first of all an official 'disclaimer' and a welcome to everyone who is reading this blog. i've been getting an incredible and overwhelming amount of visitors from the most interesting locations (east timor, hawaii, sri lanka?!) and apparently some people i know here in india have also SOMEHOW stumbled upon this blog. so, HELLO AND WELCOME to everyone! can i just say, this blog is intended purely as a little place where i can update my friends and family about how my life is going. it's much more efficient than writing people the same thing over and over again in emails. so i really hope that whoever is reading this now is enjoying my little rambles about this beautiful country, and to the people i know here in india or who are from bodhi zendo directly - my apologies for not telling you about it, i wanted to keep it 'underground' a little. i hope that i didn't inflict upon any privacy issues or anything, this is merely my little place to write about my experiences and my thoughts and i hope you can somehow enjoy it.
and now, to the actual blog post!
i'm not sure whether or not the rainy season has officially started yet in tamil nadu. apparently, the rain starts in kerala, wanders up to delhi and then, via uttar pradesh and bihar comes back down again and reaches the southern-most part of india sometime in august. in theory. in practice, the rain started the day my mother arrived in india (and although i had been here 4 months already, i had only experienced rain approximately three times). it seems like she has marked her arrival adequately :) but more on that later. the rain is heavy, unexpected, and long-lasting. at the moment we experience about 5-6 hours of continuous rainfall per day and yes, it's nice when you can sit inside and all but after some time watching the rain come down gets boring. what also doesn't help much is the fact that the rain is THAT heavy, that for example power lines or telephone lines break down completely and can only be repaired again when the weather is nice. problem? yes. down at the school for example, we experienced a full 30 hours without ANY power. not only does that mean no light, but also no water filter (= no drinking water), no hot water to shower, no refrigerator, no charging phone/computer/ipod, no internet. and instead of boring myself to death in my room (in the dark, because i didn't have any candles left either) i decided to go up to bodhi zendo for the easter sesshin. father ama kindly invited me to attend freely (it's intense and seeing as my meditation practice is not that intense when i'm by myself it would just unnecessarily hurt my back) and so i spent the last week up here - WITH a decent power supply. ;)
a sesshin, like i have mentioned before, is a very intensive period of meditation. the sesshin i just attended lasted for 6 days and featured 8 hours of meditation each day. 8 hours. it sounds incredibly intimidating and also somewhat threatening to picture sitting completely still for 8 hours every day, concentrating the mind on the present. one of the most important aspects of attending a sesshin at bodhi zendo (which is, not to forget, a retreat center) is the fact that everything is held in complete silence. to give you a taste of what it's like to have 40 people living together without speaking for 6 days, i'll give you a little example. scene: at the breakfast table. mission: get the salt. getting up would be too disturbing for the general silence, so it's all dependent on body language and signs. first, stare at the person sitting closest to the salt. get them to notice you. when they look at you, irritated, quickly look at the salt. make that puppy-face and look back at the relevant person. repeat until it is understood that you really really need the salt, otherwise your scrambled egg is only half as good. upon receiving the salt, nod your head slightly and smile. sounds easy, right? but what about getting someone to close the window, or to put in your washing when it rains, or to tell you the time of the next sitting? it's not as easy as it sounds and as soon as doors close, quite a lot of secret whispering goes on. when the whole sesshin ends, it feels (or at least to me it felt like this) like you are entering a different, more colorful and lively world after coming from an intense period of concentrating purely on your existence in silence. it's really hard to describe and it's really life-changing to experience an entire week of only sleeping, eating and sitting. no one leaves the premises during a sesshin, and the next contact to other people is half an hour away. so there you have it. when it comes to sitting, you need to find a position in which you can sit comfortably for 25 minutes WITHOUT a single movement unless it's absolutely necessary (i.e. your leg feels like it's about to fall off because the blood flow has been interrupted for such a long time). i FINALLY found a position on the third day and could then purely focus on my breathing - which is one of the main exercises for beginners in zen meditation. count your breaths. you won't believe me when i tell you that you can NOT reach 10 without your mind drifting (and we're talking about those deeeep breathe-into-your-stomach-breaths). everytimezazen meditation does exactly that. whenever i now exit the meditation hall (= zendo) i feel highly aware of my surroundings and it all seems somewhat unreal. i notice details i have never before noticed in my surroundings and it seems like i think differently - more focusing on the present than anything else. also, i never thought i would actually enjoy meditation as much (my mother has been wanting me to try it for the last 8 years if i remember correctly and i never wanted to hear a word about it) and it has really helped and boosted my concentration. we even do it with the little montessori kids and the evening tuition kids for 5 minutes before the teaching program officially starts, and calming the mind works miracles.
