I'm Home

Whenever I return from India (or Thailand or Nepal) it alters my view of the US.

For some period of time when I come home I see things through "India
eyes". It's so different here once I've been there. To a degree the
"India eyes" are always present; that is one of the reasons I go
overseas.

Traveling is so easy here in the US by comparison. The longest stretch
I covered in India traveling by ground was an epic drive from the
airport in New Delhi to Rishikesh (discussed in an earlier post).

That ride was only 224 km; it took about eight hours and left my
traveling companion completely dazed.

As I write this I'm on an Amtrak train sitting next to a lovely woman
named Sandra in a comfortable seat watching the pristine landscape
roll by.

I'll be traveling 824 km today from Fairfax Virginia to Charleston
South Carolina. The trip will take 10 hours.

Today there are no roads morphing into dirt tracks, no piles of a
liter or shanty towns. Only clean water, trees and a couple of bald
eagle sightings thrown in for good measure.

There's not a speck of garbage on this train, everyone has a seat,
there is a dining car and the air is climate controlled.

This "normal "feels like the height of luxury, as did my trip to the
dry cleaner the other day to get the new hippie jacket I bought in
Rishikesh cleaned.

I walked into the pristine glass front building with the clearly
delineated queue, television playing to pass the time. Long racks of
clothes, each sheathed in plastic, spin on a giant motorized carousel.
Laundry there consists of my hands and a bucket, or for many who live
there, the river and a rock.

I can't adequately describe the disparity between these laundry realities.

Or the disparity of my experience buying fruit.

Or the experience of simply walking down the street.

It all feels so cushy here, so luxurious.

It' nice to be home :)

Hmmm

(Written during week 9 of the trip, posted later)

I was talking to a friend at home the other day about starting to feel physically depleted from my trip. Emotions and spirit are strong but the body is fatigued a bit.

She asked me if I thought that most people who come here for a few months feel depleted this way or whether it was just me in particular.

Her question has been rolling around in my head the past couple of days. 
Not sure why this question has engaged mind but it did so I'll share what arose.

There are a number of reasons why I in particular get physically depleted around the two month mark in India. 

Part of it is that I am attune to what is occurring in my body and mind. I spend a significant amount of time in various forms of meditation (my asana practice being one of those forms). As a result I have a strong sense of what my body and mind feel like as a baseline.

Another factor is that I am sensitive both emotionally and energetically. There is no way to accurately describe the effect that the sensory stimulation here has on the nervous system. I roll with it smoothly however, I think I underestimate the effect all the noise in particular has on me. 

I often live in quiet places and although the frequent loud honking of horns doesn't make me jump, it does cause a physiological effect.

Another part of it is that I am used to eating very cleanly...virtually no processed food, minimal amounts of dairy, wheat, sugar and fried foods, no alcohol, no drugs, no tobacco. I think this results in me having a lower tolerance to eating in an unhealthy way because my body is so used to getting good input. 

And finally the reality is that I am 4 weeks shy of being 54 years old. 

My lifestyle is that of someone in their 30s. In my mind I am ageless but there are realities of the body. I think that is something that I don't take into account much because I am strong enough to do this, but surely my chronological age must be a factor too.

I am curious to know whether other people within 10 years of my age get depleted while they're here. Surely they must. Interestingly, of all of the people that I talk with I am the only one who doesn't get stomach issues here. But then again I am more cautious than most in what I consume, it worked for me every other time so I continue to do it.

Rishikesh

Although Rishikesh is a big tourist destination for both Indians and Westerners at it's core it is a seeker's place and has been for countless years. That is why I like it here so much; I've been fortunate to have spent five weeks in Rishikesh on two separate occasions.

Many ashrams and gurus reside here. The air is replete with the sounds of chanting, bajans and bells. Each night as the sun sets arati (light) ceremonies can be seen and heard all along the water's edge.

It is so very India here and yet, as I said in an earlier blog post, there are enough Westerners around to afford me a level of comfort with regard to accommodations and food.

I've grown accustomed to the myriad sights, sounds, smells and tastes not to be found where I live  but while they're fresh in mind I want to try to describe some of them.

The sadhus here are numerous and of different types. Many who wander the streets in orange robes are visiting from somewhere else, there are turbaned men living in makeshift shelters or literally on the road or on the ground, there are those whose entire bodies are covered with holy ash and there are those who appear mad.

There are also those that sit and smoke lots of hash in little cylindrical clay pipes. A number of them have offered to sell me some, to which I reply "no thank you, I don't need it" and walk on with a smile because I truly don't.

Many animals also wander the streets here. The brown furred monkeys who steal food right out of people's hands as they walk by, the beautiful black faced grey furred monkeys who are bigger and mellower, dogs who lay on the ground sleeping so stock-still that you truly think they could be dead.

And of course there are the cows. So many cows on the streets, amongst the traffic, along the ghats. They are the objects of a great deal of affection. Some are decorated with painted horns, occasionally you'll see one wearing a beaded necklace. People pet them, feed them and turn on the public water faucets for them so they can quench their thirst. Many of them seem quite healthy and of course some do not. Overall I would say more cows appear healthy proportionally then dogs.

