yogis and regular folk

It is hot here during the day, hot and humid. But the morning dawns clear and cool with the light brilliant on the temple across the garden, the colors glowing. Almost every other day, it rains in the afternoon. Big drops, cloudburst of rain driving everyone in. And then, in the evening, it clears, the air is fresh as it can only be after a rain, and the sky is a deep, deep blue.

In the afternoons, Tamdrin and I talk. He tells me of Buddhism. Yesterday we watched a documentary on his computer about the yogis from Tibet allowing themselves to be videoed, and in some cases seen, for the first time. These are people who have spent their lives in a cave or living in a monastery studying secret documents on how to become enlightened. The Dalhi Lama asked them to participate in this, afraid that the old ways would be lost.

The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. And in Tibet, that is certainly true. It is easy to see the draw to a path that might mitigate this suffering, if not in this life, in the next. I marvel at the devotion of these monks, the willingness to renounce all pleasure and I find myself feeling foolish. I do not have this one pointed devotion, this utter focus on finding emptiness, freedom from suffering. I want to be comfortable, happy, loved, busy in activities that feel generative to me and others. And yet maybe this is also a path. Buddhism talks of the three parts of Buddhism, Buddha, dharma (the teachings) and sangha (the community). For most of this, the slow evolution does not happen in a cave but with others, with teachers and with a sense of the holy. Maybe there is hope for me.

Tamdrin tells me that Buddhists believe that Buddha is in everyone. That Gandhi was Buddha. Mother Theresa was Buddha, Martin Luther King was Buddha. It gives me pause. This idea of fragments of the divine, yet again, a familiar concept. It comforts.

They say Buddha had 1000 incarnate lives before he became the Buddha. They call it changing faces. This need to win, succeed, solve the problem now is not so prevalent here. Rather there is a sense of slowly chipping away at the mountain, a gentle moving towards that divine buried inside. If not in this life, the next. If I can make one small act that carries me in the direction of enlightenment, then that is enough. Such patience. It's so unAmerican.

I am trying it on, that kindness towards myself. If I am patient with myself, less harsh, maybe I can look up a bit more, look around, see others walking towards me, next to me. See the way the light catches the brilliant colors. It is short, this time here, maybe taking pleasure in this moment is also a slow movement toward the divine.

Walking the stupa

Every evening, people walk the stupa, a large octaginal shaped building in the center of the shops. Inside, men are chanting, ringing bells, blowing horns and drumming. The tradition is to walk clockwise and let your mind move to nothing, just that. As you walk, you can turn the prayer wheels that are built inside the walls of the stupa. You can chant. You can talk with your neighbor. It is a time for the old people to visit, the young people to hang out all the while accumulating good karma, walking the stupa. I don't know how that works. I only know that the first time I saw it, I was walking out of a shop and found myself wondering where everyone was going. I didn't explore, realizing it was time to go back to the monastery for the evening meal so I started walking back, against the flow. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream. No one seemed to mind, though, intent on their walking, their conversations, their silence. One man was doing prostrations. He had pads on his knees and wooden pads on his hands. He was not young and after stretching flat out on the ground and then pushing himself up, he would pause a bit, resting, before standing up and stepping a few steps and then doing it again. People walked around him as easily as the walked around me, going the wrong way, stopping, watching.

As I walked home I saw tables of small lights, a wick sitting in a tiny holder of oil. For 5 rupees, I could light one. (77 rupees for the dollar, you do the math). The lamp lighting was to remind everyone of the story of a poor woman who came to see the Buddha and had no beautiful gift to give him as the other devotees did. All she had was a small lamp. The other devotees mocked her, pointing out her pitiful gift to the Buddha. The Buddha commented that her gift was more valuable than all the others as it was from her heart and all that she had. And the lamp, it kept burning, long after it should have gone out.

I love how the stories all swirl together. How the religions teach the truths of love, generosity, kindness. So I lit five lamps and gave the old woman my money and we smiled at each other, our faces vivid in the light of all the candles, the dark surrounding the rest.

the stupa

Yesterday I went to the stupa, about 14 km away from here, via motorcycle. I have a new appreciation for drivers here. First, the roads are tiny, about a lane and a half. The good news is that the cars are also tiny however they share the road with bicyclers, pedestrians, dogs, and motorcycles. The roads are also intermittently paved so the driver is constantly avoiding potholes, sudden disappearance of pavement, resumtion of pavement and the occasional rock. In addition, they drive on the left side of the road. I found myself peering over Tamdrin, whose motorcycle it was, trying to help steer until I finally realized my fate was truly in the hands of God or gods, as the case may be. I had no helmet, no leathers to protect me. So, if I was meant to survive, brain such as it is, I would, and if I wasn't meant to survive, I wouldn't. And finally, the wind, the zipping through traffic dodging about began to kick in and I couldn't stop smiling. I have new appreciation for the horn. It is a necessary part of negotiating the streets. You beep when you find a smooth stretch of road and can go fast warning everyone you are flying down the road. You beep when you come up behind a pedestrian. You beep when an oncoming car, bus or motorcycle is in your lane passing his obstacles. You beep when you want to turn as there are no stopsigns or stoplights and if there were, it is questionable whether anyone would mind them. You beep when the errant dog wanders into the street. You beep when you are passing any or all of the above. It is a joyful sound indicating movement. Driving here is a bit like skiing down a very rocky slope. Dodging, shifting, moving, flying a bit, slowing down, all is part of the process. And the beeping, of course.

Puja and the Feast of Kali

Tomorrow the Feast of Kali begins which is a Hindu tradition, and each family buys a goat to slaughter to insure a profitable and healthy new year. I am told that if the family doesn't do this, the neighbors will think that the family is too poor to afford the goat so whether or not they want to, people feel pressured into continuing the old customs. Nice to know they have Jones' here as well.

