girls girls girls
Posted by: lucie
Just in case anyone reading along with the monastery chronicles was on the edge of their chair waiting for the next installment, I must apologize for my lack of consistency. I've had girls in town! Anna came over from England on Friday and we saw opera (Verdi's gorgeous La Traviata, which began, as such operas do, with a beautiful courtesan coughing into her handkerchief at a ball, then ended with said beautiful courtesan dying dramatically and elegantly in the arms of her one true love, who returned to her side just in time to say "oops, guess we should have been together after all" and watch her perish), drank cocktails, did wine tastings, ate delicious meals, hung out in traditional Eastern European pubs with the gruff locals, walked a lot and talked nonstop for three days straight. Neither of us could believe it had been four months since we'd seen each other; time passes quickly. And just as quickly, she was gone! Luckily we'll be taking on UK cities again in no time.
A very old friend arrived from New York on Sunday, so we had one day/night of girly overlap (Anna left Monday). The three of us took on the cobblestones, the beer, the Italian restaurants and the wine this city has to offer and overanalyzed Anna's husband, Kristina's many pursuits and my romantic interests. There's much catching up to be done on this journal, but as I've hinted previously, I've kept in touch with James - the one I met at the monastery and had the most perfect date with afterward. We're emailing a lot. It's difficult to explain but it feels very significant. I talked and talked excitedly to Anna about him for the first three hours she was in town, and have explained him to Kristina as much as possible over instant messenger in the weeks prior to her trip, so the girls were both briefed.
In short: the demise of my last relationship led to a pretty reflective period and, among other things, a more refined idea of what it is I want in a partner. I mean, ideally, if I could choose. And what's important to me. I won't go into it now, but Anna's heard the whole shpiel before. Until I met James, I was pretty sure there wasn't actually a man to meet the spec. So far, from what I know of him - and you can know a lot of a person after spending a month in a monastery with them and having just one date and a lot of emails, seriously - he seems to be the guy I never thought existed. I'm not saying I necessarily want the right things, or that I won't look back on this as a cautionary 'be careful what you wish for' tale, but in my best moments of analyzing what's important to me and what I need in a man, I came up with a certain hypothetical guy - and he is it. So there you are, for background.
Anna and Kristina were not impressed. No, the girlies like TOM. They like the look I get on my face when I talk about Tom, despite all my best arguments about why it could never work between us, and how it's important to me to be with someone who has a similar worldview to mine, and how Tom really doesn't and even though we can talk for a couple hours about the meaning of life, such conversations always end with us looking at each other like, "What? You really think that?" They kept trying to call me out on it and I kept saying there was nothing to call out - I DO love the boy and happily admit it; it just doesn't mean we should be together, and we're not going to be.
"You have to get behind me on this Future Husband thing!" I kept insisting, but they weren't buying it. They said Tom was John Cusack. If my life were a romantic comedy (and isn't that the dream, really, when you're single?), James would be the boring, responsible one with a career who wanted to settle down and have a family, and Tom woud be the loveable, lost man-boy played by John Cusack. Everyone wants John Cusack to win. Which would be fine if life were only as long as a movie.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Anyway, the girls think James sounds a bit too serious, that I sound a bit too excited about him, and they're rooting for Tom. They are, however, completely wrong. James is my future husband. I will write more about him soon; I desperately wish I could post all of our email correspondence online for the whole world to read, because it truly is precious.
For now: James is Amazing. He's one of the smartest people I have ever met, knows exactly who he is, has a heart of gold, is intense and capable, sees the world for what it is and has as much integrity as anyone you'll ever meet. He has deep eyes, a sexy smirk and a rich, beautiful voice. He is spiritual and grounded. He wants a family. He dropped out of school for a few years as a teenager but educated himself and talked his way into university without high school transcripts or a diploma - and then went on to finish law school. He speaks a Slavic language. He gave up a high rolling job to do something that would allow him to help people and make a difference in the world. He signs his emails "Lots of love, James" and "With devotion, James" and "Take care of yourself and know that I am thinking warm thoughts about you, James."
Lotus Monastery Day 22
Posted by: lucie
Had an interesting chat with Ian last night. Mostly we walk a fine line between discussing course content and making fun of it. He is particularly amused by the idea of accumulating merits, and likes to imagine them as gold nuggets amassing in a big basket that is always by his side. He amassed lots the other day because his discussion group cleaned Lama Zopa's apartment.
When we started chatting Brian made himself scarce. We were standing outside having hot chocolate, Brian was in the middle of something and Ian was walking by. I wanted to ask him about the apartment, and he was moving pretty fast, so I had to interrupt Brian to talk to Ian. I guess we must have been a little flirty because Brian left within 30 seconds and never came back. I'm not sure whether to thank him or apologize.
Venerable Monk told everyone they could make an offering to Lama Zopa when he comes or just stand back skeptically. The latter seems a bit rude, but apparently some people are doing it. Brian says he'll offer a khata because it's only polite, and he has a very good point. I'll probably lean that way. It will provide an opportunity to sneak a look at this man's eyes, which I'd quite like to do. I'm curious to see whether there's some astounding Bodhisattva intensity that will blow me away. It will be humbling if there is.
Yesterday Veronika, Corey and I were at the cafe having some tea and there was a procession of little tiny ants licking up a sticky ring of Pepsi that a bottle had left on the table a few minutes before. They'd march down the pillar onto the table, cross over past the ketchup, soy sauce and s&p, feed on the Pepsi a bit and go back to where they came from, and we just watched them. There were three at first, and then word must have got around because 15 minutes later we were hosting eight. Veronika giggled and sang them "Om mane padme hum" and I got a great picture of the moment. It's kind of cool to observe insects and leave them in peace.
That said, James was meditating in the gompa at the tantric college one night and he saw a can of RAID, emblazoned as cans of RAID are with the slogan "kills bugs dead." So I guess even the monks make exceptions.
It's 9.30 so the library is open but I'm waiting for the hot water to get a little hotter so I can have a nice shower and wash my greasy hair before lunch. I can't wait to have access to a hairdryer and a daily hot shower again. My skin is also in quite a state - not at all the glowing complexion I expected to gain from spending weeks in a monastery eating vegetarian food and giving alcohol a miss! All this brainwashing and not even a youthful glow. Raw deal.
I'm quite enjoying skipping lessons, sleeping through precepts and doing my own thing. Eating in the cafe instead of the cafeteria is also nice. Ever since the food poisoning I just haven't felt right about the cafeteria, and James seems to be going through the same illness I had before, which leads me to believe it still isn't safe in there. My stomach never feels quite right after cafeteria food. Maybe it's psychological. All I know is it doesn't happen in the cafe.
I'm going to enjoy the rest of my time here. Read a lot, chill out, lay up on the hill in the sun during the day, bundle up and look at the stars at night. Feel good. Enjoy samsara. Might as well.
--
Wow, things with Ida have just come full circle. I hate to write that I feel vindicated when I know she is off crying somewhere, and I don't feel happy that she's upset, but it was really illustrative. She's having a tough time with the course now - with Monk's style, the dogmatic feel of the teachings, the religiosity of it all. Three weeks in, she seems to be finally admitting to herself that she is unhappy with it, which has been apparent to me for a while - mostly as she's been taking it out on me.
She had a chat with her discussion group leader at lunch yesterday about how she was having a difficult time, and he brought it up in their session today against her wishes. She never got a chance to explain exactly what her problem was... they all started on how she was being negative and everything she needed was here in the teachings but she was afraid to confront things or something. Basically they made her feel really bad and guilty. So she came back to the room all upset and crying to ME about it, and I gave her a hug and listened and said she shouldn't give any credence to people being judgmental because they didn't know anything about her and it was probably more about themselves.
She said she understood but it still felt shitty, and I said look, I completely feel you because I got the same thing from people in this room every night for a week or two. Every night I got lectures about people who weren't going to all the teachings and the feeling that people were angry at me - for a few days no one even talked to me. Yeah, it sucked, but I knew it wasn't really my issue so I ignored it. It didn't mean it sucked any less, but all you can do is know that and move on. She got quiet and went into the bathroom for a minute. When she came out she said she was sorry for being judgmental of me. I said I wasn't just talking about her; it was everyone in the room. She said well, it wasn't that I was really being judgmental of you - it was about myself. I said I knew, and she said thanks for listening and wandered off.
--
Just had an interesting chat with Corey on the hill about being judgmental. I was saying my personal goal is to be kinder about my judgments. You can still see things as they are, but you don't have to hold them against people. For example, this girl Vanessa who is here. At first I really liked her, but I'm beginning to find her quite nutty. She's all over the place and seems to have very little understanding of her own character, so she's constantly criticizing people for faults she most prominently displays. Ego, arrogance, anger, aggressiveness. She's confrontational to a scary degree and always seems to be looking for an argument. I could leave it at that and never talk to her again, but why? I don't feel threatened by it. I mean, I shouldn't. So I should be able to look at her and see that her behavior is an expression of her own internal struggles and be sympathetic rather than pissed off. She has a pretty wild look in her eyes right now; she's grappling pretty hard with some big questions and trying to find answers she can believe in. It makes her a bit mad and obnoxious, but she's still basically a nice girl who means well and has a good heart. I'd like to try and take this kind of perspective on people more often.
We were talking about the nature of self today in our discussion group and how it's so much smaller than we make it out to be. When you meditate on this concept of "I" and strip away the feelings, emotions, memories, experiences and appearances, really get down to the essence, it's really something so small. So why, said one of the girls, do we do so many things to protect it? Why do we feed it so much and buy it clothes and expend so much energy trying to shelter its feelings? It's just this little ball of self. It's the concepts and projections and self-image we're actually protecting, and none of those things amount to anything of consequence.
Lotus Monastery Day 21
Posted by: lucie
There's so much talk about how great it's going to be, how everything will change, when Lama Zopa comes. My intuition tells me that people are going to be massively disappointed. He'll be even more strict, superstitious and dogmatic than Monk. It's going to be interesting to see how many people show him very holy devotion, how many feel it sincerely, and how many maintain a genuine unholiness. And how many take refuge, and how many chill at the back of the room. I think I've said all this before.
It's 10.30 and so far I've skipped precepts, morning meditation and morning teachings. I feel good. Had a long chat with Jon before "breakfast" about Zen and seeking beauty in everyday things, and how everyone is somehow getting what they need from this place, and how we're learning a lot. He commented that he expected to come up here and just enjoy some peace, but one thing he's learned is that you can't expect to find peace anywhere - not even a monastery in the Himalayan foothills - if you aren't feeling peaceful inside. Very simple and true.
Jon's been reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh, an amazing Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master who knows how to make it very very beautiful. I read one of his books yesterday, a commentary on the Heart Sutra, which is on emptiness. It was simple, beautiful and inspiring. You have to go to the library for that stuff, I find.
Ida and I are having lunch together in the cafe today, which should be interesting. We hit it off at the beginning of the course, but then she went through a rather nasty judgmental phase, of which I was the focus. Lately she seems to be coming back around, if only to vent to me about things. She liked the idea of eating in the cafe instead of the cafeteria, which does get a bit nauseating after a while, so I invited her to join me today. She accepted before remembering to doublecheck one thing: "Without Brian?" I said yes and asked if she'd ever actually spoken with him. She admitted she hadn't and knew she was being judgmental, but just doesn't like him. One thing you can't fault the girl on is honesty. She may have some nasty ideas and opinions, but I'd take her over a fake holy person any hour of any day. Sincerity is key.
