Dharamsala

Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India


Hola, mi pueblo! No hablo Espanol, so I hope that makes sense .
This blog is a bit late, and I apologize about that. Ten days with no phones or internet made it slightly more difficult to get back to blogging, but that just means I have more to tell!

We spent ten days saying nothing and sitting on cushions. 
And that's it. Hopefully we'll have more adventures for next week's blog!

OK, maybe I can go into more detail. We spent ten days at Tushita on a "meditation retreat". Basically, that's a bunch of people getting together and agreeing that talking and sitting comfortably sucks, so we should all do the opposite. They also taught a bit of Buddhism, but thankfully there weren't any tests, meaning I passed that class with flying colors. 

The schedule was pretty simple. Wake up at 6, have 6:30 breathing meditation, then have class on Buddhism til lunch. Lunch was 2 hours, but in that time I had to clean some toilets.

After lunch was discussion groups, the only time we could talk to anyone other than the teachers, and tea, before more Buddhism teachings . After the second teaching session, we had guided meditation, where basically you focus on what the person is saying and really IMAGINE it, not just think about it. There were a variety of topics. Then, dinner, and finally another meditation session before bed. The last two days, the lessons and discussion groups were replaced with more meditation. So you could do most of this stuff at home!

Of course, it isnt the same experience, when the people around you aren't committed to complete silence. The silence is an interesting experience. Talking is a distraction, especially during meals and sunsets. Tushita had both. At lunch, dinner, and breakfast, there would be huge lines of people waiting for food, and then everyone would sit down in the cafeteria to eat. Even though everyone was blatantly ignoring each other for the most part, there was still a social aspect to the meals. The tables would generally fill up in the same way. A person would sit at one table, and the next person to sit at that table would almost always sit on the opposite corner of the table . People who knew each other, however, still felt more comfy sitting directly next to each other, even if they never made eye contact or talked.

The lack of words improved the taste. I am pretty sure not talking improved my sense of smell, which in turn made my meals a more vibrant combination of flavors. The cooks were no slackers, and the peanut butter, I hear, was divine. I never tried it, as I tend to avoid spreading brown things over my food, but one of the most memorable meals for the majority of people at Tushita, apparently, was the one where the peanut butter had disappeared. 

If your friend or loved one returns home still sorrowful over the lack of such magnificent peanut butter, please, do not hold back your hugs and compassion. They will need them then more than ever. 

We all learned many things at Tushita. Buddhism, compassion for all sentient beings except monkeys, how to try to sit still on cushions until you give up and move to a chair, and, personally, I cleaned my first toilet, which is a valuable life experience . However, the most valuable lesson that I believe we shall all take with us is.... Uh... Sorry, I forgot it. Ah well. I can just tell you about Buddhism, then.

Buddhism is a philosophy that, as far as I understood it, believes that anyone can attain happiness, and the path to happiness lies in introspection and compassion for others. The cause of suffering is the ignorance of each individual in believing in the inherent existence of each object around us, leading us to believe that those objects have inherent qualities that we have simply projected onto them.

OK, English. Which means, using a metaphor to attempt to explain that more clearly.
You can do this with any object, but for simplicity, I shall use a platypus. Imagine a platypus (if you don't know what that is, its like a really short furry duck with 4 feet and a beaver tail)(google images!). People generally think that a platypus has inherent existence, meaning it exists on its own, independent of other objects . A platypus is a thing, separate from you, with its own qualities. But a platypus is made up of parts. It has a bill, feet, a tail, a body, and other stuff. Is any of that, on its own, a platypus? Were is the platypus's platypus-ness? 

By following that logic, we realize a platypus doesn't really exist. Platypus is simply the name we give a selection of parts put together in that specific way, and is not an actual, independent, "thing".

That is what Buddhism calls Emptiness. It is empty of inherent, independent existence. But how is the belief in inherent existence the cause of all suffering? Good question, me. You always know just what to ask.

The problem with inherent existence means that we then believe that it has inherent qualities, as well. We see a pretty platypus, and we say that it "makes us happy". But, if we dissect the platypus, where is the pretty? Is the "pretty" in the leg? The body? The tail? Where is the happiness, the inherent happiness this object, the platypus, has? Is it in the bill? No, the happiness it brings us and the beauty we think it has both come from our own mind, our own projections onto the object . But, we believe it is in the object.

And that is the problem. We believe the object is pretty, so we want it, desire it. And when we lose it or fail to gain it,we suffer. Same with negative things. When something hurts us, we think the bad qualities are inherent in the object or person, and then try to avoid or harm it/them. And that causes suffering. 

