Horn Please!
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
Live like the people do . Take the overnight train to Delhi. We were reunited! Nate had stayed behind from the camel safari to recover from dengue fever (he is completely recovered and well now) and the rest of the group was recovering from three days on the backs of camels. Nate in one train and the rest of the group in another we arrived half asleep, chai in hand, to one of the most crowded places on earth. Delhi has great people watching and we were immediately wading through the crowds to find a couple of auto rickshaws.
People make traffic-horn please! Once we settled into our hotel we hit the streets to do a little exploring and shopping before a "reunited dinner" out on the town. The next day we hoped in auto rickshaws to check out the two Gandhi museums- Indira and Mahatma. Both were time-capsules of the lives of these two great figures from India and world history. We wandered through in small groups and enjoyed some quieter time off the streets.
The group chose the Lotus Temple, the seat of the Baha'i faith, for our final full day in Delhi . Just getting to the other side of the New Delhi railway station was an adventure, and that was just on the way to the Delhi Subway.
The Lotus temple is, as you can imagine, shaped like a giant marble lotus surrounded by pools of water designed to cool the building. It was an oasis for the group and we enjoyed sitting in the heart of the lotus listening to the devotional singing of Baha'i devotees. Baha'i is a faith that brings together all faiths and all peoples.
Katie, Emily, Mia, Sophia, and Aiden had made arrangements to take an Indian cooking class so they spent the afternoon over delicious food, while the rest of the group hit the streets in search of fast food and frisbees. The next day we headed to the train station drums and flutes in hands to perform our first show on the platform. The train was very late and the group started to fall asleep where they sat. Not so unusual in the Old Delhi train station, where many a tired traveler was calling a little rectangle of the platform home .
Chilly, grateful, and half asleep, we crawled off the train in Amritsar, the seat of the Sikh faith and home to the Golden Temple. We shuffled shoulder to shoulder in a river of thousands of pilgrims to the tourist pilgrim hostel and threw down our bags. Nap time!
Do as the pilgrims do. Check in your shoes and hit the massive cafeteria. To the clanging of hundreds of used plates a hungry pilgrim finds a place in the long lines sitting in the hall eager to receive a big spoon full of sweet rice.
Next a small moat rinses the feet, down the steps, and a huge man-made lake comes into view. The golden temple is in the middle of the lake connected by a long walkway. The team, in small groups, explored the temple complex, listened to the live devotional music, and learned about this fascinating faith first hand.
We spent the next day on the local bus to Dharmsala, hoping onto another local local bus to cart the team up to McLeod Ganj in the dark . Mcleod Ganj was to be our home for the next two weeks. An old British hill station, Mcleod Ganj is now home to the Tibetan people in exile, and the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Nine members of the team had elected to participate in a 10 day Tibetan Buddhist meditation course/retreat which began our second day. Leader Nate, and the remaining student Jacob, were left to their own curiosity to design a program of cultural interaction. They had a blast!
Within a day they were knee to knee talking and laughing with newly arrived Tibetan refugees in one of the many English language conversation classes that dot Mcleod Ganj. They also substitute taught a more formal beginning English class in the sun on the roof of the school.
Jacob was on a mission to try all of the hole-in-the-wall authentic Tibetan momo houses in Mcleod and we had great fun eating with the locals and tourists alike . After an evening tea they would catch a traditional Tibetan or India music concert before Jacob returned to his Tibetan host family for the night. They took excursions to the local water fall and explored the Main Temple which houses the residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and on whose grounds is an excellent museum.
So that's what Nate and Jacob did for the 10 days while the rest of the team was meditating. The rest of us experienced a silent meditation retreat. This was an incredibly powerful and thoughtful experience that was extremely introspective for all of us. Having been taught many things in this intro course was beneficial to better grasp the vast religion and philosophy that is Buddhism. Having to be silent really pushed the group to realize what goals we want to set for the next year and years to come. This Retreat also taught us much about ourselves and how to associate ourselves with the world around us.
The meditation retreat took place in the world renowned Tushita Meditation Center . When we got there most of the students had already arrived and had set up camp. We all got to sleep in separate rooms with students from all over the world. We also got our karma yoga jobs, which meant having to do certain things around the center which included ringing the wake up alarm gong at 6 am, washing dishes, and cleaning toilets. After that we had to leave our phones and every electronic device, which meant no internet or music for ten days!!!!
We finally settled down in our dorms where having to not speak for ten days made everybody want to say everything before the night was over. We had our first meeting where we were told guidelines to follow and if we broke these vows we would be "asked" to leave. We had our final dinner to converse where we met people who we enjoyed talking to, but would have to silently smile at them until the silence was up.