And of course there is no describing Rishikesh without mentioning her most salient future, Ma Ganga.

I have said in previous posts the Ganges is a beautiful river here and she is both an object of veneration and used as a source for everyday life tasks like laundry.

Flowered offerings drift by as one sits on her banks. Leaf baskets containing flower petals, burning camphor and incense serve as little boats ferrying prayers to the Divine ear.

Every day, all day, people come to bathe in her sacred water. I never get tired of witnessing this. There is something endlessly fascinating about this spectacle of color, skin and devotion.

Traditional Indian style chai stalls via for attention with the new fancy glass fronted coffee stores. The traditional stalls, whose chai is a fraction of the price, are primarily frequented by Indian people. The chai is made in well worn pots over an open flame and is laced with enough sugar to fulfill any dentist's dreams of avarice. Fortunately the serving size is minuscule by bloated American standards.

Rishikesh is paradoxical in that one can be experiencing a vista which appears placid to the eyes  while at the same moment is an all out assault on the auditory sense.

It's the honking that really gets me. It is the one thing that genuinely challenges my equanimity. A little toot to indicate one's presence would suffice to get attention but most drivers lack the Japanese aesthetic. When it comes to using the horn more is not less here.

And so I bid farewell to this place, to India and Sri Lanka. It's been a spectacular trip...

Groundhog Day - Rishikesh Style

It's interesting to notice how adaptable one can be, how quickly the unfamiliar can become routine.

I've come to Rishikesh to sit satsang with Mooji for the five week "season". Five days a week I wake up and perform essentially the same routine, my current version of "Groundhog Day".

I wake to my alarm and do about 45 minutes of asana to keep the body strong.  Because I have the luxury of my own room and money in my pocket I'll make myself a peanut butter rice cake or some muesli for breakfast. I get dressed and take the 15-20 minute walk to the ashram where satsang is offered.

I walk along the banks of the Ganges attempting to be as present as possible, clearing my mind of thought to the extent that I can; using this time, as with the asana, in preparation for the day's teaching.

It is amazing that I am spending this much time along this sacred river which is quite beautiful here; greenish water flowing fairly rapidly in some spots.

I've become somewhat inured at the site of the women in their colorful saris and the half naked men bathing at the waters edge.

People are undertaking a project that I cannot fathom along the bank; each morning I see a man filling baskets tied to the backs of three horses with sand. I can't tell where the sand is going or what they're doing with it.

Such a paradox this country. Practically everyone I meet has a relative working in IT in the US or Canada, yet they move sand one shovelful at a time on the backs of horses.

The next encounters on my morning constitutional are often children trying to sell flowers to offer on the Ganges. Some of these children appear to be as young as three or four; regardless of their age they are tenacious.

They approach you and simply will not take "no" for an answer. For the first week or so I would politely say "no thank you", they would ask again and I would say "no thank you", they would ask again and I would say "no thank you" and they would ask yet again and I would say "you can ask me 100 times and the answer is always going to be the same".

I had this standard encounter while sitting near a western man I could tell had been around a while. After a little girl approached me (insert standard dialogue here) she approached him and he said something in Hindi. I asked him to teach me how to say "no".

He said "would you
like to learn to say no or would you like to learn to say something they can actually cognize?"

Naturally I chose the latter. 

I learned my new favorite Hindi phrase and after a day or two I got the pronunciation right. "Moojay nahee chaiaye" (spelled phonetically) means essentially I don't want that and it works like a charm! It amuses me when the younger children look completely befuddled because this white girl is speaking in Hindi.

A few more minutes walk along the river and then I arrive at the queue around 8:10 am.

To determine the order in which people can enter the satsang hall there is a lottery system. One first stands in line along a fairly narrow street in an Indian neighborhood. 

At 8:30 the back gate of the ashram is opened and we file into a large lot sectioned into 12 lines. At 9:00 the first person in each line reaches into a bag containing rocks with a number painted on each to determine the order in which the lines will be allowed to enter the satsang hall.

While in the first queue in the neighborhood I practice standing meditation and observe. I've stood in line 13 times now and am coming to know the morning rhythm of this ordinary neighborhood which at first seemed so foreign.

There are a series of vendors who come every day to sell items to the westerners (90% of the people in the queue are westerners). 

I see the boy who has the cart of coffee and sweets with the big sign saying "eat me". I am assuming that he does not understand that American idiom, or perhaps he does and it's really his big joke.

I see the man who sells whole coconuts and the tiny girl who sits on top of the cart unattended playing with the sharp metal implements used to extract the water from the coconuts.

I see the man who sells the hunks of fresh coconut meat which he douses with (what appears to me) to be a bucket of filthy water to keep them fresh.

I consume none of these things. 

Although it would be lovely to have a cup of chai while standing in line I simply don't take unnecessary risks when it comes to my health, I simply don't trust the cleanliness of the street food. Many people buy these things so perhaps they are all fine after eating them but I just say "no thank you" (once will suffice when it comes to adults).

I see the milk delivery man ride up with more big metal jugs than you would think possible strapped to to his " two-wheeler" (what they call a motorcycle or scooter here).

