, the intentional allowance of music back into my life, a sunrise solo rowboat ride through fog so thick I wasn't sure I'd be able to find my way back to the dock, the discovery of a paradisaical guest house a few meters above Rupa Tal (Lake Rupa) that I plan to visit and actually stay at next time I am around those parts, and the reintroduction of David Whyte's poetry and teachings into my immediate frame of reference...all of which were multi-layered and beneficial experiences that deserve more attention and detail than I can offer them now...but I wanted to communicate them in an abbreviated form now...perhaps for later reflection...I'm not sure...perhaps I'm just trying to piece together the recent past and link it up with the present in some conscious way.

Lumbini II

I had already spent longer in Kathmandu, Mirge and Pokhara than I had previously expected.  By the time I made it back to Lumbini I was about a week behind "schedule."  The thing is, I had originally planned on volunteering for this period (about 12 days), but was told when I had first arrived at the retreat center that they weren't in need of volunteers at present and that spending more time on retreat was the best thing. I had mixed feelings about this in the period following the retreat when I was in Mirge and Kathmandu, but thought that it was perhaps a good opportunity to take care of "unfinished business."  However, it became clear soon after my arrival back at the center that I was not ready to settle back into retreat mode...at least not in that place.  I had done some healing, but was far from healthy as I saw it and feared a decline.  The setting was still far too loaded...I was too raw, too fast-paced, and I was unwilling to again surrender my freedom to eat what and when I wanted after all the complications with the first round.  In addition to all this, my first full day back in Lumbini, when I was trying to wrap up affairs on the phone and the internet, I discovered that my hospice patient, Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NVC and a significant teacher for me, and a distant uncle had all passed away...a cluster of death left me even more raw and emotional than I had already been.

I felt like a whirlwind...in a...well, in a meditation center and I didn't think it was fair to the other retreatants to stick around if I wasn't able/willing to put in an appropriate degree of effort and focus on the practice...and, the truth is that I wasn't.  When I told Sayadaw that the first round had been, "traumatic," for lack of a better word, he sort of chuckled in his way and essentially said, "Of course.  It is always traumatic when the Self to which we cling is threatened or discovered to be a phantom."  This was a reference to the phases of practice where I had had some pretty jarring experiences around identity and Self/self.  And while I'm sure that Sayadaw did have a point...I did not perceive adequate support either from the environment or from the technique...so I cut short round two/stuck to my original schedule.  I was invited to come back for another retreat when I had the time and space and felt ready.  We shall see.

Saying goodbye to Sayalay was difficult...we talked a little bit about the...perhaps "complexity" is a good word...of doing "dry Vipassana," (meditation practice geared toward insight/wisdom cultivation, but without first engaging in shamatha calming/concentration practice that sharpens, stills and gladdens the mind), which I likened going into surgery with dull instruments...You can get the job done...but why not use the sharp ones?  We spoke about this for some time and she seemed to understand my point and perhaps she saw into what I needed in terms of a tailored practice.  She encouraged me to do some shamatha work with the four guardian meditations/contemplations (1. Recollecting the qualities of the Buddha, 2. Metta/goodwill/lovingkindness practice, 3. Contemplating the "foulness" [cultivating a realitstic view] of the physical body, and 4. Contemplating the inevitability of death).  When the conversation came to a close, I could swear she had tears in her eyes, but I don't really know why...we both seemed to be on the edge of some deep, sweet sadness, the air seemed thick with it...I don't know what to make of it.

There were also some lovely little buds to this period of the trip that were allowed to blossom once I had suppressed the shaming about not being a perfect, die-hard practitioner who would "retreat it up" whenever  the opportunity arose...when I allowed myself to escape all the self-imposed pressure to be something more when I returned.  I made my first (ever) police friend and rode around on the back of his motorcycle for a couple hours across two days.  We visited a number of the temples in the peace garden together (pictures on Facebook) and he took me through a local village briefly.  (For any American women who might be reading this, he is very interested in marrying internationally.)  In any case, I was glad to leave Nepal and to greet Mother India once more.


