Improving

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Okay, we're still in Rishikesh, at our ashram; the good news is that I"m starting to love being here. First of all I have to talk about all the fun social stuff we've been doing, and afterwards I'll talk about spiritual stuff.

So, I have been really happy to discover that our ashram is filled with really young, cool people so that me and colin actually have a group of friends to hang out with. After one year of living with two nuns and forty children, and after ten days of silence at Vipassana, I cannot tell you how happy I am to laugh, socialize, and joke with other people who understand my culture. Sundays are our "off day" since there are no ashram activities on Sundays, so our first Sunday at the ashram me and Colin went with a few other guys and rented motorbikes and cruised around in the sunshine all day. Cody, the first guy, is about our age and comes from California--he just finished two 10-day Vipassana courses, so we had PLENTY to talk about with him; plus he's just a really cool guy. The second guy, Rory, is from Australia and is kind of a goofball; he's always making random comments at inopportune times, or just saying things that don't make sense. Like, if we're all watching a movie together and a new character walks onto the screen, he'll say "Well, now he's a pretty tall guy, isn't he?" Or if two characters are walking through a forest he'll say, "Well now, there sure are a lot of trees in that place, now aren't there? I wonder where that place is?" There is really no easy response to these types of questions, other than, "uh-huh...yeah." And then we were joined by two of Cody's friends--one was an Indian guy staying at our ashram and the other was a guy from Australia who Cody met at his first Vipassana course. So anyway, every person rented their own motorbike, except for me because I would feel pretty lame if I somehow accidentally managed to drive my motorbike into the river, so I had to sit on the back of Colin's bike (which was more fun anyway because I got to enjoy the awesome scenery). I have to say, it was pretty fun because for ONCE IN MY LIFE I was not the meek little pedestrian scampering to the side of the road as blaring motorcycles and cars barrelled towards me. NO. For once I was on the other side--we were the ones barrelling towards other people, destroying their eardrums with our loud blaring horns and threatening to run them over if they didn't scurry fast enough. There really is a sort of unspoken hierarchy on the road: pedestrians are like dogs, bicyclists get a little more regard, autorickshaws are tolerated, motorcycles are respected, cars are like royalty and anything bigger than a car will not hesitate to kill you if you even dare to show irreverence by being anywhere NEAR the road at the time of its passing. So, in our new repsected social position we cruised out of the city and into the green hills, up and down winding mountain roads, in and out through patches of warm sunlight and cool shade. At twelve we stopped at a roadside restaurant where we sat outside in plastic chairs and ate dal, rice, and vegetables and shared a giant bottle of coca-cola, which we drank out of tin cups. After that we cruised up the hill to the entrance of a waterfall. We had to hike up to the actual waterfall, which was pretty difficult because it was extremely hot outside and most of us were wearing our long underwear under our clothes, since in the morning it's always freezing outside. Once we finally had sweated our way to the top we were all so hot and exhausted that the guys all stripped to their underwear and swam around in the pure, freezing pool beneath the water. I wasn't quite THAT warm, so I satisfied myself by splashing a little bit of fishy water into my hair. After some time we eventually dried off and hiked back down, got on our bikes and rode into town, down to the banks of the Ganges, for the evening puja--an hour-long prayer ceremony that is performed with candles, lots of chanting and singing and burning ghee and tabla drums. It was a really beautiful contrast because I was sitting right on the edge of the ghat, so I was kind of in between the crowd and the river. On one side was the river--cold, dark, silent, mysterious, and colorless; above the river was a giant white-marble statue of a meditating sage, lit up with a spotlight, the color of the moon. On the other side of me was the loud, chanting, lively, colorful crowd, singing and playing with fire and celebrating life. It was like the two different sides of life: on one side stillness and emptiness and on the other side activity and color. Very cool.

Last Sunday was a little less eventful; one of the girls at the ashram (her name is Tara, she's from South Africa) decided to plan a picnic involving lots of Indian sweets and other good foods. So in the afternoon we all spread out a bunch of blankets and ate sugary, syrupy sweets, hot apple samosas, dense rye bread with peanut butter, papaya, juicy oranges, apples, deep-fried vegetables and paneer with flat, crispy papad, and sweetlime juice. Afterwards we were all feeling fat and lazy so we sprawled out in the sun and played some card games until the sun started to disappear. Nowadays we usually congregate on the roof during the long sunny hours between breakfast and tea time. Colin bought a miniature chess board so he usually plays chess with someone, and we play cards and listen to music and lounge and yesterday colin and a friend even brought yoga mats up there and did some yoga.

