Waking up
Posted by: lucie
Yesterday morning I awoke with this sentence, fully formed, echoing in my head: "Sleep is a drug that I can't get enough of."
Which I guess tells me how I'm feeling these days. I have another friend in town which, again, is nice, but ten days is a long time to have someone living with you; to go out and do something every night after work; to run around doing tourist activities all weekend, to lose access to half of your home space and all of your alone time.
Still, last week, just before said friend got to town, I woke up thinking about math and trying to metaphorically factor people's personality traits and experiences. So perhaps it inspires a greater balance.
Because of the change to my schedule and resulting lack of personal time (read: fewer visits to the gym, almost no meditation and definitely no time to study math), I've spent much of this week anxious about the MBA. Tuesday I dug into some random MBA students' blogs and proceeded, that night, to have total anxiety dreams wherein my teeth fell out and I couldn't find my math book.
Have I mentioned that Brian, from the monastery, is applying to MBA courses? Just a few: Harvard, Stanford and Wharton. Yeah, he's a bit of a whiz kid, our Brian. He applied to all three at the last minute, and while he's a bit young for an MBA (24 with very little work experience), he did rock a 780 on the GMAT without studying (freakish - the GMAT is not like the SAT, it's a test you're meant to study for), so he may well get in. I emailed him about my apprehensions and he hit me back with a pre-MBA study rundown: "If you have some free time I recommend you work through an introductory book on stats, calculus, and linear algebra. These topics will give you an equal footing on everything else. Don't worry too much about econ as it is very common sense and you will pick it up like nothing. The HR stuff is the same. The only thing you need to know is the math...and it isn't really all that complex." (This, he admits, is coming from a guy who gets math very easily.) "Oh, I would also check out an intro accounting book. That is probably the most important. You simply have to understand financial statements."
Why does math have to be so important? Why can't he say "As long as you can write with clarity, you'll be fine"? I don't even know what calculus or linear algebra are. Why, again, am I doing an MBA? Can I trade it in for a completely impractical philosophy and/or history degree, please?
Well, the only antidote for panic and fear is action.* Algebra, in this case. By Tuesday I'll be back to the books and sleeping soundly.
Apologies for being a complete bore.
* I wasn't sure whether I actually made this up or it was a phrase people use on a regular basis, so I googled "the only antidote for fear." Apparently love, courage, faith, self-confidence are also the only antidote for fear. No one else votes for action. So I guess I made that up.
In memory of...
Posted by: lucie
Business school? Really?
Posted by: lucie
I'm not changing my mind or anything, I'm just saying it's a little weird. I don't actually even know anyone who has done an MBA. Here's a list of things I wonder:
- What am I supposed to wear? I've heard stories of people keeping suits in their lockers. Will everyone be "business casual" every day? If that's the game, that's the game - you don't just show up in jeans and a "Oregon: come for the fishing, stay for the strip clubs" t-shirt and expect to get the grades you may deserve. Shame, that, because one of the advantages of living as an impoverished student should be the right to dress cheap and not worry about one's hair. Still, one gets the feeling that MBA students don't act like students but perhaps pretend they're actually going to work every day. Um, can anybody tell me if this is true?
- Is everyone else going to be like a candidate on The Apprentice? Am *I* going to start acting like a candidate on The Apprentice? While I've only recently been able to admit to myself that I have strong business tendencies that probably deserve to be explored, I'm still less than proud of my Type A personality. Will most of my colleagues be proud of their Type A-ness? There will be a lot of team work, everyone will be a leader... is it going to be as business cliche as I fear? And yes, I do realize the arrogance in thinking I'm the only one who could possibly be an interesting and multi-faceted individual yet still want to do an MBA. I get that.
- Given there are only going to be 26% women, will we band together in sisterhood or be extra competitive with each other? I don't want to play mean girl games.
- Will I get a rich foreign boyfriend who will take me out for luxurious meals and cocktails? I mean, it's 75% international students and 74% men, so my chances should be good, right? I've never had a rich boyfriend before, and I've never really cared about the money thing, but given that I will have no income, this wouldn't be a bad time to try that scene.
- What is student housing going to be like when the average age of the students in question is 32? I'll have my own room and, if I luck out, my own bathroom... and one assumes that adults will be capable of keeping the common area clean and washing their dishes. Those are small comforts. But "student housing" does still kind of scream "The Real World."
- If participating in this 12-month program feels like visiting a freaky planet on which I don't belong, can I manage to keep my perspective? Can I keep perspective without being totally judgmental and annoyed or angry at the state of things? That's the biggest question.
Loss of a fake boyfriend
Posted by: lucie
The only thing better than a real perfect boyfriend (and we know those don't exist) is two fake boyfriends who, together, take care of all your emotional needs. Seriously. So it is with great regret that I have blown off one of my two fake boyfriends.
It disturbs the balance, but it had to be done.
Tom, as I mentioned in my previous Mean People entry, slept with that ex-girlfriend of his who threatened to kill herself when he broke up with her the first time. I know it's none of my business, but I just couldn't stomach it. I got a bit nasty with him when he told me; asked him if he had an easy time sleeping at night, called him selfish and thoughtless and told him he was thinking with his dick and that I couldn't believe he'd put his own loneliness and desire to get laid ahead of some broken women's emotional well being. When I finished breaking it down for him (and believe me, it took more than a couple of sentences), he looked at me blankly and said, "I feel really stupid." And I said whatever, just don't do it again.
He'll do it again. Because Tom does what makes Tom feel good, and what makes Tom feel good is not moral behavior. It's alcohol, sex, drugs, massages, food, and whatever other sensual pleasures may be available to him. One thing I've always enjoyed about Tom is that he is a very sensual boy - makes him a great fake boyfriend in some ways (he'll snuggle and he gives good hugs and he's great to go out and drink wine with and eat food with, etc) - unfortunately, he puts these things squarely and consistently ahead of all other considerations, and in so doing he acts like a complete dick sometimes.
The mysterious "BF" commented on my last Tom-related post: "Is it possible that you are reinforcing your 'friend' Tom's immature behavior in your own relationship with him?" - which I loved. Man, I wish perfect strangers would call me out on things in the comments more often. Seriously - if you read this blog and enjoy it but sort of think I'm full of shit sometimes, by all means tell me. That would be great. I try to be honest with myself and admit my faults, but taking an outside perspective on oneself is impossible even with the best will in the world. Anyway, I pretended not to entirely understand what he meant and asked for more detail, though to be honest I'd already been thinking myself about whether Tom was, indeed, my friend, whereupon BF added, "It just made me think of people I had met, times I had heard the inaudible doom soundtrack from the very beginning and pretended not to..."
He's right, of course. I've extended such patience and understanding to Tom and stayed chipper through his negativity and his frequently, to be completely honest, pathetic attitude to the world - qualities that infuriate me in other people who complain about how hard their lives are, or how they deserve better, but do nothing to change their lot. Why? I guess it's because I have always had a bit of a crush on him and he's always kind of had one back, in his way ("crush" to Tom being a completely groundless fantasy combined with a desire to sleep with someone), and that was fun.
It seems it's been little more than sexual and romantic tension. And I feel as you do when a real relationship begins to fall apart, sitting across a table from someone and listening to them expound on something you perhaps never found genuinely interesting, and finding yourself tuning out and focusing on the tiniest details of the shape of their eyes or nose, looking at their parts rather than the sum of them, trying to find some truth in the components, and wondering who is this person in front of you? Then, when you come up empty, the dreaded "I don't know you at all" thought hits, the gloss melts away and you realize the person you believed existed does not, in fact. And then you're pretty much done, whether you care to admit it yet or not.
I didn't call or email Tom for a couple of days; he invited me out that weekend but I had plans to stay in and work on math. We finally saw each other about a week later to make good on longstanding plans to have a sushi feast, but it was awkward. One thing I'll give the boy credit for: he has always understood the unspoken. Which is great, because most things between us have remained unspoken, and I guess that was always part of the fun as well. This time was different. I'd spent some time considering whether I owed him an apology for my harsh criticism; his choice to think with his dick was, after all, none of my business. But on reflection I concluded I had no wish at all to take any of it back - and anyway, he opened his mouth. So when we next (and last) met, about ten days ago now, there was a dual vibe in the air: me half-expecting him to address his nasty behavior with this woman and say he'd made some effort to repair it, or that he'd realized it was wrong; him expecting me to apologize for my overly harsh criticism of something that wasn't my business. And I intuitively knew he'd been carrying on with her even after the first time - I could just smell it on him - and then what?
Sure, some of it must have been jealousy. I'm not completely naive. Obviously I had some feelings for the boy, however shallow, and I hadn't COMPLETELY let go of the possibility, until he disappointed me so deeply that night, that I might want to sleep with him someday. Hell, it was a fun possibility to hang onto. So of course jealousy must play into it, whether I think it does or not. But at the end of the day, how do you respect someone who does something like that? It's just crap. So the night began awkwardly, loosened up as it was lubricated with some wine, but it seemed as though we'd run out of things to talk about. Women, dating, romance, men, love, were heavily off limits. Overall perspectives on the world seemed mismatched, Tom all pessimistic and me interested as I am at the moment in morality, spirituality and the meaning in absolutely everything. It just didn't seem like there was a lot left.
When dinner ended and the wine ran out I announced that I was catching a tram home, and I set off at about 10.30 rather than the usual midnight or 1am.
That's the last Tom and I saw or heard from each other. And despite being accustomed to seeing him two or three times a week, I don't miss him. It's like we were dating, we reached that 'this isn't really going anywhere' point, and we stopped calling each other. And let's just be honest about it - minus the sex, that's basically what happened.
So that's how I got from two fake boyfriends down to one.
The other, of course, is James - fake long distance email boyfriend. He's the best fake long distance email boyfriend a girl could want. He's frighteningly smart, writes genius emails and has begun explaining various philosophers to me. It turns out he spent those six years (if you've read past James missives you know what I'm talking about) obsessed with epistemology. I, at the time, was obsessed with music. So we're sharing the fruits of our obsessions: I'm giving him a music education, uploading a couple albums for him each week from Bach to Rufus Wainwright to Digable Planets, and he gives me thumbnail sketches of philosophers' life work and views. So far I've been introduced to Wittgenstein, Hume and WVO Quine, and the other day I got no less than a three page life history and explanation of Nietszsche, at my request.
I don't know whether we'll ever see each other again, and I care less and less each day. The emails are great. It would be a shame for them to end. If your fake long distance email relationship ain't broke, why try to fix it?
p.s. Just saw that Rebecca accused our Mikey Mike of "the penning of Overarching" in one of the Ultimate Blogger comments sections. Do people actually think that? Who knew some random girl's blog could inspire any such intrigue! I feel very mysterious now.
Gertrude Stein
Posted by: lucie
"I write for myself ... and for strangers." - Gertrude Stein.
