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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment