On the path to Bohdgaya

Up the next morning and after all of us just barely get our lunch in Sarnath by noon, three of us head into Varanasi to alter some more train tickets. With two others I haggle a price with two tired looking bicycle rickshaw drivers to cart all our stuff from the Thai monastery to Burmese, which I'm not exactly sure why we must hassle with anyway. We load on our dozen and a half bags and two dozen water bottles and they bike the one mile, insisting repeatedly that I don't walk with them but rather sit on the extremely uncomfortable and precarious handlebar in from of the driver. Naturally the bus showed up several more hours late, and we hopped on. Just before leaving though, asking Alastair where the bathroom was and him walking me through the monastery to show me, another foreigner approached us with his entire money belt and plane ticket, having left it behind but rewarded for taking the trouble to help me find the facilities! But before leaving we are surprised to be charged several thousand more rupees than the agreed on price, and must make several more negotiations and phone calls, before admitting we have no other option. We write a silly contract in a page from a girl's diary and make the representative sign it, asking as many questions as we can to avoid future issue of miscommunication (in India an impossible order). Unfortunately we forget to ask if the half dozen built in mini-fans work on the bus, they don't, and we are treated to dirt cocktails our following week...

We pick up our three other friends at the "Tag Ganges Hotel" in Varanasi, then as we are leaving the city begin to wonder why there is a second Indian man with our driver (we had been assured in our previous talks that only one would accompany us). If we don't get him out now we may never, so just as the yatra crew is on the road, we demand the bus stop and the additional man get out. There are actually enough seats for every person, but this new arrangement requires four to sit rather close together in the back, and not the three we had planned on, and agreed upon when signing Lek's diary. This brings on a new layer of even more involved, confusing, and baffling conversations in which several phone calls are made by Indians and Westerners alike, long talks are made, phones are passed, conversations end and silence reigns and nothing still is happening except us demanding he get off the bus and the Indians staring back at us. Each call made no one in the company we are calling wants to take responsibility, passing on new numbers and layering us with misinformation so that we will just go away. We don't, and we finally reach a head office that tells us this extra man must come because he is the bus cleaner. We assure them we will clean the bus or pay for someone else to, and that we were already promised no one else would be coming, and plus we had already paid, so he could take his share of the money and be happy without working the next couple weeks. The phone was passed again and more Hindi dialogue followed, the phone was hung up, and with a long face the cleaner walked to the back of the bus, slowly opened a locker and took a small bag from it, and exited the bus. It was quite melodramatic. We all felt darn awful and explained we had nothing personally against him, and as the bus pulled away the extra room soon relieved any lingering feelings of guilt.

There were ten of us now on our way... Anita and Kedaar from Canada/India, Ravi and Kavita from Southern India, Bhanteji, Alastair and Janet from Australia, Lek from Thailand, Gilad from Israel, and me. We drove through the incredibly dusty and dirty roads and got wave after wave of it stuck to our faces, hairs, clothes, and bags. Bhanteji chanted for much of the way and gave us instructions, we would meditate together for some time and he would chant and give metta and open our eyes again. As I look out the window now, I marvel for the first time how strange it is to be seeing the poverty-stricken outside from a rather comfortable and familiar interior...

We did make one memorable stop on the way. It was in some crossroads town, with huge trucks barreling past that caused constant whirlwinds of dust and noise. I have never seen a place like this. It felt like it was on the edge of some very dangerous frontier. If we had entered a cafe, I'd imagine it looking somewhat like that bar Luke and Obi-Wan go to before leaving his planet in the first Star Wars. We just get a fresh pomegranate juice here at the road side (which we pour entirely into my bottle for fear of the dirty glasses available), and which our 8 precepts allows, and Alastair and I dare a short walk to look for chocolate, something that both of us were recently delighted to find is also permissible in the Vinaya. We settle on coffee candies amidst a commotion that soon gathers many Indians looking to "help" us.

Sometime as night fell, we found our way into a monster traffic jam. Here is one of the many moments I faced in India where I don't know if I can find enough or any words to properly convey what was going on here. Vehicles of all kinds-- buses, cars, TATA trucks, even some poor and sad bicycle rickshaws-- were going in all directions, sometimes one behind another, sometimes head on, sometimes perpendicular. Drivers honking and swearing, maneuvering in the little room available, dozens of minutes passing and crawling inches. Of course not knowing the cause or length of delay, or anything, anyone, just wanting to get out of it... I am sitting shotgun so from time to time am required to make frantic hand movements signaling other drivers to let us cut in or move over, which they miraculously respect. Bhanteji has us sitting through much of this, and at one point during a sit, the driver interrupts to ask for assistance. He has just spotted a possible opening, and so Alastair and I get out in the middle of this pile-up. As the opening gets just a tad wider, we jump head on in front of a bus and start gesturing madly that it must stop, meanwhile calling for Mahindra (our diver) to come forward, other Indians seeing these two crazy Westerners and delighting in it, soon half a dozen Indians are with us fervently calling on the big TATA truck to hold its ground, then in our exhilaration hopping on our bus before it drives away. The crawl soon continues though, I chat with nearby truck drivers and pedestrians and liberally give them some of the coffee candies I bought. Finally Mahindra, who has been carefully eyeing some alternative cutoffs from this mess, takes one now, and we drive way off-road through a sleepy town, eventually meeting up with our road later on. We all cheer and clap happily-- after many hours we are free!

