This song popped into my head the other day. It’s a cute little diddy, so I figured I’d share. These are the girls I hung out with for two days in Kolkata, India. They’re musicians and best friends and they sang everytime we got in a taxi.
Another entire dimension of the course was the teaching in Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy. I was impressed with the basic ideas of Buddhism. There is too much to write about entirely, but there are some things that really struck me. The biggest is the idea that all humans are in a state of suffering, which sounded negative at first, but eventually I liked it. Everything we do that makes us happy, eventually fades and then we need to do more. Thus our normal state is suffering and were constantly trying to become happy. Someone suggested that it was a glass half empty kind of thing. I found a better way of looking at it as the glass itself is suffering and the water inside is happiness. We do things to keep water in the glass, but its sitting on a picnic table and the sun is always out.
Id been practicing meditating here and there for a month prior to the course and for the morning meditations I had much the same experience. The idea was to follow the breath, labeling the in-breath as rising and the out-breath as falling. Any time the mind would wander, the thing to do was label wherever my mind went and then go back to breathing. If I was distracted by a sound, Id say (to myself) hearing, hearing, hearing, then go back to my breath rising, falling, rising, falling And if I caught myself daydreaming thinking, thinking, thinking rising, falling, rising, falling The technique is to take an observers point of view of the activity in the mind and what happened was slowly Id start wandering off less and less. Id follow my breath longer and longer and the thoughts in the background would fade. It was as if my cognitive mind wasnt getting any attention from my focus or awareness, so it would just give up. After awhile things in my body would start to feel different. There were twisting sensations, which often felt like I was bending my head to the point where my right ear was on my shoulder or my left arm was twisted completely around. Sometimes I couldnt tell which hand was which and a couple of times I felt like I was being stretched ten feet tall. Once it even felt as if I was completely outside my body.
By the Gompa was an area with stone walls and gardens. It was a good place to sit and read and good for the monkeys to play in. I couldnt believe how many there were. Twenty, maybe thirty. I had seen them at zoos but never that close. I forgot how much like people they are and for a long while I watched them eat and leap from trees to power lines to flag poles and roof tops. I was jealous of them too. A monk came by and seeing me watch them she said they do attack you as she kept on by. Do attack was kind of matter of fact, I thought. It seemed so causeless and definite. I thanked her with a smile and figured her English must be off.
The road leading there was steep and dirt. My bag was too heavy so my legs ached and the altitude made my chest pump for air. It was easier when I walked slowly, but I walked fast anyway. I always seem to be in a hurry, even when I have nowhere to go. I came upon a girl carrying nothing and taking one step a time, like she was thinking about each one and pondering life. She was European, had a nose ring and a quiet smile and she wore Indian dress and carried no bags. She was a real free spirit, the kind I often think I am, but really I just want to be. It made me jealous, so I kept from passing her and caught my breath.
Sanjay was clean-cut and dressed in an American 80s style. He looked like a dark skinned version of the guy in Threes Company, but with a mustache. A baby blue athletic shirt with cutoff sleeves was tucked tightly into his jeans. I sat with Sanjay under the canopy, looking out over his things for sale at passing tourists.
Sanjay asked me what my dreams were. I was caught off guard, not expecting such depth to a conversation with limited English. It took me some time to communicate all the big and exciting things I want out of life. When finished, I asked him the same.
He faced his palms to the sky and waved his hands over the dusty trinkets in his shop.
This he said.
What do you mean? I asked. This is what you want, nothing more?