Kushinagar

I will not say much about Kushinagar, one of the four major pilgrimage sites for Theravada Buddhists, site of the Buddha's physical death and mahaparinibbana ("great and final unbinding") and my first real stop after leaving Nepal.  If you would like to read a little bit about the significance of the place and about my experience last time you can click on this link:

http://pemacitta.blogspot.in/2010/12/one-last-fabrication-kushinagar.html

Varanasi and Sarnath: If Everything is Sacred, Nothing is Sacred

So, I had planned to head North to Shravasti and spend a couple days in the quiet town and pilgrimage site, but after getting in contact with Nick, we both expressed our desire to meet up early so I headed South to Varanasi instead, where he had a guest house booked, in the hopes of making it back up to Shravasti later on in the trip.  A chunk of the following entry describes the city in a bit more detail: http://pemacitta.blogspot.in/2010/11/tension-and-void-agra-and-varanasi.html . Varanasi is still a noisy, bizarre, cow-dung-filled holy town.  Not much has changed in that regard.

Nick and I spent some time relating a little bit of our meditative adventures thus far to each other.  We were both in need of reality checks via alternate perspectives and also benefited from being in the presence of a familiar, fellow practitioner. I think that we helped each other get back on track (though as I stated earlier, I don't know what track or destination I am currently running on and toward...but you get my meaning).  Additionally, Nick, after having been totally ripped off a number of times (happens to all of us here) was desperately in need of a few lessons on bargaining and assertiveness in India.  He has become aware of and is currently exploring his tendency toward the passive and hyper-trusting/naive (he is, after all, 18 and has never been outside the western U.S.) and I am occupying the alternate end of the spectrum by exploring a tendency, especially in this part of the world, toward the suspicious and aggressive.  It has been a mutually beneficial exploration, though disorienting for us both at times.  I worry that I am not the best role-model/teacher/friend all the time...especially considering my relationship to travel, food, relationships, the practice, etc at this delicate present state...but I have shared much of that with Nick and have realized that I can't do that to myself right now.  I need to work on being OK with what I've got to offer/share at this moment and be willing to accept the support and overall give-and-take nature that is part and parcel of any balanced friendship.  (ex tempore...I told Nick last night that he better come back in one piece since he had, as of late, become such a valuable friend.  Nick has seen me frustrated and tired, stressed and weak-willed, deliriously silly...and doing a ridiculously unmindful shake-if-off dance of fear when I thought that a lizard crawling on me was actually a giant and very fast-moving spider. We have supported each other through sickness at various points during our short time here together.  And, since I am at a time in my life where there are more than a few, perhaps too many, people who see me as being something more or better or whatever than I actually am...it is of unspeakable value to have people in my life who have had direct experience of my...I don't know...humanness.

I don't have much more time so here's the old post if you are interested: http://pemacitta.blogspot.in/2010/12/turning-of-wheel-sarnath.html

Almost made it to Rajgir...don't have it in me tonight.  Nick and I came from Rajgir to Bodhgaya...will spend one more night here and then head north toward Shravasti tomorrow night...but it will take a day or two to get there.  Thank you for reading along.  Thank you for your time and for your support.  I will try to write again when I have some downtime.  Be good and be well.

Sit Standing Here: A Retreat in Haiku, Part 1

Day 0
Gradual slowing
Grasshopper plays on my knee
Walking practice soothes

Day 1
Sharp swell of some vast, unknown sadness
Eyes like storm clouds shatter under the heavy burden
Forgot.  You don't hold water.  It flows.

Day 2
Shadow thoughts--Shaken.
Sayalay laughs at my fears.
I borrow wisdom.

Day 3
Morn: Joy--Mara's doubt seen in sadness.
Noon:   Withdrawal--into a green, affection-starved hiding.
Eve:  Hope--watching waves, the film burn up. (1)

Day 4
Slow learning patience
Through silent conversations
With electric pain.

Day 5
Names strip false power...
Old rage becomes new effort.
Elemental steps.

Each actions begins with intention.
"Phassa paccaya vedana paccaya tanha"
Catch it early and break the cycle. (2)

Day 6
And then, just like that--
Can't remember how to breathe.
Humble while drowning.