So, there's a crash course on part of Buddhist philosophy. If any of you feel like becoming a monk and spending the rest of your life studying it, feel free; the two monks we interacted with were actually nuns and one was from Germany, the other from the US. There was a third teacher, the meditation guide person, but I don't know if he was a monk or what. He didn't have the robe.

Of course, there weren't only humans at Tushita. They had 3 dogs, and at least 3 monkeys. Which means 20 or more. When these monkeys weren't fighting, stealing, or doing things left out of pg television and blog posts, they were actually kind of cute . They were like long limbed cats that were too terrifying to approach. But still cute; especially the young ones. There were youngsters galore, and often we'd see them clinging to their mother's back or being carried in one limb while the mother ran around on the other three. 

People would lose their compassion for such beings, and often times their respect for the silence, when said monkeys would steal their chocolate. Some things are just unforgivable.

The dogs were dogs, thus I don't really need to go into their cuteness. The thing most different about those dogs was the location; mostly they were just full of themselves and expecting to be petted. One came in while we were meditating, and suddenly, we weren't meditating anymore. 

Overall, Tushita was a life changing experience. I would recommend all of you to try to bring a little bit of it into your home. You could meditate, but also valuable is just setting a time each day were you simply dont speak, and make sure those around you are aware of your decision for silence as well . Using that time to really sit and think and not using it for electronics and other distractions can be really valuable. Too often, people live a life where they try to focus on anything but their own minds. Give yourself some time and some space to really get to know yourself, and then put some effort into it. Buy some monkeys, and let them run free in your home. Take a giant Buddha statue, and put it in your living room. Eat porridge for breakfast, salad for lunch, soup and bread for dinner, every. Single. Day. Sell your mattress, buy a slab of wood. 

But seriously, try out the silence. You could do something simple, like silence on days off til noon, where that's just time for yourself. I mean, I haven't tried it, but it's scientifically sound.

Did you know that there have been studies showing that plants are on a higher level of consciousness than humans? Don't ask me which studies, my source is a random person telling the teacher that when she was telling us about respecting all sentient life .

Anyways, we went the ten days with no electronics, including cameras, so I have included an artist's rendition of the giant Buddha statue in the Gompa. I don't know how to spell Gompa (spelling correct!) but maybe Brad does and he'll edit this so its correct after I send it to him. Thanks Brad! A Gompa is a meditation hall, and a Goompa is the little brown things Mario jumps on. 

So, generally, that would be the end of the blog, buuuuuuuut this one was late and so we have more to write about! 

The day we got out of Tushita, we went straight to home stays with Tibetan families. They have good food and are nice, is the general consensus. At least, my host family is and I haven't heard anyone else say otherwise so I shall assume their experience is pretty much exactly like mine. 

It is 1 person to a home stay this time, which is a first. Seeing how everyone is having the exact same home stay experience, though, its like we're all under the same roof

Our home stay dad used to train people how to jump out of planes in the military, and according to their horoscopes, lived a past life as a half bird, half human creature. This explains why they like sky diving so much and have made over 3000 jumps. 

The city we are in, McLeod Ganj (Dharamsala) is a lot nicer than the other cities we've been to, which means less loud and less people trying to sell you things. It also has really good pizza, and waffles with ice cream, so it rates pretty highly in my list of fav places we've been. 

You should judge any place on two things: If they put ice cream on breakfast foods, and if they are a totalitarian state.

The morning after leaving Tushita, we climbed up a hill that to us felt like a mountain, and lay panting in exhaustion in the midst of a stunning view. Then we walked back down, as people tend to do when they climb things

The day after that, we went and listened to a speaker from the Tibetan Parliament in exile, who gave us a very disturbing recount of events in Tibet, and what was being done about it. Personally, I had never really heard much about Tibet, and this really opened my eyes. He talked about the effect china was having on not only Tibet, but the rivers that originated from Tibet and watered millions. It is certainly an issue that should be more in the forefront, but there are so many nowadays its hard to keep track.

Tomorrow we shall see more speakers, one of which apparently has a much more extreme view of what should happen in Tibet, but seeing how I am writing this blog in the Land Without Wi-Fi, and tomorrow hasn't happened yet, I shall leave that section of our trip unexplained, and move on to the conclusion.

In conclusion, we have had a lot of fun and learned a lot about platypuses and Tibet. By now, most of us are ready to head to Thailand and hang out on some beaches, but we are extremely glad to have had this time in India . Tushita and its monkeys will forever be in our hearts, and in about 50 pages of each of our journals, because all we could do in our free time was write. We shall soon be holding a funeral for the many pens that did not survive. And Griffin is worriedly trying to figure out a good way to end this blog post, as endings are always the most difficult part. So I think I will leave you with a quote from the Lord of the Rings.

"And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass."

Well, that's as good an ending as any.

Griffin 

 

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