I Run, Therefore I Am.... Nuts

It's raining sideways. The temperature is 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 Fahrenheit), near the coldest I've felt in over 10 months, and there's a stiff wind. I've been running hard for about an hour. Despite the temperature and wind, I'm shirtless and steaming from my head and torso. I'm soaked not just to the skin, but THROUGH it, as if my flesh was just another piece of fabric. My organs are wet. Moreso than they are under normal circumstances, I'm sure. My shoes and socks are completely waterlogged and with each step, they squish and eject water back into the environment. Water streams into my eyes, and with each exhalation a shower spews from my lips and moustache. Like a kid in the bathtub, the tips of my fingers and toes are pink raisins. From stomping through puddles, my legs up to the mid-thigh where my shorts begin are covered with mud. After my run when I slow to a walk, my legs shake uncontrollably, exhausted to the point where they can barely support my weight. As my heart rate and body temperature start to drop back to normal, I'm exhausted, in pain, filthy, and freezing. I walk back to Chacko Homes, take a frigid shower and look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Monsoon season is AWESOME.

Update

I haven't written much since we got back from our All-India tour, and there's a definite reason for that. I had started to write at length on that reason, but have wisely, I think, decided to not be deliberately antagonistic. That, and the fact that the internet went out before I could post it yesterday. Blessings in disguise.

Instead of ranting about the attempted censorship of our blogs, I'm just going to write what I want to when I want to from now on, whether it's good, bad, ugly, or otherwise. Not everything I write is going to be deep, meaningful, or reflective. Not everything I write is going to be flattering for India, UC College, the people I know, or myself for that matter. I'm obviously not going to go out of my way to slander anybody or anything. But what I write will be honest, and will be a truthful depiction of MY PERCEPTIONS of the experiences I'm having. If you want objective reporting and analysis of social issues, go read The Economist or something.

Anywho...

I just want to catch people up on what's been going on with me here since we got back one month ago to the day. The southwest monsoon has finally started, as have classes at UC College. The temperature is now comfortably in the high 70's/low 80's. At night I'm sleeping in long pants, socks and a hoodie, I find these temperatures so cold. Even though students are back at the college and classes are back in session, I haven't really been doing much. I split my days now between the computer in the library, the canteen, and the reading room in the English Department. Of course I engage students, teachers and staff whenever I get the chance, but mostly I've just been checking and writing e-mails and reading. On Friday I start teaching some classes again, so things should pick up. A couple of days ago, I went into Ernakulam and recorded the narration for an online typing class. This is the second project I've provided narration for since I've been here. Maybe I should look into a job as a voice-over actor. And last week, I celebrated the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua at a Franciscan Monastery.

The proximity of the end of my term of service is driving me crazy. July 31st is still more than a month off, but it's looming incredibly large in my mind. No matter how hard I try, I can not keep my head in India; all I can think of is going home. I've been away from friends, family, and the comforts and distractions of my life in the US for so long, all I can think about is where I want to go to eat, what movies I want to watch, what games to play with my brother, what's the first song I'll play on my electric guitar, where I'll live, where I'll work, where I'll go on my long runs, what characters to roll in World of Warcraft. Argh!

So that, in brief, is where I'm at now. There's a bunch more stupid, non-reflective stuff I want to write, so I'm going to write it. Expect to hear a lot more from me in the coming days.

The Road To Enlightenment

It's seven a.m., the 20th of April. We've spent the last three days on trains, only just having gotten our first good night's sleep in a hotel. We're bumping down a dirt road alongside a wide, dried up river; six people plus one driver in an autorickshaw. We're all relieved and excited to finally be headed to Bodh Gaya, the first actual destination on our All India Tour.

During the approximately hour long ride from the town of Gaya to Bodh Gaya, we passed through the crowded, dirty streets of a small town; thriving, verdant fields; arid, dusty, dead farms; we saw forests, plains, and hills, lives of opulent ease and luxury and of destitute poverty. I wonder how much of this scene is the same as when the Buddha walked this same road along the river 2500 years ago. Probably more than I expect.