But too soon... the second traffic jam that hits us is a truckload of real dukkha. It is no longer fun in our amazement. We are on one of the longest bridges in the world, and we must make a Guinness record for amount of time on it. I might estimate it was about 2 hours total, though it felt like 12. One lane going nowhere, the other lane almost totally clear but a big gamble-- the further you go on it, the higher chance a car will approach you in the dark going lightening speed and you'll have to connive your way to cut back into the crowded correct lane, or drive back in reverse the entire length of the bridge. Bhanteji begins to give us a discourse about the virtues of patience, and how our time here is just as valuable as if we had already made Bohdgaya, and we should use it wisely. Always use this precious time so wisely... But he is interrupted by a cry from the back... Janet is leaning out the window yelling "Kitna kilometers? Kitna kilometers?" (Kitna meaning 'how many') Somehow we do finally get out of it, and many of us catch whatever period of dozing we can find for next little while...

To check out the photos of Bohdgaya, click here....

Sarnath

Another whirlwind of India passing by now, and just a few minutes to write down some of the recent experiences before they get forgotten... maybe better that way...? :)

We woke up the next day at the Thai monastery and saw the many sites around Sarnath, stopping to meditate for some time at most of them. All are ruins now, ruins of two to two and half centuries old. The earlier ruins are from the Buddha's day, and there are other mixed in with these from Emperor Asoka's time, the ruler who built 84,000 monuments all over India commemorating the Enlightened One. Many of Asoka's pillars and stone designs are still visible as one walks around the area, and the better preserved pieces (some of them stunningly well kept in 2 centuries time) are on display in the local Archeological Museum. We saw the place where Gotama met his five ascetic friends after returning on foot from Gaya, the place where he first taught them, and the place where he met the wealthy merchant Yassa and where he became an Arahant. There are smaller stupas all over, and we are told that each of these smaller stupas contain a relic from one arahant. Needless to say a very peaceful, and very stong, atmosphere to sit in! The most powerful place of all, even after 2500 years, was the ruins of an old hall where Buddha himself used to sit. We passed many hours sitting here, and they were challenging moments to remain equanimous with! (I later asked a monk how they could remain so powerful even after so many centuries, and he responded, "Even after eons and eons, it will be so.") We also walked by Deer Park where Buddha gave many sermons, and which still contain spotted deer, and saw the remains of many monasteries. We meditated in one temple where there are remains from the Buddha himself... also very powerful. One hour and I felt like I was Day 5 of a course! Much of the historical information about these places come from the Chinese pilgrim Husin Tseng, one of the most famous Chinese ever, who risked peine of death to leave China, then a closed country (this was some 1000 years ago or so), to study the original Buddhist texts as he felt the Chinese ones had lost the essence of the wisdom. He snuck out of China and risked many dangers, came back decades later and snuck in, and is now celebrated as a kind of national hero. Anyway, he kept exact notes of everything he saw, so exact that much modern scholarship is based on his records.


The Thai monastery (and all the other Asian ones as well) offer this peace and respite from the Indian streets and in all ways make you feel that you are in another country. Everything is written in Thai and we even drank Thai hot chocolate. There was a seven day anapana course going on with a dozen or so foreigners (farangs!), and many monks. Many times groups of 50 or 80 pilgrims or monks come and we have to arrange with the head monk when we shall eat-- more difficult now that we have taken the vow of 8 precepts with Bhanteji and can't eat past 12 noon (a delay yesterday meant eating an entire lunch in 7 minutes... yikes!) The sites offered this kind of peace as well, an instant silence of mind and body upon entering and walking a few steps. As one monk (American, but had been away so long he had lost his accent entirely--see above as Bhanteji pays homage to him) said, this is a very good place to see more clearly and make a strong determination for something within one's life, and it seeps in deeper to the heart.