The precepts aren't very hard. Here we're only supposed to have one meal a day, but the traditional way of taking Mahayana precepts is just not to eat after 12.00, so I don't mind having a few glasses of juice or hot chocolate in the morning to keep my head level. I'm probably consuming a normal day's worth of calories in juice, coke and hot chocolate. I probably won't even lose any weight. I don't really care.
I wonder if Tom and I will date when I get to Eastern Europe. I wonder if he's seeing anyone right now. I wonder if he's wondering about me. I wonder if I got into my MBA program. Everything will work out as it's meant to, I suppose.
After lunch I went up on the hill by myself to enjoy some sunshine and I saw Brian on the grass in front of the stupa playing ball with this guy Adam. I don't know what they do, exactly, but they made up a very simple game called Buddha Ball and it looks like they're just throwing balls at empty water bottles. In any case, he looked so happy - just like a little kid, with his legs out in front of him, sitting on the lawn playing catch. It was sweet. I've don't think I've seen him look that happy before.
Lotus Monastery Day 20
Posted by: lucie
Dreamt last night that I asked Monk whether he actually believed in nagas. We were having dinner with a few other people and they were trying to be respectful and kind of holy. I wanted to ask, respectfully as possible, some of the questions that had been on my mind. I could tell it made our dinner companions uncomfortable but I HAD to ask. Did he REALLY believe in nagas? He looked at me and said, quite solemnly, that he could definitely sustain his belief in them for at least two to three minutes each time his teacher talked about them.
It's another 9am brainwashing session.
I invited James to come to Boudha with Kristina and me; Brian promptly invited himself along. I mean, of course he has every right, but Kristina has backed out now, which means it'll just be the three of us again, which means Brian will ignore me and hog James. Hog him - how 12 years old do I sound? Anyway, this is all so much hassle. I actually can't get the boy alone. I get the feeling he'd like to hang out with me too, but what do I know? I've seen him looking at me across the gompa a few times. In fact, I only started to notice him after we hung out at lunch one day and he had a cheeky smile on his face as he was leaving. I'd even go so far as to say I got the impression that it might've been the very reason he got up to leave. This is not a boy open to distractions; not now. You can't help but respect that, and I guess I have enough to think about.
Okay, obviously I don't because I keep thinking about these things. I should obsess on my story a bit. Today I'll spend some quality time on the Internet in town and try to reach some people about interviews.
I slept through precepts and morning meditation today, and skipped "breakfast" (hot chocolate). Every day I go to the teachings full of hope but leave completely uninspired.
Brian and I had a good chat last night wherein he expounded on his lack of emotions. He describes himself as cold, says he never cries about anything, doesn't get angry and hardly feels anything outside of obsessiveness. We talked about families and I gave him the rundown on mine; he said I must have had "an interesting childhood."
Speaking of interesting childhoods, James told me yesterday that his parents let him leave school when he was 13 and wander around doing whatever he wanted. I said that was very brave of them; he said yeah, or really irresponsible. I pointed out that he seemed to have turned out pretty well (besides being a pretty amazing individual, he graduated law school), so they must have known what they were doing. He also mentioned the other night that his dad owned a strip club when he was growing up, and he used to hang out in the dressing room and talk to the strippers when he was about ten. He didn't say it in a macho "how cool was my childhood, eh boys?" way - more in a "why I find strip clubs kind of boring" way. I just looked at him and said "I like you more every day."
I'm back to thinking it might be possible to write a story on this course. I might not find the angle until after the whole thing is over, but maybe it's possible. Of course it's possible, in fact. It's just a question of selecting the right stories, the right details, the right pictures... and I'll really need to do some interviews. Must continue to float around by myself as much as possible.
--
Went down to town again today, but without Kristina, James OR Brian. Kristina wanted to keep silence, James got food poisoning and Brian only wanted to go if James was going. Luckily there were six or seven other people headed out! I checked email again, sent messages to the editor and a couple vipassana centers, bought some jewellry and went to see the TIbetan doctor about this weird pain I've been having in my knee. He felt around my knee, studied my pulses for a while and said I seemed generally alright but he'd give me some herbs for the knee. Strangely I got FOUR KINDS of pills - one at breakfast, three at lunch and five for dinner. You're supposed to chew them and drink hot water. The lunch pill was like eating an incense stick; the dinner pills, more like chewing aspirin. Corey went with me and had a more striking experience. The doctor felt his pulse and said he'd been sleeping badly, had gas and a pain in his ear, which was all spot on. He got some pills and was told to come back in ten days.
Six of us piled into a rickety van taxi down to town, with the two boys in the back where there were no seats. "So much suffering in Samsara!" Ali kept exclaiming whenever we went over a big bump, but it was amusing and we all had a laugh the whole way down. We were bouncing around so much it was impossible to carry on a conversation, but I managed to point out that we were making the most of our suffering and at least laughing at it and enjoying ourselves - Samsara isn't so bad. Ali then turned a bit serious. "Why don't you get in the back with me?" he said. "THEN we'll talk about suffering." So I shut up.
We got another van on the way back up - just three of us - and haggled him down to 100 rupees but eventually got what we paid for. The van broke down 1/2 mile from home, so we just paid the full price and walked the rest of the way up the steep hill.
It was nearly time for 3.30 teachings when we arrived, but Corey and I decided to skip and hang out in the cafe instead. We needed a liquid meal. Apparently everyone had been of the same mindset, because the supply of coke was sucked dry.
We had a good chat with a woman called Elise, who expounded on how each of her four children's personalities was apparent when they were born, merely by the way the birth process transpired. And she said there was a moment, an hour or two, before the real maternal bond kicks in - when you can just look at a newborn baby and see its character; just analyze it with some distance. It was really fascinating. I like her.
James wandered in then, pallid as anything, and said he'd spent the whole night puking and felt like hell. I was on my way out but thought of him when I got back to my room and went back to the cafe to offer him the crackers I had left from my own trials... then asked if he'd like company or would prefer to suffer in silence. He said whatever I preferred, so I hung out and we had a nice chat about him being everyone's therapist. He says he plays the same role at home and reckons it's because he figures he understands his friends better than they're able to understand him, and he's also able to work through his problems with some degree of stability so he figures it's kind of his job to help other people figure out how to do the same. He was really skillful at turning the conversation back around to me over and over. "I'm not one of your patients anymore," I told him. "You never were," he said. Which is true. I never have asked him for any reassurance or answers. I wanted to one night, but I couldn't find him.
Everyone thinks this boy is some kind of saint, and he is a really good, patient and seemingly exceptionally balanced guy, but he's still a regular person. I think he hides a bit behind the therapist routine. He really fascinates me.
True to form, Brian showed up, failed to ask if he was interrupting or could join us (not that he should have to, to be fair, but James always does so when Brian and I are talking), sat down and managed to turn the conversation to economics or something. I got bored and we finally all dispersed at once with James going back to bed and Brian and I heading for the hill - my regular 6pm appointment with the stars.
Everyone is in the 8pm chanting session now; soon it will be time for bed. The day has slipped past. I've hardly read anything. This morning feels like a week ago. We have nine more days of precepts! Goodness.
Lotus Monastery Day 19 (part two)
Posted by: lucie
The griping about dogma continues, and some people are writing anonymous notes to Monk. Yesterday it was rumored that someone left a note saying "The Buddha was not dogmatic in his teachings. You are." In the afternoon Monk said he'd received a note from someone asking if they could give their refuge back. Maybe it's silly and childish; maybe if those people really felt that way, they'd have left by now, or maybe they don't have the balls. Maybe they'll work through this stuff and take refuge again by the end of the course.
There's a lot of talk about waiting for Lama Zopa to get here, but I think he's going to be a little bit freaky. It'll be interesting to see whether more people leave after his first session. Of course by the time he gets here there's just another week of the course left, so it hardly matters.
I've been writing all through morning meditation. It isn't working very well for me. I think I'll do a bit better on my own. Too many distractions here - too much pressure to do analytical meditation before you've even achieved any kind of clarity of mind. That can't work.
-- 9am teachings
I'm developing a little crush on James. He's just lovely. I keep looking at him across the room. I've hardly talked to him alone - Brian always seems to be around, and Brian adores James. He just asks him question after question, and no one else can get a word in edgewise. I get jealous and want to steal him away. He's just a soothing, grounded kind of guy to hang out with. He has a lovely voice and a good brain and tries to be humble.
Everyone wants a piece of James. They all want to ask him questions and glean knowledge of Buddhism and meditation. I'd actually like to know more about James. He doesn't reveal a lot of himself, but the bits he lets out intrigue me.
He's been having some problems with his back and I suggested he go down to town to get a Thai massage. He said he might and I told him to let me know if he wanted company. I'll definitely go back down there at least once more before the course is over. Last time I meant to send emails to some other meditation centers to set up interviews, but I was so shaken up by people's psychic suffering I didn't do it; I just blogged and emailed friends. I should really get in touch with the Irish editor and do some reporting work. This is my re-entry into journalism; I need to get it right, not be lazy.
Yesterday's teachings started to get exciting - we were talking about emptiness at long last. I love emptiness. Today we seem to be back to "throwing karma" and the other technicalities of karma that I find absurd... Absurd and boring.
I'm reading more about Zen and still totally loving it. I love it. It isn't easy, but it's pure.
Monk is now saying that we create two kinds of karma: first is "throwing karma," which has all the elements of the path of action intact and can throw us into the upper or lower realms. The other kind doesn't do that, but it cah bring about environmental, pleasure/displeasure and luck-related results, even in this lifetime. "Experiencing karma." One karma throw us into another lifetime, the other kind fills in the results.
He's just gone off about "nagas," some crazy spirits born in the animal realm who can get mad at you for pissing on a tree or washing your dirty hands in a pond. They live there, you see. Only monks can cure you of the diseases caused by nagas, apaprently. What superstitious crap. And not half unhealthy ideas to put in the heads of sleep-deprived, calorie-deprived and already exceptionally imbalanced individuals among us.
Nagas, man. Seriously. If you change a tire and wash your oily hands in a pond, the naga that lives in the pond - because nagas don't like dirtiness, you see - might get pissed off and give you a rash or a disease. THEN you need to get a monk to BLOW ON YOUR FACE.
I'm so glad we're all learning to apply the teachings of the Lam Rim to improve our minds and everyday lives. FAIRY TALES! MYTHOLOGY! Ghosts, dragons and NAGAS! It's just completely ridiculous.
Now he's talking about what things you should talk about around a dying person. Naturally it's Dharma, no idle chatter. There we go. This is practical information we can use in our lives. You have to die in a virtuous state of mind. Kind of like in Christianity.
Now he's saying that dying people who have scary dreams are foreseeing their future lives, which naturally they've earned by accumulating lots of bad karma.
Sometimes I think there is something aggressive and mean about this man. I really do. Or maybe he's just nuts. I feel like walking out of the teachings and reading something worthwhile.