I think about the stories I know of the Buddha's life. Born into the Ksatriya caste of warriors and heads of state, the Buddha (then Prince Siddhartha) was, throughout his early life, preened to be the ruler of the Sakya kingdom. Upon Siddhartha's birth, a sage proclaimed that he would go on to become a great leader, but would not say whether this would be in a spiritual or secular role. Determined that no son of his would ever become some crazy mystic, Siddhartha's father went to great lengths to keep his young son insulated from the "real world" by keeping him safe in the coccoon of palace life and surrounding him with only beauty and all the good things of life. Eventually, however, Siddhartha began to have the feeling that there must be more to life than just the limited exposure he was granted. He wanted to see what was outside the palace, and so convinced his servant and companion to take him out. During the course of three separate trips outside the palace, Siddhartha saw people afflicted by the three unavoidable types of suffering we all face-- sickness, old age, and death. He also, almost certainly, saw poverty and the way that most people have to struggle simply to survive. He became aware of the injustices of the caste system and began to doubt the religion he was taught to believe from birth that imposed these arbitrary and cruel strictures on those he recognized as fellow humans. His eyes opened to what life really was for the majority of people, Siddhartha knew that he could not continue to lead his insular palatial life, and set out to find out What It's All About. He went from teacher to teacher, tradition to tradition. He was an apt pupil and quickly outstripped every teacher he had, but he never got a satisfying answer to his questions. For several years, he practiced the strictest austerities, sure that mortification of the body was the only way to attain enlightenment. Eventually, however, he decided that asceticism just makes you physically weak and does nothing to foster realization and he wandered, dejected and disillusioned, down from the mountains and walked along a river until he came to a forest outside the village of Uruvella-- today, Bodh Gaya. There he sat down under a tree. And just sat. Local children would come and give him rice and ricemilk each day to keep his body strong and able to support his concentration and practice of meditation. And as he sat, Siddhartha saw into the true nature of all things-- nothing exists independently, in and of itself. Each thing depends on all other things for its existence. We suffer because we cling to the idea of a separate, independent self which does not exist. And he formulated an Eightfold Path that could guide one to realize his selflessness and interdependence with all the rest of creation.

In the Soto Zen tradition, we are told that we are all already Buddhas. Our fundamental nature is Buddha Nature and thus there is nothing to attain; there is no special state of mind we need to realize; we do not have to "try to create a Buddha." Everything we do, whatever we do, is an expression of our Buddhanature.

Maybe I'm too cynical to be a good Buddhist, I don't know. I feel like most of us are a much more similar to Prince Siddhartha than we are to the Buddha, the Awakened One. Or maybe a more apt analogy is that we're like Siddhartha's father, and our minds, our consciences, our consciousnesses are like Siddhartha-- who eventually grows up to become the Buddha. We do everything we can to avoid pain and suffering. We're obsessed with safety and security and insulate ourselves so that the Real World doesn't intrude upon our peace of mind and sense of wellbeing. We keep ourselves constantly busy and distracted so that we never have to acknowledge or confront the suffering in ourselves or in the world. But try as we might, I think we all experience some feeling of dissonance. A feeling that Something Isn't Quite Right Here. Despite our best efforts, our feeling of peace, wellbeing and security isn't quite complete. What gives??

And at this point we have a choice. We can ignore the feeling, insulate and anaesthetize ourselves further, go deeper into our snuggly, happy castle and forget that there is a whole world outside. Or we, like Siddhartha, can choose to investigate what's out there; become aware of what is happening outside of our safe, warm fortress and risk finding out unpleasant things and having to deal with our complicity in them. This awareness, I think, is our first step on the journey if we are honestly going to walk with the Buddha, Christ, and all the other great teachers who have trodden it before and continue to tread it with us. Like Siddhartha, once we are aware of the suffering that exists outside (and indside, even though we notice that even less) our palace walls, we really have no choice but to change the way we are living and devote our lives-- often, it seems, with a lot of trial and error-- to finding another way.