Meditating outside, even in such an environment, brought on a new sort of challenges. In the morning and evening hours, one has to cover the body in a mosquito net, and a crack of the eyes catches literally dozens of mosquitoes hovering about just outside. Even a covered knee, touching the net, somehow allows the insects to get a bite in, and not just one but half a dozen in a minute period. The daylight hours bring the scorching Indian sun, making the yogi search for shade or position an umbrella strategically, and also replaces the mosquitoes with equal number flies, literally a dozen or more at a time. Then there is the intense pain brought about from sitting on hard earth, the shuffling of extremely large groups of Korean, Japanese, Thai, Taiwanese, or Sri Lankan pilgrims who come to these highly charged places and recite chantings, light incense, and often take pictures of the meditating figures, usually while chattering much during the time and wearing the same color garmets. Also a small concern is one's property, there being a handful of poor Indians who jump the fences and try to hawk goods or ask for money (even from monks).

The essence of what the Buddha taught may be reviving in the country of its origin as well as around the world, but there is much to see in Bihar-- India's poorest state by far-- that makes one understand how it has been lost completely. Just minutes after these pilgrim groups deposit their offerings of candles and incense, and turn their backs, a whoosh is heard, and looking up from meditating one sees a horde of poor kids blowing out all the burning items and snatching them up to sell for a few rupees somewhere else. Manual labor is everywhere, it is pervasive. I think of the hardest jobs of physical labor I have ever done and see people of all ages and builds doing it every day, and in the Indian sun no less. Here are women spending their days pounding the earthen ground, to compact the soils (above left)...

India was still the land of missed opportunities and one Indian hour taking more than half the day. By mid-day one day, we were supposed to meet our friends Alastair and Gilod, coming from Bombay, and two Indians and monk coming from the south. No one was there up to hours later. So me and two others hopped in an autorickshaw headed for the afternoon group sit at the Sarnath Vipassana Center about 8 km from town, had a fierce conversation negotiating the price, and just before we set off, who shows up but Alastair and Gilod, who jump in with us (somehow!) to the rickshaw with their bags, we drive through the most bucolic and beautiful countryside I've seen in India, so clean, so lush... seeing hand operated spinning wheels that cut the straw, water buffalow being led over the fields, circular pillars of dried cow dung used for fuel (that one can see them picking up while still fresh), women balancing large baskets of wheat on their head, etc... it reminds me of a scene from Sujarat Roy's film the Trilogy of Apu. (Dung piles drying above)

We get to the center (left is a photo of the meditation hall), a walled in small area in the center of this pleasant country life, and even after calling to confirm we can arrive and sit, we wait through several people of the Indian bureacracy, are questioned on our Vipassana experience and nationality, and told not to wander past a certain point. Finally we get in for the 2.30 sit, on time, a beautiful hall with wide spaces and allowing an airy breeze. For the first time in days we are seated on a cushion in doors, and it feels like heaven... transient as both may be! I had actually suggested to Kedaar that maybe I should sit a few hours inside and some outside as well, since the distractions were making it almost impossible to meditate. But he responded that if I was just able to try, to fight, then it was better to be in such charged places-- that even though I might feel more equanimous in room, the benefits were much greater in these other places, even the moments of observing were far less...

After the sitting our taxi driver looks a little shaken (to the right is a photo of him looking shaken eh!), he has just spent over an hour on Dhamma land for the first time, and after some gentle words he shows strong interest to taking a course. "But I am a poor man" he says in his limited English. He is a grandfather, and even without leaving a donation after ten days, the income he misses from his work is considerable. The Indian hour sets in again, we wait as a Dhamma worker finds some forms in his language, then wait again as we get tea, then again as we get more tea for the half who couldn't get it the first time. Finally we leave, having made all the inquiries for our driver to be able to attend the upcoming March 2 course, and leave dana both with the center and for our driver as compensation... "You are very happy" he says to me, though questionable as it may seem... "I want to have a mind like yours. So I go."

We get back to the Burmese monastery and find Bhanteji the monk and the Indian couple. In my first meeting with him, I don't think I've ever been in a room with anyone who has lit it up so. Words are meaningless in trying to describe, so I won't. He left the householder life after taking about 10 long courses in a couple years, and Kedaar has told me that he has attained extremely high stages of meditation. It shows. He has been appointed by Goenkaji to be able to teach Vipassana "to Buddhists." In our next day with him, he chants as we sit, gives instructions, and as we walk around these important sites and monuments, he tells us many stories and even discourses. With a monk, there is now a whole new set of considerations, as the monk must follow the 223 rules (Vinaya) set down in the Buddha's time and still followed today. Also are the rules on the way that lay people must show respect to a monk. These are fascinating to me and also present a challenge to the Western (and especially American) mind, and much in my own has been giving kicks from within. Our society doesn't have a way of really honoring or showing respect to people (maybe outside of celebrities), and though I see the vast benefits that such meritous deeds surely bring, there are many strong aversions that raise their heads too at times... conditionings can be strong...

