How many times can I look at Buddhas and temples?
Ordinarily, my tolerance isn’t high for seeing the same things over and over.
Variation is key.
For instance, living in Korea if you’ve seen one buddhist temple, you’ve pretty near seen them all. The architecture doesn’t change much and the buddhas wear the look of staunch, Fu Man Chu looking Confucianist. Thailand is different. Whether it’s a hundred Buddhas lined up in a row, (more…)
My guru is my environment : Dharamsala, India
After a month long yoga boot camp at Himalaya Yoga Valley in Dharamsala, I finally graduated with my Yoga TTC (teacher training certification). Woot!
Muscles aching, belly battling waterborne parasites, while hurdling through two asana classes a day and intensive schedule of studies and teaching practicums… It was a lot! Along the way, you accept your body’s shape-shifting to it’s surroundings. Your foreign environment molds you– injury happens, bad diets take form (aka carb-loading for lack of veggies), India initiates you with horrible toilet habits.
But good things come from it as well…
I’d found my gurus.
• Friendship
I had formed a family and a lifestyle that was my a warm cocoon, in the secluded sanctuary of Dharamsala, away from the blistering stains and antagonizing bustle of Mother India. (more…)
At 6 AM. the morning fog was lifting off the lake. Devotional music poured joyously over the loudspeaker of a neighboring temple and echoed eerily, as fly by birds bore life to the serene setting. Sitting in silence I felt the sun spreading its rays across my body with an exquisite orange and gold. I inhaled.
OM.
Kerala was a perfect escape from the heat, haggling, piss-perfumed stains and madness I know as India. Lush green foliage and forest, the Keralan coast was degrees cooler and more welcoming. I’d seen the film Eat Pray Love and told myself I’d have no aspirations to it. Still, an epiphany was coming through– that there were spots in India which could be peaceful, clean, beautiful and serene!
Universities, nice roads, lush forestry, posh and brightly colored mansions backed by Saudi money all seemed to say – Hey, this state’s got money! Yes, “God’s own country” (as the saying goes) was truly rich.
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We all have this idea that Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have very stoic , temperate and reserved personalities. Afterall, walking Buddha’s Middle Path (of compassion), doesn’t exactly lend itself to the appearance of being excitable, emotional or argumentative. Yet, monks have their moments and in their monk clan, they reveal themselves to be absolutely human when it comes to “the art of debate”!
Musangsa Temple, Day #2, South Korea.
3:10AM
The wooden moktak is struck and it’s barely audible. Fortunately, someone had set their alarm. Monks must be light sleepers. We get dressed and go to the meditation room.
Emerging from my crusted vision, I recognize my cushion just a few centimeters before my feet. The room is toasty and tinged with a faint incense. A two foot tall golden Buddha sitting in lotus position in the center of the room, mediates the sexes- men on one side, women on the other.
The monks file in.
Our teacher, the foreboding but jolly Lithuanian stands by, keeping an eagle eye on us. The wooden moktak is struck again. Some sticks are clacked and in unison, we begin…
108 prostrations in silence. Standing prayer position, down, prostrated bow on floor, stand up again, standing prayer position, down…
Somewhere between the sweat and your legs turning to rubber, you lose count. You go with the flow, thinking, “Tomorrow I’m going to hurt like hell…” (more…)
Day #1 at Templestay, Korea. The mind must be a clean slate, an empty cup.
Blank mind, empty cup. Yes, I could feel it…the Zen was sinking into me.
Listen to the sound of your breath.
I could hear it alright- deep, tranquil, low…
Lose attachment to all sound and body.
Definitely losing it. Walls were losing focus, limbs had gone beyond numb. Outside, the birds, wind, trees, the sound of my neighbors’ fidgeting,… it all passed through my ears, falling right through me.
Finally, rooted to a month of purpose!
I’ve been in Dharamsala for the past week, hiking, learning to cook Tibetan food, meeting people, exploring the Dalai Lama’s temple and my surroundings; but today, I got to drop my bags!
I have my own “apartment”. I like to call it that.
For the next month of my Yoga Teacher Training Certification program, I’ll have a room with a mini kitchen, a spacious bedroom with a TV and dressers, a lounge area and an outdoor balcony. It’s quite a swank pad!
Best of all, I finally get to root down!
I was in the home stretch with only two hours to go. Each bent joint in my body wanted to scream with spasms.
What the hell was I thinking?
Staring at the wooden wall before me for the past seven hours, the knots and natural grain of the wood were beginning to form a cackling witch.
Who am I?
This was a good one. These past weeks I’ve wrestled with the rocking crests and uncertain footing of that question. Nearing 40 and still single, the world is mine to create and to accidentally slaughter. Stay in Korea and develop a career in education? Follow my passion for travel and yoga to India? Root down, find a husband and make babies? Everything felt like it should be the right answer.
What do you experience when you walk through the woods and must rely on the person in front of you and the vision presented before you in a tiny mirror, pointed up to the sky? What happens when you close your eyes and allow yourself to be guided by nature’s sounds?
The program on the Ayuveda Yoga Camp menu said Forest Walking Meditation. A walk through some woods in Muju, while observing nature in silence is all I could think of….
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