Day 7
I can't make it stay.
Learn to bring it back gently--
Nonviolent act.

Day 8
Faith shaken to root;
Only to offer ripe fruit,
The next rich moment.

Day 9
Gratitude stands guard
Against Mara's eighth army.
"Thank you" with each step. (3)

Day 10
"Be brave," she had said.
Did she see what was coming?
Crumpled heap.  Breath clears.

Day 11
Broken steps.
Vibrations begin.
Don't fight pain.

Day 12
A sea of blackness--
Vibratory horizons.
And yet...complacence.

Who is this
talker and viewer?
Bizarre ghost.

Day 13
Letting go of the secondary,
Hard attached to commentary and analysis.
"About is easier than "in it"

Day 14
Starting small.
Accept: Rise and Fall.
Rest follows.

Fifteen-year-old tension in belly--
Naive premonition of what release could stir up.
Vibrating soles on the Earth speak peace.

Day 15
Relaxed is nimble.
Strive and surrender.  Learn both.
Mapping fluid breath.

All important things,
Can be gleaned from observing
--the Breath and Footsteps.

Day 16
Learning trust from breath.
Reclined, the enso rises.
New life springs from void. (4)

"There is a body,"
Punctuates the walking path.
Simple is profound.

Still tracing sadness--
Chest, throat, eyes occupied...
Lingering...and gone...

Midnight Interlude
Homage and precepts greet the new year.
A general sense of well being as I sit again.
Gesturing to a year of bright faith.

Day 17
Ambushed by an itch...
Three-breath adhitthans--that's it.
Heat glows in the chest. (5)

Lunch: fear and craving.
Strong desire to escape.
Writing on the wall.

Day 18:
Five hinderances--alive and well.
Still plotting my way to a false freedom--dumb and blind.
Self forgiveness, a foreign language.

Heavy burden: Form
Mind is a tool, not a Self.
Posture slippery.

Day 19
Samsara: drowsy afternoon dream.
All pain is nyana-related if you can know it.
"This is your burning hand."  "Be here now." (6)

Two dozen
half-open lotus,
Scattered in the mist.

And then suddenly,
In depths of discouragement,
Metta harmonies.

Day 20
Don't hate the dukkha.
Sayadaw says that it means progress.
Patience and courage.

Appreciation with the hot sun.
But a familiar voice whispers self-doubt lullabies.
Still capable of a warm stillness.

Bonus
Geckos in my room.
I hope they eat the mozzies.
Not very buddhist.

(1) Mara (lit. "Death") is the embodiment of delusion and other obstructions to awakening in the Buddhist tradition and serves a role akin to, though in many ways very different from, the devil in the Christian context.
(2) "Based on (sense) contact, feeling (tone) arises, (based on feeling tone) craving arises." Or "Contact conditions feeling conditions craving." An abbreviated version of the sixth, seventh and eighth links in the chain of dependent origination.
(3) Mara's eighth army of ten is Conceit and Ingratitude.
(4) Enso (lit. "circle" in Japanese) is a symbol for awakening, the void and the cosmos in its entirety, and is a common subject of Zen calligraphy.
(5) Adhitthana is the Pali word for "composure" or may designate a period of determined practice.
(6) Nyana (spelled phonetically) means "knowledge" in Pali, but has specific significance for the Mahasi tradition, as it uses a progression of "insight knowledges" (as outlined in the Visuddhimagga and other commentaries) as a navigation device for development in the practice.