With a belly big as Buddha we settled into the silence and the posture of meditating . As we walked in we saw a man with long flowing Jesus-like hair that was our meditation leader, Richard. With a soothing Dutch accent he made us come to realize how attached humans are to obsolete ideas and objects, like possessions, bad tendencies and regret. Getting straight to the point, even though sometimes he didn't know proper English, he dove in headfirst in mindfulness meditation.
The next seven days consisted of waking up at 6:00 am to the gong, and attending a morning meditation session, followed by breakfast. The first morning, after breakfast, we had our first teaching by a woman who has studied Buddhism for 20+ years, named Rachel. We had lessons mainly about Boddhichitta, which is striving to become a Buddha through acts of kindness and extreme dedication and merit and, most importantly, motivation. In between this and walking mediation, or stretching, everybody got several cups of tea, which was the trend for when we had any free time or even when the lessons got too abstract .
The stretching sessions were given by two different students as their karma yoga job. Those who weren't interested in stretching, were given the option to do walking meditation around the three stupas near the center.
After that we would have lunch, do our karma yoga jobs, and have a bit of free time which we would spend eating snacks in the sun. To keep our sanity most of the people discussed what we'd been learning in discussion groups. Those who chose to keep the silence would sit altogether and think about the previous lessons.
We would then have another two hour lesson in which we would talk about what we discussed in our groups, among other Buddhism topics. Then we would have our second meditation session followed by a "mindful dinner". We would try not to laugh as we ate dinner, especially when our third and last meditation session for the day was interrupted by the snoring woman (everyday) . Some people would walk around and read still affected by all the chai they had, but mostly everyone would go to bed.
Those days went by easily compared to the last two days when we were bombarded with a mostly full day of meditation, other than the tea breaks. The last day we were visited by a Rinpoche who was the reincarnation of one of the teachers of the Dalai Lama. He was a really young, scholarly Lama who was very funny. He taught us about the Dharma and how to develop Boddhiccita. He also brought up very interesting facts about the way Buddhists prove reincarnation through science and other methods. We were also shown how to integrate Buddhism into our daily lives outside of Tushita.
Our final meditation sessions were very sentimental since we had our last "quiet" dinner, and our last quiet night. After the night meditation we went to the stupa and everyone at Tushita lit butter lamps which are basically candles, and reflected on the time spent on the mountain .
Trying hard not to cry, or laugh, we went to bed anxious for the next morning. During breakfast we spoke more than in ten days, and probably too much also. We had one more lesson, or debriefing, where everyone said what they got out of the experience and told of some of the things that could be improved. Lunch on the lawn talking to everyone we had just glanced at really made and impact and made us want to stay and keep talking. After getting everyone's face book, we rushed down to Mcleod Ganj to meet our last home stay families.
This home stay was particularly nice, since we got to learn much about Tibetan culture and the way Tibetan people live in exile. Most of our families have had students stay with them before so they knew well how to interact with us. Food was especially very good and we all enjoyed playing with our host brothers and sisters.
Most of the team went for a day hike which took 6 hours and was especially challenging for those who had spent ten days just sitting and meditating . The views were very nice and it even started snowing. Me (Sofia) and Heather stayed back in Mcleod Ganj and went for a last drop-in meditation at Tushita, followed by a visit to an Ashram. We also went to the Dalai Lama's temple and the Tibetan History Museum which was very impressive.
The whole team met back together to celebrate Thanksgiving in an Italian Restaurant. The food was so good that we've all been going back every day for lunch or for a snack at least.
The next couple of days were full with activities which included going to several Tibetan Associations in Exile. Gu Chu Sum in particular was very interesting. It's a movement created to help Tibetan political prisoners in exile. We had the opportunity to attend a conversation class with the students of the Gu Chu Sum school, where we heard their life stories and all that they had to go through to be here now. It was very inspiring and heartbreaking to see that after all they've been through they keep smiling and hoping for a better future .
We also visited the Tibetan Youth Congress and Tibetan Women's Association, where they explained their aims, goals and history. We were all very inspired after listening to all these people trying to get freedom in a peaceful way.
The last day we went to the Norbulingka Institute, where the aim is to preserve Tibetan Culture by training the Tibetan society in different arts such as wood carving, sculpture making, Thangka painting, and stitching. We couldn't really see the students working because they had all left to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama in a temple nearby, but we were later rewarded when we got to see the Dalai Lama himself driving back to his temple. We were all very excited! He radiates good energy and positive vibes.
After all the excitement, Aidan, Emily, Kevin and Andy attended a MoMo cooking class. MoMo's are a typical Tibetan dish which we haven't been able to stop eating since we first arrived in Nepal almost three months ago .
We got to spend the rest of our last evening in Dharamsala enjoying our home stay and being thankful for all of the experiences we got to live in India.
We are right now about to head out to Dehli which means it's our last night train in India! It's going to be hard saying goodbye to such a great country full of awesome memories, but we are all pretty excited about the following weeks in Thailand.
Sofia, Kevin, and Nate
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