--
Okay. Everyone here is going to get what they need. That's what I have to keep telling myself. Everyone gets what they need.
What am I getting? A clarification of what I already believe. An understanding of the concept of emptiness and relativity illustrated by this course being something completely different for each person here. An example of an experience I can approach however I like and choose to make my own misery or happiness. A bit of an attraction to Zen Buddhism. And time to reflect on bits and pieces of life. Ilustrations of the way I interact with people - specifically men - and what I choose to focus on at interesting times.
James and I are talking about going down to town in the next couple of days so he can get his back checked out. Kristina wants someone to go with her as well, so again my idle desire to have James to myself shall be ignored by the universe. I'll organize for all three of us to go together; anything else would just be childish. He said something today about sticking around Nepal to look around after the course instead of doing the meditation retreat if his back didn't get better. That might work out interestingly.
I'd love to spend more time with that boy. Too bad I'll never get him alone because Brian is always following him around.
With the exception of ignoring me whenever there is anybody else around, which can be awkward, Brian is generally being more normal these days. It's a relief.
Our discussion group went to look at Lama Konchuk's relics today. They weren't as impressive as I expected them to be, but it's still quite a confusing phenomenon. It would be interesting to hear science's interpretation.
Lotus Monastery Day 19 (part one)
Posted by: lucie
I had a weird dream that I was passing by a candy store - a kind of self-serve place where you put your ATM card in a slot by the door to pay for a certain amount, and the door opened to let you in when you entered a code the machine gave you. (I hope this is clear- I am only half awake.) I got my little slip of paper, then noticed this group of boys hovering around menacingly, so I decided to walk away with it and come back when the coast was clear. The ticket gave me 40 minutes, so I had time... and I knew they just wanted to get in that closed door.
So I walked off nonchalantly thinking I'd avoided trouble, but they followed me. Some argument ensued and they all started beating me up. I was on the ground and they were kicking me in the ribs, taking turns. For some reason I realized they were the guys from Westlife, and the blond one was running the show and demanding my ticket. I was arguing with him and telling him he was an awful person and they all had some nerve. I couldn't believe they were going this far over some candy that only cost a few bucks.
Finally I handed over the receipt and told them, with the sincere intention to help, it seemed, that they'd better get going because there was a 40 minute time limit and they'd miss it if they didn't go soon. As they were leaving I asked the blond one his name, reminding him that I could just go look it up on the internet anyway, even if he didn't give it up. "Dan," he said. I looked him in the face and said, seriously as I could, "Dan, you should be ashamed of yourself." They left.
One of the girls turned the light on in our room at that point, as it was about 5.15, and before I opened my eyes I laid there thinking "It's okay, because when I wake up I'll be safe at home." Then it occurred to me that I might not - I might actually wake up in some other place - not such a safe place. I went back and forth on this, wishing to wake up at home, thinking I might be somewhere strange, until I remembered I did not, in fact, have a home. Opening my eyes to settle the mystery once and for all I was greeted with Lotus, and my roommates getting dressed to take precepts before dawn.
"Screw this" was the main thought, I believe. But I'm here in the gompa again, listening to the confused yet solemn murmering of Westerners armed with Tibetan. It's just like being in a church.
Carrie left last night. Syvia and Mary are going this morning. Vanessa still isn't sure. I don't think she'll actually do it.
I can't help wondering what the hell I am doing here in this ridiculous 5.30am precept session. It's way too early and I just sit here writing because I find it somewhat absurd. Brian does the same (well, without the writing). As we were walking in this morning he gave me this grumpy look and said "I'm going straight back to bed."
"Me too," I whispered, but we can't - we'll miss Sylvia and Mary. I told Sylvia last night that I'd see her at morning tea to say goodbye.
Yesterday I met Erik, our class rebel. I guess I'd assumed he was kind of a jerk because he does walk around with a bit of an air about him, and sure, he's arrogant, but he's actually a very intelligent and thoughtful boy. We walked around and around the stupa for a while, chatting about religion, individualism, brainwashing and how one's spiritual path can only be found inside oneself. I told him I thought the root spiritual lesson was the realization that we were each alone in the world, and he agreed. Then he said "Number two is that you are responsible for yourself." Yes!
We decided that if everyone could just grasp these two basic truths, the world would be a much better place. We reflected on the possibility that a lot of people were only here to escape them. They want something to grab onto, to make them feel safe. But there isn't any such thing. It all seemed so obvious. Then we said hey, we could be completely wrong. We could just have big huge egos that make us think independence is important, and we could in fact be unnecessarily isolating ourselves. Maybe we're wrong, we thought. Well, we got over the thought pretty quickly, but it was briefly considered, at least. I said those two things just felt very honest and truthful to me; very pure. He agreed.
Erik is the one who talked to Ani Nun in the library that day - the one she was really aggressive with, the one she told that he didn't understand that jewels were being poured over him and he was just complaining that they weren't his favorite color. He's actually been skipping ALL the sessions and has created a makeshift gompa on the roof of the dorms. He and Miguel, another great person I met yesterday, sit up there and meditate on their own.
Or so it was until yesterday, when Erik was informed that he needed to either go to the teachings from now on or leave the course. When he replied that he was waiting to see Lama Zopa, he was told that he could get a room outside the monastery gates and come back only for Lama Zopa's teachings, and informed that he was a negative influence on other course participants.
He doesn't actually DO anything. He was a bit loud the first few days but now he just minds his own business and tries to study on his own. It really shouldn't affect anybody. People know he has his own routine, hence they know that not everyone is falling into line. Perhaps the course leaders don't like having such an example of independent-mindedness fluttering about visibly, but it would be tough to prove any actual negative effect.
So Erik is coming to the teachings now, but he reads quietly while he's here. He sits behind one of the big posts in the gompa so Monk won't see him, but still some of the other students complain. It's disrespectful to Monk, they say, and he points out that he's sitting behind a post so Monk won't see him. If they have a problem with it themselves, he says, come out and say so. So some of them did. They asked him to move.
What effect does it actually HAVE on them if he reads? Any? It really isn't very Buddhist of them not to mind their own business. People fixate on the actions of others when they're feeling unsettled. One of my roommates was doing it to me for a while. She went off on one nearly every night about people skipping classes. Typically she uses Erik as an example, but she's really trying to tell me she disapproves of MY schedule.
Erik is a sort of icon of rebellion. Hero to some, traitor to others. I told him this yesterday and he laughed and said "leader of the resistance!" just as Brian was saying "it's okay" or "don't worry about it" or some similar statement intended to take the sting out of mine, which he clearly saw as mean. Erik understood, though.
It turns out he actually considered himself a Buddhist when he got here. He took refuge five years ago. Apparently he taught English to a very high lama, a young one, and this lama gave him warm, fuzzy teachings about Buddhism tailored for a Western mind. Now he's hearing it all in black and white and he doesn't think he likes it so much.
Comforting or disturbing
Posted by: lucie
Was chatting with a friend of mine online yesterday, and he pointed out that I've always been able to see right through his shit.
"Seriously, I can't get away with anything with you," he wrote. "I could say in all sincerity 'Lucie, you know what, I really think the sky is green,' and you'd be like 'John, you know you've never seen anything but blue,' and you'd always be right. I don't know whether I find that comforting or disturbing."
I don't know whether it's a compliment, an insult, or just senseless, but I liked it anyway.
Lotus Monastery Day 18
Posted by: lucie
Sylvia, Carrie, Vanessa and Mary are leaving in the morning. They have different reasons. Carrie has been conflicted for days and I think the course is making her feel bad about herself because she doesn't believe. Vanessa knows what she believes and feels the course is crushing her love for Buddhism. Mary simply hasn't found what she was looking for - nothing resonates. Sylvia says she isn't getting anything out of the experience at all; she thinks the teachings are absurd.
I'm too fascinated by the weirdness to leave. I just have to know how it all turns out. And when I look at it objectively, I realize that I'm learning a lot about Buddhism, if only from an academic perspective.
Craig and I went out for a walk yesterday and as we left Lotus we met five Australian girls who weren't allowed in the gates. I guess they're closing the monastery to visitors for the next two weeks while we do precepts. So we took them over to the neighboring monastery and I found myself explaining a lot of things to them about Buddhism and what Buddhists believe. It may not be helping me improve my mind or change my life yet, but I certainly have accumulated a lot of knowledge about it.
I'm going to fewer and fewer sessions but I like it this way. This morning I went to take precepts at 5.30, then 6.30-7.30 meditation. I'll go to the library instead of morning teachings, my discussion group at 2 and then the 3.30 teachings, and be done by 5. I always skip the 6pm brainwashing session, and the 8pm "meditation" has turned into a full hour of chanting and Vajrasattva purification. In fact there have only ever been two meditation sessions a day at best, and that's a stretch. Morning meditation is what it claims to be. The 6pm is total hypnosis if you have your eyes closed, or a sermon if you don't. The 8pm has been kind of like a discussion or Q&A session with Ani Nun, and we get 10-30 minutes of meditation in at the end depending on the number of questions or how chatty she feels.
Nowadays there's a lot more chanting than meditating, and it's all getting a bit surreal. I went back to bed after precepts and morning meditation and slept until about 10am. When I got up it felt like I was awakening from a most bizarre dream. Flashes of zombie-like Westerners chanting Tibetan mantras, stumbling over their syllables and singing off key, staring at their prayerbooks in semi-awake confusion, trying to be holy, trying to purify, then again the next morning like a bunch of kids who spent Saturday night at a friend's house and found themselves at someone else's church the next day, just trying to stand, sit and kneel at the right times so as not to piss off Jesus - just in case there is a hell.
I have to stay and write about it. There's a treasure trove of human behavior here. I mean, you really have all kinds. I need to write write write.
--
Had a good chat today with a guy called Miguel who seems to think in much the same way as I do about different spiritual paths all leading to the same basic realizations. As obvious as this seems to me, and true as it feels, a lot of people seem to have no idea what I'm on about. Also chatted about the course being unhealthy for some people. It was good. He had to leave to see Lama Lhundrup but we're going to pick up our conversation later.
Here's my theory, basically, and I may be repeating myself: let's say that Shakyamuni Buddha existed and was enlightened. I'm more than happy to believe that; enlightenment is certainly possible, I think. So let's say the Buddha was enlightened. I take that to mean he understood some very basic, simple truths about the nature of the world. Simple, basic, but unexplainable. You can't just tell people the answer, right?
So if you really really wanted to lead people to enlightenment, you'd have to get creative in your efforts to explain and illustrate. You'd craft stories, parables and metaphors to illustrate important principles. You'd create rituals to help others FEEL the truth. Hell, for the athletic types you'd invent gymnastics routines. You'd attempt to lead people along a path from realization to realization in the hope that they'd eventually understand the core truth of things. You might even make up a bunch of stories about karma, hell realms and hungry ghosts to help people grasp smaller truths along the way.
At the end of the path is the realization of Emptiness. Everything else is like a rung on the ladder - a ladder that exists to help you get through the window of emptiness. And once you're there and you understand that nothing is what it seems, then there IS nothing else. You don't need to understand Karma. You don't need to think about hell realms. You just grasp that people create their own realities and their own suffering, and there is no reality as we commonly conceive it. Once you get THAT, once you're through the window, you can just kick the ladder away. You don't need to worry about being reborn as an insect because you can actually comprehend that insects and people and trees are all the same thing. Maybe the Buddha didn't even BELIEVE all the other stuff.