I see the man sweeping litter into the open trenches lining both sides of the street. It took a bit of time for my mind to actually accept that this is indeed raw sewage. I'd seen this in the South as well but part of me didn't believe what I was seeing.

I see the woman with a wheelbarrow and dustpan come to the houses and call out for people to bring out their trash. There's a little girl who performs this task sometimes as well, she's probably about 10 or 12. My heart goes out to her.

Although I am trying to keep my mind empty there are times when I cannot help but think about how this is her life and this is all it will be most likely. I think about karma and about the extraordinarily fortunate circumstances that I live under... I am the one standing in the queue and she is the one sweeping up the trash.

As is the case every day, gratitude pervades my being.

In Training

For a full six months before I left for Sri Lanka and India I had the mindset that I was in training. Intuition told me to be vigilant in preparing this vessel for the trip.

I was diligent in my asana, pranayama and meditation practice as always and I amped up my generally healthy diet to the next level. Virtually no wheat, no dairy, no sugar and lots of extra protein. 

Having been to India previously I knew how taxing on the body, mind and spirit this trip could be; I wanted to be in the best possible shape I could.

As I'm writing this I'm sitting in my room in Rishikesh. I've been on the road for six weeks now. And of course, as always, intuition was correct. I see clearly the benefit of the effort that I put into my spiritual, physical and mental health both before I left and while I've been traveling.

Finding healthy food was virtually impossible for the first four weeks of the trip. The Indian diet, or at least that which I had access to, was exclusively comprised of wheat, dairy, sugar and one vital extra component; grease in the form of fried food.

I made the best choices I could but I had no choice but to eat. At week three I felt the negative impact of the Indian food diet manifest in my body. 

Luckily a week after that I returned to areas that have many Westerners. Areas with Westerners equals access to the Indian version of western food. This meant a return of plain vegetables, the staple of my diet. 

But I digress; you know how I love talking about food...

The point that I'm trying to make is that it takes a lot to be here and be healthy. There is an intense amount of sensory stimulation present on an almost continuous basis. All six senses are constantly receiving  input (mind being the sixth sensory organ in Buddhist cosmology).

I get a break from all the input when I'm in the haven of the room that I am fortunate enough to be residing in here in Rishikesh.  Although  even as I write this from the luxury of my clean bed I hear screaming outside of my window. 

I find it occasionally disconcerting the way people seem to be screaming at each other here. I don't understand the words of course but the tone in which people speak in both Hindi and Tamil frequently sounds like they're yelling at the person they are addressing.

Another aspect which can feel assaulting to the senses is the traffic, honking and interactions between motorized vehicles and pedestrians. Over here pedestrians do *not* have the right-of-way; there is a different concept of personal space here.

Motorized vehicles whether cars, trucks, auto rickshaws or motorcycles will not stop or yield for beings walking on the road. It is incumbent upon the pedestrian to get out of their way. They blow their horns ferociously and will miss you literally by a few inches. One has to be aware as they're walking down the street so as not to get run over. 

Perhaps the most insidious stimulating factor is the vibrational energy that is present in this country. It is palpable. It is powerful. It is real. 

I think that is why some Westerners come here and become extremely uncomfortable. We are not exposed to this in our world. 

There is a vibratory energy present here which is underlying everything. It could be profoundly unsettling for someone who is not in the right shape to handle it.

I was in training, and continue to be while I am here, to have the ability to navigate all of this with ease

At Mooji's satsang people have been flipping out. By this I mean in two of the four days of teachings last week a number of people started to either shake, laugh hysterically or hyperventilate.

I don't quite know what to make of this. I had been thinking that these people are simply unbalanced or craving attention or are deluding themselves because they have a strong desire to have a profound experience.

But perhaps it is the effect of all of these overstimulating factors, particularly the strong vibrational energy here, on people with constitutions not strong enough to be in tune with the crescendo.   

This morning I went to a sacred cave and was meditating for a long time there. I am in tune with vibrational energy, it is a byproduct of all the practice that I have been doing for these years. I didn't used to have the ability to perceive it but I do now. And the energy in this cave was quite strong. 

Other people came into the cave and were meditating as well. After some time a man sitting across the cave from me started shaking and bouncing in a manner similar to some of the people at satsang. It made me think that the man in the cave was clearly reacting to something. 

This was an Indian man, not a Westerner. I say this because this is not someone who's come to have a "cool experience" in an exotic far away land.

This is the long way of making the point that I am grateful to be in tune with my intuition. Six weeks in and four more to go...I feel healthy, strong and peaceful. That is no small feat!

Phase 3 Begins

It seems a frequent occurrence that I have the desire to blog about my experiences here in India and the thought arises "how can I possibly convey that experience to anyone who hasn't lived it themselves?"

This is the case with the epic day I had yesterday.

I think of this trip as three phases; phase 1 was the time in Sri Lanka, phase 2 was all of the movement through Tamil Nadu (five locales in three weeks), phase 3 will be five weeks in Rishikesh.

In order to travel from Pondicherry to Rishikesh we spent one night in an airport hotel in Chennai and flew from there to Delhi on a 6:15 AM flight.