Too Loud a Solitude
Posted by: lucie
Yesterday I put aside the serious reading and math for a moment to return to my favorite book by an Eastern European author: Bohumil Hrabal's "Too Loud a Solitude." It's100 pages of creative genius. I wish everyone could read it. I give you here the first (long) paragraph - perhaps someone will be interested enough to go out and get themselves a copy.
"For thirty-five years now I've been in wastepaper, and it's my love story. For thirty-five years I've been compacting wastepaper and books, smearing myself with letters until I've come to look like my encyclopedias - and a good three tons of them I've compacted over the years. I am a jug filled with water both magic and plain; I have only to lean over and a stream of beautiful thoughts flows out of me. My education has been so unwitting I can't quite tell which of my thoughts come from me and which from my books, but that's how I've stayed attuned to myself and the world around me for the past thirty-five years. Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel. In an average month I compact two tons of books, but to muster the strength for my godly labors I've drunk so much beer over the past thirty-five years that it could fill an Olympic pool, an entire fish hatchery. Such wisdom as I have has come to me unwittingly, and I look on my brain as a mass of hydraulically compacted thoughts, a bale of ideas, and my head as a smooth, shiny Aladdin's lamp. How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place a thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn't have helped, because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself. I've just bought one of those adder-subtractor-square-rooters, a tiny little contraption no bigger than a wallet, and after screwing up my courage I pried open the back with a screwdriver, and I was shocked and tickled to find nothing but an even tinier contraption - smaller than a postage stamp and thinner than ten pages of a book - that and air, air charged with mathematical variations. When my eye lands on a real book and looks past the printed word, what it sees is disembodied thoughts flying through air, gliding on air, living off air, returning to air, because in the end everything is air, just as the host is and is not the blood of Christ."
Scientifical madness, my status is the baddest
Posted by: lucie
I'm learning algebra. Last night I studied algebra. The night before that, algebra. Tonight, Friday night? Meet my date:
Somehow - and the specifics of this don't really bear much consideration at this point - I graduated high school without learning ANY math. I passed, but I truly can't recall ever doing any math homework or paying even partial attention in class. I also don't recall ever cheating. What happened? No matter. As I'm now preparing to throw myself into a world of economics, finance, statistics and accounting this September, this situation must be rectified. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am teaching myself some math.
Strangely, while I expected to scribble on the pages of this fine publication in temper tantrums and fits of frustration with the illogical and angering nature of the entire language of math, i'm finding it fairly easy so far. I'm on chapter 3, and everything makes sense. I never in my life thought I'd hear myself say this, but it's kind of... sort of fun. Like doing puzzles. And ever so exciting when the answers work out and match the ones in the book. Simple pleasures, I tell you.
That said, math will never be my favorite thing, hence I have devised a study system to keep the energy and motivation up: math with hip hop interludes. This means for every 20 minutes (or so) of mental grafting, I get to spend 3-5 minutes dancing around my flat to the hip hop track of my choice. Last night's selections: Smif 'n' Wessun - Bucktown; Nas - The World Is Yours; Wu-Tang - Clan In The Front. I'm telling you, nothing breaks up adding and subtracting polynomials (yeah, laugh if you will but i couldn't tell you what a polynomial WAS the other day, so this feels like a big accomplishment to me) like dancing around to some rowdy hip hop. Keeps the blood flowing and the attitude positive, and just when you thought your brain was used up for the night, you find you're ready for another round.
I bet I'll be the only student in my MBA program rocking Smif 'n' Wessun between rounds of calculus homework. If there's someone else, though, they can do their homework in my room.
There are 12 chapters in my Algebra self-teaching book. I plan to finish chapter 3 tonight and 4 this weekend. And when all 12 glorious chapters are exhausted... :
Lotus Monastery, conclusion
Posted by: lucie
... and that's all she wrote. That was it. End of journals. The next few days swept past so quickly that there was no more time to chronicle the conclusion of the course. Brian and I left on the last day, back to the guesthouse from which we came!
Sorry, I realize that's a pretty crappy conclusion. Hence I shall offer some photos.
The day of Lama Zopa's long life puja, the monklets were clean-shaven and looking all scrubbed up.
The monks brought the noise.
And afterward, we saw them do "Lama Dancing" in various costumes, like the Lord of Death...
...and Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom.
The Nuns came up to join us for the puja and the show.
Fake long-distance spiritual email boyfriend
Posted by: lucie
deleted July 12, 2006 --
Every time I thought about this entry, it embarrassed me. It had to go!
Lotus Monastery Day 27
Posted by: lucie
Once again I really liked the teachings yesterday - fewer people were with me this time, though. I guess in some way it was more like a meditation than an actual teaching. There was a ton of repetition and endless use of the same phraseology, but I don't know... something about the way he harped on: real car, real driver, real road - real police stop real you and put you in a real prison - it just made me laugh. Because of course it isn't really real. It's absurd that we take it all so seriously. I don't know why I suddenly saw the simplicity of it, but there it was. Aren't we just silly? Don't we behave like idiots taking it all so seriously?
It's not serious. Whether I got into the MBA program or not is not serious. Whatever happens with Tom isn't serious. I'll still just be floating along in my own little bubble. I have very little to worry about even by conventional standards, and now I can laugh at the rest because it's empty of inherent meaning. Brilliant! Not so simple, of course, but still. You can look at it that way if you want to. Why not?
--
I've come to one last session of precepts just because I happened to wake up on time. Honestly, how have these people been doing this so early every day? And it's still a bit eerie, all these zombies muttering mantras, whispers echoing and overlapping around the room. There's a constant hiss as they hit each 's' at different times in an eternal cycle.
Last night Ani Nun explained the schedule for the rest of the course. Today is normal, tomorrow we have a long-life puja at 8, then a picnic in the afternoon. The next day is refuge and lay vow ceremonies. Friday morning I'll probably go. There's another picnic but I suppose one is enough. It'll be nice to beat the rush.
Friday night Lama Zopa will give an initiation to Tara; Sunday night to Vajrasattva. One of my roommates, who has never had any exposure to Buddhist philosophy before, will take refuge, Bodhisattva vows and both initiations. That means she's committing herself to take refuge six times a day, make food and water offerings, hold to 64 vows and say 21 mantras to Vajrasattva each day or go on a 3-month purification retreat this year. It freaks me out a little bit that someone would make all those committments after just one month. She was also apparently planning to open a holistic spa hotel at home, but now it's going to be a Dharma hotel..?!
She and one of my other roommates have both purchased Buddhas.
Maria kills me in the morning. I've never seen someone put on deodorant that way. 30 seconds practically scrubbing each armpit with the roll-on. Then she gets to the gompa and brushes dirt off her cushion all through the ceremonies.
It's about 6.15 - I'm going to go watch the sun rise. On second thought, no I'm not. I'm going to fall back into my bed until morning hot chocolate time.
--
There are really only two days of this left. Very exciting... I can't decide whether I should pop down to Boudha to check email one last time or not. I'll probably have a mesage from Anna about the MBA program (all my mail is going to her address so I asked her to open anything from the school and give me the verdict), and I'd like to make use of the mental space up here to ponder the outcome... so I can let it wash over me as I look up at the stars on the hill. I don't want to check email at the guesthouse when I get out and be all tripped out for the Getting Out Party. I'm not sure how much partying people will be up for... Lots of them want to see how long they can go without sliding back into old patterns, I think. Me, I'd like a pizza and a beer or two. Delicious.
Yeah, I'd like to get the MBA thing settled in my mind. I think it'll be okay either way, but it's a bit tense not knowing. If I'm being honest, I think I'm probably just bracing for the blow to my ego. And the fear, I guess, and pressure, of having to really make it in journalism - no backup plan. But at the same time I can forsee a future in which I look back at the moment of rejection and say "Thank God I didn't get into bizschool; it would have thrown me right off track!"
Yeah, I'd just like a verdict.
There's a nun here who has a degree from Harvard and some education in management... she lives on a plot of land in Nepal in a little house she built on about $1000 a year. A bunch of us are chipping in around $100 each to a fund to keep her going for a while. It's a great opportunity to do something good for a very deserving person. She's just so lovely. Always smiling and laughing, always friendly. She'd been living in solitude like this for about three years before the course started, only really conversing with people when she went out to buy vegetables in the local village. The first thing that really mesmerised her when she got back into the company of lots of westerners was their variety of clothes. She'd sit in the cafeteria, just checking out all the different styles. Imagine the sensory overload when you have only seen your own robes and the local villagers' 2 or 3 changes of clothes for three years.
So, nearly the end of my third notebook at Lotus... I can't believe how much I've written while I've been here. It's been a lot more than I ever expected, and I expected to write loads.
Brian and I are leaving together on Friday and I expect we'll be just as excited as we were when we first arrived together. Back to the guesthouse, full circle.
--
Went down to Boudha again - no word about the MBA. I'd like to say the suspense is killing me, but that would be a major dramatization. It isn't. I'm just a little bored, a little braced for an ego bashing, and more than a little eager to get some processing time on this particular outcome. If I get in, I'll go. If I don't, it's no big deal. That's my stance.
Anyway, I bought a beautiful Thangka today - a gorgeous gold-detailed earthtoned Wheel of Life framed in dark blue, green and maroon silk brocade. It's pretty special. We got to take a little tour of the shop and see a handful of artists painting them - leaning into these big canvasses to paint the most miniscule details, all freehand. They supposedly go blind sometimes from the work, and each piece is said to take at least a few months to complete.
Of course you never know how much of this is actually true, but it makes a nice story. And it's cool to buy a work of art with a story. And photos of that story behind it.
I actually spent the entire day down there. We left at 9.15 this morning and got back at nearly 6. It was a good time; so many people are simply done with the Lotus experience and waiting for it to be finished.
The long life puja for Lama Zopa tomorrow will apparently last up to 4 or 5 hours. That'll be the last marathon sitting I do here. If I hadn't gleaned anything from his teachings I'd consider skipping it, but as I have, I feel an obligation to go. It should be cool. Far too long, but cool. I'll take some interesting photos.
Mediawatch
Posted by: lucie
The NYTimes (and probably others) have a riveting story about the the Milosevic poison debacle. Maybe he wasn't trying to kill himself after all, but damn did he have some crazy plans going on. The NYT calls it some James Bond business, and indeed it is.
Also, you should know that Sandra Day O'Connor has voiced her opinions about the state of affairs in America these days, and guess what? She's a little worried. Interestingly, she was only addressing a group of lawyers, and there was but one journalist present - Nina Totenberg from NPR. Go read it. It doesn't appear to be making any waves in the US media.
Finally, a seven-year-old poet prodigy has apparently written the words: "Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse. They took the gold, the wisdom and all the storytellers. They took the black women, with the black man weak. Made to watch as they changed the paradigm of our village. Yeah white nationalism is what put you in bondage. Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan and Darwin." Check the NYPost.