Now I have been writing this in such a flurry, I don't know if I will even be able to check for spelling errors or the like... we were supposed to leave yesterday but India had other plans. I could go into them but like everything else they don't really make sense to experience or to tll about... but involved ordering a car for us ten people and then having the car drive off with our bags and not getting them, taking a nap in the evening to leave at 11 pm by car but now it's close to nine a.m. the next day and still in Sarnath, someone just came in to tell me we have a bigger car (the last one was horribly small) and are leaving in one hour. The car shall take us to most sites, the trip has changed every day and often more so, we are now going to Nepal and extending the yatra by one week. The taxi driver, Krishna his name, showed up outside and with a serious face said "I am 100 percent going on 2 March" and asked for my address.

It is an interesting time, and nice to go into this space than the usually limited ways of either sitting or serving a course. As Bhanteji says, "This next while will be harder than what you do there in Igatpuri..." He went on to say it is because we must never take a break for the next little while... always aware, and even when walking or eating he says some words of wisdom on remembering sampajanna or anicha...

For photos of Sarnath, click here...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=bjovs9y.4g8ss6f6&Uy=3zyrm0&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0 or
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=bjovs9y.4g8ss6f6&Uy=3zyrm0&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=563742485163_151715647106

A Pilgrim's Life...

Just a moment here in Sarnath to write a few thoughts as our group stays in the Thai monastery. Most Asian Buddhist countries run beautiful monasteries where monks from their country run the building, cook their native foods, and even the grounds look remarkably like one just happened upon the countries of Japan, Burma, Korea, etc...

That Indian sun still shining its irrepressible heat down during the middle parts of the day, punishing the wild dogs and mad Englishmen and everyone in between. On the 18th the day was like T minus and counting to that midnight depature from Bombay. Went to a Gandhi exhibit at the local museum and you can see Janet inspecting the goods! I had a very nice cup of tea and Indian snacks in a beautiful apartment owned by a fellow Indian meditator on a road that has been said to have the entire population of Melbourne walk past the street in a single day-- a very buy thoroughfare (Churchgate) to say the least! Then, with Indian things always taking far longer than anything should, somehow not even really getting in our full afternoon/evening hour sit, loading the luggage on a poor taxi's rooftop and getting to Victoria station. We settled into our 30 hour trip, 2nd class no AC, about $10, with almost 10 bags of food containing everything from fruit and veggies to Indian dry snacks and even some PB. Lock our bags to the seat and settle in to a sleeping bag as the temperature pleasantly drops to a slight chill. Up the next morning and continue with the Bombay trend of some scattered-mind sits. Meal times the hub of activity... beforehand trying to maintain a small conversation above the constant noise of the train and beggars and child sweepers moving past as we give them fruit, now we are engaged in the different tasks of throwing refuse out the window, peeling dirty veggie skins, dipping various items in the PB or making some Indian trail mix. Then at times trying to negotiate the mass of humanity sleeping over the floors outside, feet and arms and limbs sticking out on the way to the unappealing toilet and back, the noise and activity and commotion overwhelming but a part of this country no matter where you go. The day somehow passes, another night of sleep and the windows open, the sleep goes well until the train stops somewhere, either at a station or in the middle of the open land with blazing stars for no reason that any of us Westies can fathom, stops until the conducter has had a good betel chew or what not, allowing the hordes of mosqitoes to get close enough to you to not be blown out the window, and they let loose. And these mosquitoes, true to Kedaar's words, these northern guys are unlike any of their brethen in other parts of the world, their bites itch and hurt like nothing else! Sleep is impossible, I am woken up now, and looking at parts of my arm I see half a dozen bites in a small area. Stumbling awake and Kedaar putting some fennel seeds in my hand to eat and getting out a net to put over me, waking up in the a.m. in Varanasi.

O and Varanasi! (The cow at the station in the picture to the left) So many more delays, delays of the purely Indian type where hours and hours could have been literally less than a minute anywhere else. A toilet with 20 minute wait times, disgusting to boot, a ticket change with a large line, wrong line and change, power goes out, wait 30 mins, power comes on, inspects the ticket and exclaims this is the wrong line again (could have checked during the power failure but didn't), another wait, and so on... a taxi drive out the main ghat to see all the devout Hindus bathing in the water, the oldest and maybe poorest city of the Earth, naked children and lepers and sadhus (renunciants) and others milling around, back to train station and more Indian waits, then to Sarnath.


Ah, Sarnath, the waves of calm are back. Sarnath where Buddha gave his first teaching, where the wheel of Dhamma started to rotate. A great eat as we are all hungry, then a walk to accomodation. The bustling and unnerving Indian street in the hot sun, Burmese monastery's head monk is taking rest, so a meeting with the head monk at the Thai monastery asking humbly for accomodation. Showing proper understanding we pilgrims are granted our wish, but can't walk back the short way back because even if nothing can go wrong in India it still will, again such a fantastic country as long as you don't foolishly want anything to happen according to your wishes, this time it's Mrs. Jacques Chirac visiting a building in the area so the entire road is closed for security purposes, so back to the hot sun and the longer route until a pick-up with benches and blasting loud Hindi music picks us up, totally exhausted and sweaty we pick up our bags and walk back again, deposit our bags and shower (!!!!), then load up some sitting stuff and go to the temple where relics of the Buddha are held to have a sit. Just like the pagodas in Burma, loud noise and lots of pain, but such a strong atmosphere that the support is there and samadhi is strong. Too much noise so we grab some mosquito nets and head outside to sit with a tape recorder of U Ba Khin's chanting, then back to the monastery at sunset to have the Thai food which may be the best of the trip so far!

What a snippet, and what pilgrims ever had time to post a blog entry! Tomorrow a day sit and more pilgrims joining us the next day. Schedule has changed to accomodate a trip to Lumbini in Nepal where Buddha was born. Very difficult and perhaps no need to really explain all these experiences and sights and sounds... here are two more pics of Benares to include below...


Oh, and to see pics of the travel day to Sarnath click here!

A quick connection!!!

What a surprise! Finally after a month a computer with a faster connection... nothing to complain about but a backspace key that barely works and a room so small you could touch the other ten people in it without moving from the plastic stool one sits on! So maybe just a moment for an update before I head up on The Road To The North, a title kindly taken from the sensei Basho, a nice haiku beginning "Determined to die a weather-beaten skeleton..." but this road to the north is the yatra to the great Buddha places in the poor state of Bihar by Varanasi. Being led by my friend Kedaar and a venerable monk Bataji from south in Hoompli, who will chant and tell stories as we travel from one place to the next. Our crew will be about ten, made up of a couple Candians, Australians, Indians, a Thai, and me the lone American. Leaving the overwhelming Bombay tonight on a 30 hour train trip at midnight...

But back a week or two ago, the ten day course has ended, and I was so fortunate to meet a very kind old student, living in both Igatpuri and Saudi Arabia, a Californian no less, who had me over for tea and introduced me to the afternoon walk that the bungalow ATs and other students take as the sun is setting over the dirt towns and wandering water buffalos outside Dhamma Giri in Itagpuri. Being by far the junior member of the group (in age as well as panna) it was a pleasure to be in such company, and an inspiration as well in some ways. Meeting so many of these old students and ATs, it really has been so interesting just how many variances and differences there are in personalities and characters. Vipassana definitely works as mental purification, and sometimes it seems like those edges of the ego should blend into one Buddha-like compassionate image-- well, maybe it takes away the rough edges first and we all still have such hard spots that they are still going. Who knows. Not a question for this stage, anyway :) Did hear an interesting story that when the Weezer lead singer attended a course at Dhamma Giri an American (and apparently very SoCal) documentary crew followed him around on Day 0 and went filming all inside the cells and hall, and then showed up 10 days later, and also trailed him around Burma-- a documentary on this rock star embracing meditation due out shortly I guess-- and another documentary about Goenkaji's tour in North America 2002...

Each day more I spent at Dhamma Giri, as the time unfurled a tad more, I felt a greater understanding building on of the technique and of the mind-body relationship. But with this kind of thing, it so often feels like the more one is learning, the more dukkha one is exploring, the more and more one sees the life just immeshed immeasurably in ignorance and blind reactions-- "wisdom is nothing more than the stripping away of illusions"-- very true words.

The more time spent, I also began to find the operation of Dhamma Giri _slightly_ less confusing. Only slightly. The gang of 8 or so Indians who seemed to do nothing but hang out and stare at you as you did anything, mediate occasionally and play Centerball (or Sentabaru) when not, seemed to somehow start to make sense. But did the Indian bureaucracy ever? Likely no. It took days on end to find some Dhamma service I could do. Meetings with people who never showed up or kept me waiting for at times nearly an hour, sometimes while we were nearly face to face in an office and I started to wonder if my physical body had somehow gone away and was visible only to me. "Should I come back at another time? I can meditate and come back in the afternoon." "No no, now you just wait, I will be with you shortly." And so went a short lived job typing Pali, another at Dhamma Giri itself by all the 45 day students doing very difficult gardening and digging. To change rooms from a hot dorm room with no circulation and beds one foot too small, an entire night unable to sleep, took three days, several individuals, and this was even knowing of this infamous bureaucracy and going to an old (Western) student first to ask guidance. In India the status of how long you can make another wait determines in part your own importance, and this combined with Indians not wanting to take the trouble to having to find an answer for even the most simple question, so they tell you any answer at all, just to be rid of you, makes for a very difficult time. Goenkaji has apparently said that two cultural sankharas are so culturally entrenched in the East and West that it takes very diligent work for the people to even discover they are not correct behavior-- in the East (India) it is telling false information, and in the West it is believing that non-committed but consensual relationships are perfectly healthy.