For reasons I don't understand Swamiji was under the impression that the drive from Delhi airport to Rishikesh would only take 3 1/2 hours. Our expectation set we arranged for a driver to pick us up at the airport.

As we began the drive through Delhi I was pleasantly surprised to see a significant difference in the area around the airport which encompassed the first 35 or 40 minutes of our drive.

There were neatly manicured lawns, bushes and parks. There was almost no liter and I didn't see a single cow or person who looked downtrodden on the side of the road. This was quite a contrast to when I was here three years ago.

Within 10 minutes of leaving the airport we encountered our first traffic jam. Highways in India do have designated lanes. The same dotted lines separate the lanes as they do at home but in India they seem to function as mere suggestion, as opposed to the rigid dividers in America. Here people drive wherever they can fit, as opposed to fitting between the lines.

There were an inordinate number of traffic circles and turns that the driver took in that first 40 or 50 minutes. It seemed an extremely complex route; I was astounded that he knew where he was going from memory.

The density of the traffic would thin for a minute or two and then thicken again. All the while the driver, who said his name was Bobby, threaded his way through and around all the other vehicles.

After the first 40 minutes of the drive the Delhi that I remembered reappeared.

How can I explain the shanty towns that we drove past? I am at a loss to explain what these "homes" looked like or what they were constructed from.

All I can say is that I know squalor when I see it. I know abject poverty when I see it. The conditions I observed was a level beyond that description.

The ubiquitous well-maintained roads of Tamil Nadu became a thing of the past. Here in the north the road suddenly becomes not a road. There will be pavement and all of a sudden there simply isn't any and you're driving over dirt and rocks; then the pavement will reappear.

For the first hour and a half the traffic, turning, honking and weaving around the other cars felt relentless.

About two hours into the drive we were finally beyond Delhi and the adjacent major town. Around this time I saw a mile marker which indicated that that Dehradun was 204 km away.

On my last visit I flew from Delhi to Dehradun, the closest airport to Rishikesh; because of that I knew how far we had to go on this leg of the journey.

204 km is about 150 miles. In America you could drive on an interstate and cover that distance in three hours if you were going slowly and took time out to go to the bathroom, as I often do. Having just spent the last three weeks driving around Tamil Nadu I knew that 204 kilometers was going to take a while.

We began traveling through the smaller towns I've come to recognize as  distinctly India. Shops with their fronts open to the street, steel gates rolled down for the closed shops, tea stalls, vendors selling chips and snacks in little packages all connected to each other, cows and men.

Many many men. To my eyes it looked like packs of men in the streets. In some of the towns that we drove through the masculine energy was intense and a bit disconcerting.

Groups of men sitting in tea stalls, groups of men standing on the street, men riding motorcycles all around us, men in the cars and trucks all around us.

Every once in a while I could pick out a female form amongst all of those people. Never did I see one of those female forms smiling. But then again the men don't smile much either.

One of the big contrasts between Sri Lanka and India is the difference in smiles. In Sri Lanka people smile all the time, here not so much.

At hour three it was time for a bathroom break and some food since we haven't eaten yet that day.

Bobby (not his real name I'm quite sure) took us to an Indian version of the highway rest stop. It was clean and I scored some actual boiled vegetables which thrilled my digestive system.

At that point we were about 150 km from Haridwar, the town that I knew to be only 25 km south of Rishikesh. 

We had just traveled a fair portion of road that was well-maintained, didn't have traffic and we were cruising along at 60 miles an hour which was great. I thought we would make it in another three hours time.

Back in the car we started to get to a prettier rural area. Many crops and fields of sugarcane. The air was better (did I mention how polluted the air was in Delhi?), the scenery was nice and there was no traffic.

I should mention at this point that Bobby is the calmest wild man I've ever encountered. Some of our other drivers would honk their horns like maniacs. Not Bobby.

He didn't use his horn much, he just went for it.

Passing trucks, cars, buses, auto rickshaws and motorcycles he'd move into oncoming traffic and calmly make them get out of our way through sheer ballsy-ness.

I'll forgo the detail of hours four through seven but I think at this point you get the idea.

Suffice to say that in that time we encountered a political protest, another traffic jam, lots more disappearing/reappearing roads and Bobby's never ending mastery of the Indian road.

We arrived in Rishikesh at the Sivananda ashram before sundown (it is always my strong preference to arrive someplace in India before it's dark); what I found there is a story for another day.

4 Days in Coimbatore

When Americans think about India we tend to think of it in monolithic terms. Erratic, kinetic, cows in the road, vibrant colors, dazzling sights, smells and sounds.

I had that impression from my time spent previously in the north of India. On this visit I've started in the south, in Tamil Nadu.

Although Madurai was much gentler than the north it still gave me that sense of India; endlessly fascinating and incomprehensible.

Coimbatore is a whole different scene; it is modern, clean and western (ish).  One can see clearly the influence of the west here.

While researching Coimbatore online I read that it was the Detroit or Manchester of India; meaning it is an industrial city. From that I inferred that there would be more affluence here, more western influence and there is.

As has been the case thus far (except for the beach town Hikkaduwa in SL) we are the only Westerners I've seen with the exception of the people at the Integral Yoga Institute here for a one-month teacher training.