and what has also been extremely nice is the fact that my mother has now finally arrived in india! she will be staying at bodhi zendo to meditate until june, and we will go back to austria together (just she will be there two weeks early because i will be staying with my dad in singapore for a bit before i come back completely) i went to madurai to pick her up (public bus, 4 hours, 40 rupees = 60 euro cents) and again met some lovely people on the bus. i've noticed in general that it's still really intimidating for me to go to a bigger city by myself, although i have been living here for such a 'long' time (4 months..how time flies!). in the community i'm in, people don't see me as a tourist. they know me, and i have my shopkeeper friends who help me out whenever i need something. going to madurai was by far the only trip i have so far taken within india that cost me a MASSIVE amount of money. because the guy in the hotel ripped me off, because the guy in the taxi ripped me off, and because even the guy at the coffee stall ripped me off. i have written about this issue before but it really annoys me how the general view of a western person in india seems to be: oh, you have money, GIVE IT TO ME. i see it even in small villages where small children are trained to go up to white people and immediately ask for money - it's all conditioned and hardly anyone actually sees you as a person who is interested in the culture and country. i know i can't generalize here, but wherever i have gone until now, money has always been the biggest issue between me and the people i encounter. it all seems to revolve around this one thing and it's incredibly sad, because the actual contact to the people you meet and get to observe gets altered.
we spent the day in madurai (our hotel was right next to the famous sri meenakshi temple - according to my friend farooq it should be a world wonder) and then paid a whopping 2500 rupees to get back to kodaikanal. yes, we could also have taken the public bus but they would have strapped all of my mum's luggage to the roof..and i'm just guessing here, but that probably would have ended badly.
having my mum here has been really interesting to tell you the truth - i had forgotten a bit what it was like to have someone to tell me what to do in this..motherly way haha. everything i have been doing since december 2010 has been MY decision and i was responsible for everything myself, had to learn and to figure out things without having my mum to consult. now that she's here all of that is coming back.
'wanda, your room looks dirty!'
'have you seen your towel? it used to be white - did you wash it with the COLOURED laundry?!?'
'watch out when crossing the street!' :)
not much has been happening here, which is why the weekly blog entries have turned into twice-per-month blog entries. the daily activities at school aren't that spectacular to talk about again and again, and now since the school holidays have started i haven't really done anything notable, apart from reading and doing yoga (since you don't need electricity for those things). the last day of school was quite as emotional as i thought it would be, and it made me dread having to leave india in just about two months. i feel that since january, i have grown very close to the children, i know their habits, their unique character traits, their strengths and weaknesses..whenever i sat down on the ground, at least 5 of the children would come up to me, sit on my lap, hug me from behind, kiss my cheek and tell me (in tamil) about things going through their mind. our montessori school is basically a three-year-programme, and many kids each year go on to actual elementary schools. this year, a total of 35 kids left and it's so sad to know that i won't be seeing them again anytime soon, unless i really decide to come back here every summer (which definitely has crossed my mind!). i wonder how much the children actually consciously notice when it comes to saying goodbye. tears in my eyes, i waved goodbye to my favourites dhanalakshmi, abdul, jaykumar, harini and vethavalli, hoping that maybe i have given them something along the way.
also, as the official school year ended, we had something like a little party/tea-drinking event. father ama came down from bodhi zendo and officially thanked everyone for all the effort made in the school year, and everyone got a little gift. the feeling of community was overwhelming - these people have become my family. (i felt embarrassed but i got to sit right in the middle of the whole event..:) ah, the hospitality.)
the next two days, all the teachers and i spent cleaning all of the montessori materials. this is only about a fifth of what we have.. and with that, the school year 2010/2011 ended at little flower montessori.
now. to end this post i would like to tell you a typical zen story. in zen, one of the major practices is solving koans (for some people). a koan is a somewhat paradoxical and strange question/statement, often with no real context, that has no rational/philosophical answer/broader meaning. for example: 'when it becomes wavy, what happens?' or 'listen to the no sound' or 'if it is burned and becomes remains, how do you hear it?'
my mother recently told me this story, and i would like to share it with you and encourage you to post your ideas in the comment section below :) this could be fun! once, there was a man fighting a bear. the only problem was, that the bear could read the man's mind and could therefore predict his every move. whenever the man planned to attack, the bear already knew beforehand and had already planned a counter-attack. how will the man be able to defeat the bear?
ps: before i forget, our school dog recently had 5 puppies! i didn't even know she was expecting haha the other day, james came up to me and said: did you see, our dog had 2 puppies! by the time i went to look, it was 4 and the next day someone told me there were 5. it's 3 males and 2 females, and they grunt like little piglets when you pick them up :))
and now, to the actual blog post!