Here is what I wrote to a couple friends...

"India is an amazing country so long as you have no attachment to anything getting done anytime soon or at all, anything working or being able to get answers, or wanting anything accomplished. If you don't have these in your mind, you can love it. When the Western notions creep in, you are doomed, in a land where the smallest thing can take hours of meetings, tea drinking, sitting around confused and hopeless... anyway... "

Written after trying to do a simple activity and foolishly thinking it should not take all day-- buy books at Dhamma Giri and check email in town. The books had to weigh an exact weight, but there was no scale to be found, and the man working there told me what this imaginary weight should be, then to buy the books had to go to another office where I had to pay VRI through credit card but the credit card machine was not working... went on like this from late morning to mid afternoon, finally got it all sorted out, arrived in an internet cafe in Igatpuri at 3.53 pm, was told power would be shut off in town at 4. Attachments!

Made it to Bombay after the center (see huge cricket grounds on photo here), greeted by seeing a taxi taking fresh fish in a bucket fastened to the top of the cab and a whole crew of crows flying onto the speeding cab to take the fish in their mouths and fly away! You may hate India upon seeing a rat in your hotel room, but what is there not to love at this! Now at a very small Hotel Lawrence, the "Vipassana hotel", very nice Dhamma vibe, now to try to post this entry before some other Indian accident tries to take it all away...!

Reflections...

So often it seems like this eh-- for ten days working with those colossal cravings we all lug around with us, among them (for me) the craving to think my own thoughts and roll in them and find ways to put them into words to express a point and when not doing so the enormous unpleasant sensations that come as a result. And now with the course done and the freedom to roll in anything I'd like, and it suddenly loses the vast import it once dad. Ah, the illusions delusions and smoke screens of this mad monkey mind!

I enrolled in the course and was given a card with a series of numbers that were to serve as my various identifications: separate numbers for cushion, enrollment, registration, cell, laundry, room, etc. The laundry was pretty interesting. For about ten cents you can get washed and ironed by the laborer staff, where they actually write your laundry number on the actual clothes in order to deliver to the right person. So I now have a “T-1” on every item of clothing I brought with me to India, from white thin cotton pants to socks with a “T-1” sewn into the fabric. (And to matters worse, as I am staying on here now, they made me change numbers, meaning I will now have clothing with the “T-1” crossed off and “JM” added...

Another interesting system was the hot water. Laborers are constantly seen cutting and hauling wood throughout the center, which is burned in giant furnaces, granting hot water to all on the Dhamma Giri compound from about 6.30 to 8.00 am. I did get to enjoy the bucket showers, thanks to a nice brush that really ex foliated the skin-- I learned grace au Maroc.

The center itself was great-- beautiful and exotic flowers carefully manicured and peppering the walkways, a day laborer watering in the mornings and staring inquisitively at the sahibs as they passed by. A huge pagoda with hundreds of cells (which can be built in this country at a total cost of only a couple hundred thousand dollars-- not long ago, after a long course, Guruji-- as Mr. Goenka is called here-- dug up the first earth himself where Tapovana would later be). I was assigned a top level cell that took more than a few of the tiled steps to reach. A small view permeated of the valley that Tapovana rests in and the palm trees hovering over the single accommodation huts below. A large and wide lap-like walking space made the perimeter of the male residences and one on corner, a high cement wall topped with barbed wire separated the rural village life with this austere and ancient practice within. But times one might hear the sound of women gossiping or children laughing and a quick glance (but stay with sensations while doing so!) might give way to a motor rickshaw treading over the dirt road or a handful of water buffalo being led from one place to another. Or during a sit the faint (or not so faint if you're not avoiding the distraction that the mind loves to pick up on-- I tried wearing earplugs on day 5 until the Teacher called me up on it saying that I must be equanimous with my frustration) loudspeaker broadcast of the latest Bollywood soundtrack, a Ravi Shankar-like raga, or some pundit going on in Hindi or Marathi.