Although I have not seen any other white faces I see evidence of us everywhere.

There are many nice shops here with glass windows, western clothes, coffee and not so much tea. Nice cars thread their way through auto rickshaws and barefooted motorcycle riders. Advertisements for expensive products and salons all with white models.

In the neighborhood where our western style business  class hotel was located we would go out about 7:15 in the morning to one of the little local temples to attend puja. 

As we would walk to the temple we saw many Indian people out for their morning constitutional. They were walking around wearing sneakers, iPhones and earbuds.

This last phenomenon is a contrast from when I would walk in the north or in Nepal. In Nepal people would stop me as I was walking and they would ask "where are you going?"

I would say "I am taking a walk. I am just looking." They could not understand what I was talking about. The concept of simply taking a walk for exercise or sightseeing was not something that could be understood in their cultural context.

On one hand it feels nice to have a little bit of a respite from the "otherness". To have a luxurious warm shower and be someplace where it all makes sense, where the difference is exotic as opposed to slightly disorienting .

On the other hand I prefer to be in that place where minds drops completely, where intellect has no choice but to fall away because everything is unintelligible.

It's all good!

Four Days in Madurai

Leaving Sri Lanka for India I thought I was being prepared for the typical Indian experience. Often in India you have no idea what's going to happen and things are not quite what they seem.

We were told by three different sources in Sri Lanka that because the airport was undergoing runaway renovations we needed to be at the airport five hours in advance; that meant 3 AM for our 8 AM flight.

It made no sense to us but we went with it. We arrived at the airport by 3:15 and were all checked in and through security by 4:30 which left ample time to browse the shops (expensive, all prices in US$) and spend the last of our Sri Lankan rupees  before we 

For boarding people are put on buses and driven on the tarmac to the plane where you walk up a stairway. As we pulled up to the plane we saw the engine open and a man run from a truck with a small toolkit in his hand. 

There were three or four men sitting on the ground beneath the engine. The man with the toolkit handed of the other men a wrench; I boarded the plane, did 3 Om Tryumbakum mantras and hoped for the best.

Given that as an introduction I was prepared to be dumbfounded and bamboozled when the plane landed in India 45 minutes later. But that was not the case. 

The Madurai airport was clean, new and quiet. I did have a strange interaction with the Indian customs agent though.

He asked what I do for work. This question confuses me in the best of times because for me that's a complicated answer. I should have said "I'm a cook" but I used my default answer, working for an NGO. 

He asked if I'd heard of PETA, I said yes. He asked if I thought they were good or bad. I told him it depends who you ask. Then he said something to the effect of "that's with the CIA says" and then I started to get a little nervous that he wasn't going let me in or thought I was CIA or something strange. 

A few more weird exchanges and he let me through. The Driver we had arranged with the hotel was there waiting for us, only slightly ruffled that  the plane was an hour late. "Mechanical trouble" I said smiling.

I had heard that South India is different from the north
(where I had previously visited); if Madurai is typical of the south than that is true. It is still very much India but it is calmer, cleaner and has far fewer people begging for money. I didn't even see anyone with leprosy. 

The reason we were drawn to Madurai was because it is called "the city of temples" and one in particular, Meenakshi Amman , is what it is most well known for. 

We decided to take a 5 hour tour of the city on our first day there and a full day (12 hour) bus tour to a place called Rameswaram in the south the day after that.

I can't describe the temples we visited. It's not possible for me to put into words the experience of being in these ancient and powerful places so I won't even try. 

What I can explain is those tours which were an experience in and of themselves.

I assumed the bus drivers would speak English and the tours would be conducted in both Hindi and English. Nope. This was a real Indian experience. These were tours that middle-class Indian tourists take and they all speak Hindi.

This was slightly disconcerting to us that first afternoon since we had no idea what was going on.  A good samaritan offered to translate a portion of what was said so that we were able to understand when to get back on the bus (which was really all we need to know anyway). 

As is my way in India I just surrender to the experience. I knew that I didn't need to understand with intellect what I was seeing, I just knew that there would be something worth seeing. And sure enough there was. 

That afternoon we visited a temple about an hour outside of city that I'm told was 4,000 years old. 

Again, I can't describe any of that experience but I feel very fortunate to have been there.

The next day we got back on the bus with a different driver who also didn't speak English. Our guardian angel appeared in the form of a very tall Indian man who spoke excellent English.

That bus was a miracle in motion. I don't know how it kept going but it did. From an American perspective to label it a jalopy would be making it sound  grander than it actually was. 

Let me be clear I am not complaining, I accepted that this is what it was and I was perfectly comfortable riding in it...but I will describe it for you.

The driver would stop periodically and look at the tires to make sure that they were still OK. The seats were ripped up, the seals around the window were cracked and brittle, which was evident when it started to rain...on me.

I thought the bus driver was going to have a heart attack. The poor guy was not the right temperament to be a bus driver in India. He was honking his horn like a maniac the whole time. It was hilarious. 

In India they use their horns to communicate many ideas such as "hey I'm going to pass you",  "hey  move over", "OK sure cut in front of me". 

