14 March, 2004

I have about 10 days left in McLeod Ganj - more than I think I want to stay right now, but I'll make the best of it before taking a car back to Dehli with Henny on the 23rd.

Losen (Tibetan New Years) is now half over.  In the early morning light, as the sun peeks out over the mountains to the east and north  and casts long shadows over the town and into the Kangra valley below (still obscured by the eternal haze of smog), the moon is somewhat less than half full above, fading into the brilliant pale blue sky.

We're now a week into the teachings which began at the full moon and have been every day except the 10th (Tibetan Uprising Day).  It seems like forever, it seems like only an instant.  This place has a strange affect on my internal calendar - somehow it's timeless as I sit in teachings, hike in the mountains or drink the first of many chais for the day.

It's chilly in the shadows as I nurse my chai and watch the town awake, across from the Sun Rise Cafe (Best Chai in Asia.  Even the stay dogs feel the cold, repositioning themselves into the first bits of sun to grace the buildings across the alleyway from me.  These are the same dogs that accosted me the first morning here as I wandered the streets at 5:30 AM, unable to sleep - and then made friends with.

Traffic, both foot and vehicular, begins to pick up - mostly Tibetans in their grays, browns and other drab colors and the chance monk in brilliant scarlet and saffron-yellow - few Europeans or Americans are up with me this morning.  The vehicles are varied - many auto-rickshaws coming from Bhagsu down the way with brightly clothed Hindis (mostly women) on their way to - where? - the bus stand down the block?, empty tourist buses headed back into the hills to pick up their fares, and trucks laden with the day's wares making their way through this narrow alleyway.  The shop keepers have thoughtfully sprayed the dusty ground with water from bottles, the caps of which are pierced with multiple holes to make sprayers, to keep the dust down.  Later in the day they won't even make the effort - the heat, traffic ands dust become uncontrollable.

10AM

Back at the Best Chai in Asia - this is the place to hang out and meet people - it's like Rome, all roads in McLeod Ganj seem to lead to here - after a breakfast at the Shangri-La (run by a monastery and home to the best Tibetan Soups) with Annie.

I'm the old hand now after a week in McLeod Ganj - as  people pass by they ask me directions and I actually know where they're going, and my sense of direction is good enough to give them what I hope are useful directions.  Nobieh from Teheran is traveling with Scott from San Diego (who focuses in on my Stanford University t-shirt - "are you from California") and want to know where the Himalayan Iyengar Institute is - they want to spend a month there studying (up TIPA Road past my guesthouse about a kilometer and a half to the yellow sign, then on down into the valley - how far after that I do not know.  Yes I think it's walkable, but if you have luggage I'd use a rickshaw.)

Hindi prayers are being broadcast from out of the Barnali Ornaments house across the way - complete with (to me) totally unintelligible commentaries.  I recognize them from the CDs at home - familiar, yet somehow different as they're sung with no musical accompaniment.

The road is a series of these ramble-down shacks of metal sheeting, wood scraps, \plastic tarps and brick, all somehow hanging together at the base of the brick and wood houses that cling to the slope above.  On the sheet metal roofs dogs will lounge in the afternoon sun and large grey rocks with sharp edges hold the roofs in place from the wind while serving as the occasional head rest.

Monkeys scamper overhead, climbing hand and foot over hand and foot across the power and phone lines that haphazardly clutter the sky above me.  The other day a huge plop of monkey poop barely missed me - it would have put to shame the seagull poop experiences I've had before.

Gwas (the brown / golden eagles) soar overhead, 10 to 15 feet above the rooftops.  Beyond them flutter multicolored prayer flags in the gentle morning breeze framed against the blue, cloudless skies.  The clouds won’t come until afternoon when the sun burns off the snow melt to create huge, white, billowing thunderheads that threaten, but never deliver, on rain.

Street vendors with every sort of vegetable and fruit line the alleyways, their wares neatly spread out on the burlap sacks in which they carried them from the surrounding villages into town for sale.  Archaic scales with hunks of metal to counterbalance, cabbages, cauliflowers, eggplants, tomatoes, bananas, mangos, papayas, potatoes, the reddest carrots I've ever seen ...