A Mirge Wedding

I have to admit that I was not expecting to experience such happiness upon returning to Mirge.  Much of the two months I spent in the village in 2010-11 were marked by sickness of one sort or another and an unshakable feeling of cold.  The lone wolf I often become when I travel also regularly rebelled against the overprotective/borderline-controlling manner in which the patriarch of my Nepali family sought to restrain me from wandering around the village, or at least keep me thoroughly chaperoned when all I wanted to do was go exploring on my own.  But Mirge is an idyllic, slow-paced village of terraced earth, tall bamboo and cute little baby goats, and there is only so long one can resist its beauty and charm. Almost as soon as I had arrived, I recognized how many of the nooks and crannies and people of the place had imprinted themselves onto my heart and memory.  Plus, I was there to support a friend, Surendra,  transition into what for him was/is a new phase of existence: married life. (And this time, due to the attention and energy the wedding preparations required, I was mostly free to move about the village solo if I wanted to...and did take advantage of that newfound freedom at various points :)

When I visited Laligurash Bright Future primary school (where I taught English, computers, music and general knowledge to grades 3, 4 and 5 in the winter of 2010-11), I got to see the few remaining students I knew from my time there, who mostly just smiled with shy embarrassment when I popped my head into their classroom.  I even ran into one of my old students, Sumitra (also the name of Surendra's sister...Nepal seems at times to be shy on names, maybe 85% start with "S" and most of those with "Su" meaning "good" in Sanskrit and Nepali [Su-mitra = "good friend"]), on the bus on the way to the village now that I think of it.  We both took a while, examining each other in short bursts in order to make sure that the other was who we thought before saying hello, so as not to embarrass ourselves.  A couple days later she and two of her little friends ended up escorting me on a walk up to the gompa/gomba (small temple-like structure where sacred images are kept) on the pretext of showing me some "natural beauty," but which seemed to have at least as much to do with determining my relationship status.

As for the wedding...actually before going into the details of the wedding, it's probably worth noting, for those of us that don't live in countries where marriages are arranged, that Surendra (the groom) and Sima (the bride) had only met in person once before the wedding.  Suren did tell me that they spoke everyday while he was in China, where he is studying for his MBBS degree (a medical bachelor's I think) so they got to know each other that way after Suren's family and Sima's mother (her father passed and her brother is studying abroad) decided it was a good match.  From my brief experience with Sima, a regal yet light-hearted woman, and from seeing them interact together at the wedding and when the three of us met for dinner in Kathmandu, I don't disagree.  (I'm no one to hate on the benefits of relying on phone conversation rather than in-person interaction in the early stages of a relationship...that's how Amanda and I spent most of our first year and I think it is part of the reason our communication and trust is as strong as it is.)  In any case, they seem to be doing well thus far.

Now for a little bit on the wedding. The first of the two and a half days of festivities of a Tamang (the caste to which Surendra and Sima belong) wedding occurs in the bride's village, which in this case was a roughly three hour walk or one hour bus/car/motorcycle ride down into the valley.  Originally, a whole gang of us, maybe between 1 an 3 hundred, were supposed to accompany the groom and his family down to the village, but there was a last minute change of plans due to some financial/logistical concerns about feeding and accommodating the whole crew, so, in the end, only a small contingent of eight or ten made the trek.  So, while I did get to hear the lamas chanting and the see the wrapping of a white ceremonial turban on Suren's head in the morning before he left, I missed him bowing to 500 or so people and many of the other components of the formal wedding ceremony.

There was a small dance party for those of us who stayed in Mirge.  The music consisted of roughly 6 songs played over and over again, one of which was Gangnam Style (spelling?), to which Sela, my Chinese roommate and also a former volunteer at the Laligurash Bright Future school, and I offered our mildly coerced rendition of the classic Korean dance...I didn't even know I knew the dance to that song...I think we were both surprised at our rather well-received performance.  In any case, it got the party started. For the next hour or so, two competing circles of young dancers that formed in what is normally a millet field, would take turns pulling me in and, when I would consent, holler, cheer and claim a short lived victory over their opponents.  It was certainly a different pace and tone from the mostly silent, slow-moving retreat environment I had left only days prior.  But I didn't spend a lot of time comparing the two.  In fact, relatively little of my time in Mirge involved formal practice--partially because of having a roommate, not being on my own schedule, visiting with Dot and Chris O'Brien (the driving financial forces behind Mirge's development over the last 14 years) and their daughter Sally (a friend and the one who pointed me toward the Laligurash school five or so years ago), participating in the wedding festivities, visiting the village...but mostly, I think my movement away from formal practice had more to do with two overlapping, though distinct mental fabrications: 1) this body, now featuring a growing rash across its left hand, which would later blister, in addition to the uncomfortable bloating and other GI symptoms, was enemy territory, was infected and frightening and my mind wanted nothing to do with it; and 2) which I can see somewhat more clearly now, is that I was indeed reeling--am still reeling--from the rather traumatic set of experiences that constituted much my retreat at Panditarama and was pushing the associated practices away, seeking solace in the mundane and momentary.  I plan to delve more deeply into this thought stream in the next post or the one after.  It deserves a higher caliber of attention and quality of articulation than I am able to offer it right now...better to avoid straddling too many horses at once.