This driver took his horn frequency to a whole new level. The funniest thing was that no matter whether he honked his horn at a cow, a monkey, a dog, a goat or a person they all had the same reaction. The look on their faces said "yeah, whatever dude" as they continued to saunter two or four-legged across the road.

The other amusing thing about that bus driver was that he was driving barefoot, smoking cigarettes and talking on his cell phone while driving and honking the horn. Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore!

Other experiences in Madurai included my visit to a tailor, eating the best vada, dosa and uttapam ever in a 100-year-old restaurant or simply sitting on the stoop of our hotel watching the world go by with endless fascination. Everywhere I turned my eyes was a photograph waiting to be taken. but those will be stories left for the imagination. I am already in Coimbatore so the next entry will have to be about that.

What I Learned From People in Sri Lanka

As you all know I am an introvert. Generally I don't talk to people much, however, when I am in another country I am always interested to learn what life is like. I try to have conversations with people to learn their point of view and the culture of the country that I'm visiting.

Here is what I learned from speaking to people in Sri Lanka.

I met a young woman named Sumudu at the Temple of the Tooth. She is an 18-year-old student who will be taking her university entrance exams later this year.

When she gets stressed she goes to the temple and meditates to calm her mind. Smart girl. From her I learned that children go to school for grades 1 through 13.

School is competitive. If one scores well on the university entrance exam the government will pay for tuition. If one scores very well the government will pay for a university education overseas in the United States or in Europe.

Only about a third of the students who take the exam score high enough to get the free education. If you don't score high enough to have the government pay for your education there are private colleges which one can pay for themselves.

I also learned from her that parents still help their children determine an appropriate spouse. She feels that there is still a personal choice in the matter among her generation about who to marry, although the parents are very much involved.

I spoke with a kind 84-year-old woman who lives in Tennekumbra , the town just outside of Kandy where the ashram is. From her I learned that the average age at which people retire is 55; 60 is the maximum age that one can work.

She had been a schoolteacher and now lives with one of her children, her other children live close by.

She is proud of the fact that she still cooks for herself; when I met her she was sweeping in front of the house. I was surprised when I learned she was 84, I thought she was in her mid 60s.

From the 30 something woman who owns the food stall in Hikkaduwa and serves as its cook (and everything else apparently) I learned that in the beach towns along the southwest coast much of the land is destroyed in order to build hotels and houses that people are trying to rent to tourists.

From her point of view this gentrification was not good. Many coconut trees are being cut down and it is much more difficult to find this staple item in Sri Lankan everyday cuisine.

I also learned that a few years ago the government in that area told everyone to fill in their wells because they would start providing water through pipes. The water comes from rivers and is treated with chemicals. Unfortunately there's been a bad drought and water is only available after 7 PM at night and gets turned off in the morning.

During the off hours the only water available is water that has been stored in tanks. The big fancy hotels on the beach have huge numbers of water tanks and the poor local people who can't afford water tanks store their water in plastic bottles or wherever they can. She was smart and chose not to fill in her well.

She told me there is a town inland where they do not turn the water on more than twice a month. People have to store enough water for 15 days in a row.

Although she is not happy about what's happening to nature as a result of the influx of tourism she is supporting her elderly parents and husband through this restaurant which many foreigners frequent.

A quick aside... I had the best rice and curry of all my meals in Sri Lanka at her place. You order the meal four hours in advance and pay upfront, then she cooks a homemade real Sri Lankan meal for you.

From Siri, a man who is probably in his 60s in Hikkaduwa, I learned to identify coffee, cashew, almond, papaya, banana, orange, and mango trees in addition to curry leaf plants.

I learned what water lizards look like. I learned what fruit bats look like more closely than I would like to see necessarily.

He was caught in The tsunami that affected that whole part of the world in 2004. His English was not the strongest so I could not get nearly as much of the story as I wish I could have.

He told me the wave took him and he kept rolling and rolling in the water. He broke his legs and the worst injury was The result of ingesting a large amount of sand.

His point of view about on the gentrification is positive. He makes his living trying to get foreigners like me to take a lagoon boat ride with him (which I did) or surf lessons.

I learned Chevin's point of view about how this new generation of Buddhist monks is different than the older generation. Chevin is the 36-year-old man who ran the guest house where we stayed in Hikkaduwa. 

According to him the Buddhist monks are changing and not for the better. He told me that things are different than  monks are being educated in secular universities and not learning enough about Buddhism in the Scriptures. 

His point of view is that young monks are breaking the celibacy vows much more commonly than in the past and are still staying in robes. His perspective is also this younger generation of monks improperly ask people for money to visit the temples. He is so dismayed by this trend that he has stopped going to temples completely.

Sripada - Part 2

According to the official website Sripada or Adams Peak is a depression in the rocky summit of a mountain 7,360 feet high. 

The depression resembles a huge footprint, which has been venerated as a sacred sight from remote antiquity. 

The footprint was identified by Buddhists as the Buddha's footprint, by Hindus as that of Shiva, and by Muslims as Adam's. 

Reading that description and seeing a picture of a monastery at the top of the mountain I felt compelled to see it with my own eyes. 

