Um, so a lot has happened. Like really a lot. Although I certainly will confront failure in my aim to update you all on what it is like to exist here, I will enumerate some things below. First, let me re-establish that a) I am living in a Burmese monastery, b) I am living in the strangely sacred chaos of rural India, and c) I am trying to learn how to meditate. Ok, now here are some snapshots of things that have happened:
Durga Puja
This is a celebration for The Ultimate Big-Mamma Mother Goddess. In honor of her power, two forty-foot tall wooden men with umbrellas on their heads are set alight (on the same field where the Dalai Lama gives his annual address). They are full of firecrackers. As I watch the towering statues explode in technicolor and gradually topple, a GIANT monsoon thunderstorm descends on the crowd. Everyone runs screaming as the second giant man falls with one last burst of fire, and I am swept through flooded Indian streets between motorcycles and rickshaws and errant cows. I am so wet that my fancy sari--which I am wearing to honor the occasion--dies my entire lower half bright green.
Bodhi Seeds
It is the end of our three week Vipassna meditation section, and we are all meditating beneath the Bodhi Tree. I struggle, as per usual, against a) sleep and b) my manic wandering mind. Just when it seems that sleep is going to win the battle, something small and hard bounces off my skull. I open my eyes and behold a seed pod. "Thank-you, tree," I think, "you might be right about that."
Zen
We are now learning Zen meditation. This means that we wear black robes, sit with ramrod-straight backs, bow a lot, and are no longer allowed to label our various weaknesses. Our Sensei is a small man with a large laugh, and he doesn't often make sense, which I like. In fact, he explains very little. The other day, when we were meditating at the Japanese temple, he said that we should put our hands together in prayer position if we want to get hit with his stick. He neglected to mention why one might want to get hit with his stick. He then walked around giving people resounding whaps on the shoulder.
Monkey Research
Our Vipassna teacher, U Hla Myint, said that meditating is like "monkey research." According to him, my mind is a band of monkeys. It is my job to observe it and understand how it operates. I think of U Hla Myint now, during Zen meditation, as a Yellow Monkey paws at the glass doors of the Buddha Hall. Monkeys are extremely rare in Bodh Gaya, but this one is brave and hungry--he smells the basket of bananas that the Burmese pilgrims left as an offering. As we leave meditation for breakfast, he saunters into the Buddha Hall and eats the Bonzai tree on the altar in one bite.
Ghost Stories
I sit up in bed in the middle of the night. I think I see my roommate walking around the room looking for something, but then I remember that my roommate is gone this weekend on a meditation retreat. Afraid, I suddenly become fully awake and turn on my headlamp. The person, however, is gone--there are just clothes drying on my clothesline. The next day, I learn that the students that have lived my room, almost without exception, have had similar encounters. They are never informed of the haunting, and this program has been coming to the Burmese monastery for thirty-years. "It's not a harmful ghost," says the director of the program, chuckling, "If you're scared, you can have Sister Molini send it loving-kindness."
In Praise of Bells
I am learning to ring the bells for Zen mediation. Even though the roll-downs require finesse and precision that I have not yet acquired, this is fulfilling. In fact, if it weren't for certain restraints of the fabric of reality, I think I would like to become a bell. I bet it would feel wonderful to ring.
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