Some people might start to grasp the truth by listening to stories but not have a clue why the hell they were asked to do gymnastics routines. Others could cartwheel to modest enlightenment but complain about having to listen to such ridiculous fairy tales. And some people will think it's all absurd.
Every religion, I'm convinced, seeks to lead people to the same place. Be good, be kind, be happy and don't take the sensory world too seriously. See meaning in things. Contemplate the effects of your actions. Think before you act, speak or judge. Look out for others. Don't make too much of little things. Be balanced. Be a positive force.
They're all like separate rivers flowing into the same ocean, but people get into boats and obsess on the art of sailing while completely losing sight of the destination. Or they explain how motorboats can't get you there, or canoes are crap, or kayaks always wind up in pieces on the shore. Who cares? Pick your own boat and get on with it. Or swim, for chrissake.
Maybe people spend so much time preaching about how other rivers can't get you there because they're so worried they're taking the wrong ones themselves.
Or, let's fine tune this metaphor. There are many oceans, but they're all connected and actually made up of the same water. There are rivers leading to each ocean: Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam in the East, Judaism, Christianity and so forth in the West. And there are different boats in each river - Zen, Mahayana, Henayana and such in the river of Buddhism and so forth. Okay, now I'm actually sick of this metaphor.
Anyway, people should get on with their journeys because it's a long way to go and we've little time to argue about boats. The time is a wastin'.
Lotus Monastery Day 17
Posted by: lucie
Today was the first day of precepts. Getting up at 5am to take them was pretty crazy. It was dark, no one had enough sleep and we piled into the gompa in a kind of zombie-like state to chant, repeatedly, things in Tibetan that we didn't understand. It was a bit spooky. I feel further removed from the rituals every day.
A whole posse of us went down to Boudha today to chill out, check email, book hotels and/or travel for after the course, or even soon. Another Stay or Go conversation ensued, and Carrie decided to leave - again. I met a philosophy professor who has been a Buddhist for years and has been on many retreats and says she's going to leave because she won't stand for someone crushing the beauty and understanding of Buddhism for her. Her name was Vanessa. She was making plans to go to Pokhara and sit by the lake, then travel through India for a while and visit some holy sites. It sounded great. I really felt like going with her.
People are suffering, and it's troubling. They're suffering from the teachings, which are somehow being presented in such a way as to generate doubt and self loathing in many people. Or fanaticism. There's something dark about it. Of course we're all creating our own suffering, and so am I with my overconcern for what other people's minds are doing. Point taken.
I could leave, but I don't think I can. I'm curious to see how it all turns out - where people end up, how many of us DON'T take refuge, what Lama Zopa is like.
I'm also falling in love with Zen Buddhism, or at least this one book I'm reading: An Introduction to Zen by DT Suzuki, with a foreword by Jung. It makes SO much sense. I'm nearly done with it and will be back into the library for more Zen material very soon. I love it.
This means I've little time to read the Lam Rim, which I do need to spend a bit of time catching up on so as no to lose track of the teachings.
So I was down in Boudha, sitting in the cafe with Vanessa and another woman, talking about leaving, when in walked another couple people from the course. I had a chat with them about leaving and they agreed the teachings were sketchy and the program was too religious, but they don't know many people who are becoming fanatical and/or losing faith or hating themselves. They seemed pretty chilled out and it made me realize hm, maybe I need to hang out with different people. Or not hang out with people so much at all. Even hanging out with Vanessa and this other lady was refreshing, despite the fat that they were getting ready to bail. Because they were a bit more mature and analytical of things going on in this place.
Today I've only talked to Craig. He is slipping hard. Poor boy - it turns out he's only NINETEEN and has been SO into Buddhism for over a year and now he's just burning out hard. He's so desperately confused that he's started slipping out the monastery gates to smoke cigarettes and even remarked that he was tempted at the sight of a bottle of whiskey in one of the shop windows! I wish I could do something for him. I listen. It seems to help a bit.
These teachings, really, I'm getting almost nothing out of them... yet I can never manage a complete ban on attending. The best course seems to be spending time in the library... or just reading on my own. I need more time to myself for sure.
Brian detox has been pretty successful. It worked out well that he didn't come down into town with us. I was concerning myself far too much with him, and now that I've stopped I'm able to get to know more people. I've picked up five new friends all in one Brian-free day.
Lotus Monastery Day 16
Posted by: lucie
I've just had a really interesting chat with a guy called Craig who lives and works in a Buddhist center and has known for most of his life that he wanted to become a monk, but he's having an awful time with the teachings here. He just doesn't like the way Monk is presenting the material and it's making him feel that he doesn't actually like the Lam Rim even though he's read it and attended teachings on it before. He's completely doubting his faith when, before he came, he thought he would take ordination in just a year. He's only a baby - I'd guess 21 maybe - but seems to truly understand what he believes. And the way Monk is presenting the Lam Rim, well, that simply isn't it.
I've seen him skipping teachings before and wondered what was going on in his mind because I knew he lived and worked in a center, so it was cool to finally have a chat. Absolutely lovely guy. Doesn't sound fanatical, really - just very well-read. He says even when he was a kid he knew he wanted to become a monk; that he avoided reading about Buddhism when he had a girlfriend because he somehow knew he'd have to split up with her and follow that path. Now he is; he's studying with a Tibetan lama who teaches Buddhism in a kind of stripped-down style appropriate for Westerners, and he's in love with Buddhism. Unfortunately the traditional approach the Monk favors doesn't resonate with him at all, and now he completely doubts his faith.
We talked about the nature of the teachings, and Zen, and whether enlightenment could ever really be explained, and whether hell realms and karma were merely building blocks, or rungs on the ladder, to lead people to a realization of emptiness. Maybe once you climb the ladder and get to the window of emptiness, it's okay to kick it away from the window because you're THERE. If you truly understand the concept of emptiness, you don't really NEED any of the rest of it. And that's all Zen seems to concern itself with - just the emptiness.
I said I thought the Buddha must have taught a lot of different paths to the same end, and if Craig had already found one that worked for him he needn't worry or lose faith because of Monk's interpretation. Even Monk's Lam Rim will be different from Ani Nun's or anyone else's. It isn't supposed to be the exact same for everyone.
He told me about an experience he'd had in deep meditation when he had a small realization of emptiness, and I believed him. He's young but really intense. And I asked if he thought he could find any way at all to explain it. I reckoned he could tell stories, paint pictures, take people on walks and teach them gymnastics routines that tried to express the real meaning of his realization, but none of that could truly make anyone understand. You just can't put it into words. Monk's way of explaining the Lam Rim is just one way. It works for some people; not everyone. There's no need for anyone to lose their faith because they don't like his view, but it can't hurt to doubt and examine your beliefs.
Craig's doubt is making him panic, I think. He was firm in his beliefs when he came. At one point he even said he wished he hadn't come here, but you could tell he didn't mean it. I said it seemed it would be crazy NOT to doubt at some point - that if he never doubted at all, just took ordination, it would be a bit troubling. He said he thought it was part of the path to come to a stage of doubt and question one's faith, but it's a dark time for him. He's been to see Lama Lhundrup twice, and Lama just sits him down and hangs outw ith him in silence for a few minutes, then says "Why do you doubt? WHY do you doubt? You have Buddha nature!"
He told me about a time he broke his wrist and the paramedics in the ambulance wanted to shoot him up with some painkillers, but he had already taken a vow against intoxicants and told them he wanted to try meditating instead. He did, separated himself from the pain, and the paramedics said there was an amazing change in his blood pressure almost instantly.
Chatting a bit more it came out that he'd been into Zen for quite a while before deciding there was more in Mahayana - that you could have deeper and bigger realizations through the Mahayana tradition than Zen. Zen, he said, could provide you with calm abiding and realizations of emptiness, but not true enlightenment. I said it sounded to me like they were probably, again, different paths to the same end, and that there were probably some higher teachings in Zen that led to higher realizations and deeper enlightenment, just like Mahayana.
We're in the library now and he's reading about Zen. He already knows a lot more about it than I do, but I guess he's feeling a pull to check it out again. On our way over here he said "You're my voice of doubt," half jokingly, which made me feel a little awkward. I don't want to be anyone's voice of doubt - I'm just trying to be a voice of balance. I want to help people understand that they're not WRONG to doubt; that it doesn't make them bad, or arrogant, or close-minded or incorrect. There are infinite paths out there; even the Buddha clearly taught many different ways. No one should feel like this is the only way to spirituality or happiness. No one should TELL anyone that it's the only way, or try to coerce them into believing it through dodgy hypnosis sessions masquerading as meditation. That really can't be the way. Surely the Buddha wouldn't like it.
I'm not the voice of doubt; I'm just a voice telling people it's okay to listen to the voice of doubt in their OWN minds - at least until it's had a chance to finish what it's trying to say. You can't just ignore it and hope it goes away. We're supposed to analyze. We're supposed to criticize. We're supposed to doubt. People keep feeling all guilty about doing those things and it's not at all healthy.
Anyway, it was a good chat. I needed it, I think. And I felt like it helped him a bit, just debating, to understand what he thought of things. Hopefully he won't decide I was the little devil on his shoulder; I feel a bit like that's what Brian's doing, which is why I don't enjoy hanging out with him that much anymore. I don't mind people having mood swings and changes of heart - I just don't want them projected onto me. It gets lonely.
Lotus Monastery Day 15
Posted by: lucie
So here's what I think about Tibetan Buddhism, or Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhism, or just the particular way they're teaching Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhism at this place: it's overexplaining things. There are too many rules and technicalities. There are too many mechanisms and formulas. And while I believe some of its central principles - in fact, perhaps even most of them - are correct, the detail isn't intuitive. It doesn't resonate. It isn't to be taken literally.
Perhaps it wasn't ever meant to be taken literally. Perhaps the Buddha was truly an enlightened being and in order to explain the nature of the true essence of things he had to illustrate it with all of these stories and images. I think that's what I believe. We're not meant to grasp at all this business - it's merely a way to teach the mind to look at things differently. Then let go of the literal stuff, the illustrations and the stories. They don't mean anything. 100,000 prostrations won't actually get you anywhere. Maybe just a bit closer to the realization that prostrations are empty of any meaning except that which you impart to them.
It's all so much simpler than all of this.
Presumably if you're enlightened, you can't explain it. You can tell stories, invent rituals, create entire religions to show peope the way, but most of them will cling to the rituals themselves, to the superstition, to the mantras or communion or hymns or robes, and completely miss the point.
People are being brainwashed here, but only because they want to be. I guess everyone is getting what they need somehow. The ones who get all fanatical will find their balance again when they get home. The ones who begin to grasp some concept of spirituality for the first time in their lives will change for the better, no doubt. It will all be okay. It's tough to watch some of them struggling - it actually really disturbs me at times, like last night - but it is what it is. I'm learning a lot about human behavior here. And religion, and spirituality, and the vast gap between the two, and how so many people never understand what they profess to practice - not at all - or even understand that they don't understand.