Climbing that mountain was one of the hardest physical challenges I've ever experienced.

I awoke at 2 AM, or rather I should say I got out of bed at 2 AM. As I said in my previous post I wouldn't quantify the rest I got as sleep.

My traveling companion and I were out the door at 2:30 with the intention to be at the summit before sunrise. There were other people, all Westerners, who were also starting their ascent. 

The walk round-trip is 12 km or about 8 miles. The elevation gain is about 3500 feet and there are 5200 steps.

When you read the word "steps" you probably envision American steps which are uniform in height and width. These are not American steps however,  these are Eastern steps. 

Some are high, some low, some narrow and some wide. They were uniform only in that they were all made of concrete.

Although I started the walk with my travel companion she and I move at different speeds. She naturally has a faster pace than I so we agreed that we would each take our own pace and I would meet her at the top. 

It did not take very long for her to become a shadow in the night; which was fine with me. I preferred this to be a solitary experience.

Since this was a pilgrimage I decided to do japa (mantra meditation) the whole way up the mountain. For three hours and ten minutes (the time it took me to reach the summit) with only occasional breaks for thought, I repeated the same mantra.

The first 25% of the walk has elevation gain but is not terribly steep. Because this is high pilgrimage season the path is illuminated. 

There are stalls on each side of the path, many of which are closed that hour. The ones that were open sold tea or food or water; some played chants which sounded somewhat haunting. 

The first interesting thing I noticed was that all the white people were on their way up and all the Sri Lankan people were on their way down. 

The information on the web, which is written in English and geared for tourists, advises one to arrive at the summit at dawn.

I asked a few young Sri Lankans what their custom was. They said people start ascent around 6 PM and they stay awake at the top and leave sometime before dawn. By the time I reached the top at dawn the only Sri Lankans left up there were a few policeman and temple keepers.

One gets a sense of how the path traverses the mountain when standing in town at night because of the path lighting. When you're actually walking the path it is impossible  to tell the distance to the top. 

About an hour into the climb the steps got significantly steeper and the going got considerably slower.

About 45 minutes after that I started to feel it in my legs a bit but just kept repeating my mantra and putting one foot in front of the other. (Imagine you have been on a stairstepper machine for one hour and 45 minutes continuously).

I saw many people much younger than myself panting and sweating at this point. As I mentioned to some of you, I have been in training for this trip for the past six months; at this point I was thanking myself for all of the asana, healthy food and lack of sugar.

The path just got steeper and steeper. At some point iron railings on both sides appeared so one could pull oneself along with their arms as well as their legs.

Finally I started getting really tired. The travel of the previous day coupled with the lack of sleep was starting to get to me. But I said to myself "there is absolutely no way that I am not going to finish this".

I knew that I had to be most of the way there because when I looked down I could see far in the distance the lights in town below and the moon looked much closer than it had when I started. 

Around that time I saw a western woman walking down and I asked her how much further it was to the top.  She replied "you are two thirds of the way there but the last part is really steep". 

I thought to myself OMG it's been incredibly steep for what feels like a long time already!  In some sections I'd had to pull myself hand over hand up the steps.

But I just kept repeating my mantra and taking one step at a time. I could see the sky beginning to lighten as I got to the top. It was packed with people.

There is a very small temple where one pays respect so I bowed down and then looked for a place outside to watch the dawn with the throng of camera wielding westerners.

I found nothing sacred or spiritual in that scene. It was completely different than being in the Temple of the Tooth or at that "Bodhi Tree Temple". At those other temples the devotion was evident. 

At that moment I wished that I had known that the Sri Lankan people were up there earlier. I would have preferred to sit quietly with them.

By the time I got to the bottom (which took me two hours) legs shaking and hips screaming I was completely spent. There was no gas left in the tank.

And yet somehow after only 20 minutes of rest at the hotel I found the energy to pack up, take a five hour tuk tuk ride (those of you who have ridden in a tuk tuk understand the significance of this), a 1 1/2 hour bus ride, arrive in a new town without a hotel reservation, find a good hotel and watch the sun set into the Indian Ocean.

For me the sacred was the climb itself which was a metaphor not the experience as of standing at the summit with a group of people at dawn. 

The pilgrimage is having faith and preventing the mind from getting in the way.

It was not the body that couldn't handle the climb it was the mind, doubt, that could have given in. 

The metaphor is starting the path in darkness and after great dedication and effort seeing the light burst forth.

The metaphor is not being able to see where the path leads but trusting that it leads someplace positive.

It was an incredible day.

More Than a Travel Entry

I awoke this morning in a town called Hikkaduwa on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka.

I love Sri Lanka, it is a wonderful country. The people here are a shining example of what a healthy Buddhist society looks like.

The Buddha's vision was not simply of how an individual should behave, it was far more comprehensive than that. The Buddha envisioned the blueprint for how a society should behave.

That vision was one of compassion, kindness, generosity, personal responsibly and peace. A society that consisted of a fourfold sangha; monastic women, monastic men, laywomen and laymen all of whom coexisted in a complex inter-dynamic were each group relied upon the other to live and thrive.

Much of the time here I have been the only westerner around (except for when I'm with my traveling companion).