Mean people
Posted by: lucie
I cried on Saturday for the first time in months, and it felt great. It was just one of those weeks, a week full of things you can't quite assimilate or fit into your chosen perspective on the world. You try to maintain a positive outlook, try to keep your eye on the big picture, but sometimes the picture is a bit darker than you care to admit. There are people who suck. There are a lot of them. It was Capote that put me over the edge.
Truman Capote was a manipulative, narcissistic bastard, and there are a lot of people like that. Friends of mine, friends of yours, my dad, you, me... we're all like that to some extent, right? But sometimes people go all out with an extra-special disappointment. This week it started with Tom.
Tom, as you may recall, was dating someone when I first got back to town. The one who mistakenly sent him a text message she'd written to a friend calling him an idiot. Right? And he broke up with her. I think I opted not to include the dirtier details of that breakup on this blog because it seemed unkind, even in anonymity, to reveal such things.
Now I'm changing my mind. What does it matter? So here's what happened.
Tom broke up with Jana, who is 40, single with a child, twice divorced and lonely. And maybe a little bit crazy and in denial. They agreed to keep in touch, but when they'd talk about getting together she'd say great, I know a fantastic place we can go dancing, and I just got some sexy new underwear, etc etc. So he'd cancel plans. Then she started sending him text messages to the effect that she didn't see the point anymore, and she didn't know if she could go on. They were excruciating but highly manipulative. In two nights when he and I were out together she must have sent seven or eight, each worse than the last.
She would push and push until he would call just to make sure she wasn't really serious, then back off, then start again a little bit. I told him to ignore her, mean as it seemed, as this was probably the most humane path. As long as he gave her any little shred to hang onto, she'd keep going. Eventually I just stopped asking about it. Until this past Wednesday night.
For no reason whatsoever except to change the subject from talk of my romantic interests, I asked if he'd seen Jana recently. "I saw her last weekend," he said, "for a couple hours. She told me I was her second greatest love, not including her two husbands."
"What did you guys do?" I asked him.
He smirked and replied, "That."
Boys, if any of you are as thoughtless and inconsiderate as my friend Tom, let me do you a little favor and process this one for you ahead of time, just in case you ever come face to face with such a situation. If you break up with a girl and she implies that she's considering suicide over it (and I know she probably never truly was, but that's neither here nor there - it's still a fairly good indicator of the woman's level of emotional distress, on that I believe we can agree), for the love of God, no matter how lonely or horny you find yourself, no matter how much she pretends it's not a big deal, don't go back and sleep with her again. Does anyone out there actually need to be told this?
Not only went back and slept with her, but arranged to be lovers. I know you thought you couldn't go on anymore when we split up and I'm your second greatest love after your two ex husbands, but how about if we just sleep together? Are you going to be alright with that? You ARE? Excellent, I believe you! Good, now I can have sexual gratificiation with an emotionally fragile woman but be protected by a thin veneer of guiltlessness.
Yeah, so... Tom and I had it out over that one a bit. I don't know what to tell you; I was disgusted with him. And yes, I've considered I might be jealous, but I don't believe that's the issue. I'm genuinely disgusted that he could put his own horniness ahead of this woman's emotional well being. Really disgusted with him. I told him as much, and he eventually said he felt stupid and that he'd probably been rationalizing it all a bit too much, but my gut tells me he'll do it again, and that makes it hard to be his friend.
So there was that.
And then there was Saturday, all day Saturday, and far too much coffee and many hours of conversation about genocide with Rebecca, who is researching a book about a massacre in a Bosnian village during that horrible war. She goes every couple months and interviews the women who survived, who watched their parents and children murdered, who saved their last pack of cigarettes for the husbands they believed would come home at the end of the day, who still live in the same village and say good morning to the neighbors who participated and colluded in this massacre because it wouldn't be neighborly not to.
Capote's "In Cold Blood" is kind of a template for the way she wants to write her book, so the movie was an inspiration to her. The murder and execution scenes, for which I had to close my eyes, had little effect on Becks, who has seen fields of dead bodies and heard countless tales of men being called out of their houses by name and executed on their own doorsteps. For me it was a heavy day. No matter how positive a perspective you strive to keep on the world, sometimes you can't help but be reduced to tears at how much evil there is out there, from genocidal murderers to more subtly mean, manipulative, narcissistic bastards like Truman Capote. And what I mean is the way he told himself, and Perry and what's-his-name, "I did everything I could" when he knew he didn't. And the reason he didn't was that he only cared about himself, and when that realization came back to torture him he only felt sorrier for himself.
It's just a fact that people incapable of caring for anyone but themselves exist, and Saturday that fact was hard to ignore.
I got home from the movie, got online and saw that Milosevic, that coward, had been found dead. On the record early here: the man poisoned himself. They may never have conclusive evidence to say so, but he did. He wrote a letter 24 hours before saying he suspected his doctors were poisoning him, then attempted to die as a martyr rather than the coward he is. Crazy bastard until the end.
So I just cried. I just ditched all the positive thinking, the big spiritual perspective and got angry. Just sat on the couch and cried, head in hands, about everything. Because the world felt lonely and mean and hopeless, and it's not full of evil bastards, but there are a lot of them out there. And how much integrity would we have if we pretended everything was okay all the time? Everything isn't okay. It's good to have a positive, spiritual perspective. And I'm back to that, I think - Saturday I got it all out, and I intend to keep looking at the world in a generally positive way, as much as I'm capable. But to see it that way all the time, despite glaring evidence to the contrary - that would just be dishonest, disrespectful and stupid.
I'm sorry, this is kind of a downer entry. The truth is, Sunday morning I woke up to 6 inches of fluffy new snow covering this beautiful city I can call my home for another few months, tromped out to the gym, made some healthy food and everything was okay. Life is still good; the world is still good, people are still good. But sometimes you have to vent.
Lotus Monastery Day 26 - Part Two
Posted by: lucie
Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings, day two
It's quite common on courses that there are a lot of teachings. Not just few words, then close your eyes, watching breathing. There's usually a lot of teachings, a lot of learning, in meditation centers. Showers of teachings. I understand that with the present state of mind you want to be quiet ... very busy city ... usually life is so busy, taking care of family and job, never have relaxed life. So of course we'll find very good to sit and meditate on nothing - stop thinking. Stop dreaming. Just quiet. Life is very hectic, very busy, with a lot of problems in the mind.
There's no massage! There's a lot of explanation.
It's good to see we need peace. Peace of the mind that has been troubled with problems, but that's not now. That's not the solution at all.
After very heavy massage, lot of pain. Or you carry very heavy load sometime ... however, if that's all what you want, some realization period, that's different. But if you want ultimate happiness, real peace, the everlasting happiness, pure happiness, totally free forever of suffering of pain, totally free forever of samsara, temporary pleasure that you can never get satisfaction, no matter how much you try, how much you have... that's the biggest problem. Happiness by following delusion is not pure happiness.
And free forever from the pervasive compounding suffering. The aggregates, this body and mind that are under the control of delusion and karma, this is suffering.
The contaminated seed of delusion, that's the root of suffeing. Any time we see depression come, loneliness... pain in the head, pain all over. So those depressions, you don't know the reason, when eveningtime comes your mind is unhappy but you don't know why. In the morning you don't know why but your mind is in depression. Imprint from past karma. So this is pervasive compounding suffering.
Hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals...
It produces, compounds, all those sufferings.
This is the main suffering we should look for to be free - then you are totally free from the suffering of change, suffering of pain. Free forever. It's impossible - there's no cause, no reason to be suffering again. This is the one we never achieved. From beginningless rebirth up to now. Because of the karma and delusions, imprints, seeds, contaminating the mind.
What you want to achieve, to be free from suffering. if you're not free from this pervasive, compounding suffering... continue with rebirth of aggregates. Contaminated. Samsara.
In the Lam Rim, the path of continuity, the contaminated aggregates which receives (?)... There are 5 paths (?)
The meditator who doesn't continue... (?)
(gosh he's getting hard to understand again)
... contaminated aggregates ... what is samsara ...
So we should see if you want real peace, free forever from suffering, not just temporary pleasure but everlasting happiness, real liberation, the real liberation from your delusions and karma, when you overcome, you're in control of your own mind, the cause of suffering, your own delusions.
The liberation we should look for, should achieve, is not just mere freedom from the suffering of pain, and not just free from the suffering of change, but free of pervasive compounding suffering. That's the liberation we look to achieve.
Even when you have achieved that liberation, free forever from the oceans of samsaric suffering, still you are not completed. Your own work is still not completed. The quality of the stages is not complete. The heavy part is gone, but there's still the subtle dirt left, or smell. So one has not completed. Then, work for others. Realization is complete.
Only when we achieve full enlightenment, Buddhahood, is it seized completely - subtle imprint left by past concept of the delusion. Grasping "I" as truly existent. You haven't moved this seed that causes delusion to rise.
Bodhichitta liberation from the seed of delusion. When you have the cause of delusion completely removed, it makes it impossible to ever suffer again.
Yesterday I mentioned that our mind, in 24 hours, labels this and that. Always making the labels. Actually when we are learning - university, college, Dharma, whatever we are learning - actually we are learning labels. Names and labels. That's why everything exists. Therefore, nothing - no phenomena - exist.
Except merely imputed - merely imputed by mind. Exist in name and merely imputed by mind. No phenomena exist except what is - the meaning of our mind.
So therefore any phenomena that exists is empty of existing from its own side - by nature.
Empty of independence. Perceived. Empty of that - the way it's perceived by a hallucinogenic mind. That description from the point of view of ignorance. Real in the sense of existing from its own side. Empty of the view of our ignorance. But if you look for it, you cannot find it anywhere.
The "I" which exists is merely imputed by mind. Because there's the base aggregates relating to that "I," that "I" is merely imputed. The "I" which is the mere imputation of the mind exists, but even that you can't find, you can't find it in the world, in Nepal, in Lotus, in the gompa, on the cushion; it exists on this cushion but you can't find it on the aggregates.
There's an "I" on this cushion. Why? There's not a reason. It is just simply the aggregates are there on a cushion. That's it. That's all. So believe it- labelled by mind. You believe it. There's nothing the slightest more than that exists. Eating, sleeping, making problems, being useful to oneself and being useful to others.
(all this stuff makes me feel like I should take up psychedelics again. Seriously. Give me some acid and then let's talk about emptiness.)
Sometimes we can agree that "I" is merely labelled by my mind, yes, but not possible merely by mind. Accept it's labelled by mind, but there should be something from inside. So therefore they believe that "I" is labelled by mind, but it also exists from inside - exists by nature. That the "I" is findable on the base.
According to other schools, if the I is findable on the base aggregates, that makes it truly existent. This meaning is different. When you realize that this I is totally empty, totally completely empty, totally nonexistent, that's the right view.
In reality, even though previous schools ... points of view ... but in reality only one thing exists. How many different presentations, in reality there's just one. How many teachings presented, in reality it's only one.
The very root of samsara is ignorance. I mentioned yesterday. The very root from where all our problems come is ignorance. So there is the base, the aggregates, which is also merely imputed - compounding aggregates - base to be labelled.