In other areas of life, I think I've decided to stay in Nepal after this course and do some research for a story about meditation retreats. Writing an entire article about this experience, which is definitely not for everyone, wouldn't be appropriate. I'll interview some people about 10-day courses, mention this one as something for students a bit further along in their belief in / practice of Buddhism, and venture a bit further afield to find out about some Vipassana retreats and things. It'll be a story about Buddhist tourism!
There are some pretty mad ups and downs in this place. At first I thought I'd have been better off just booking a room by myself for a month, but now I realize how much I'm learning by watching other people. It's driving a lot of points home extra fast. I feel like I've had some big realizations today.
--
I'm pretty tired. Tired by lack of sleep, tired of looney tunes behavior and fundamentalist theories, tired of people's emotions changing so dramatically, tired of worrying about others, tired of sitting on cushions on the floor, tired of my socks not getting genuinely clean because I do a bad job of my laundry. I'm tired. Tired of teachings and fake holy people, tired of freaky people in my discussion group who think thy have day to day contact with spirits and speak of this in a blase, matter-of-fact manner. I'm tired of that.
On a brighter note, I got some cute pictures of monklets hurdling twisted-up robes today. It was like reverse limbo.
It's a bit worrying to think about how things will go when precepts begin in two days. It might go crazy. The psychic energy here is already so weird, and it's just going to get exponentially weirder.
I started reading about Zen Buddhism today, and I think it makes good sense. Really good sense. I'm going to read a lot more about it in the next couple of weeks.
Lotus Monastery Day 14
Posted by: lucie
Nearly halfway there.
Yesterday was hard. The teachings kind of started to get better in that we got into more interesting subject matter, but it still isn't beautiful. It's still just very technical. Rather than speak about the principle that whatever kind of energy you put out into the world, you're going to get back, Venerable Monk delved into lots of technicalities. Like if you ask someone to steal for you, at what moment is the action completed? When they think they've got the item, or when you think they've got it? And what if they steal it for you but then doublecross and steal it from you? Will you get the bad karma? It's just silly.
The best part was when he got into sexual misconduct. My book - a Monk-recommended discourse on the Lam Rim - defines sexual misconduct as contact with "any wrong orifice," which quite clearly says to me that you can't be gay. But he glossed it over and focused on adultery, which actually isn't in my book at all. Then, when he barely touched on the orifice thing and people started to get annoyed, he gave it this warm, fuzzy kind of "everyone has to interpret these things in their own mind," etc etc. I would be totally fine with that if he said it all the time, but he doesn't. He usually delivers the teachings in an extremely strict, literal way. So it seemed a bit sneaky for him to sudenly say we had to interpret things for ourselves. To me he was just trying to duck out of being unpopular because that issue clearly would have been a dealbreaker for a lot of people. Either give us the strict, traditional Lam Rim or don't. You can't suddenly soften it up to avoid pissing people off when you get around to a sensitive subject.
Anyway, the NEXT thing that happened was Brian and I got into a FIGHT. A fight. It was so stupid. We were hanging out with Sylvia, who happens to be a lesbian, and I was trying to make the above point about Monk's sneaky moves. He kept cutting me off and saying I should talk to Monk about it, and finally blatantly told me he didn't want to hear about it. He gets personal and then he gets rude. He said I thought I knew more than Monk because I had said what was in the book; I was merely expressing an opinion that Monk wasn't being honest. So he told me another fifty thousand times to talk to Monk about it. I said I didn't need to argue with Monk, I was just expressing an opinion, and why was he insisting repeatedly, which was starting to piss me off? Then he told me I had anger issues! And I said I was angry at him telling me what I could and couldn't do or say, and he said we should change the subject so I tried, but somehow he changed it back, then said he didn't want to talk about this anymore and that I was upsetting HIM. So I left.
It actually really upset me. So I went up to the hill and thought okay, here's some kid I've known for two weeks. A few days ago we were best friends in here, but for the last few days he puts me in a bad mood a lot more often than he makes me happy. This business with telling me not to talk about things is just stupid. I'm not saying anything nasty - I'm just talking about and analyzing some aspects of the teachings. He does it in a far more rude and arrogant way all the time, saying that things are absurd and making childish jokes. I don't always like it, but you don't get to censor your friends. And I thought my God, he doesn't want to listen to anybody but himself speak. It's the bloody Brian show, and he's a controlling little thing.
I think to some extent he's taking things out on me because we are (were?) a bit tighter than he was with anyone else here, and that's just how it goes sometimes. I also suspect he has some kind of feelings for me and is insecure about it, mostly owing to some weird comments he made the other night about how he wasn't just here to amuse me when I pleased, which sounded so odd because that seems to me to be exactly how he treats people. But anyway, yeah, he's acting like an asshole.
I also think we're very similar and he's battling with some aspects of himself right now, so he lashes out at me a little instead of looking at himself.
Anyway, I decided screw it. Let's embrace the idea of impermanence - someone can be your best friend for 11 days and then a complete jerk for the next three. No sense trying to get the best friend back. Plus it's just embarrassing to let some kid get me all wound up. Plus he genuinely was making personal attacks and being mean, and I've had enough of that from guys. Bloody hell, this whole thing with Brian is like a relationship without any of the good parts. So I thought whatever, I didn't come here to play mind games with some boy. Easy come, easy go. What a shame, OH WELL. Then I tried to understand the idea of meditating on emptiness and not letting things upset you because actually you have no self and all that, but I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to work.
In some respects it was really good, this whole stupid fight - it gave me something to think about. Finally I got emotional and had something to analyze. Because I WAS upset and angry, and probably in a familiar way.
Anyway, surprisingly enough, he came and managed an apology. Actually it was "are you going to forgive me for being a jerk?" I said I wasn't actually in the mood to talk to him, and he said "Oh come on, you're not really that mad, are you? I apologize." And I asked for what, and he said for just generally being rude, and then admitted that he'd felt uncomfortable talking about the whole gay thing because Sylvia is a lesbian and he'd made some disrespectful comments about lesbians in front of her a few days before. Sylvia is 34. I think she can handle herself, and if she were offended she would have said so.
I didn't tell him everything I thought about it all, but did point out that over the past few days he'd been in the habit of cutting me off, telling me "it'll be okay" or that I'm being bitchy when I'm just talking, and that we used to have great conversations but it seemed like we couldn't anymore, and that he was being rude to me fairly frequently and I didn't see him doing it to anybody else, really. He didn't seem to completely believe it was true, but he also didn't seem very sure it wasn't, and he said he'd make an effort not to do it anymore. We'll see.
I still have a feeling he's going to continue to piss me off more than he makes me smile. I'm sure there's something to be learned from it as this isn't the first time I've found myself in such a situation. Maybe the answer is still to walk away. Maybe he'll do it again but I'll be able to keep my cool and point out when he starts to make personal attacks. I'll learn something.
--
Maybe all of this stuff about hell realms and the specifics of Karma are Buddha's creative way of illustrating important principles. NOT meant to be taken literally. Or not even his ideas at all.
--
So in the aftermath of the fight, Brian is actually being lovely. We're talking about going down to Boudha to look around, get some cash and make some travel plans if he finishes his chat with Ani Nun on time. He's having chats with all the Sangha, just to hear their stories of how they became monks and nuns. I think he'd really like to believe this stuff but doesn't understand how one even begins. He's a very very intelligent boy who sees himself as such and little else. I don't think he conceives of himself as a spiritual being, or an emotional one - just Mr Intellectual.
Yesterday he asked the nun who went to Harvard how someone could approach Buddhism from a scientific perspective. She didn't seem to understand the question, and she told him how it's beneficial to have knowledge of management and law and finance and things before you become a monk or nun because it helps you to manage your affairs.
I think he's really hoping for one of them to say "I used to be very analytical and logical but I came to have faith in Buddhism, and here's how." It's not going to happen, of course. Some people have a very strong religious inclination while others don't.
So many people want someone to tell them how to have faith, how to start believing. They go to see Ani Nun or Monk or Lama Lhundrup expecting some lightning bolt of faith to hit them, as if it can come from something outside of themselves.
All you can really do is listen to this stuff and decide whether you want to know more. If you do, you learn more. You keep learning more until you either develop faith or get sick of it. No one can give it to you. In some ways I think I may be one of the most level-headed people here, at least with the whole religious identity crisis. How very odd.
--
Yeah, people are having a difficult time. There are some strange things happening. Example: Lana went to see Ani Nun when she was thinking about leaving. She just didn't like Monk's take on Buddhism and felt like she'd be better somewhere else, using her time in some other way, maybe trekking and relaxing. Ani Nun told her she was arrogant and negative-minded, and that she was ignorant if she thought she'd ever find happiness outside these monastery gates. So Lana decided to humble herself and, out of respect, stay for another day or two. Now she's on some kind of intense guilt trip, like if she leaves she's a negative-minded bad person. She feels like she needs to stay, she says, to prove that she's still teachable - not some close-minded person. She told me and Brian this and then panicked and said "Oh, I've probably just accumulated so much bad karma by saying that and talking badly about Ani Nun."
I said my god, woman, are you joking? You're starting to sound really paranoid. And she looked scared. I told her to remember that she was only here to hear about someone else's belief system and she could decide what she thought of it later, but there's no need to jump in completely right now, or reject it completely.
All in all I've felt pretty chill today, but this last conversation seriously seriously shook me up. I actually feel frightened. The look on Lana's face really threw me for a loop because she appeared to be deeply scared. I told her the purpose of all these teachings certainly wasn't to make her feel bad about herself, and that she should remember what she believes and who she is, who she was before she got to this place. No one has to fall into line or start fearing their bad karma. There's a lot of paranoia and guilt going around. It's deeply unpleasant.
Lotus Monastery Day 13
Posted by: lucie
It's day 13! We're nearly halfway through! And we've finished the Lower Scope of the Lam Rim now, so things should get more interesting. I'm really looking forward to the teachings on Karma. I think... I have high hopes.
Brian skipped meditation last night. I was going to try to talk to him afterward as I realized I may actually have said or done something to offend him, or we've had some kind of misunderstanding, and it seems we should clear the air. Maybe it's best just to let it lie. It also occurred to me that we wouldn't be having these sensitivity and communication problems if one or the other of us didn't have some kind of feelings for the other, so I guess there's a rogue emotional element in the picture. Maybe it's just a microcosm of the Tom situation, here for me to learn a little lesson.
Maybe for now I'll just be very cautious with sarcasm and hope things smooth over by themselves. It shouldn't be a big deal.
Morning meditations are still by far the best. They're the only time we actually get some silence, just some gentle guidance and then space to meditate on our own. Monk is always jabbering away.
--
Damn, the morning meditation didn't work for me at all today! My mind was all over the place. I can't focus. One day soon I think I'll go down to Boudha to get a bit of a release, book travel to Thailand after the course maybe, see non-Buddhist human beings... just be away for a few hours.
Monk always starts his morning teachings with a lengthy meditation, and I don't feel up for it today. I'll go, but it isn't going to be easy. In Ani Nun's session I was looking at my watch every 5 minutes.