The second day of festivities, which is when the party moved to Mirge, mostly involved Suren and Sima sitting in a Christmas light-wrapped booth built of bamboo and banana tree, accepting monetary gifts to offset wedding expenses, smiling for pictures, and receiving tikka (having milk-rice stuck to their foreheads...which I think Sima was pretty over by day's end...there's really only so much room on a single forehead).  Some villagers played traditional drums (video on Facebook), others danced to more contemporary music and still others spent the day cooking for the thousand or so guests that passed through that day.  About a dozen women, including Surendra's mother, Sipari, had been frying traditional ring-shaped bread for days in 14 hour stretches that was now being devoured [en mass].  (This segues into an observation I made that seemed to find agreement among the other outsiders.  The women of Mirge are its lifeblood.  [We can debate whether this is a universal or international truth another time.] The men plan, walk tall and have financial meetings over tea, but the women tote the gigantic baskets on their heads, do most of the farming, look after the children and animals, cook in the houses...wield the power in many ways.  It was explained to me that most of the men in Mirge eek by working as trekking guides, porters and cooks and are therefore, often away for stretches.  Therefore, the local community has learned to get by without them contributing very much as regards day-to-day life.  Anyways, I just found it interesting.

I spent a good chunk of my time in Mirge visiting and being toured around some of my old favorite places: a cemetery on a hilltop with an Amazing view where Surendra, his former friend Pramod, and I spent the better part of a day together four years ago...I think it was there that I really felt a trust-based connection (something very difficult to come by in Nepal in my experience) with Suren for the first time; a collection of stupas near a valley of rhododendrons; a collection of classic half white, half-ochre homes in a small pool of terraces, framed by tall stalks of bamboo; and of course, the Laligurash school where one class performed the daily-sung Laligurash anthem, based on a song that grade five and I wrote four years earlier...I was touched.  Dot, Chris, Sally and I were also taken to an intriguing place I had never before visited: a shamanic altar, a place of ritual sacrifice associated with the Hindu goddess Durga, consisting mostly of locally-crafted iron tridents ranging from a few inches (from the less affluent members of the community) to more than 6ft tall (from those who could afford it)-(pictures on Facebook).  The religious life of Mirge is a unique hodge-podge of Vajrayana (Tibetan/tantric) Buddhism (mostly in name and art rather than practice) and a shamanistic-Hindu mesh, of which animal sacrifices, a pretty significant "no-no" according to the Buddha's teachings, seem to be an integral part.  The people of Mirge call the jagari (shamanic priests) "jumping doctors" and, from what I heard, one of the ways they can tell who will become a jumping doctor is that potentials will start bouncing for no particular reason in class or wherever.  Interesting to think that in our culture, if you can't sit still in class, you're often given a diagnosis and put on Prozac, whereas in Mirge you're placed in a position of significant authority and are sought out for sage advice.  Culture is fascinating.

The long and short of it is that my five days in Mirge were overall a very enjoyable experience despite struggles with food and concerns about health.  I'm glad I could share a little bit of it here with you.

I apologize for the long pause between posts.  I sometimes feel like a host who, having invited you all to my birthday party, spends most of the time in his room.  But then I remind myself that that's not quite an accurate analogy here--this is not a birthday party, it is a journey of self-exploration for which I created space between graduate school and whatever comes next.  I did this in the interest of living a healthier, more compassionate and peaceful life, not so that I could keep an interesting and frequently updated blog.  And even if the analogy were accurate, true friends are interested not in how much time (or how many words in this case) I spend with them, but in growth and state of mind...the degree to which I am having a meaningful experience.  And for those of you who fit that bill, thank you for your support.