Evening

We found a restaurant that serves salads that are washed in iodized water (the Lhasa, two stories above the central bus square - noisy, service is terrible even by this place's standards) - supposedly killing all the bacteria.  I risked it, as I miss my salads, and got a terrific mixed salad with a light vinaigrette dressing.  Dinner was with Henny, Cassie and Jennie - I had a chance to talk with Cassie for the first time this trip - she's on an overseas program (self made) with the New College, studying in Kathmandu through August, and down for the teachings - Jennie is her advisor from the College.  She's writing her paper for the term on the Heart Sutra - I can't imagine a much better combination of places to do this from.

Teachings

Once again I left at tea time - this time feeling quite ill.  It must have been a combination of not enough water, too much sun and no real lunch because after I'd walked the mile & a half back to the guesthouse and sat down with a liter of water I felt much better (might have been the 5 hand stands and 2 headstands that I pulled off as well, or reading Salmon Rushdie on the veranda, 5 stories above the rest of the town in the sun in my shorts and no shirt, but I'll stick with the water...)

Today's teachings continued to focus on the role of a spiritual guide, or Lama, building upon yesterday's teachings.  While yesterday focused on the qualities required of a Lama, and your obligation to verify for yourself the validity of the lama before taking them as your teacher, today's teachings focused on the veneration to be given the Lama, and the mindset you should take in your practice.  I'll start with the mindset because it's the easiest and least controversial to me:

Longchenpa (and Patrul Rinpoche) both cite three states of practitioners, or ways of seeking refuge, using slightly different terminology - His Holiness covered both:

First, those of low intentions - those who seek personal release from their individual suffering in this life.

Next, those of middle intentions - those who seek personal release from Samsara (the cycle of existence and suffering) and are focused on their multiple lives.

Third, and the highest aspiration, those of high intentions - those who seek release of all beings from the cycle of Samsara.

Personally I'd like to think of myself as in the third category - at least intellectually I place myself there, but I struggle so much in this life I almost wonder if I'm in the first category.  Something to meditate on - or to go back to the chapter on the Hell Realms and reconsider the plight of all beings again...

The second major part of the lesson today (both Longchenpa and Patrul Rinpoche) was the proper veneration to be given Lamas.  I think I mentioned yesterday how His Holiness stated there are really four jewels - Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and Lama, and that the Lama is the highest jewel, even higher than the Buddha.  I think I understand a bit of this after thinking on it and re-reading the materials - the Lama is considered to be a Bodhisattva (Buddha like in nature) who has returned to teach and enable others to overcome Samsara.  In this nature they are true emanations of the Buddha and, regardless of the affectations they may take on in their worldly life, they are to be considered the Buddha.  So this makes sense - if and only if (remember the old geometry annotation IFF) your Lama is truly a Buddha.  And how can you tell?  His Holiness (and Longchenpa and Patrul Rinpoche...) says to study your Lama extensively (10-17 years) before accepting them as your teacher.  I suppose after this due diligence you should be sure.  However (here's the tough part) once you've accepted them as your teacher you should give yourself over to them, serving them, doing everything they say, and venerate them above all others (yes, even your family).  Somehow Krishnamurti comes back to me at this point and I have a problem with this unconditional surrender to your teacher.

Net net net ... I'm convinced that while Tibetan Buddhism has many strengths and tools that I plan to explore further, that I will continue on the multiple path that I find myself on.  Thich Naht Hahn, more Vipassana retreats at Spirit Rock and, yes, I think I'll be attending Sogan Rinpoche's teachings in California when he returns.  There's something here - behind the shamanism I see having been adapted from the Bon religion, beyond the unconditional surrender that I somehow can't get beyond, there are constructs, tools, techniques and approaches that I am finding useful.  However, I don't find myself compelled to return to Dharamsala again at this point - I think I've gotten what I came for - not what I was hoping for, not what I was expecting, but a greater clarity of the path that lies before me.

I'm still a little under the weather here, I think I'm going to make an early evening of it, go back to the room and read my new book - a non-Buddhist book for the first time in forever...