A lot of the people who said they were leaving have changed their minds. One girl went to Ani Nun and got an earful about how it was all down to her negative mind. Hard to find a way out of that one. She's going to wear a yellow ribbon today and think about it. Another who intended to leave is thinking she'll stick it out, and a third - who is desperately seeking answers or therapy - had a good chat with Ani Nun and decided to stay. I think the other two are bound to go, but you never know until you actually see the back of them. Lots of idle threats around here.
A couple more people did leave yesterday, though - the trickle continues. Tashi, the English teacher, says in past years only a few people have left. This year I think we might be up to 30.
-- 9am teachings
Everything happens because of Karma. How does that leave any room for free will? Everything bad that happens to us is purification of bad Karma. If something bad happens and you then see a silver lining, that's bad Karma THEN good Karma ripening in succession. It seems to me that we have no free will in this lifetime - only to influence out future lifetimes.
Karma also multiplies, sometimes doubling daily or something to that effect, so how can there be any room left for free will? Some of this stuff makes little sense.
I met a monk here, a week ago or so, called Lobsangh. Last night I saw him again and he asked what I was doing after the course and offered to take me around to holy sites in Nepal. My very own holy tour guide! Though I'll probably be sick and tired of most things sacred by that time.
Lotus Monastery Day 12
Posted by: lucie
Yesterday was a long one. Four more people I know are leaving. Four! They've just decided that Venerable Monk's take on Buddhism isn't for them and they aren't getting much out of it anymore. Someone told me a rumor that they expect half the group to be gone by the time we start taking precepts, which is about a week from now. That idea scares me. I don't want it to be just me, Brian and the hardcore prostraters!
Yesterday I realized another reason to stay until the end, though - to test my strength. People are getting brainwashed in this place - there's no way around it. Venerable Monk even said, during one of the meditation sessions, "Yes, it's brainwashing - but in a good way." ?!
I don't find that acceptable.
As time marches on more and more peple will start prostrating, finding faith, believing everything, and I'll be at the back of the room analyzing and trying to think straight. It'll be an interesting experience.
Yesterday a group of us decided to slip out the gates for a little hike. Such an act of rebellion: we went to visit another monastery. It was a twenty minute walk through beautiful forests - very invigorating. It's exciting just to get off the monastery grounds. I'd like to do it more often.
The other monastery was even nicer than this one, and we sat in for 10 minutes of one of their pujas. There were about 300 little monklets in there, I'd guess, and hardly any adults. pretty amazing.
After skipping an entire day's worth of sessions yeserday (which is apparently quite common - half of the cushions in the gompa are said to be empty at any given time), I'm ready for a bit more time alone. Listening to the same class-skippers making the same jokes and criticisms is getting old. Not because I disagree - just because it's boring. I didn't even have a chance to write yesterday because I was surrounded by people all day, trying to decide whether they should stay or go, believe or doubt.
My favorite group to watch is those who just believe everything they're told - no doubts at all - and figure it's due to a "strong karmic imprint" from one of their past lives. That's the only explanation for their faith, they say. I have another one: desperation. Neediness. The desire to believe in something to give their lives meaning. The need for something to cling to after their divorce, their near overdose, their breakup, the loss of their job.
Maria freaked me out last night. She's just SO into it - she's developed such strong faith just out of nowhere. She was sold, completely sold on everything, on day five. Last night she was like, "You know, I didn't come here to become a nun or anything. I mean, maybe I will become a nun someday, I don't know..." -- which would have been a reasonable, normal sentence if you substituted "a Buddhist" for "a nun," you know? Become a nun? She wasn't even Buddhist when she got here! Yikes.
Things are going to get even more hardcore when the precepts start. And even MORE when Lama Zopa comes, as he sometimes teaches into the wee hours of the morning. Food deprivation, sleep deprivation... it's going to be scary.
James and I were talking yesterday morning about how the real Buddhism here is in the library - all the rest is a sociology/anthropology study. Watching people react to religion, react to each other. I like James. He's a beacon of sanity. It's reassuring to speak to him.
My favorite people here tend to leave. First Gregor, now these two girls who are smart, funny and fun to hang out with. I have an Eastern European friend who seems to be on the edge, and last night I met two more very likeable women who are also on their way out. It's going to get lonelier as the weeks pass and the doubters bail. Brian might even peel off at some point; then I'd really have a challenge on my hands.
I'm going to the morning teachings today even though Venerable Monk always begins with 45 minutes of brainwashing and it tends to piss me off. My main problem with his style is that he teaches, then leads "meditation" sessions that are nothing of the sort. In actuality they are sermons delivered to people who are sitting there with their eyes closed and their minds as open as possible. It's more like hypnosis than meditation.
Maybe I'll go to the library instead.
It occurred to me yesterday that if this wasn't a Buddhist retreat, if it was anything else, people would call it brainwashing and cult-like with absolutely no hesitation. None. It's fundamentalist Buddhism, for sure, no doubt- and fundamentalist anything tends to be problematic.
We're supposed to be going down to see the Lotus Nunnery today, I think. Not sure. Perhaps I would know some details if I hadn't skipped every single session yesterday. The rumor is that the conditions at the nunnery are shameful compared to the monastery. Nuns get a fairly raw deal in Buddhism, generally. The monks here will even tell you that women can't get enlightened. They've only recently been allowed to study to become Geshes (it's like a PhD in Buddhism). None have graduated yet.
Oh, to attend teachings or not? I guess if I'm 50/50 if would be better to go. We're supposed to get into teachings on Karma today, which is where it should start to get a lot more interesting.
Someone told me yesterday that Lama Zopa is very "challenging." He'll come in, sit down, cough, then sit there for 45 minutes without saying anything. I also heard that after a teaching session in Australia that lasted until 2am, he made everyone go outside, find some insects, and carry them around the stupa for 30min. I'm sorry, but that's just lunacy. It's just insane. I can't foresee sitting through all his teachings.
--
Yes, I'm in a hypnosis session now. Monk is whispering his suggestions into all of our open ears. We're going to learn as much as we can about going for refuge so we can escape cyclic existence, etc etc. There was a good ten minutes of quiet meditation before he kicked back in with all that stuff again. You could feel a change in the room when he switched directions - people at the back moved out of the meditation position and folded their arms across their knees, started coughing, blowing their noses, some opening their eyes - some even reading. Take and leave.
One thing that occurs to me about the theory of samsara and perfect human rebirth: this is as good as it gets, right? And we're unlikely to get back here next time unless we're Sangha. We've been in the hell realms infinite times, we've been animals infinite times, we've been human infinite times... but perfect human rebirth is so rare that they almost make the case for enjoying life to the fullest. To take it a step further: maybe this is heaven. Living in the human realm - maybe this is as good as it gets. This is it.
--
I seem to have my health back, more or less. No more diarreah, no more upset stomach, and I've even been eating real food. Last night I had a proper meal, which felt amazing - I was instantly tired and relaxed afterwards. All that having been said, I'm going to take it easy on food since precepts are coming up. No sense getting used to three meals a day when they're about to take two of them away. Sadly, the one meal we get is lunch - the one that scares me the most since it made me sick in the first place. I'm only just able to face the cafeteria again today.
--
I told Brian and Katie my heaven theory. They said "Maybe this is hell." Monk is doing one of his brainwashings right now - we're all going to die, there'll be suffering later if we don't practice the Dharma.
Maybe it's heaven, maybe it's hell, maybe it's a perfect human rebirth and we're going to suffer next time around if we don't practice the Dharma. Maybe it's just whatever we make it, and we'd all do best to think of it as heaven.
We've got to get past this whole taking refuge thing as soon as possible. Please please let's get to Karma soon. I just can't keep listening to Why You Should Become A Buddhist. The absurdity of the sameness between this and other religions is driving me up the wall.
Maybe I'll come out of this experience a die-hard existentialist. Thinking, like Matt, that when we die we just get eaten by worms. End of story.
Big question: why does the human mind do this? Why do we search for meaning, why do we want religion? Why do we think about spiritual things if there isn't anything else? What is this instinct?
We're back to talking about putting mantras on your car and/or shoes for the sake of any insects you may unintentionally kill. Oh help.
Brian and I are having communication issues. I think he's taking everything I say really seriously somehow. He thinks I'm sounding bitchy. I don't FEEL bitchy and I'm not thinking bitchy thoughts when I talk to him, so I'm not sure where the wires are crossing. Then he'll comment that I'm being bitchy, which makes me GET bitchy, and we don't seem to have any quality conversations anymore. He's either full-on or quiet and strange. Or he says not to worry about something, or "it'll be okay" or "relax" when I'm just making neutral observations and am not at all upset about them. I don't know. It'll all no doubt wind itself down in time, I guess. It's an intense situation to be thrown into and spend all your free time with someone - you're bound to start pissing each other off. Especially when you're hanging out in a brainwashing factory.
Today we went down to see Lotus nunnery. It was pretty cool - not as ornate as the monastery, or as big, but nicer than I expected given what I'd heard. They made their own incense there, and we got to watch them putting it through this kind of spaghetti machine, pulling it out and cutting it into sticks. The smell in the storage room was overwhelmingly pungent.
I'm skipping the 6pm brainwashing session per usual. This won't change.
Venerable Monk finally stopped talking about taking refuge today, and tomorrow at long last we will start on Karma. Monk's way of presenting things may still suck, but I'm hoping for a positive change.
Lotus Monastery Day 11
Posted by: lucie
Really, it's like a big sociology study sometimes. People behave in very strange ways. Very strange.
Career
Posted by: lucie
Mercifully, I didn't get that job I interviewed for the other week. That was a good thing because it would have bored me to tears. The interviewer - sharp man - realized this and told the recruiter as much.
The rejection smarted for approximately two minutes, mostly because it meant I wouldn't be leaving my current unfulfilling position (underpaid unsatisfied journalist being fed a few too many assignments by the advertising department), after which I promptly forgot the entire thing. Over the weekend I'd analyzed the reasons I might not get the job and in fact begun to wonder why I'd ever wanted it in the first place. What would be the point of working for a Big Four multinational finance/consulting company rolling out dry new technology? And why on earth did I look that man in the face and claim that I didn't need to be fulfilled by my job?
Thus began an intensive period of reflection on "challenging and meaningful work." Here's a tricky one.
In approximately ten years I've managed to work in marketing and PR, run my own small business, have a fairly successful DJing career, do the middle management public sector IT project oversight thing in the UK and front like a journalist for a year and change. I've skipped around, learned loads, moved continually upward on the salary and responsibility scales (well, excluding the current stopgap arrangement) and been more or less successful in these different endeavors, but now I have to pick one. Because I turn 30 this year, and this 18-months-here, 18-months-there thing I've got on my CV is not going to be cute or impressive for much longer.
What am I going to do with myself? I've no shortage of ideas or possibilities, but where's The Idea? What can I do for the next few decades that has some positive effect, however small, on the world, and keeps my mind occupied?
The Buddhist Perfect Date Boy has remained in my life, interestingly, over email - hence I should reveal his proper name, which is James - and we've had a brief electronic discussion of the matter. A bit of background on James: he worked as a corporate tax attorney for a big firm, occasionally sleeping under his desk, presumably making a lot of money, before bailing for an extended leave of absence wherein he spent two months in a monastery, travelled the world for a few months, and decided to quit the job and start his own practice incorporating non-profits, handling refugee and immigration claims and taking legal aid cases. He is a prince.
