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Published: December 30th 2022
Naryan 1948 - 2022
Naryan in the corner to the right of Poonam in 1983. Anagarika Munindra
Zen teaches vigilant carelessness and detached involvement. In a more high-sounding phrase, it teaches transcendental ordinariness. In a simpler, more sympathetic phrase, it teaches nothing but ordinariness. Yoel Hoffman
Awakening is ordinariness awakening to ordinariness Ama Samy
The Self is here and now Ramana Maharshi
Be the Buddha now Adyashanti
You are perfect as you are and there is always room for improvement Shunryu Suzuki
Today a friend of 40 years died here in Pushkar, Rajasthan. Naryan was a simple man who, as far as I know, may never have ventured far from this place in all his 73 years. His life's work was a
pakora wallah... a man who made fried vegetable snacks and sold them from his street trolley. Thirteen years ago I had given him the money to repair the trolley... at 60 he wanted to get back to this work. Naryan lived in a two room section of a shared house with his wife, son and daughter and recently his son's wife and child.
Chai on the road
I love finding what I think to be an 'interesting yet simple' place to stop on my bike trips for chai. Invariably I get to practise my Hindi and have some fun with complete amiable strangers. On this occasion in Punjab on the way to Himachal Pradesh I met some factory workers taking a break. Simple guys with open hearts. He was devoted to
Shiva and spent many hours at prayer in a small temple by the holy lake of Pushkar morning and evenings.
I only have one photograph of Naryan... taken in 1983 next to Poonam (who died long ago) the sweet shop wallah.
Recently a dear friend commented on my adventure in Nepal (the last blog posted which involved some unexpected extra travel seeking an entry point back to India). He called it an inspiring adventure and said that he missed a bit of that in his life staying put being a retired pensioner in Sydney. Friends who I consider to be leading amazing lives have quite often assumed mine is so interesting and 'out there' and extraordinary. Of course this is just our mind's illusory projection to the 'other'. And at the end of the day, wherever we find ourselves, if we travel we discover the sobering fact that 'we' are still there when we get wherever we arrive. No escape.
It's an interesting play of mind and body.... perhaps also a bit of a farce but I do often think when thinking about going again (e.g. India)
Tibetan nun
In Rewalsar Himachal Pradesh... a nunnery above the town with timeless old nuns who just smile all day. Ordinary and extraordinary. "yeah... put yourself out there or you'll shrivel up, you old fart". And then I am amused when I find myself cruising down an unknown road in the middle of nowhere not exactly sure where I am going to sleep that night. AND my ego self gets a little blast every time someone asks my age and then exclaims "you don't look that old" and "wow.. still riding around India doing stuff".
What a game of self delusion and pretence ... but then, midst all that, there are still real adventures and proof that "it will all work out somehow" and a sense that the thrill is worth it. But I don't know if I am really convincing myself.
When I think of friends such as the one who made the comment.. he who writes amazing stuff, does voluntary work with people who are dying (recording their life stories), plays great guitar, and manages to live in centred solitude (not loneliness)... I am struck with awe and admiration.... So it becomes obvious to me that living well is not about being intrepid at all. Then I also think about Naryan's life and work and
Prahlad the Silver Maker
A true artist in Chittorgarh Rajasthan. No English and very shy but so talented. He has had me visit his family home several times and also his temple where he practices wrestling and other Hindu martial arts. Over the 8 years I have been visiting Chittorgarh not much changes... I can always rely on finding him in his workshop. But of course, nothing is permanent. how he might have viewed it all.
I am very mindful that what I have been doing is changing (nothing stays the same)... both externally (India is changing fast and losing a lot of the charm) and internally (my body is changing, my expectations are changing, my way of experiencing this stuff is changing).
I am not averse to the thought of being more and more settled in a quite nice environment back home in Australia..... Although that can also be a huge challenge of mind and body. I am convinced that living well is about perceptual choices born from mindful-practice, and not much about the physical context at all.
Anyway... none of it matters other than being aware of the play and the fact that we are all going to die... the rest is just fill. Ah,.. might I detect a protest from some quarters... that herein is the very problem of mindful acceptance and detachment: that it results in 'not doing' and this means just accepting things in this life without challenge or a will to improve things for others, and without using one's talents and skills to make
Chai guru
Satish is another simple man who, over the last 13 years, I have always located in his chai shop on the way to the Manikarnika burning ghat in Varanasi. A quiet, reserved man who makes an art of tea-making (and it tastes great). Now starting to grey, his endearing smile is something to lift the spirits. As I sit and drink, corpses wrapped in ornate cloth are carried by on their way to the wooden piers for burning to the chant of "Ram nam satya hai" (the name of Ram is the truth). Satish works on in silent attention to his otherwise mundane life ... but this is his 'duty'. a difference. But to go down that path is surely a gross denial of the meaning and importance of the life of many Naryans.