Puja is a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony which entails drums, a blowing of a very large horn, chanting and prayers. In the morning, it lasts for one and a half hours and is more effective than any alarm clock. The first morning, I thought it was a low flying airplane, then maybe a leaf blower before finally realizing what it was. I have yet to witness it as I have been a sleepyhead. Tomorrow, Tamdrin said I could go with him to the Puja in the central stoopa, which is a religious building, many sided. If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I will take pictures and see if I can download them onto a computer.

There are so many sects of Buddhism and Hinduism here that I am never sure what traditions belong to whom.

Funny how small things tell so much. In Jordan, as well as Saudi, Merrill reports, there are almost no dogs. In the very fancy hotel Merrill and I stayed in, four beautiful swimming pools, marble terraces, palm trees and gardens everywhere, there were feral cats that looked like they had a very tough life and would come up to the table and beg for scraps. In Petra and as Merrill and I drove through the small towns, we saw not one dog. In Nepal, they are everywhere. They are subdued, skinny and pay little obvious attention to people, motorcycles racing by as they sleep on the edges of the road. The monastery has three dogs, two a gift from Julie's group who the monks play with and care for. But here, clearly,dogs are dogs and not part of the family. I have seen no cats. Goats also wander about here. I worry that there won't be so many after tomorrow; we shall see.

The other thing that is so clearly different is that there are people everywhere, on motorbikes, in shops, on the sidewalks or standing in the street talking, walking, together. I feel a bit odd, walking about alone but I feel comfortable. There is no sense of hostility towards a lone woman. I am told that a married Indian woman wears the red dot on her forehead to signify her marital status, Tibetan women wear an apron over their dress, Nepalese women wear a red bracelet on their right arm. It seems every culture wants to know immediately whether a woman is available or not.

It is odd though, not to have anyone to speak to until I have lunch with Tamdrin and the other monastery manager whose name I can't spell.
I am grateful for their revelations about this culture.

Settling in

Yesterday, when I went to my usual internet cafe, first the electricity was off, then the phone lines were down.  The same problem occured this morning.  It is the way here, a sort of tenuous connection with the modern world.  I had Tibetan tea this morning, a tea consisting of butter, salt and water.  The monk who runs the monastery watched my face, as he does at every meal, to see my reaction.  He is quite convinced that I will quickly find a fancy restaurant to eat my meals, initially telling me that I couldn't eat here and then later, when Tamdrin, the lay man who co-runs the monastery corrected him; he assured me that I wouldn't like the food.  If only my mother could see me now.  I eat everything.  But there have been some moments.  The chilis are too hot for me and needless to say, I learned that the hard way.  Dinner, which I missed the first two nights not knowing when to show up the first night and being miss-informed the second due to an error in translation-is the same everynight, a soup with green, spinach like leaves and soy floating in it.  Breakfast is a dumpling like bread with peanut butter and jelly.  Lunch has variety; rice, some kind of sauce and chili.  

The day starts at 5:30AM with puja.  All the monks, there are 108 of them, attend.  Tomorrow I will try and join as today I woke at 5:45 and so meditated in my room while the sounds emanated out of the gompa.  I don't know how to describe the sounds.  Maybe tomorrow.  The monks come here at age 7 or 8.  After puja and then breakfast, they have classes, and then puja again in the afternoon.  In the evening they play soccer in the courtyard or a game in the alley outside the entrance which I haven't figured out yet.  They are quite curious about me, peering around the door when I am eating, smiling and then quickly looking away.  They all wear the red-burgandy robes with the yellow/orange shirts and have shaved heads.  But the eyes are so bright, the smiles so beautiful.  

Small steps, every day, settling, learning, walking, watching.  

I love knowing you are there, reading this.  It gives me a sense of connection.

Arrival in Nepal

My son is of the opinion that due to my hat and my sunglasses, I am still single. I am quite sure there is no truth to that.

I have arrived in Nepal It is a minor miracle, I think. I was so crazed when I left that I did not write down the name, address or phone number of the monastery I was going to nor the name of the travel agent/ taxi service who was picking me up. I had no Nepalese money. I flew from Joradan all night to Delhi arriving at 4AM Delhi time to fly out at 6AM. And yet, when I arrived, after standing in line for an hour to get my visa, Indra was outside w/ a sign waiting for me. Unbelievable. I almost cried.

So I am making my way here. There is a man who works at the monastery, not a monk but equally devoted, I think, and most kind. Today he took me to the bank, showed me around, including this internet cafe, and answers my questions.

It is another world. The roads are questionably paved or are dirt, as wide as a country lane, no sidewalks yet pedestrians, bicycles, buses, cars and motorbikes all zip around one another. They honk at each other a lot, abit like car conversation, I have come to think of it.

I love it.

There is so much to see that my eyes get a bit overwhelmed. When I walk I want to see and do everything, then one I go back to the monastery, I want to sit and be quiet.

Pictures!

Here is the link to my Flickr site, let me know what you think of my new photos with the Boyo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryhelenwaters/

Jordan

I have met up w/ Merrill and been climbing all over Petra today as well as intermittently riding a burro and an arab horse.  I am still challenged by the middle east approach to women, or more accurately, the absence of women as we drive through a town, sit on a side walk cafe.  And though the men smile, laugh and talk together, there seems a note of joy that is missing.  

It is wonderful to be w/ Merrill, tonight we are staying by the Dead Sea.  

The first day I arrived in Amman, I was the only lone woman wandering about.  It is odd to not see others like myself.  I am grateful for the freedom to do this but am aware of what an anomoly it is to be able to do so in this country.  

My first write and it seems a bit terse but I am so tired.  I hope after I settle a bit, I'll have more to say.