He also has a striking gift for concision, some of which probably comes down to being a lawyer, and has dedicated most of his life in recent months to pondering the meaning of things - not least the meaning of work. There we are.
So I emailed him about the interview, and the things I heard myself saying, and how I was fairly sure I didn't believe them, or that to believe them would be lazy, and back he came with this: "This is the question. People work, either hate their jobs or try to find satisfaction in minutia, but rarely is their job an expression of what they believe or who they are. Selling their labour so that they can enjoy some comforts when not working, to make working more bearable - a deadening vicious circle. If a person is lucky, or not willing to settle, work and meaning can be combined - the challenge, of course, is to find that combination for oneself. I believe it can be done and has to be done if a person is going to be happy in life."
And of course he's right. And of course I already believed the same thing, but I admire his ability to express such things the way he does... and now I'm in danger of a serious digression about James. Right, jobs. Okay, so James expressed what I'd been mulling over, of course, and already knew, and I began to see the crossroads at which I currently stand. I could go any which direction. I could do journalism, I could do IT, I could do marketing, and I've proved to myself at this point that I can be successful in whatever field I really want to pursue. Success is something I have a bit of a knack for. Some people are good at art, some people are good at compassion, and I happen to be good at careers. I'd rather be good at relationships, but there you go - you're dealt the hand you're dealt.
Pondering the possibilities and ideas, I visited my school's web site to view the MBA students' profiles (they put them up for recruiters). These people are not of my world. Their goals are, by and large, "to manage strategic international development for a blue chip company" and the like. Which is fine, because that's why most people do MBAs. It doesn't happen to be a route that appeals to me.
The trouble is, I'm not sure what does. Having this degree will open doors, but it's high time I put some serious thought into what kinds of doors I want to open. What am I going to do on the other side of this thing? How am I going to find meaning in my work? How am I going to make some tiny contribution to the universe?
So after ten years of bouncing around, falling into challenges and opportunities a lot of people would kill for, learning a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it's time to step back and conceive of an idea. It's time to get proactive, find The Idea and begin working toward it systematically.
I've cancelled two interviews for hot-shit jobs in the IT sector and am settling into my desk at the paper now. It's not fulfilling, but neither is it demanding, nor permanent. I can knock out an advertorial story in an hour or two, which leaves the rest of the day to write, think, explore, blog, ponder and look for inspiration. Time to take inventory of my skills, experience and ideas about what counts as meaningful work and conceive of a long-time goal.
Lotus Monastery Day 10
Posted by: lucie
Okay, today I'm thinking about leaving. My stomach still isn't right. I can't consume more than 200 calories at a time. I have diarreah again. I skip a lot of the sessions and the ones I attend I like less and less every day. What am I doing here? I don't want to become a Buddhist - or at least not like these people - and I'm surrounded by desperate people who can't deal with doubt. Sure, it's beautiful here, but I'm getting more and more bad vibes from my roommates for not loving every bit of it, bad looks from Sangha when I miss sessions, bad feelings of my own about continuing to remain somewhere I'm not sure I belong.
Unfortunately I'm probably too much of a wimp to leave by myself, but I'm going to have a serious chat with Brian about it today. He's not sleeping properly, I can't eat, neither of us is Buddhist, neither of us goes to the teachings. We could buy the Lam Rim and read it on a beach in Thailand. I think maybe we should. We're both a little too analytical and rational to believe the way they're teaching. If you're not going to believe, why stay? We really could read the Lam Rim on the beach, meditate on the beach, and get a lot more out of it. To be honest, Venerable Monk is even kind of dumbing down the Lam Rim in his teachings. I got a lot more out of the book, when I read about death, than his teachings on the subject. Imagine if I had a whole day to devote to each chapter. Plus sunshine. And Thai food. We could talk about life, love and the Lam Rim. I've always wanted to go to Thailand.
Ida went off on one last night about how everyone needs to attend all the sessions. It's amazing how worked up she gets over something that actually doesn't directly affect her at all, but it's typical of a lot of people's attitudes here. If you're doubtful (or "resistant," as they prefer to call it) they get all squirmy, like you're judging them or something. Or it makes them remember their own doubt, which they don't want to do.
I've said it before and I'll write it again: the freakiest thing about this place isn't the teachings at all - it's the people listening to them. It's the way they react to the teachings and to each other's reactions. It's just weird.
I think it might be making me sick.
By the time we finally got up onto the hill last night it wasn't Brian who needed to chill out anymore. We spent Venerable Monk's meditation hour in the cafe talking to Tashi, the English teacher monk, then popped into the cafeteria for dinner (1/2 a bowl of broth was about all I could manage) where we met some girl from San Francisco who thought shit in the streets of India was beautiful. She'd been travelling for one month and had already decided she'd never go back to America, that there was "nowhere else like India on earth" and ditto for Nepal. I had to restrain myself from asking which other places on the earth she'd actually been. She was a very nice girl but I wasn't in the mood to listen to her. My stomach hurt, I was hungry, I felt like shit and I desperately wanted to go up on the hill for some fresh air, peace and quiet. Then it was Brian's turn to wonder why I was in a mood, and my turn to talk about leaving, and his to say eh, naw, no need to leave. It just goes back and forth like that.
After the evening meditation - oops, I mean chanting session - we wandered around a bit more and I whined about my stomach, which was just churning, and he joked that he didn't want to hang out with me anymore because I was being pathetic.
I think I need to leave this place. It's not good for my health.
--
Went to the library instead of morning teachings and I had to leave to use the bathroom twice in a half an hour. That's what happens when I get daring and eat two pieces of toast for breakfast - it goes straight through me. So I skipped lunch and slept a couple hours, then went to the clinic. The doctor gave me some diarreah medicine to take a few times a day. I was hoping for antibiotics or something.
These girls who were waiting with me in reception asked if I was okay and I started crying. I am so bloody emotional - I haven't been able to keep a meal down in days. I'm hungry. I eat less than a flipping supermodel. They started giving it the standard "Oh, a lot of emotional stuff comes up on these retreats," which made me want to scream. If one more person says that to me I swear I'm going to hit them. NOT EATING bring up lots of emotions. Unlike many other people here, I have no guilt issues around not becoming a nun. I'm just living on 500 calories a day at best. My body is eating itself. It's not my fucking chakras.
I talked to Brian briefly in the library about going to Thailand but I don't think he realized I was being serious. He thought I was just whining but he agreed to think about it. I haven't seen him since.
No discussion group for me today, which is a blessing. I have the whole room to myself - beautiful peace and quiet - so I can sit here and decadently eat saltines.
--
Brian isn't into my leaving idea. He's pretty set on staying, reading the Lam Rim and learning to meditate. This is pretty funny as he never even makes it to morning meditation, which is the only real meditation session (the others are mostly chanting) and hasn't been to a single teaching today.
I'm getting over my urge to leave again. I think it has a lot to do with my roommates all being 100% into all of this stuff and seeming uncomfortable with me not falling into line. They haven't been talking to me very much lately. I know it's about them and not me but it's still slightly discomforting.
So I guess I'll stick around and keep reading, and keep spending an hour on the hill in the evenings, and keep ignoring people's freakiness whenever possible, and keep skipping a lot of sessions. We have a guest speaker tonight. People say she's inspiring. We shall see.
It's time to flip it.
Posted by: lucie
Because Tom is a player, actually. He is. It's sinking in. Not a cold, calculating womanizer - more the sweet, sensual, well-intentioned yet wandering type who believes his own smooth talk - but he sees the angles. I see him seeing them. He's jumping out of his own skin in this desperate desire to love someone. We've had far too many talks about women and I know far too much about his ways to fall into his tricky little tractor beam of love. Oh no.
Rebecca and I have discussed further the subject of flipping the switch, in which I was seemingly adequately trained until this past weekend. Really, even spending the night in the same bed was fine the first time because I'd flipped the switch. Hard to the right. Friends only. Feelings off.
Our conclusion: there are levels of switch-flipping virtuosity. Level one enables you to hang out with your subject and not look at them with puppy dog eyes which, according to Rebecca's fine teachings, 'should to be saved for walks in the park when you actually see puppies.' Attaining level one certification should also protect a girl from giving in to her subject's charms, no matter how voraciously they are applied. Practice, however, is necessary, and the teachings must be revisited and meditated upon regularly, lest the practitioner grow rusty and find herself, on being regarded as though she is wearing a halo, weakening. Moments of weakness cannot be allowed when it comes to matters of the switch.
We're making some of this up as we go along as I'm the first person Becks has ever trained in switch flipping. It was, up until my apprenticeship, widely believed to be a freakish ability that belonged to Rebecca alone. Flipping the switch, the line ran, was not something that just anybody could do.
Last night at our girly Valentine's day celebration (Rebecca, me, Nina, Valentina, Kelly, chocolates, champagne, strawberries), I confessed my doubts to Rebecca about the thoroughness of my flip and informed her that I was probably in need of another lesson before seeing Tom again. "I'm not sure I flipped it properly," I confessed. "I got confused yesterday. It's just occurred to me that my flip was somehow lacking."
Nina jumped in to console me with talk of how normal human beings are incapable of flipping such a switch. No one can do it except Rebecca, she said soothingly, but I rebelled. It CAN be done, I found myself telling her. It can be done because it's about discipline. It can be done because we're so much better than we act sometimes. It can be done because we're not at the mercy of our neurotic thought patterns. We're perfectly capable of taking charge of our minds and emotions and acting like adults, thank you very much. I have a dream, sisters.
Ladies, and gentlemen too for that matter, I believe even any of us can flip the switch, and I'm going to prove it. I'm going to prove it by doing it with Tom, who doesn't really have genuine feelings for me, so don't worry about him getting hurt. I won't hurt him. If he had genuine feelings, maybe I wouldn't need to flip the switch. In fact he's just a very charming boy who would end up hurting me in the end, despite his best intentions. I love him, I'm attracted to him, and I KNOW BETTER, so I'm going to flip the switch on him because we can always choose not to get ourselves into such situations when we know better.
Who's with me?
A snippet of the teaching for us all, then. When he uses his charms, we don't swoon. Do you know why we don't swoon? Because those are the same charms he's used on 100 other girls. We think about him using the very same puppy dog eyes, the very same smooth voice, on 100 other girls, and they are stripped of their power. Those charms, those sweet little charms that have worked on 100 other girls, won't work on us. You know why? Because we're too smart and too good to fall for the same old charms that work on everybody else. That's why.
"A lot of switch flipping comes down to smugness, doesn't it?" I asked Becks.
She gave me a satisfied smile and nodded.
Lotus Monastery Day 9
Posted by: lucie
Lama Lhundrup, the abbot of the monastery, came to speak to us last night and answer some questions. He brought an interpreter as his English left a bit to be desired, though he did speak occasional bits of it - for example, to answer questions about how we can know for sure that trees and plants aren't sentient beings ("Don't worry."). He had the humble demeanor of a monk and a joyous laugh and smile. He told everyone to stick with the teachings, be thankful for the opportunity to hear the Dharma, put into practice what they could and think about the rest later. Then he took questions like "How do we get faith?" and "Can I get enlightened in this lifetime?" and "How do we know that Karma exists?" There were no real epiphanies in the answers, obviously, but it was nice to have him there.