Oh, and health update so nobody's freaking out (Stacy and Dad): my hand, while ugly, seems to be healing, my digestion has improved, and, if the scale in the Kathmandu clinic was correct, I'm pretty much the weight I was when I left.  Feeling pretty good...a bit disoriented and sensitive still, but overall peachy :)

"Gently Returning"...Not Same, Not Different

Anicca vata sankhara
Upadavaya dhammino
Uppajitva nirujanti
Tesam vupassamo sukho

("All formations are impermanent.
They arise and pass away.
They cease to be even as they are arising.
Their stilling is happiness.")

-from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (The Great Discourse on the Final Unbinding/Cessation) and my new daily chant for the year of 2015

The forty fiercely quiet days of the retreat have come and gone and I thought it would be good let you know that I am indeed alive and kicking. Experiences from the retreat are quite fresh and I am still doing a lot of processing, so I won't share in much detail at this point.  What I would like to offer is my profound gratitude to all those who have supported this journey, the retreat, as well as my practice and growth--parents, biological siblings, teachers, benefactors, brothers and sisters in the Dhamma, and my incredibly resilient and encouraging partner, Amanda.  Any merit that has arisen with this wholesome work (i.e. generating peace in the world through cultivating peace in the heart and mind) is not mine, but ours together, and I watch it spread out among us with a smile on my face.

Regarding the retreat, I can tell you that, on the uncomfortable side, the retreat was largely about coming face-to-face with sadness, fear and, to a lesser extent, aggression and resentment.  Interestingly, according to Buddhist psychology, this constellation of mind states actually fits into a single category, the second of the five hinderances: ill will.  (The five nivaranas [hinderances] to jhana [meditative absorption] and pannya [wisdom/discernment] are 1. sense desire, 2. ill will, 3. sloth and torpor, 4. restlessness and remorse, and 5. doubt.)    Whereas contemporary western psychology sees fear as primary and anger, sadness and other "negative" or uncomfortable emotions as secondary or tertiary phenomena, the Buddha saw things a bit differently, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he traced the process back a little further.

According to the Buddha's teachings, fear and sadness are actually "sinking" or passive forms of ill will, while aggression is an active form ill will.  In order for fear, sadness and anger to arise with regard to a specific person or phenomenon, there first has to be the perception of separation and a relationship of opposition (ill will and competition).  If there is no separation, there is no sadness.  If there is no relationship of opposition, there is nothing to fear.  The way Sayadaw explained it was this: If you perceive yourself on the losing end of an oppositional relationship, either sadness, fear or both are likely to arise depending on the context. If you see yourself as on equal footing or as likely to be victorious, then you might take a more aggressive stance.  This is one of the two reasons why the classical list of the "three roots" (of unwholesome mind states and actions): lobha (greed), dosa (hatred/hostility/ill will) and moha (delusion), does not include fear--fear is considered secondary.  The other reason it doesn't show up in this list is that, while greed, hatred and delusion are considered unconditionally unskillful mind states, fear is bifurcated into skillful (e.g. otapa--fear of the consequences of wrong doing, "moral dread," said to be one of the two "guardians of the world") and unskillful (i.e. fear that drives one to behave in unwholesome or immoral ways, or that agitates the mind and blocks samadhi and pannya).

My experiences with fear were multifaceted and complex.  Sometimes I stood my ground with relative composure or even made advances...other times I made strategic retreats...and once, on the 27th evening of my retreat, I was slain in battle.  Perhaps I will say more on these dynamics another time.  I am still working on unraveling the environmental/contextual from the practice-based, the external from the internal, the implications of these interactions with regard to the rest of my life...but there's no rush.  