In any case, that is not what I aspire to... what I have come to appreciate is not that one does nothing, but that whatever one does is done mindfully, with passion and compassion, with joy, and with equanimity. The latter is not about being despondent but about not being invested though greed or hatred or ignorance to outcomes that are not 'of' us... but happen around and to us through the impermanence and unreliability of things.
In the end though, there is no avoiding the brutal truth about death and our impermanence. Non-reactivity is not the same though as non-responsiveness or inaction in the world. Ethical living is as necessary to maintain healthy non-reactivity as it is wise for contentment in this life, with the side effect of loving kindness to others and the ceasing of greed, hatred and ignorance.
Back to 'the ordinary'... what we do does not need to consume us with striving and greed and regret and envy: we can accept where we
Peaceful and calm
Naryan Baba is perhaps the most peaceful soul I have ever met. He lives on the ghats in Varanasi and ekes out his livelihood by stitching beautiful, coloured bags and belts by hand. He speaks little and smiles a lot. are just now. The trick is to be mindful of this moment and to be passionate about whatever it is we find ourselves doing. This means the man
pakora wallah is no less 'perfect' than the brain surgeon saving lives, and each is capable of great sorrow or great joy.
We all strive (and this is ego-mind in the end) to achieve something special in our short time on this planet. We want to arrive somewhere (is that death?) with no regrets, to have done that we thought to set out to do, to have made a difference. Above all, to have loved and been loved. Some of us stumble upon the search for meaning and fulfilment that we call 'enlightenment'. This is often a path to great confusing of the mind, a trap. We 'strive' for something that is rooted on 'non-striving'. We exert effort when really we just need to learn to simply be.
The fact is that we can derive our ultimate 'purpose' or 'truth' from the simple things in life. Desire for the extra-ordinary, grasping for security, craving for what we think will make us happy.... these things create a
Balu
Since we met in 2009 in Orchaa, Balu has always remained friendly and inviting. He runs what was a tiny little 'trinkets' shop on the way to the Ramraj Temple where pilgrims buy souvenirs. Lately he has expanded to a quite decent space. He introduced me to his amazing and simply father (now dead) when we would visit him up on a hill outside town, living like a hermit in an open sided thatched hut and tending a small plot during the day. There we would be cooked amazing food.. his father being a chapati wizard and dahl master. contracted and distracted mind. We think we can hang on to things that last and then be happy and secure, and enjoy a solid self in the world. However, everything changes, nothing is satisfactory, and that which we call our 'self' is just ego-mind. Meanwhile there is a simply embodied and calm 'self' that is just there... under our very nose.
What I do love about meeting people in India is their relative simplicity and ordinariness. Not to say that people everywhere do not feel the same passions and desires and frustrations and illusions. But as I meet people doing everyday, ordinary things I am often struck by their centred acceptance of life as it is for them, albeit they have responsibilities and experience great hardships and certainly, in India, great insecurity too. Is it this that feeds their spiritual positive outlook (as a survival mechanism) or is it the reverse: their spiritual positive outlook creates their acceptance of life as they find it?
I walk in the street and look back at the man paralysed from the waist down who I assume is complaining about his lot to his friend. But what I
In the middle of nowhere that is somewhere
I left the National Highway between Orchaa and Bundi to grab some street food 'nashta' (breakfast) of poha (a rice based snack) and cachura (a stuffed fried pastry). The guy who ran this trolley-based business offered me chai and of course we did some photographs for posterity. At the end he refused to take any money and insisted that I stop by on my next trip through. Unexpected kindness... and there he is every day meanwhile and probably next time I will find him (if I can remember which turn off it was). see is his beaming face and laughter over some shared joke or other.
I aspire (there's that grasping mind again) to stop achieving, to accept that I will die and it won't matter that I didn't visit such and such a place or do such and such a thing. I aspire for simple wisdom and simple living. This 'desire' can also be contracting and distracting for the mind, but it need not be.... it can be a skilled formation of mind.
Of course, I am kidding myself to think that, in having the means to travel, I am some kind of simple person. What is this? How did I get to be able to do this? Therein lies my particular history and privileged position in the world and monetary wealth and so on. Perhaps along the way, at least I can learn to keep it simple... get more simple. At least, to not strive.
And then I am reminded of Naryan's '
Namaste, Om Nama Shivaya' and his smiling face.
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Warwick
non-member comment
Good story again
Paul, another enjoyable and educational read. But I do think there is something to be said for going on a grand tour as it was called, a bit like you are doing, and experiencing other cultures and allowing it to moderate your outlook. Not striving to do that but just doing it if your able. I am not sure one can get the same benefits from a simple life of reflection since the reflections will be limited by necessity by what you have seen and done and read and heard. Being better informed can lead to better informing others and perhaps helping them moderate some of their extreme and unhelpful views.