The aggregates are also merely imputed because there is the collection of five that exists. The mind sees the aggregates and makes up the label "I." Merely impute "I." The next second of that, it appears back. When it appears back, it should appear back to you merely labelled by mind. That's what it is. But to sentient beings, it doesn't appear back to our mind as merely imputed. The next second, it appears back as totally something else. Total hallucination. False I, not merely labelled by mind. Then, next second, the continuity of that thought - then hold onto this apprehension - oh, this is true. True, the way that I appear - not merely labelled by mind.
Something very subtle, that "I" - not just merely labelled by mind, but something extra - something slightly more than half. The continuity of thought - holding onto that apprehending as true. That concept is the ignorance. Why? There is no such "I." It is empty of existence from its own side.
Just that concept, that is the root of samsara. War, famine, disease, torture. Old age, sickness, death, relationship problems. All this unbelievable hell. When you have relationship problem, in your mind there is hell. Cannot eat, cannot sleep, taking so many tablets. Very expensive, ignorance. Although yesterday I said attachment.
So really you suffer - many years of pain in your heart. Hurt. No happiness at all. Wherever you go, on the mountain, even you go countryside, or Tahiti, or Goa. At home, in the office, even when you go on Mount Everest or on the moon - you pay a million dollars and go to the moon! - the hurt is there. The pain is there. So all this comes from this concept.
(tea break)
So when the "I" appears back to you, not merely labelled by mind, within that there's also other hallucination. Very gross one. The "I" is appearing permanent. Then we are holding on that wrong concept. Then we are appearing to be independent. So this appears and we hold it is true.
This concept, according to some other schools, is the root of samsara. But in reality, not.
(LZR attributes this modification to politics, with which emptiness wouldn't easily jive. "If there's nobody there, how can that guy be president?")
Believing that is incorrect. That belief is not that root of samsara. The root of samsara is only believing that "I" is not merely labelled by mind. Believing there is something slightly more than that, something extra, and holding onto that concept as true. The root of samsara is unmistaken. Then you see from that the true cause of suffering - oceans of suffering.
So now we know what's the suffering we are looking for. The heart of the 84,000 teachings of the Buddha is to cut this root of suffering, to realize emptiness. The heart of the Lam Rim, path to enlightenment, here, the three principles.
In our daily life, practice. Emergency - urgency - to realize emptiness. Go learn about it.
(5.45, break over, more prayers and mantras to set motivation again and here we go again)
Knower is person. Like writer, driver. Knowing the known phenomena. Eye perceives the blue on the object. The first time I went to Mexico many years ago I was invited to introduce (??). I came invited by one professor who came to Lotus in early course. So did a few days teaching in Japanese temple. One old couple, I was talking about the "I," but they thought the whole time I was talking about the eye. I found out the next day. One girl came from Dharamsala, most familiar with teachings. I think at the end of the day she corrected this old couple. Anyway, I just remembered.
So holding onto the "I" is the rest of samsara. There are so many different levels of wrong concepts we have, but they are not the root of samsara. This object is very subtle.
This can be helpful - if you concentrate on this it can be helpful. The mind sees the merely imputed "I" - the minute the mind sees the I, the negative imprint left on the mental continuum, right after this apprehension, then hallucination. Projects onto this idea of truly existent "I." Decorator, projects on that merely imputed "I."
Totally it's joke! Nonsense, it is nonsense. All this old age, sickness, all this hell - that's the creator, the producer. The movie producer. Producer of our own samsara. All the rest of phenomena, starting from the "I," the aggregates, all these things are merely imputed. Every piece of the body, down to the particles, just named. And the consciousness.
The continuity of consciousness from past lives, from this life, how many years, hours, minutes or seconds, there's different ways of recognizing.
All these which are merely imputed by the mind - everything, down to the atoms - you see how I made them so real. Projecting on it. Decorating. Making it real to you. This makes everything real. Everything. Projected from the imprint. Like a negative roll you put in the machine and project on a movie screen. Pillars, lights, flowers, floor, carpet - your book, your hand, your feet, your nose. All these projections - hallucinations. We label those and make them real. When you eat food, when you go shopping for the real food, real vegetables - 60 or 70 real cheeses! (big giggle from Lama Zopa)
Real I, real money, real person. Merely imputed. In the clothing stores all the jeans, coats, billions of shoes. Create a lot of happiness! When you go to makeup shop, all this truly existent. All these bottles. These people, truly existent. The whole thing - total hallucination. Made on the mere imputation which exists.
In reality there is no - in reality you have the real buyer, real money, real shop, real ice cream. Merely imputation there, but very heavily believed. Giving real money for the real ice cream. In reality, it's all empty.
Real I driving real car. Real driving, real car, driving on real road. In reality that car is empty, the road is empty, the driver is empty.
The real police stop real I, put in a real prison - it's all empty. Projected by the imprint.
Birth and death, same. Merely imputation. Real birth, real old age, real death. In reality it's all empty.
Then same: merely imputed father, mother, merely imputed children, merely imputed house, merely imputed wife, merely imputed husband. All projected. In reality these things are all empty. This is how we should meditate. This is how we should practice mindfulness.
When you are driving your car, when you are shopping, use this for Lam Rim practice. See emptiness while you are shopping - look at your view like watching movie. The best TV. Inexpensive! You don't have to pay! It doesn't rely on a station outside, but here in the mind.
Watch the reality and watch how empty. This is how omniscient mind see. You're watching your view of your mind. The movie of your mind projected.
This is another method of practicing patience. When someone is angry to you, what of this is real? Merely anger, bad words. So just watch. Visualize the scene. That's using emptiness for practicing patience.
So it becomes cooling for your mind. Medicine. For peace.
So I guess maybe I'll stop here. I remember one thing yesterday I forgot to mention. A few practical advices - different people see different way. Anybody don't see same. So that shows it doesnt' exist from its own side. It's not truly existent what each person see. If it existed from its own side, then it should exist the same to everybody.
We shouldn't rush, immediately, hold onto things, believe in them, without checking. Without checking up. So one mustn't hold onto a belief immediately without analyzing, without checking first. Don't act like animals. Animals believe what appears immediately. Don't act like dogs. Don't act like animals. Analyze each belief. Must check up.
In the world so many problem arises because of not analyzing.
Lotus Monastery Day 26 - Part One
Posted by: lucie
To my surprise, I must admit, I really liked Lama Zopa. A lot. Just when I was starting to think "this is nothing new," he seemed to weave things together in a new way. It wasn't anything new, but it was. I just liked the way he laid it out. And he seems very genuine, which is what I've desperately been craving. He may have some wacky ideas about saying mantras to animals all the time and carrying insects around stupas, but he's sincere. He seems truly compassionate and loving, and when he spoke about emptiness you really got the feeling he understood it - that he had realized it.
Liz was talking about the "bird healing" last night and we had an interesting chat about it. She believed there was some miracle, and I just believed he said some mantras to a bird, most sincerely. She kept saying "but the bird wasn't moving, it was just staring at him, and then it kind of jumped and woke up!"
The story is that this bird flew into a window and didn't move for at least ten minutes before they took it to Lama Zopa - most likely because it was stunned. It moved again because it was ready to move again - and because he put some water on it. I don't think Lama Zopa would even have CLAIMED to have healed the bird, so why do people so desperately want to believe he did? People, the man cared about the bird enough to sit there talking to it for 15 minutes even though he had a lot of people waiting to see him AND he wasn't feeling well. He genuinely loved the bird - he seems to love all sentient beings. That's totally amazing. Why isn't that enough? Why do you have to give him supernatural powers? Just let him be a mere mortal, but an exceptionally good one. Give the mysticism a miss.
Anyway, it's the 2nd-to-last day of precepts, or so I'm told - though it seems the time has passed very quickly. Wednesday we do a long-life puja for Lama Zopa, so we have to eat a lot. I'll be glad when precepts are over. They aren't actually very hard, but eating a big lunch and then nothing for the rest of the day seems to be tying my stomach in some kind of knot.
Lama Zopa is teaching again at 9am, which is in just a few minutes. I hope he continues on in the same vein as yesterday, though part of me feels he'll probably get into superstitious stuff today. We'll see. In any case, I felt like I had proper teachings for the first time yesterday. It all made sense somehow. For a moment I was almost sold - on the whole thing, despite some of it making no sense to me. I was inspired. Pretty amazing. So we'll see how the next session goes. He's supposed to stop at 11 - if he doesn't, we may not have time to eat lunch.
--
Alas, no Lama Zopa. You never know he's going to be here until he's actually here. He went to the Boudha stupa at 3.30am, so he's "catching up" now. Therefore we have Venerable Monk to explain the Sanskrit roots of some of the words in the prayers, and then - if we have time - to talk about the Heart Sutra. I'm glad we're spending time on Sanskrit at the moment since that's well important - much more riveting than talk of emptiness, the real jewel of Buddhism.
I think despite the things that have annoyed and disturbed me about this course, I'll definitely look into Buddhism a lot more deeply when I get out. Emptiness kind of blows my mind.
Ah, a note has just arrived from Lama Zopa's assistant saying that he can't make it this morning. So now we're here with Monk, analyzing the language of prayers. It's just so academic and uninspiring. Really. Maybe we'll get a "break" (ie opportunity to leave and not come back). Lama Zopa will definitely come this afternoon.
--
Roommate update: one remains consistently happy, one seems neurotic and worrisome again, one is pretty much nasty unless she feels like chatting and the last doesn't speak to me, which I find completely unobjectionable.
Brian is eager to have his freedom back; Boudha snapped him out of the monastery mindset. James is staying for the retreat. Liz is buying every book in the bookshops and dreading her return to work. She flies out Monday morning and goes back to work on Saturday, poor thing.
Me, I don't really mind whether I'm here or there at the moment. My biggest concern in life is that I won't be able to fit all my stuff into my suitcase. I've accumulated loads of books, filed three journals and bought more blank ones, purchased stacks of incense and piles of jewellry... it's going to be a tight squeeze. Aside from packing, I have no worries. I'm rolling with it.
Lama Zopa should be teaching again at 3.30, so my pen will get a workout. Last time I just kept scribbling down as much as possible of what he said. In a way it woudl be a relief to be less inspired this time! But naturally I'm hoping for more gems. They don't come often. You have to take them when you can.
Dr Tyvole
Posted by: lucie
Skipped out of work for an hour today to go see Dr Tyvole: a classic Eastern European character of a man who will arrive on house calls driving a car with special emergency doctor plates and smelling like a smoky pub.
"Hello Lucie," he said as I walked into his office. "Long time no see!" It's great how doctors pretend to remember you. I think as a kid I always believed my doctor actually KNEW me. In fact, it has only perhaps occurred to me just now that in fact he didn't. How many kids, you know? Anyway. "Yes, I moved away for a while and now I'm back," I replied. "Because you realized there's no place in the world like Eastern Europe," he finished for me.