i'm not sure whether or not the rainy season has officially started yet in tamil nadu. apparently, the rain starts in kerala, wanders up to delhi and then, via uttar pradesh and bihar comes back down again and reaches the southern-most part of india sometime in august. in theory. in practice, the rain started the day my mother arrived in india (and although i had been here 4 months already, i had only experienced rain approximately three times). it seems like she has marked her arrival adequately :) but more on that later. the rain is heavy, unexpected, and long-lasting. at the moment we experience about 5-6 hours of continuous rainfall per day and yes, it's nice when you can sit inside and all but after some time watching the rain come down gets boring. what also doesn't help much is the fact that the rain is THAT heavy, that for example power lines or telephone lines break down completely and can only be repaired again when the weather is nice. problem? yes. down at the school for example, we experienced a full 30 hours without ANY power. not only does that mean no light, but also no water filter (= no drinking water), no hot water to shower, no refrigerator, no charging phone/computer/ipod, no internet. and instead of boring myself to death in my room (in the dark, because i didn't have any candles left either) i decided to go up to bodhi zendo for the easter sesshin. father ama kindly invited me to attend freely (it's intense and seeing as my meditation practice is not that intense when i'm by myself it would just unnecessarily hurt my back) and so i spent the last week up here - WITH a decent power supply. ;)
a sesshin, like i have mentioned before, is a very intensive period of meditation. the sesshin i just attended lasted for 6 days and featured 8 hours of meditation each day. 8 hours. it sounds incredibly intimidating and also somewhat threatening to picture sitting completely still for 8 hours every day, concentrating the mind on the present. one of the most important aspects of attending a sesshin at bodhi zendo (which is, not to forget, a retreat center) is the fact that everything is held in complete silence. to give you a taste of what it's like to have 40 people living together without speaking for 6 days, i'll give you a little example. scene: at the breakfast table. mission: get the salt. getting up would be too disturbing for the general silence, so it's all dependent on body language and signs. first, stare at the person sitting closest to the salt. get them to notice you. when they look at you, irritated, quickly look at the salt. make that puppy-face and look back at the relevant person. repeat until it is understood that you really really need the salt, otherwise your scrambled egg is only half as good. upon receiving the salt, nod your head slightly and smile. sounds easy, right? but what about getting someone to close the window, or to put in your washing when it rains, or to tell you the time of the next sitting? it's not as easy as it sounds and as soon as doors close, quite a lot of secret whispering goes on. when the whole sesshin ends, it feels (or at least to me it felt like this) like you are entering a different, more colorful and lively world after coming from an intense period of concentrating purely on your existence in silence. it's really hard to describe and it's really life-changing to experience an entire week of only sleeping, eating and sitting. no one leaves the premises during a sesshin, and the next contact to other people is half an hour away. so there you have it. when it comes to sitting, you need to find a position in which you can sit comfortably for 25 minutes WITHOUT a single movement unless it's absolutely necessary (i.e. your leg feels like it's about to fall off because the blood flow has been interrupted for such a long time). i FINALLY found a position on the third day and could then purely focus on my breathing - which is one of the main exercises for beginners in zen meditation. count your breaths. you won't believe me when i tell you that you can NOT reach 10 without your mind drifting (and we're talking about those deeeep breathe-into-your-stomach-breaths). everytimezazen meditation does exactly that. whenever i now exit the meditation hall (= zendo) i feel highly aware of my surroundings and it all seems somewhat unreal. i notice details i have never before noticed in my surroundings and it seems like i think differently - more focusing on the present than anything else. also, i never thought i would actually enjoy meditation as much (my mother has been wanting me to try it for the last 8 years if i remember correctly and i never wanted to hear a word about it) and it has really helped and boosted my concentration. we even do it with the little montessori kids and the evening tuition kids for 5 minutes before the teaching program officially starts, and calming the mind works miracles.
and what has also been extremely nice is the fact that my mother has now finally arrived in india! she will be staying at bodhi zendo to meditate until june, and we will go back to austria together (just she will be there two weeks early because i will be staying with my dad in singapore for a bit before i come back completely) i went to madurai to pick her up (public bus, 4 hours, 40 rupees = 60 euro cents) and again met some lovely people on the bus. i've noticed in general that it's still really intimidating for me to go to a bigger city by myself, although i have been living here for such a 'long' time (4 months..how time flies!). in the community i'm in, people don't see me as a tourist. they know me, and i have my shopkeeper friends who help me out whenever i need something. going to madurai was by far the only trip i have so far taken within india that cost me a MASSIVE amount of money. because the guy in the hotel ripped me off, because the guy in the taxi ripped me off, and because even the guy at the coffee stall ripped me off. i have written about this issue before but it really annoys me how the general view of a western person in india seems to be: oh, you have money, GIVE IT TO ME. i see it even in small villages where small children are trained to go up to white people and immediately ask for money - it's all conditioned and hardly anyone actually sees you as a person who is interested in the culture and country. i know i can't generalize here, but wherever i have gone until now, money has always been the biggest issue between me and the people i encounter. it all seems to revolve around this one thing and it's incredibly sad, because the actual contact to the people you meet and get to observe gets altered.