The food was filling, enormous, and came in wide selections. Nearly every day I filled up my plate already when coming to the final few selections. Much of the time I had no idea what I was eating, or no less how to eat it. I tried to watch the Indians out of the corner of my eye to see just what they did with those fresh limes, or if the substance in question was sauce or soup or dipping sauce or what. Though with Indian cuisine you just put it all together, one separately prepared dish after another, and mush it all up to an unrecognizable mess and dig our hands and fingers (right only!) into it and eat away. Ah, yes, this really is India. Every separate entity carelessly blending into the other to create a truly chaotic and seemingly senseless and baffling (to a Western mind!) whole. Lots of chai, some kir with black stones in it (minutes after Guruji tells the story), buttermilk, chai, much more! Here's a photo of the individual huts the male students stay in...

Oh but the course itself! Didn't some purification take place amongst all this sensual pleasure? The support was just phenomenal. I've never experienced anything like it, outside of Dhamma Jyoti in Burma, which I was not nearly balanced enough at the time to take advantage of. When one says a center is strong, there can be some fear as to what impurities this powerful magnet will bring up. But it one is working properly, it is like, as a friend commented, slicing through sankharas like butter. Buttah! So many times I just tried to observe it objectively, effortlessly, knowing the closer I am the more Dhamma would ake care of it. And here at Dhamma Giri-- what Dhamma! The support is always at your back, and it really does make a difference. It felt so much easier knowing this to be so.

The reverse is also true-- I was very careful during the course not to start a trend to roll in destructive thought patterns, a strong vigilance that helped me to go to sensation when certain impurities came up I've never been able to do before. But on the morning of Day 11 I felt a certain fatigue and thinking the course was over, let myself slip into rolling in some cravings for some brief moments as I awoke at an early 4 am... and oh man, did that pound me with the full force of dukkha of Nature's Laws! It took hours to really pass through after that. An Indian friend in the US once told me DhammaGiri is so strong that if you start craving in the cells, and can't observe it, you had better exit the building, otherwise the consequences are too severe!

Sitting there with that craving as it built up greater and greater towards the end, I gave into it less than I had in previous courses, and the unpleasantness was intense. I could see clearly that the external objects were meaningless. I knew I didn't really want them, so I stayed with the craving itself and its sensation. At times I felt like a heroin addict going through withdrawal symptoms-- more so around noontime when i wasn't meditating, but lying down observing sensations-- my body was fervently craving for a fix to make the discomfort go away. I could have given a small one by allowing the mind to roll in some funny memory-- or sad or happy or strange memory for that matter-- but I saw only too clearly that would only offer a temporary escape, truly a quick fix to satisfy the intense sensation, and would then leave it needing more, and more and more often, which knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, has been the habit pattern of the mind. I have a craving to check email and I check it, to read the newspaper or lay in bed an hour longer or watch a movie-- nothing wrong with any of this, but the craving that accompanies it-- oh, dukkha, dukkha! It really is craving for the sake of craving, never being satisfied with what is, and to be still with your craving, to try to make friends with the screaming and impatient child that it is-- oh, the body can shake and contort and just want that fix to make it all go away... (here is a picture of the gong at Dhamma Giri)

A Global Pagoda is now under construction near Bombay that ultimately will house upwards of 10,000 mediators. To hear ab out the project in detail it is truly a massive effort that will have reverberations possibly through the world over. A main pagoda will be the largest in the world, and the biggest structure of any kind without a single supporting inner beam ( it is all done through crating interlocking stone pieces). Four smaller pagodas si at each side, offering interactive exhibits depicting the life and teachings of the Buddha. Once completed, it will be one of the main attractions of Bombay (although it is just off the water on an island from the city), and may attract many people to come just to see it, while also revealing this path that exists to purify the mind. Check it out at http://www.globalpagoda.org/

So the course ended well, Days 10 and 11 were unsettling as usual though, trying to figure out where I will sleep at this large complex and what I will do. Everyone tells me a different story, often regarding very important matters and everything changes, this morning being told I would not be able to serve the upcoming course and was to leave immediately, then told a few mor things in the afternoon and by evening a surprised AT assuring me I could stay as long I wished and could give dana through gardening or office work or even at VRI. Nothing is easy for us Westerners in India, and the tighter we hold on the worse it is. Dogs lie in the middle of street ignoring the Indians but revealing snarled teeth to dirt stained white legs. To send this very email I have endured Internet places that didn't work because the connection was down, electricity was out, and when I finally found a place, was told I had but 20 minutes to check 12 days of email because the owner had to be on for business. Then wading through the goat pee alleyways and fly covered cows roaming free on the street, the Hare Krishna music to use my fiend Kedaar's laptop in his bungalow and upon touching the ports receiving a strong flow of electricity (ooo I want electric currents I want electric currents!)