I don't want to send the wrong impression though--the retreat was not limited to uncomfortable physical and mental states. I had experiences of tranquil mindfulness, profound and stable faith/inspiration, and a focused joy beyond anything I had known before.  I sat for lengths of time that would have been unthinkable to me in my early practice and gained direct experience into the nature of the mind-body complex and into the Dhamma (in this context I imply both "the teachings" and Reality with the use of Dhamma) that had been simply intellectual accepted notions or quasi-inaccessible mythologies (no, I can't read your mind haha).  I had two experienced and supportive guides in Sayadaw Vivekananda and Sayalay Bhadda Manika, and a safe and beautiful place in which to practice.  I had the wise voices of past teachers and friends whispering in my mind's ear...they kept me going when things got wound too tight, or became dark and cold (like Lumbini was so much of the time I was there...cold and misty).

The retreat also had a great deal to do with identity, image and the activity of "Selfing" in skillful and unskillful ways.  It took me a few weeks to figure out that I was also processing some of the trauma from being hit by the car in August as well.  The retreat was about many things...it was holistic in that sense...it was also profoundly humbling.   It was, if nothing else, a worthwhile learning experience...but it was much more than that.  Things will be clearer when I have had a chance to slow down again and review my meditation journal (which each of us was encouraged to keep throughout the retreat so that we could report our experiences on the cushion or while doing walking practice to our teachers so that we could get new instructions that fit our current practice).

As for my present situation, reentry has been anything but "gentle" since leaving Lumbini, but because the phrase, "gently returning," served me well on retreat, and because I am holding out hope that it will continue to help me navigate the next phase of this trip, I decided to leave it in the title. With ten fewer pounds to this body, no beard between face and the elements (for the first time in four years), and with the sensitivity that comes from getting the mind focused and subtle, I am experiencing perceptions of and strong feelings related to vulnerability as I reenter this samsara ("wayfaring/wandering," i.e. the world of illusion/delusion) that often overwhelm me.  I went from trying to simply comprehend the depth and detail of a single foot-step, a single breath in relative silence, to fending off pashmina salesmen, rickshaw drivers and drug dealers the heart of Thamel: a fast-moving, loud and demanding backpacker's ghetto in Kathmandu. I am doing well enough, but sometimes I have to just hold on for dear life and reach out to a familiar voice or put in the earplugs and sit in the hotel for a while.

It is time for me to sign off, but because so much of the difficulty I have been experiencing on this trip is related to health/digestion, food and the energy of the belly generally, I wanted to share an aspect of my practice that is related to these topics, but which has brought me a measure of joy over the last few weeks.  It is a new blessing before eating.  It is still a work in progress, and I have yet to check in with my regular eating partner about it to get her creative input, but it seems to have settled in more or less as the following:

Here and Now,
May I be grateful for all the goodness and abundance in my life.
May this food be useful fuel and healing medicine along the path of wisdom and compassionate peace.
May the path and the journey be of benefit, not only to myself and those I hold dear, but to all beings.
I acknowledge the sun, the Earth, and the rain; the years of gradual growth; and the many hands of harvest and preparation present in this meal.
May I take only what I need to maintain this body, which is a vehicle for the three training* and other wholesome work, and avoid greed in my consumption.
May I always remember to share with those in need, for I too am a receiver and may one day be in need.
May all beings know compassion, generosity and peace.

(*The three trainings are: 1. sila (moral behavior, ethics, virtue, character)--abstention from unskillful and cultivation of skillful actions of body and speech, acts as the foundation for 2. samadhi (concentration, focus, stillness)--the cultivation of refined and wholesome states of mind, acts as the foundation for 3. pannya (wisdom, discernment)--the purification of the mind and the cultivation of penetrative and liberating insight [vipassana] into reality.)

I'll be heading out of Kathmandu on a long and harrowing bus ride to a small (very small) rural village in the hills of the Dolokha region of Nepal called Mirge, to see my friend Surendra's wedding on the 30th and 31st of January.  He and I met 4 years ago when I stayed in Mirge and taught at the Laligurash Bright Future elementary school for two months, and have stayed in touch ever since.  I am looking forward to seeing him and the children again. I will follow up when I can.

May you all be healthy and safe, peaceful and at ease. Thank you for taking the time to read along.