we spent the day in madurai (our hotel was right next to the famous sri meenakshi temple - according to my friend farooq it should be a world wonder) and then paid a whopping 2500 rupees to get back to kodaikanal. yes, we could also have taken the public bus but they would have strapped all of my mum's luggage to the roof..and i'm just guessing here, but that probably would have ended badly.
having my mum here has been really interesting to tell you the truth - i had forgotten a bit what it was like to have someone to tell me what to do in this..motherly way haha. everything i have been doing since december 2010 has been MY decision and i was responsible for everything myself, had to learn and to figure out things without having my mum to consult. now that she's here all of that is coming back.
'wanda, your room looks dirty!'
'have you seen your towel? it used to be white - did you wash it with the COLOURED laundry?!?'
'watch out when crossing the street!' :)
not much has been happening here, which is why the weekly blog entries have turned into twice-per-month blog entries. the daily activities at school aren't that spectacular to talk about again and again, and now since the school holidays have started i haven't really done anything notable, apart from reading and doing yoga (since you don't need electricity for those things). the last day of school was quite as emotional as i thought it would be, and it made me dread having to leave india in just about two months. i feel that since january, i have grown very close to the children, i know their habits, their unique character traits, their strengths and weaknesses..whenever i sat down on the ground, at least 5 of the children would come up to me, sit on my lap, hug me from behind, kiss my cheek and tell me (in tamil) about things going through their mind. our montessori school is basically a three-year-programme, and many kids each year go on to actual elementary schools. this year, a total of 35 kids left and it's so sad to know that i won't be seeing them again anytime soon, unless i really decide to come back here every summer (which definitely has crossed my mind!). i wonder how much the children actually consciously notice when it comes to saying goodbye. tears in my eyes, i waved goodbye to my favourites dhanalakshmi, abdul, jaykumar, harini and vethavalli, hoping that maybe i have given them something along the way.
also, as the official school year ended, we had something like a little party/tea-drinking event. father ama came down from bodhi zendo and officially thanked everyone for all the effort made in the school year, and everyone got a little gift. the feeling of community was overwhelming - these people have become my family. (i felt embarrassed but i got to sit right in the middle of the whole event..:) ah, the hospitality.)
the next two days, all the teachers and i spent cleaning all of the montessori materials. this is only about a fifth of what we have.. and with that, the school year 2010/2011 ended at little flower montessori.
now. to end this post i would like to tell you a typical zen story. in zen, one of the major practices is solving koans (for some people). a koan is a somewhat paradoxical and strange question/statement, often with no real context, that has no rational/philosophical answer/broader meaning. for example: 'when it becomes wavy, what happens?' or 'listen to the no sound' or 'if it is burned and becomes remains, how do you hear it?'
my mother recently told me this story, and i would like to share it with you and encourage you to post your ideas in the comment section below :) this could be fun! once, there was a man fighting a bear. the only problem was, that the bear could read the man's mind and could therefore predict his every move. whenever the man planned to attack, the bear already knew beforehand and had already planned a counter-attack. how will the man be able to defeat the bear?
ps: before i forget, our school dog recently had 5 puppies! i didn't even know she was expecting haha the other day, james came up to me and said: did you see, our dog had 2 puppies! by the time i went to look, it was 4 and the next day someone told me there were 5. it's 3 males and 2 females, and they grunt like little piglets when you pick them up :))
Aaah! You answered so many of my questions that I msged you about in this one post! :) Love the photos in this - the intricate carvings of the temple, that cute little kid pointing at something in the distance and puppies with their mummy!
ReplyDeleteAnd the man fighting the mind-reading bear...that's a tricky one. How does a man fight and defeat a foe that can read his every thought? It seems like the main battle would not be the physical one between man and bear, but the internal one that the man would have with his own self. What ruse could he use to blot out his own mind and his thoughts?
It's easy to say "don't think, just act"...but can one act effectively against their foe when they've stilled their mind to that degree? Would he be able to give that final crushing blow?
And what about if his attacks stem from pure emotion itself (the heart) and not thought (the mind), would that make a difference? Or are the two (i.e. emotion and thought) so inextricably bound together that you can't separate one from the other?
OR...ummmm...he could just keep on changing his mind while he's taking action against the bear, so that the bear would get...extremely...confused...????? hahaha!!!
I'M NOT SURE! X_X