Back at Dhamma Giri endless tour groups view the grounds, many Indian families staring the exotic sahib literally open mouthed, following with their eyes every movement, my WalMart Nalgene water bottle being stared at through its blue tinted plastic like a magical elixir. Even i the course groups came as far as the gate and followed me with their eyes as if I was in the zoo. Once I Heard the sound of hundreds upon hundreds of little feet. I turned to find hundreds of school children marching past, on day 7 or so and coming from the cell you can imagine my sensations!

I had some friends in the course and some friends of friends-- the Danish name I recognized and realized I had heard of him from my Pakistani friend who I met in Jaan, meeting a guy straight from a Bollywood flic and finding out he's a top ranked squash player who smpetes at international tournaments and happened to have one hell of a course. And all the funny thoughts in the course-- whatever you do don't allow decision to be made! One of the most curious had to do with a movie I saw on the fligt over-- “Wedding Crashers”, a comedy about two womanizers who pretend to go to weddings only to pick up on girls. I thought of how interesting it would be to keep Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn but turn it into this intense and thought-provoking drama about how the deeply immoral acts perpetrated by these characters slowly eat away at their soul as they experience the fruit of their actions...

Well, this has been one burst of reflection here and now all the new food I have given this wavering mind. :) Guess that fix has now been taken.

Much thanks to those who have been sending metta my way. It was been appreciated and will be reciprocated in kind. We have a lot of work to do. :) What can you say? You are bound to be successful, bound to be successful...

For photos of Dhamma Giri/Dhamma Tapovan, click here!

Dhamma Giri

Here I am in the bustling metropolis of Igatpuri-- *joke*-- really it’s like a one horse town or maybe one and half. I got into the center compound a couple days ago and just left to go to this nearby town and check some email now. It is a dusty, small, and likely rather poor town that just so happens to be extremely blessed by its proximity to such a powerful and pure place. I was on the three hour train trip from Bombay, people asking where I was off to and when saying "Igatpuri" (and learning where exactly the emphasis goes in this word) they smiled and said, "Ah, Dhammagiri, dhammagiri." Not knowing exactly where the stop was and Indian railways not having the luxury of announcements or even non-Hindi placards, my first glimpse was literally of the two golden gleaming pagoda tops of Giri and Tapovan. I grabbed my bags and headed out, taking an autorickshaw to the compound. I set my bags down and went into a private meditation hall for the 6 pm sit. Dhamma Giri is currently totally closed down due to the 45 day course going on now, so we were using one of the many alternate halls that exist.

The next day I awoke from the hard concrete "bed", a pleasant chill in the air, and after sitting and breakfast had a walk around to discover the lower grounds of Dhamma Tapovan, where I’ll be sitting. I took in the first view of the pagoda structure and cells and was in a state of total awe and reverence. What a place! Beautiful flowers and trees all around, but of course it’s the purity of the place that is so special. Walking through the ornate Burmese style gates with such phrases as "MAY YOU GROW IN DHAMMA" and snapping many photos, then doing a little Dhamma service before checking in my passport and valuables.

It feels somewhat like a self-containing mini Dhammic city. Leaving the dusty and noisy Igatpuri one finds an enormous "Myanmar Gate" that looks to be 40 feet tall or so, and is an _expression of gratitude to the country for preserving this technique. A Buddha Park is under construction, as is a monument honoring Ashoka. Then one winds up the forested road to the office area where hoards of Indians are working in all kinds of capacities, doing all kinds of things, from driving very vehicles, sifting rice and cooking food, administrative, VRI (Vipassana Research Institute) offices, etc. There is even an onsite bookstore with very well-priced Dhamma books! I am staying for now in a dorm with the Pali students, those here for an academic year to study Pali language. Meal times are set and segregated and enormous amounts of vegetarian food and super sweet chai is served. There are even security officers with a VIA (Vipassana International Academy) badge and wheel of Dhamma logo, and they join our daily sittings! See the Dhamma van to the left...

The setting is so peaceful. But also very strong and supportive as well, which increases as one approaches a pagoda. There are also a series of bungalows on the grounds where some ATs and old students have purchased flats, and a new Dhamma Tapovan II is currently under construction. I saw some AT friends from Japan that I hadn’t seen for some time and have some other friends arriving today. And many people here from around the world, it is really so inspiring to come to a place like this and see what it has become. It must be like a Catholic going to the Vatican or Muslim making the Haj, but of course this has the added bonus of mental purification J

Well, back to Igatpuri and the center now, through the wandering cows and goats in the street and hordes of smiling young children asking "and Sir may I ask what is your good name?"… Below, here is a photo of some of the laborers constructing a brick wall and making a gutter for the huge floods that come during the monsoon season....

For photos of Dhamma Giri/Dhamma Tapovan, click here!