I am a stranger who doesn't  belong, an other who is not part of this society.

In Donald Trump's America that would be cause for suspicion or aggression.

But here in Sri Lanka I've been treated with curiosity, amusement and friendliness. This is the world that I want to live in. Isn't this the world everyone wants to live in?

I have spent the last six years on a deeply personal, inward facing spiritual journey. I've indulged in the luxury of a "news strike". I've had the sense that what was going on in the outside world didn't have much to do with me.

I awoke saddened and deeply troubled by what has happened in my country (today is January 21, 2017). I awoke to the reality of the ugliness and hatefulness of the person who heads our country. 

What Trump represents is antithetical to my worldview and ethical system.

It compels me to pull my head out of the sand; to begin the process of relearning how to face externally instead of exclusively internally.

Since Trump "won" the election I've had a growing sense that I have to do something. Although I don't know how that will manifest I have faith that I will be shown what it is that I should do. 

Sripada - Part 1

At this moment I am sitting in a lean to on a beach looking at the Indian Ocean. Like everywhere in nature I've been in Sri Lanka this it is spectacular. 

As often happens on the road when I'm overseas  there are so many experiences happening in rapid succession there isn't time to process one before the next comes along.

I want to capture the last few days of experience in the mountains before my mind is overtaken by this blue green water.

I had read about Sripada (Adams peak) online and was intrigued. It is said that this place, the top of a mountain, is sacred to Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.

In order to get to the town at the base of the mountain we first took a train from Kandy to a town called Hatton. The train, which took four or five hours, cost Rs.220, less than two dollars. 

There were no seats in first or second class; when we got on the train it was packed with mostly foreigners. The terminus of the train line is a town called Ella. This ride is written up in guidebooks as one of the most beautiful in the world so the train fills with westerners. 

Usually there are many waterfalls along the way but Sri Lanka is having a bad drought, which is evident to me. Having lived in California so long I know drought stricken rivers and lakes when I see them. Although the vegetation is still lush.

The train ride to Hatton was slightly reminiscent of India in that people sit on the floor and men navigate their way through the human maze carrying different kinds of foods yelling out there wares in a language I don't understand. 

There were mangoes and Vada (like a savory Indian donut, although in this case it was a savory Sri Lankan donut) and tea and oranges.

Once at the train station in Hatton we switched to a local bus to get to the town called Nallathiniya. The bus ride made me feel  like I was riding one of those mechanical bulls. I was standing up and the mountain road was one lane, narrow and filled with S curves. 

On both the train and the bus we passed many tea plantations. Acre after acre of tea all of which would be picked by hand growing along steep hillsides. There were a few people in the fields picking the tea. Men and women with cloth baskets over their backs which were attached to their heads. They would pick the tea leaves and throw them in the basket over there backs. Hard work in the hot sun; think about that next time you sit down for a cuppa (as my British nuns say).

The bus let us off in town and I had to Google mapped it so I knew where to go to find our hotel. We walked down the dirt road which was lined with stalls selling the most bizarre assemblage of items. It was baffling. 

There were many stalls which sold an array of plastic crap. By plastic crap I mean dolls, blowup things, I can't even explain it, just a bunch of crap. 

Then there were the requisite trinkets. Stalls with bracelets and necklaces and some clothes. And there were many candy sellers. The candy was interesting, what was more interesting was that every vendor had exactly the same items. 

There was ginger candy that had no ginger in it. There was a lot of an item that looked like big blocks of fudge but was actually made of wheat flour and sugar and fruits. It came in brights green and red, some the color black licorice. 

The plain one was kind of weird the green one was better. I know this because I received a generous sample but I didn't buy any.

A fair number of the local people in town were high. They were chewing something akin to beetle nut which they sold wrapped in leaves and I definitely smelled weed in the air too. I guess that's why they had so much candy!

We found our hotel without any problem, and that itself was unfortunate. The hotel was a total pit and a real rip off. At $35 a night, which for me is expensive, the man didn't recognize that we had booked in advance. 

The rooms I booked online said they each had a private balcony, there was no balcony. There also was no hot water, no soap, no towels, no toilet paper. The most unnerving thing for Swamiji was that her room didn't lock from the inside but she dealt with it like a trooper. 

I didn't care about any of the weird. I've been in my share of funky hotel rooms at this point in the journey. It didn't unnerve me at all.

Since we knew we would be getting up about two in the morning to start the ascent we tried to get to bed early. The idea is to be at the top of the mountain at dawn. 

At 9 o'clock I tried to go to sleep but that was impossible. There was a cacophony of sound both inside the hotel and outside on the street.

There is a Sri Lankan dish called kottu which is made in a wok with metal implements. The cook slams the implement into the wok making "a distinctive sound" according to one of the menus I read. 

From my bed I heard distinctive sound of Kottu, tuk-tuk engines, splashing around in the communal bathroom and the animated conversation of the Germans woman staying in the other room.

Despite all this my mind was happy and peaceful. None of it was upsetting to me. I really continue to see the fruits of my practice starting to bloom. What a blessing. 

I dozed on and off till 2 AM when it was time to get dressed and start climbing. That is a story fir the next blog entry...