I went up on the hill again for the 6pm meditation session and had a gorgeous time by myself. I watched the stars come out as the sky turned from blue to grey, thought to wish on the first star but couldn't think of anything to wish for, then reflected on the people I love, the people who love me, and how I have no idea where I am going in life at the moment but feel completely okay with that. Downstairs in the gompa the course participants were meditating on death, and there I was on the hill thinking about how amazingly beautiful life is. Life is really good. If this is suffering, sign me up for another round. I want more. I love it.
I thought about my people in Eastern Europe, and about how I could go wherever I wanted for the eleven days after Lotus and even keep travelling for a while if I wanted (but won't), how I could go sit on a beach in Thailand for a week or something, and regardless of what I do I'll definitely be chilled out and balanced when I get home. This course is nothing like I expected it to be, but I'm still very glad I took the time out. As long as I do things in my own way, I can still get exactly what I need out of it.
--
Most of the people who have been shaken up by the intensity, religiosity and tradition of it all have either settled in or left by now, but there are a few still having a tough time. Gregor is one. Much as I enjoy his company - at least most of the time - I'm rather beginning to hope he leaves. He's just so agitated. Every day he says he's going to leave, then he talks about some aspect of Buddhism he likes, then he gets nasty about the teachers or even the monks ("They have too much money, they don't do anything here")... It's getting a bit disrespectful. He says he's leaving today but I don't believe him. We'll see.
Brian also got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning - probably because he actually woke up on time for the first time in the entire course. Normally he sleeps until about 8.00. He just looked a bit glum and said he felt depressed and as though perhaps he shouldn't be here anymore. He's not going to many sessions, and is lamenting the fact that he can't bring himself to believe in the teachings. I said hey, you didn't come here to believe, and he said maybe some part of him really wanted to; that maybe some part of all of us did.
-- 3.30pm teachings
Gregor left! He really left! Ani Nun watched, not half smiling, as he marched out the gates. It's the end of an era.
Brian is in one hell of a mood now. The monks from the Tantric college did a fire puja earlier and everyone stood around watching and taking pictures. He watched for about two minutes, then came up and went "Great. I see savages dancing around a fire. What do you see?" Whoah! Couldn't even think of a response to that one, except to stand there with my mouth open wondering why he was quite so aggressive about it. Just let him go.
We've just done a 40-minute meditation plodding through territory of death being definite and unpredictable, some little Palestinian boy being shot by an Israeli soldier (I love how he throws in stuff like that to piss people off - there are some Israelis here but no Palestinians), etc etc... I can see the importance of this stuff in Buddhism but the main benefit is to make you realize the urgency of beginning to practice the Dharma NOW. If you're not down with future and past lives, meditating on death is just a good way to get depressed. Your life is constantly leaking away, with nothing new being added. It's like a sealed container with a little hole in the bottom - it drips out but no one can pour any more in at the top.
We're all going to die. Right now we're alive. Let's live.
I met a few more people today who have doubts about the course and aren't prepared to swallow the teachings whole - and they're thinking about leaving. Many many people have already left - probably about 20. All the doubters are bailing out, so it's kind of a relief to know there are still a few left. It's not that I want to have negative conversations about the teachings - it's just nice to be able to share these "wow, it's just another religion with dogma and rules and hell, just like any other religion" thoughts with a few other people. My roommates are all hook, line and sinker for the entire course. I'm glad they're enjoying it but we're also supposed to look at things critically. Very few people are doing that, and those who are tend to be judged by others. There's no way around it - this place is a little cultish.
Gregor told us today before he left that when we did the meditation on Tara, he imagined having sex with her. I'll really miss Gregor, but I think he's left us a month's worth of memories. We'll be able to talk about him every day.
I love this space; I missed this space
Posted by: lucie
I need this space.
To catch up, here's something I had to email to friends on Monday, for there was no Urbanhonking on which to air my personal life. It's such a relief to have it back.
Tom's doing my head in. You may remember Tom from such previous episodes as "went to Eastern Europe, decided to be roommates with one of my best friends there and then ended up nearly sleeping with him," and "haven't heard from Tom, apparently we wrecked our friendship," and "Tom and I are going to live together, it will be fine," and "Tom flaked, which is probably for the best."
When I got to Eastern Europe there were two is-this-a-date-or-isn't-it dates that concluded with a tipsy acknowledgement of the past and an agreement that we were incompatible.
With that all settled, I bullied him into coming home with me last weekend because I wanted to share a bed and snuggle and had decided we could have that kind of friendship. To be fair, I didn't consult him on this - I just whined "come to myyyy houuuuuse, to sleeeeeeeep" at 4am when we were drunk and when he said no I told him to shut up and dragged him into a taxi. He then slept with ALL HIS CLOTHES ON.
Yet this past weekend he looked at me with lovey eyes, and everything I say about dating or men now ends up imbued, by the time it reaches his ears, with some double meaning that was never intended. Example: telling the story Sunday night of this weird interaction with a guy wherein a meetup was somehow manipulated into a DATE without my consent. Long story. Anyway, I concluded this story with "I mean, surely it can't be a date unless both people are aware that it's a date," whereupon he stared at me for a little bit too long and then said "we should go." (ie leave pub, go to the gallery opening he'd invited me to, slightly formally I guess ["May I invite you?"] but over email). I keep doing this and thinking dammit - I just did it again, didn't I? Dammit.
Later in the evening, long after we should have stopped drinking and gone home, I gave him a wooden ring that I bought him in Nepal but hadn't given him before because I felt silly about it, rings being rings. I had TOLD him about the ring and claimed that I'd forgotten about it but would bring it next time I saw him, and that it might not be his style and it was no big deal if he never wore it. I just thought it was cool when I saw it, but it was definitely too guyish for me, so I got it for him. Anyway, so Sunday night I remember this ring that I've brought in my purse and present him with it, all the while pointing out that I think it's rather weird to be giving him a ring, which should really strip it of any symbolism or significance, right? But he looks at me all lovey LIKE I'M GIVING HIM A RING. And while I'm trying to explain the symbols on the ring he's not listening to me at all because he's too busy gazing at me like I just asked him to marry me or something.
Such an enamoured gaze puts a girl in a weird position when she LIKES a boy (no, let's be honest - I love this boy) but genuinely believes he and she are dead incompatible and truly doesn't want to screw up the friendship. It seriously does. So I bury my face in his shoulder and he puts his arm around me and rubs my back, which is sweet, and we sit there like that, denying whatever confusion is happening, and as it's about 1am and I have to work in the morning it again comes down to "we should go. Where should we go?" and I'm like, "I don't know. What are we supposed to do now?" And this time I do intend the double meaning. We go home to my house again, but this time he sleeps in a reasonable amount of clothing and seems at ease, and it's nice, and in the morning it somehow feels like we're kind of dating, and he walks me to work.
On the walk, he tells me about an ex girlfriend of his from North America, with whom he has remained close friends, who is coming to Eastern Europe. "She actually asked me," he starts, then stops himself and says "I don't know if I should tell you this," (me: "Tell me!") before continuing that she asked him last time they saw each other if he would father a child for her. She's getting on in age and has yet to meet someone with whom she would like to have children, so sperm donor style. (He said no.) You wouldn't worry about telling a friend that kind of thing.
If I didn't know him so well I wouldn't know that any attempt at a romantic relationship between us would be doomed, and I would be loving all of this. It's very romantic in a way. Just not in a way that's going to lead anywhere good.
He broke up with that girl he'd been seeing. It had nothing to do with me; they were nearing the end when I got here, so it was just a matter of time. But he split with her, and now he's womanless, so he's using all his charms on me. He has many charms, and they can be quite intoxicating, but this is only this week. This week the charms are all for me. In a month or so, he'd get bored. It's what he does.
I need to flip the switch again.
The waiting is the hardest part
Posted by: lucie
(Warning: long, totally self-absorbed, boring work/career entry ahead. Really, this is just for my own memory. It's not entertaining. Turn back now.)
My interview was Wednesday and I'd been holding out hope that I'd hear something back by the end of yesterday, armed as I was with the knowledge that my potential boss-to-be was in town for just this week and the interviews had to end yesterday at the latest (that's easy math even for me). At 4.30pm, when it became clear that the phone wouldn't be ringing with any job offers, I all but stamped my feet and banged my fists on the table, convinced I'd be completely unable to enjoy the weekend that I'd hoped to spend either celebrating or making peace with my work situation (overworked, underpaid, completely unsatisfied).
In the last five years I've had three job interviews, and all three times I've been offered the job within two hours of walking out the door (in one case even before walking out the door). I suck at waiting. The recruiter tells me this particular company absolutely categorically never ever comments on any candidates until they've finished all the interviews and are ready to make offers, which is obviously just plain professional, but it sure takes the fun out of the whole whirlwind job interview -> job offer-> job acceptance process that is so exhilarating when it happens in rapid succession.
I can hardly remember the interview now. The buzz is wearing off, so for no legitimate reason I feel less and less every day that they're going to offer me the position. A nasty dread is building thanks to the neurotic view that I'm far overdue for some professional rejection, and because I've never felt so positive about an interview coming out of it, this is bound to be the time I get dissed. Because that would just be kind of rich, right?
Anyway... today I realized that having time to cool off after campaigning for an opportunity is probably a good thing. To wit: I applied for my MBA before I set off for SE Asia, and by my calculations I'd left enough time that I should have had a response before I went incommunicado. It didn't turn out that way and I went into the monastery not knowing which paths would be open to me when I got out. During one of my 'lying on the hill watching shooting stars' evening meditations I decided that if I got in, I'd go. So then I hoped really hard, obviously, that I'd get in, and worried that I wouldn't. But the waiting chilled me out and calmed me back down to the basic realization that either way, it really didn't matter. We make such a big deal of everything. If I didn't do that, I'd do something else.
Same thing now. Do I really want this job? Who knows. There aren't a lot of options in Eastern Europe for non-fluent speakers of the language, and the newspaper, which was supposed to be creative and somewhat fulfilling, has turned out to be a badly-paid soulless drag, so for the short-term, yes. I want it. Long term? Who knows. I could learn a lot, be challenged, get valuable experience and even save some money, which is next to impossible here. I could defer the MBA and hang on for the company to pay for me to do it part time, which is entirely possible. I could get on board with a company that would likely employ me in another city or country of my choice in the future, which is nothing to scoff at.
With time to think things over, I've at least had a chance to figure out why they wouldn't offer me the job. Here are a couple moments that keep echoing from the interview:
He: I see from your CV that your last job was at an organization that helped kids. It must have been nice doing that kind of work, where you knew you were making a difference.
Me: Well I wasn't really helping kids, personally. I was just building and managing the technology that allowed the social workers to help the kids.
He: But still, you worked for a company that did that. The subject matter here is going to be a little bit dry by comparison. Are you worried you might find it... unfulfilling?
My response included 1) saying it could be difficult working in the public sector where it is oftentimes so politicized and beaurocratic it's impossible to get things done, which made me miss the American attitude of just getting on with it, not to mention the private sector att