Dr Tyvole once asked a friend of mine out after some casual chit chat in a routine appointment. He said something about studying medicine in the States, she asked polite questions, he mentioned that the answer would really be a longer conversation and she let it go. Two days later her phone rang. He was following up about that longer conversation, and did she want to get a drink?
Last time I visited Dr Tyvole was just before I moved away from here the first time. I had a urinary tract infection and wanted to die. For a week I drank enough cranberry juice to hydrate a small nation and tried every homeopathic remedy in the books, but in the end I sincerely wished to die. "Why have you been torturing yourself?" he asked, scribbling out a prescription and promising me I'd feel ten times better in 24 hours. He's very reassuring that way; always acts like nothing is a big deal.
Like the time he came over to our flat when my ex had the most violent fever I've ever witnessed. He started shivering, then began to shake violently. His face turned white. I put him into bed and covered him with a blanket, then two, then five, and still he shook, his teeth chattering dangerously. It was disturbing, and he was clearly too cold to put on a tram and bring to the doctor's office, so we called for the doctor to come to us. The office put us through to Tyvole's cell phone. "First we have to talk about money," he said, informing me of the housecall price. It wasn't so bad. He appeared 20 minutes later smelling of vodka and cigarettes. I led him into the bedroom, where he mercilessly ripped the covers off my shivering ex, then yanked his shirt up and pressed a freezing cold stethoscope to his chest as the ex shivered ever more exaggeratedly.
"He'll live," came the diagnosis, along with a prescription for some antibiotics and the bill. "Oh, the price you pay for love," he giggled.
So today I found myself sitting across the desk from his lopsided face and not-quite-white coat once again, this time for... well, what can I tell you, I have these two little warts on the bottom of my foot that I no doubt picked up at the gym, and they're not going to go away on their own. As I observed my old file in his hands I remembered my last visit, and his reassuring diagnosis... and the subsequent visit to a clinic in the UK a few weeks later, where the doctor asked what kind of prescription I'd been given to beat this UTI the first time, before it bounced back twice as hard with a mean vengeance. "No one prescribes that anymore," he had informed me when I handed over the bottle.
I'd forgotten about that. But warts on your foot - that's not complicated. They just burn it off with liquid nitrogen, right? That's what everyone does.
Not Dr Tyvole, apparently. He said he'd prescribe some ointment, and that I'd use it every day for three weeks and be as good as new. Then he reached for his pharmaceutical encyclopedia, I can only guess, and flipped through the index. "Aha, or maybe we'll use this one, because it looks like just as good but it's sure as hell cheaper," he announced, picking up his phone to ring the pharmacy. I don't know whether his assumption that I didn't speak the language came into play or not, but I speak enough to understand the jist of most things. "It's Dr Tyvole at the health clinic down the street," he told the pharmacist. "This medicine Verrumal, does it still exist?"
It still exists, apparently. And they had it. So he prescribed it to me. I reckon I could have done as well for myself on the internet if only I had the power to write prescriptions.
Still, every visit to Dr Tyvole is a cultural experience.
Lotus Monastery Day 25
Posted by: lucie
Teachings are still kind of boring. Monk is finishing off the section on developing bodhichitta but keeps digressing into dry, scholarly lists of things. I'm just about ready to go, really. I mean, I'll miss a lot of things - like the quiet, and the peace on the hill at night - but it feels like I've been here a very long time. There's a whole world out there. The idea of getting out and doing things is pretty intoxicating.
Monk is expounding on the proper attitude to take toward spirits who attack you. Apparently it's similar to when other kids make fun of you: if you ignore them they won't have any fun anymore and they'll stop. His mom told him that when he was little, and hey - she was teaching him the Dharma! Maybe she was an emination of Tara, he says.
Or maybe all moms just say that.
--
The teachings were so boring we decided to head down to Boudha early. Brian and I rolled our eyes at each other on the way out and went to fetch James. I'm now Buddha-sitting (James bought one) outside cafe New Orleans while the boys go back to buy Brian's favorite mala. Coming down here with them is a bit of a drag, as expected, because Brian acts like I don't exist when James is around. He's a rude kid. James goes out of his way to be polite enough to make up for him.
It's nearly 3.30 and they say Lama Zopa is definitely teaching this session. I'm not sure it's ever definite until he actually arrives, but it does sound promising. I'm excited to see how he teaches, and how people react.
--
[Note: The teachings following in a few paragraphs will not be easy to understand. They weren't at the time, either. I'm going to leave the notes exactly as they are on paper, a frenzied transcription of the words coming from Lama Zopa at the time, which to me conveyed the important ideas... to others it might not mean anything. Maybe you had to be there. But for what it's worth...]
It's Zopa time. So far half hour of mantras and no teachings yet. Lost in Tibetan.
--
Make that 40 minutes.
--
45, and then "Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry I didn't come earlier." Then some talk about suffering - including bird flu ("millions and millions of birds.")
So much danger - fire, water, scarcity of water.
He clears his throat constantly and is quite difficult to understand. It's like hearing someone speak in a dream. You get the jist, kind of, but it's certainly not like hearing someone speak in sentences.
He talks about water, then lack of water, too much water, that he heard some monkeys that don't get enough food will eat each other.
Now something about fire - tornadoes.
He mutters it all.
"The whole town destroyed within an hour - pieces everywhere."
Ah, so many people. Homeless... so much problem happen.
And the tsunami that happened some time ago this year... Sri Lanka... The dangers of fire, water, air... all the sickness, dangers of the violence, dangers of the elements.
So all these... never understanding the causes of happiness. Understanding cause of happiness and understanding cause of suffering. Action which result suffering, action which result happiness.
What's the right thing to practice, beneficial to ourselves? What's the wrong thing, harmful to others? All the problem comes from that ignorance. This is the most important point.
By understanding, you achieve happiness and abandon suffering.
Never understanding karma. Ignorance of the little beings, living beings who are experiencing problems. Impure mind. None of these problems come from compassion. All the global problems, personal problems, from selfish mind.
Therefore the reason to come here to Nepal, primitive compared to the west, compared to 20 years ago, 30 years ago, not five star. Gradually developed from here to here.
So many years ago with the help of one nun - all the faith in Buddhas
(God this is hard. It's nearly impossible - it requires such intense concentration.)
Then Venerable Monk come in 74 to Lotus for first Lotus courses. This course... there was some ground behind the temple so they put a tent so the monks could sleep out back - many number of years this course above the stupa, I think.
I was talking - one of my subjects - those time courses were about lower realms, lower realms, cut attachment, lower realms, lowere realms, then to cut attachment - so it was interesting combination. Talking about people suffering because we don't know karma, don't know rebirth, don't know what to do - completely overwhelmed by suffering.
You are suffering through your wrong concept.
You suffer with your wrong way of thinking. Constantly tortured by that, by keeping the wrong views, wrong concepts, wrong way of thinking, torture yourself.
You try another excitement, still not happy, try another one, still not happy, another excitement, still suffering.
So those people came to Nepal to look for... (something about lifestyle with drugs) - LSD, you know. Without some external thing, fixed mind. Very very fixed, the hard concept. So that somehow gives ... meditate ... also same kind of experiences that the mind can travel, without the body the mind can travel.
So then, that time, there were only very few books. One is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Then one is Milarepa's life story. Then there was "The Way of the White Cloud," written by a German professor. Western psychology... some of death experiences... When you are dying, to meditate. Only a few books like that.
So individuals come... then had all these experience, then went along and saw in shop Tibetan Book of the Dead. So then we had Italian student who read Milarepa life story, he gave away anything, everything, whatever he had. I think others do something, but not completely!
Three or four original Italian students come here to course and studied, then they went back to Italy. That's how Buddhism spread. Through these Italian students. There was top-known Geshe from Tibet in Rome teaching at the University, not teaching Dharma, so they run a course in a church. The priest sometimes attended teachings. Some students were circling outside, they went inside.
Main Buddhist center in Pisa, then many branches happened. So many Italians had to make Dharma to make their lives meaningful, find peace with the opportunity to follow path to enlightenment. Opportunity to learn many things. Able to benefit, to make this life meaningful to benefit numberless sentient beings.
Now, besides that, the 5-year program is happening... In Tibetan Buddhism. There's a 5 year program in centers in other cities, so the student can do there the 5-year retreat, but other students in city, have job, so they can just come there. So I think we are doing well. Younger teachers, senior Western students helping. 7-year program is very extensive teachings on the path to liberation and enlightenment. Studying the root text commentaries, etc.
(Yesterday Claire said she was disappointed when Lama Zopa greeded her like everyone else because part of her believed he'd say "You! You're the chosen one!" I just remembered that.
Basically he is talking about the evolution of the FPMT, and what courses it currently offers.)
To do these courses you have to take five lay vows, and at the end of the day they check their mind and how many actions they have done for others and how many for self. They write them down in a diary for their own benefit.
Every day we need to practice Dharma and meditate on the Lam Rim. You review your life today from morning - any action that is Dharma, put one white stone. Any non-Dharma, put one black stone. At the beginning there is hardly any white stone, but gradually less and less black. So you discover yourself how your mind is doing.
Rather than think "now study, practice later - I'll practice patience in the future, practice Bodhichitta in the future." Studying and real, practical practice at the same time - training the mind at the same time.
If you get angry 20 times in one month, then you have failed. How many times you missed practice?
So when you do the examination, how many times one got angry, and then to apply the meditation techniques for patience. So the idea is that later, when you finish all the study, either you spend your life in practice or you go to teach in the world. You become a good example. Good-hearted.
You should have three qualities: learned, good heart and pure.
Sometimes world doesn't match, but you are an example. Good heart. Some people criticize you, say nasty things, but you are calm, patient. Seeing yourself practicing. Living the practice. So the students are so inspired, and they become like the teacher.
So what I was saying before - those early times, those many young people who came to Nepal to learn Dharma, to meditate, then they went back to their countries to teach others. This is how Buddhism spread in the west - by the young people. (something about how they found the concept through drugs.)
So, teachings of Buddha, Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, teaching was taught by yogis and analyzed by all those great scholars. They were analyzed and translated from Tibetan language, then preserved by learning by so many Tibetan people. So many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas happened in Tibet, and achieved the path. So that spread in the west due to the efforts, the compassion of the young people, to help others.
(Break for tea and bathroom - 2 hours in.)
That was funny. They brought tea in while he was still teaching, started handing out cups and pouring it, then half the gompa left to go use the toilet. Brian had a grump attack because he actally can't understand anything Lama Zopa is saying. "Why do you keep laughing at all the right times?" I asked him. His answer: "Because it's polite.")
So what I want to say after all that, there is so much suffering, globally, and each human being how much suffering. So we are going through the subjects of impermanence and death, suffering... even hell realms, forms realms have the suffering nature. The desire realm suffers pain, then our mind compounding suffering. Bodhimind is the protection of karma and delusions.
Mental problems, physical problems, delusions, pervasive and compounding suffering. Contaminating seed of delusion. So that is the fundamental suffering. On the base of that, then suffering of change, which are temporary samsaric pleasures which don't last. It appears as pleasure to our delusional mind, but when you analyze that feeling, the widsom sees it is suffering labelled pleasure, and believed to be pleasure.
There is no such thing as real happiness - if you examine the feelings, what you examine, what you discover, is only suffering. The exalted beings, arya beings, discover that this is only suffering. The attachment.
That's one suffering. From that, the dissatisfied mind. Rolling stones. Can't get no...
So as a Rolling Stone, that famous man, i think he was killed..? So like he said, I can't get no satisfaction. I mean, that's great teaching. That's great Lam Rim. Exact message. Exact Lam Rim teaching. Because if you don't follow Dharma, you can't get satisfaction.
That's the measure of mental suffering. Suffering pain. Loneliness, depression, all this. Pain of attachment, pain to let go. Drives like crazy, that attachment. You don't need to spend all that money. There's no need. Attachment makes so HARD. All these worry feelers, want this, want that. Got eyes, got nose, house, food. The hair, unbelievably expensive hair, unbelievably expensive clothes, nails. Then because so much expenses, then have to work hard. All these expenses that attachment wants. We think we need, but it's really attachment. New cars, one apartment, another apartment, always a new one.
Attachment makes life so hard.
(Paraphrase: In different cultures people find different things beautiful. This is an example of things coming from your mind - none of this beauty is really real. Just labelled. This is proof taht the way things appear to you - "it's not there at all, in fact.")
Everyone in the world should appear beautiful.
He's talking about emptiness now, comparing life to dreaming and realizing emptiness to KNOWING you are dreaming. So you don't cling to it, don't really react to it. It doesn't matter at all. There's an appearance but it's not there. It isn't true. Same when somebody praises you. It's meaningless.
Earlier he went on for ages about how you don't know your parents are your parents when you're in the womb, or when you come out - you learn it in your life. If you're adopted you never know your biological parents are anything but strangers until and unless someone tells you "This is your father. This is your mother." Then everything changes. An example of how our reality is really in our mind.
When you believe a dream is true, then it really affects. When you realize emptiness, all forms, objects, concepts, lack an "I." When you analyze something, you find nothing. It is nonexistent. When you don't analyze, it looks like it's there. When you analyze and can't find anywhere, that shows it is false. We apprehend things as true.
All things that are false, we believe/apprehend it's reality. According to convention - not reality. The actual truth is that they don't exist. It depends on the mind - dependent arising. Independent existence - it appears that way - but it's a fault to believe this is reality. That concept is a delusion and the basis of obscuring, disturbing negative attitude, attachment, delusions.
Coming back to the face metaphor: You don't call the foot the face. You have to see a particular shape - there's eyes, nose, mouth. That's the base - this design, the base. By seeing that, mind labels it a face. It causes the mind to make the label "face," then you believe in that. You are looking at a face that your mind labelled. Then, after discriminating this beautiful design - nose, cheeks or ears or whatever - THEN attachment clings on that. Grasps to that.
Somebody praises or gives gift, you see that attachment. Then attachment rises. Then this person criticizes - behaving in a way your attachment doesn't like. Then called bad. Talking, behaving - bad. This is how it works. So first of all the mind labelled "friend." Then, next second, there's a "real" friend. Apparently real friend. Then there's the concept: "true." On that, attachment. Then they behave in a way attachment doesn't like, problem. If you had not formed an attachment, this wouldn't bother you. It's nothing if you don't form attachment. When you become friends with the attachment, they harm you or criticize you, then this is bad.
(Uh oh, for some reason he has just ventured off onto a story about how he paints mantras on his car, and even if they crash into an animal, it will get the benefits of those blessing and not be reborn in the lower realms. This is exactly what I feared from his teachings, and just when i was beginning to love it! How did we get here so suddenly?")
Some people when we park the car, they copy all the writing. People rejoice when they see the car with all the mantras.
The times when you are following the attachment, it is bad. If you are not following the attachment, it is nothing. It is good to think "this is not hurting me, it's hurting the attachment." In that way it's a very kind person who destroys, is an antidote to, our delusions. By destroying delusions you can achieve liberation and enlightenment.
Likewise when someone appears to be an enemy - this is total wrong view.
Anger arises after harm, hurt. So the object of anger, in reality, doesn't exist. Then, because there's no foundation, there's no such thing there, the first foundation is totally false. So how can the object of anger be true?
On top of that, the attachment - clinging. That's the reality of life. That's what it is. In the life, all that is false we believe is true. All the problems build on that.
Believing in false views - seeing false as truth. Emptiness becomes medicine for ignorant mind. So by meditating, by listening to teachings, Lam Rim teachings on the path to enlightenment, the words will have meaning. So therefore you can see how important it is to practice Dharma in daily life. Especially to learn to meditate and have wisdom. Now you can see conclusion: life without Dharma practice is suffering. Life without Lam Rim, without practice of the right view, you can't see truth.
The basis to label "I" exists in name, in mind, but they exist in just this way. So there's no such "I" existing from its own side. While there is no such thing, while it is totally empty, completely empty, but apprehending that there is such a thing there, holding that true, existing by nature or from its own side, every day of our life when we let our mind hold onto this as truth, we are creating ignorance in samsara in our daily life. In one hour a hundred times we do that. Wrong concept - because there is no such object that exists. So each time when we let our mind hold things, we are creating root of samsara each time. So that's where death comes. Death comes from your mind - from that ignorance. It's from letting your mind hold onto this "I" that's appearing in the senses. From that concept you fear death. Even a cold comes from that.
So you can see Dharma practice is more important than food, job, money - it's the most important thing in life. More important than anything else - if you want happiness. Only if you want happiness.
So going back to the face - the face which can be labelled by the mind but appeared to you a real face, then attachment. Then this small face becomes very expensive. Million dollar face. This is to describe, by following attachment, what happens to our mind. Then you can see the suffering when you think other sentient beings are trapped in this. Minds stained, possessed by this. Trapped in this hallucination and attachment. Mind possessed by anger and attachment - so much suffering - so then you have compassion. You want to help them.
So if I speak, then this is what happens. Ongoing. Like water, like river.
It is 7.15pm; the teachings have lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes. We're done for the day.
Lotus Monastery Day 24 - Part Two
Posted by: lucie
It's interesting how people from different cultures take issue with different pieces of the teachings. The Russians, for example, who grew up with the message that they were building Communism for future generations, aren't big fans of this "for all sentient beings" stuff. It pisses them right off. The Catholics, who have had enough fire and brimstone for a lifetime, thank you, are none too pleased with the hell realms, nor the idea of bad karma. They seem quite susceptible to the fear and guilt trips.
Maria, who was blissed out for a short time, is back to worrying about whether she has purified enough bad karma. She used her private audience with Venerable Monk to seek reassurance - told him she felt guilty about all the opportunities she'd had in life and such. He told her to use her career to help people, and bam - all blissed out again. That simple. I mean, I could have told her that. Anyone could have told her that. She is just giving the authority to some outside being. Venerable Monk has to tell her it's okay. Surely that's not the point of Buddhism..? Where's the personal responsibility?
Anyway, then there's this whole group of rebel kids who hang onto the idea of the individual path being in oneself and no one being able to lead anyone to enlightenment or show anyone "The" path.
Monk is going off on one about taking refuge, taking bodhisattva vows, getting tantra initiations (apparently Lama Zopa will give a Vajrasattva initiation).
People who wish to have a private audience with Lama Zopa have been told to write him a letter explaining why, or saying what they'd like to discuss. Being clairvoyant, Lama Zopa can tell from these letters which students he should speak to, and he'll come see them when he is available. "If he's clairvoyant," Brian pointed out the other day, "Why do you have to write him a letter? Shouldn't he just come find you?"
--
No Lama Zopa at the 6pm meditation, alas, but some of us just got to watch him blessing a bird. For ten minutes he looked at this bird, held in another monk's hands, and said mantras and prayers to it, put some mandala sand on its head, pet it a little bit. It was a very sweet sight; he was looking at it very compassionately, but I still mostly just saw a man saying mantras - however sincerely and wholeheartedly - to a bird. A crowd of students looked on with their fingertips solemly pressed together, heads bowed in reverence. When Lama Zopa was finished with his mantras he pet the bird for a minute, then looked up at the crowd of Westerners gathered to watch him and put his hands together with a little nod. The crowd laughed a little bit in embarrassment at being thus acknowledged, and he burst into a fit of giggles.
"Good work," one woman in the front said.
"Yes, well, you know," he replied, and it seemed the show was over.
The girl sitting next to me in the gompa afterward was quite amazed by this display - she was sure the bird had been dead! it wasn't moving! But when he put water on it, it jumped! "Now I think I might prostrate to him," she said, having witnessed this feat.
Tactfully as I could, and meaning no disrespect, I said I'd only seen a man saying some mantras to a bird. I don't want to belittle his character as I'm sure he's a very sincere and holy man, but something about the scene was quite silly. Taken objectively, it was a man talking to a bird, surrounded by a group of people bowing their heads in reverence. I mean, if he were wearing street clothes everyone would have thought he was a crazy man. What's the proper perspective? How do you do this objectively? I'd love to believe he's a highly realized being, and I don't believe that he isn't one; I know he's dedicated his life to practicing the Dharma, and that's very beautiful, but - you know, what if he is actually just nuts?
The teachings will make the difference. If he teaches people things that will help them improve themselves and change their lives, that will seem like a noble way to use his, for lack of better words, power and influence. To use people's faith in him. If he talks about saying mantras to birds and carrying insects around the stupa, well... I don't know, is he really inspiring greatness in people? Is he really making a difference? If reincarnation is real and you can cause animals to be reborn in higher realms, then sure - he's doing good work. For animals, at least. But... maybe it just isn't. In fact, most people at this course probably don't believe in reincarnation fully, so would a wise man teach things that can be applied in this lifetime - the one people believe in?
The teachings on guru devotion say we should roll with it and trust him to tell us what we need to know.
But you're supposed to research your guru for years.
--
Venerable Monk is leading a Tong Len meditation and I've actually rather enjoyed the first part of it - we were supposed to take on the suffering of someone close to us and I imagined taking on a friend's depression. It made the whole thing seem much more tangible - to imagine his face getting happier, his shoulders less sloped, his posture less defeated - back to himself. Suddenly I thought hey, meditating on compassion isn't a bad idea after all. Maybe some of this Mahayana stuff is alright - and it certainly gives the mind focus. My thoughts wandered less than usual. But I've yet to try the Thich Nhat Hanh style meditations, which are all very positive and beautiful. They may rule.
Anyway, he moved on to doing Tong Len on hungry ghosts, strangely prefacing this with "now here's something tangible you can try. Think of all the pretas in this world system." What is tangible about meditating on hungry ghosts? Show me one.
My friend Evan is becoming obsessed, in a very good way I think, with Thich Nhat Hanh. He's read a handful of his books and wants to go to Plum Village to attend some of his teachings. Thich Nhat Hanh is a truly beautiful Zen master who writes the most breathtaking, positive books about Buddhist practice. I'd love to go to Plum Village someday as well. Maybe if I get into the MBA program I'll take some time off beforehand and head that way. Or whenever I leave Eastern Europe. Or whenever I want. I'm free.
It's 7pm now, and still no evidence of Lama Zopa's imminent arrival. There's still a chance he won't arrive at all. He may come at 8, or he may not.
Ah, Monk has now informed us that he won't come tonight. Tomorrow, then. I had a feeling.
Lotus Monastery Day 24 - Part One
Posted by: lucie
I lost my journal yesterday. It was bad. I just kept thinking about how awful some of the things I'd written would sound to anyone reading it. That's the thing about journals - you think you can be completely honest in them, but the moment there's a possibility anyone you know could read them without your consent you find you're a bit ashamed of yourself. I realized it was gone at 5.00 tea - about three and a half hours after I left it on the bench by the stupa. It took four hours to retrace my steps and find it.
So anyway, Lama Zopa yesterday. It was all very festive - the monks repainted the designs on the drive, shaved their heads fresh, played drums and horns and brought offerings. We all got khatas and offered them to him as he made his way through the crowd. Quite an efficient process: you held the scarf out and bowed way down, he took it and put it over your head, and that was that. He asked some people where they were from; others he gave a quick, affectionate pat on the head, which was kind of sweet. I got a pat on the head but didn't manage to look him in the eye. You had to bow so low it's hardly possible.
At the 4pm teachings, Venerable Monk seemed humbled. His style was less aggressive than usual, it seemed - he was presenting things in a nicer, friendlier way that felt more from the heart. With the exception of bringing up his asinine rape example one more time, there was hardly anything objectionable.
The schedule is changing now and will be getting pretty hardcore. 9.30 - 11.00 teachings stay the same, then lunch break and discussion groups, then 3.30 -5.00 teachings and Lama Zopa will start teaching at 5.00 and go until god knows when. And we aren't supposed to leave the gompa - even for the toilet - which seems quite unrealiastic.
I'm glad Lama Zopa is here, even though I think his teachings may be bizarre. The whole welcoming ceremony lightened the mood, and that was sorely needed. Monk seems to have lightened up, thank god, and who knows? Maybe that will even last. Maybe. You never know.
It's still amazing to think there's so little time left.
I shall go to Boudha one more time to make some post-course arrangements and ask for interviews and things. Brian and James are coming with me. I'm still getting along with Brian, which is so nice. It sucked the life out of me when we weren't getting on. But looking back, it seems I had a lesson to learn from it. It's exactly like what happens in relationships gone wrong, and sometimes you simply have to walk away. I managed to detach myself, more or less, and things cleared up. Let that be a memorable lesson to me. Boys can only play stupid games with you if you play back.
It also showed me how unattractive it is to pretend you don't like someone, or that you aren't bothered about spending time with them. I know I do that sometimes. I'm 99% sure, based on things he's said, that Brian was just getting stupid because he liked me and didn't think I liked him, so he went out of his way to show me how little he cared - yet he was always, always around. Always there, but not even nice to me. In fact he was even pretty rude a lot of the time. No one is going to find that attractive. It's ridiculous. And in fact it doesn't even leave any space for an honest conversation. It's all bad. I've totally done that, and it's stupid. Please, self, please don't do that ever again. It's embarrassing. It feels like a way to protect yourself but ti's only a way to look like a fool.
I'm off to 9am teachings and hoping for the best because yesterday afternoon was alright - plus we're very near emptiness now, so there might be something good. As Cynthia said the other day when I asked if she was going to the teachings, with just a touch of irony: "Of course! There might be jewels! Well... you never know." At least I can take notes on the weird stuff that happens during meditations.
--
Wow, it really is kind of improving. Even the meditation was free of hell realms and suffering. Lama Zopa must have had a positive effect on Monk. Or me. Or the content of the teachings is just better..? Who knows.
I was in the library earlier reading some transcripts of old courses so I've had a chance to see how Lama Zopa speaks. It's pretty weird - if it were a line drawing it would look something like a phone cord. He repeats each phrase a few times, each phrase, you know, a few times, so he repeats it a few times in different ways before moving on. And moving on, you see, moving on means going, means moving on to the next thought. It's a bit like that.
Someone has told me that his teachings are more like "transmissions," which I guess is where Monk learned to lead meditations in such a strange, hypnotic way. To "imbue" our minds with goodness and brainwash them "in a good way." It'll be really interesting to interview him about that kind of stuff. I'll need to phrase the questions carefully. God knows how that'll be done.
I've had some interesting interviews with people - especially the rebels. They tend to be the most interesting, and they also seem to understand better than anyone else that real peace, truth, happiness and all the rest can only be found inside themselves.
According to the rumor mill, Lama Zopa has a cold and may not come and teach us this evening. A cold? A great high lama can be floored by a cold? Venerable Monk says he will come tonight, but may only teach for a couple of hours. When they told him not to teach too late, he apparently said "As long as they get three or four hours of sleep once in a while, they'll be alright." Here's hoping he shows a bit more compassion.
With Monk, we're into teachings about developing bodhichitta. Analogies have included a hand not picking a thorn out of a foot because it isn't in the hand itself; choosing to help one person instead of a large group of people, and so on. We're supposed to imagine exchanging the self for the other, imagining them to be equal. These are nice ideas, of course, although some people say hey, what's wrong with getting myself enlightened? When I do that, when i see everything and know what's what, I'll naturally be inclined to help others. What else is there to do once you see that everything is empty of inherent meaning? This is the difference between the Henayana and Mahayana paths.
To my understanding, the former don't believe that the Buddha was enlightened for millions of years before he came to earth; they just think he was a great being who became enlightened. And from what I understand, he never did it by cultivating love for all sentient beings. He just figured out the nature of reality and told it like it was. The Mahayana writings, or at least the way Venerable George presents them, say that it's very selfish to strive for Nirvana, which is for yourself alone, rather than enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
Olga was saying the other night that she just can't grasp this idea of compassion and love for all sentient beings because she doesn't have it for herself. She said trust me, if I can be okay with myself, I'll be much more loving to everyone around me. Just help me see how to work on myself.
I believe the Mahayana answer is that you become happy as a side effect of cultivating bodhichitta and cherishing others more than the self. But the Henayana path, it seems, would work the other way around. By cultivating and improving the self, by starting to realize emptiness, you'll naturally develop more compassion for others because you'll see the needless suffering they put themselves through. Monk's take is that it's extremely selfish to seek Nirvana for oneself. But let's think for a second: if everyone were to tend to his or her own plot of the collective unconscious, we'd all get there together in the end - wouldn't we? And isn't such a goal more realistic and attainable?
What will now happen
Posted by: lucie
In honor of the narrow likelihood that this boy - a bastion of discipline and self-control I met in a monastery - will actually do something so romantic and frivolous as jump on a plane to Eastern Europe to spend some time with me so soon, I am listening to This American Life's "Star-Crossed Love" Valentine's Day episode. About "love that fate is against in every way."
Honest prediction: he's not going to do it. It's just not his style. It'll be some combination of overseriousness, lack of sufficient interest and fear of doing something so uncharacteristically crazy. Our little mutual fantasy has been fun and sweet, but is someone really going to get on a plane? I mean, really? Get on a plane to another continent to see someone they really hardly know? And then what?
He's presently starting his own business and JUST moved into a home of his own again for the first time in 8 months or so, so it would be more than understandable if he said this wasn't the best time. These are legitimate reasons. What's the point anyway? Though one could argue we have little to go on and owe it to ourselves to hang out again. I don't know. Maybe the phone (Skype) will come into play.
Damn this boy with his patience and cautiousness and sound judgment... especially as he might be right.
Then again, he could surprise me.
Interestingly, taking the straightforward and honest route is pretty liberating. I think he should come see me. I want to see him again. I said so. Now it's up to him. Sometimes giving up all control of a situation inspires real peace.
Lotus Monastery Day 23
Posted by: lucie
The first week of the course crawled by, but it's hard to believe we're in the last already. It's somehow flown. So much of the human drama has come full circle. Lama Zopa gets here tomorrow. I can't wait to see it all unfold.
More notes have disappeared off the board today. One was a bit odd but the other was a quote from a famous Buddhist nun called Tenzin Palmo, talking about how much difficulty she had with the concept of hell realms and such. She goes on to say that few of us will actually go to hell realms because you have to do something pretty bad, etc etc. Someone put it up to reassure the people who'd been tripping out about this stuff. It wasn't rude in any way... but it was taken down.
The same thing happened when Vanessa put up a note about Steven Batchelor's "Faith to Doubt," which talks about how you can practice Buddhism without necessarily believing completely in Karma or reincarnation. It was taken down so she asked her discussion group leader why, and he said he'd talk to Ani Nun and find out. When he saw her again, the answer was "you need to see Ani Nun about it." She didn't bother. Some of these things are pretty strange.
I'm going to the 9am sessions as I haven't been to any of Monk's teachings for days and we've got to be getting to the good stuff (emptiness) soon. Of course I could count the number of times I'd heard people say we were about to get to something good... It always seems to turn out disappointing.
Saw James walking up to the shop this morning - he is looking noticeably thinner. Poor guy; the food poisoning trip really isn't any fun. Especially when people tell you to be glad you're purifying bad karma.
Bit of gossip: an Australian girl in Corey's discussion group was approached by a monk the other day, and he asked if she would help him with his English homework. They arranged a time and place and met up. He then started telling her about how a monk friend of his had fallen in love iwth an Australian girl, moved there and married her. She didn't know what to say. Finally he asked her if she wanted to meet him up on the hill later!! She said no thanks.
Apparently there are also monks down in Boudha who visit prostitutes and get themselves into trouble. not sure if any of them are from Lotus or not.
There are definitely a lot of guys here for an education who aren't all holy. A lot of them were sent here by their parents, or decided to come by themselves before they were old enough to really understand anything of life. You can't expect perfection.
Venerable Monk is leading us through a meditation on getting enlightened and helping all sentient beings; not just achieving Nirvana for oneself. His favorite point in these meditations - a point increasingly driving course participants up the wall - is that all sentient beings have been our mothers numberless times. People are having a hard time buying that one. They are also quite naturally pointing out that all sentient beings will have been our enemies and killers numberless times.
Now he's back to immense, unimaginable suffering of the hell realms, which is another popular approach. Graphic descriptions of cold hells, hot hells. "So many of our mothers are experiencing that right now."
This morning he asked if people were still having nightmares. It's really odd how he asks about people's dreams; almost as if he wants to influence them.
He just said something about listening to the teachings and concentrating on the meditations to "imbue our minds" with deep imprints of these ideas in order to change our "warped minds." Sheesh.
"Meditation" is now over and George is telling a story about a woman who was the victim of attempted rape. She went to her teacher to ask how she should handle the situation - press charges? He told her to meditate on it and wish that the rapists wouldn't experience the karmic results of their actions in future lifetimes.
Tell that to the other woman who got raped by these guys after the first woman let them go. God, he's such an idiot sometimes. It's like he chooses infuriating examples on purpose.
--
I've just walked out of the teachings for the first time. He just disgusts me sometimes. Sure, meditate on their future happiness. Save their rapist souls. Hooray for bodhichitta. But he's talking to a room full of people who are looking for answers, searching for their own souls - many of whom have impressionable minds - and some of them are going to be raped one day and think it wouldn't be Buddhist of them to press charges. Others will be raped by men who might have been convicted if other women had pressed charges. Maybe I'm getting too worked up about something on other people's behalf, but I think it's really irresponsible. There's nothing holy about leaving rapists on the loose.
Moron. I'd like to see him tell his sister or close female friend not to press charges if they were raped. let's see how much bodhichitta he'd have then.
I guess I've been right to skip a lot of teachings. Still, it reminds one of what kind of insanity is going on in there. One little taste every few days is enough.
Apparently if you're raped you should also be happy about purifying some of your bad karma.
I don't believe that man truly understands anything of this life. I really don't. Sure, he has a wealth of knowledge about Sanskrit and sutras, he's read a lot and studied with big shot teachers, but he doesn't even understand his own stories. He just doesn't get it.
Lama Zopa will be greeting each of us individually, so I've opted to buy a khata to offer him. It's only polite anyway. I'd prefer to hang back and take photos, but oh well. Things should get interesting today. A whole new level of interesing. I'm not particularly motivated to attend Lama Zopa's teachings, especially knowing how long they tend to go on, so I'm hoping there will be at least a few nuggets of inspiration to keep me from walking out or just not going back. I suppose the look on people's faces will be worth the trouble. Oh, the human drama.
The James thing
Posted by: lucie
Emails with James have hit critical mass. You can email for a while, but you know when you have to move beyond it, or make plans to move beyond it. We're pretty much there.
I've had low expectations of anything ever happening with this boy, despite thinking he's absolutely brilliant. I left Lotus without even saying goodbye to him. I couldn't find him on the last day, and as much as I liked him, I didn't expect he'd keep in touch. He was so serious and focused while we were there.
Brian and I shared a cab back to Kathmandu, took long, luxurious showers and spent that day in Kathmandu shopping. He was coming up empty on some items he'd promised a friend, so we popped back to Boudha, and there was James sitting at an outside table having a coffee. He and the others who stayed for the 7-day silent meditation retreat had come down to this little town, one of the centers of Tibetan culture in Nepal, to circumambulate the stupa (probably the biggest and oldest in the country). Technically it was a group pilgrimage of sorts, but I guess he had time for a coffee. I'd thought he was long gone, and there he was again.
We played the Nepali Moving Tiger Game outside the cafe, and I joked that if I won he had to marry me. I lost, but he told everyone I'd won. We chatted about the next week's plans, and he said he'd be at the same guesthouse as me when the retreat was over - just one day before I was leaving. I didn't know my room number, but said I'd try to look him up and leave him a note at the front desk on the day. These were loose plans. All intentions expressed at the end of a 30 day meditation retreat are incredibly loose.
Fast forward a week, and I know he's out but haven't seen him. I've seen others. I go to the front desk at the guesthouse to ask if they'd look up my friend's room number and they tell me they can't because the booking system is down. I shrug it off and figure we probably wouldn't have managed to hook up anyway. A couple of hours later I'm walking down the hallway at precisely the right moment and again, there he is when I thought I'd never see him again. His face betrays his happiness for a split second, then he regroups. I'm going out for the day to see neighboring towns, but we make plans to meet up later in the afternoon for a cup of tea and a chat.
The cup of tea turns into three pots of tea, dinner, talk of marriage and kids (three of them), me saying "I haven't met anyone I could imagine marrying in a very long time," him saying "me neither," me telling him to move to Eastern Europe, him laughing and asking what on earth he'd do there, but noting that perhaps he could imagine himself in the UK, for I'd be there after all, then at some point announcing that he intended not to date for a year because he wanted to get very serious about his practice.
"Girls like me don't wait a year," I inform him. "I can wait -" and I think about it as sincerely as I can in the space a few seconds - "three months."
"Patient woman," he observes.
"I'm working on it," I say.
The next day I left for Delhi and he left for the Balkans, where he has family. He was to be there for a month. I emailed him on Christmas Eve; nothing very passionate. Open invite to Eastern Europe that I didn't really believe he'd take, had a great time getting to know him a bit better at dinner, Merry Christmas and such. He emailed back along the same lines - such great conversation is rare, thanks for the Christmas email, Merry Christmas and happy new year, etc.
I called them our "thank you and goodnight" emails. It wasn't going anywhere. He lived in North America, I lived in Eastern Europe. It was a great night. No point getting heartbroken; better to be happy to know that guys like him exist. He can't be the only one. And anyway, he was being all holy and didn't want to date for a year. I'd had a drama-queen urge to write "I can't stop thinking about you. I have to see you again," but it wouldn't have worked. There can be no worse time to try to snare a boy than the day after he has spent two months in a monastery and decided he's going to stay solo for a while and attend to his spiritual development. No worse time.
There were a couple more cutesy emails, but when it became doubly and triply clear that he wasn't planning to come to Eastern Europe, I let it drop. What was the point, right?
I'm not sure why I emailed him again a month later - on a whim, really. "Are you enlightened yet? Your woman wants to know." He wrote back that he was happy to see that I still thought of him on occasion, made a cute quip about thinking he couldn't fall for me any harder than he already had, and ended his message "thinking of you often, James."
That was the end of January. We've sent two or three emails a week each ever since. They've gradually progressed from cutesy talk of our future marriage to deeper conversations about finding a meaningful career and, most recently, even more interesting missives about relationships, and why they work or don't work. When we found we agreed on most things, I wrote "See? Happily ever after. Geography is such a simple matter by comparison." And it's been edging toward some kind of acknowledgment ever since. So I finally just wrote and said quite boldly that I thought we should see each other again - come visit.
If that doesn't get us somewhere, I'm done. I have played my last card.
It has, after all, been three months.
Dreaming
Posted by: lucie
Weird dream about grandma this morning, just before I woke up. Grandma had died (in reality she is 92 - the possibility of her death is obviously very real, though she is in good health and fairly good spirits). I had taken it upon myself to see to her funeral, figuring I was more capable and grounded than the rest of the family.
For some reason I felt she should be cremated, as Hindus are at Pashupatinath (pictured above), just outside Kathmandu. It's so their ashes can go straight into the Ganges river, which is the holiest of bodies of water. So I built a pyre, with little to go on save what I'd seen at Pashupatinath from across the river that day in December, in my bedroom in the house I lived in from 11 to 16 or so. I built it right on the carpet, next to my bed, and I wrapped her tiny body lovingly in white sheets and placed her on top.
It took a lot of wood, and had to be refreshed a few times, but I seemed to have built it correctly. My grandma's body burned well, thoroughly, on a pyre in one of my childhood homes; I worried about the sheets burning off her face and seeing her charred body beneath, but I kept my composure and perspective and it was fine.
My mother came into the room and worried aloud about how we would clean the mess up. Some guy was with her, some cleaner, and he said he'd have to charge extra for a job like this. They talked about repainting the walls and putting a headstone where the pyre had been, as a memorial. You don't put a headstone there, I told them - that's not how it works when someone leaves the world this way. They're just gone, to ashes, and then you clean the room and put it right back to how it was before. The guy then suggested painting a bold arrow on the wall with an inscription in her honor, pointing to the place where she'd been cremated. Then he left.
It was just my mother and I then, and I looked at my grandmother's body and saw that the sheets had burnt off her face. But rather than a charred, burnt face, I saw flesh. And eyes. Eyelashes even. And then they were blinking. Frightened, I pointed this out to my mother, who said it meant nothing. But I knew she was wrong, so I overcame the fear and looked at her more closely. She looked back at me. Her head turned. I said "Grandma?" and she reached out and grabbed my arm. But it wasn't scary. And she had all of her flesh back, and the fire briefly stopped.
She was a bit confused, I could tell. I moved over to her side and took her in my arms, held her head up and said "Grandma, do you know that we move through this life hollow?" It was an attempt to say something reassuring and spiritual, though I've no idea what it meant, and to take the edge off what I had to tell her next. "You died," I told her gently, and she laughed her realization in that "Oooohh! I don't really understand but I will laugh as though I do" way she has. I told her it was two weeks ago, then looked to my mother for confirmation and was corrected - it had been more like one week, she said. I relayed this message to grandma and explained that it was time for her to go.
That was about it. I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm went off, shaken, wondering if my mother would be calling to tell me that my grandma had died. Of course that's 99% certain not to be what it meant, but I imagined calling work to say I wouldn't be in, that I had to go back to the States and bury my grandmother.
She is the one person in my family for whom I've never felt anything but unqualified affection. The rest of us have had pretty extreme ups and downs; at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I'd feel comfortable stating that I didn't grow up with very good examples of what real love, family love is all about. In my family we weren't loving. We were mean to each other. Except with my grandma. She's always loved me, I've always loved her, and that's it. It's pure.
I've been thinking about what to do before the MBA starts; it's not worth wasting the time here at the newspaper, really, where I'm unfulfilled and learning nothing. There's a retreat I'd like to do in June, which I hope will cement some of the work I've been doing on my own mind, and then I think I might head back to the States to see my family - and when I say "see my family" I always mean "spend quality time with grandma cooking her soup and chatting and making sure she knows I love her even though I can't call as often as I'd like from this godforsakenly expensive country with its pathetic telecoms infrastructure."
You have to remember, when your last grandparent is getting on in age, that they could go at any moment. As much as I'd miss her, mourn, grieve, I'm ready to accept the end of her life. She's bored with it. I'd only regret not spending more time on the phone with her, not going home more often to see her. You have to make every conversation and visit good enough to be the last when someone is 92, even when a big part of you believes your grandma will live to meet your firstborn child.
Sometimes I'd like to hurry up and get married and have a baby just so my grandma could hold it before she moved on.
Brain dump
Posted by: lucie
Again, apologies to anyone who was riveted by the monastery chronicles, if such a thing was ever possible - transcribing my journals requires actually having some time to myself, and for the last week I have had none. The monastery tales will be on hold until Sunday, when my out-of-town guest boards a flight back to New York.
I haven't been alone in my house for a week now, and it's testing my patience a little. Having Anna in town was brilliant, and the perfect length of time - Friday to Monday, nonstop chatting and going out to see opera, drink cocktails, do wine tastings, all kinds of stuff. But Kristina has been here since Sunday and req