Speaking of which, yoga is INTENSE. These guys are nuts. Our teachers are like professional yogis and don't seem to understand that we are from the west and are therefore fat, inflexible, lazy, weak, and generally unfit. One of the teachers is especially crazy; he will sit down on the floor, lift one of his feet up and tuck it behind his head, hold it with both hands, and then slowly rise to a standing position using only the other leg. Then he just stands in front of the room with one leg behind his ear, stares and us and says, Do IT! Do it! Tryyyyyyyyyyyy...do it....tryyyyyyyyy." Most of the time we just sit there and laugh. And it's even funnier because of the way they talk (I love it)--their not-quite-perfect English and their Indian accents telling us to do these impossible things. "Now all of you recite at om with me? All of you chant with me, with feeling with emotion, with loudly? OMMMMMMMMMMMMM.." Or they'll say, "Now grab your left ankle joint with right hand...PUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLL....now STREEETCH...now left palm down on ground, DO IT...come into dandasana...do it...now push..." Me and Colin were laughing about it last night, mocking them and saying things like, "Now insert your left foot into your asshole...do it...push...do it. I can see your foot still...more...push...Now raise right foot over head and wrap around neck three times...good...DO IIIIIT....Push." This morning we were supposed to do handstands against the wall (an exercise which is more or less impossible for me due to my complete lack of muscle). One of the helper guys--an unrealistically optimistic guy--thought that I should be doing the exercise just like everybody else, instead of sitting on my mat and glaring around. So I finally got up and walked over to the wall, put my head and hands down like I was supposed to do, kicked my legs up about halfway, and he grabbed them and pulled them up to the wall. But then he didn't support me, and my unhelpful arms collapsed so that I fell on my head. I sat up, rubbing my head and feeling generally angry and brain-damaged, and the guy just looked at me and said, "Do again. Try." Oh really? Just do it again? Just like that? They're crazy. Although I have to admit that the challenge is definitely good for me, and it's gotten to the point that I actually do enjoy yoga and I actually do attend both morning and evening classes. I actually wake up at five, meditate for an hour, and then do an hour of yoga before breakfast. Wow. And I feel a definite improvement, especially in my upper body. My pathetically spindly arms have become tolerably strong and my back muscles and spinal chord, which have never really done anything before, are suddenly becoming strong and flexible. And altogether I feel healthier, more energetic, and stronger. Meditation is also going well; I feel like I'm finally starting to understand HOW to focus my attention and ignore distractions in order to dispel my cravings and aversions. I want to continue meditating twice a day for at least the next year, and see what kind of results I get. Hopefully I don't get distracted from that idea, especially when I go home.

I'm actually kind of afraid of going home because I'm afraid of losing everything I've gained during the past year and a half. Everything in the west is so easy that it just makes life harder, because there is a tendency to become so comfortable and lazy that even the simplest task just seems unappealing and impossible. And there are so many distractions. Not to sound anti-American or anything, but I really just don't agree with a lot of aspects of our culture. It's like we can't do ANYTHING in the way that is healthy and good for us. Even when we're sitting in chairs, we're screwing our bodies up, making them less healthy and less flexible and setting ourselves up for all kinds of problems in the future. We can't even SIT in a healthy way, let alone eat, or interact with others, or LIVE in a healthy way. I have been reading a book about Buddhism called "The Art of Happiness," and it was talking about the intimacy--especially the difference between the western understanding of intimacy and the eastern understanding. And it was saying that in the east, or at least in most Asian countries, intimacy is something that you have in all your relationships--with your friends, with your family, with your extended relatives, etc. But in the west, we reserve all our intimacy for romantic relationships; we're always searching for that "Special Someone" who's going to alleviate all our loneliness, fulfill all our longings, and make our lives perfect. This is the person we open our hearts to--we tell them all our hopes and fears, all our memories--and we especially reserve all forms of physical affection for this person. WHY???? This is so unhealthy. No wonder we're so lonely. It's considered "weird" or "gay" if two males who are friends hold hands; it's only okay to touch women. It almost makes sense to me now why sex has become so idealized in the west; we think that the only time it's okay to touch people is in a romantic way, and so as human beings (as beings who crave touch and affection and love) we become so desperate for physical contact that it becomes an obsession, a fetish. And of course, the only acceptable way to fulfill that craving is to touch someone of the opposite sex, in a romantic way. Meanwhile we have hundreds of people around us--friends, relatives, etc--who we don't even pay any attention to, let alone touch or build intimacy with, because we don't feel that it's really "normal" to have intimacy with someone who we're not dating. How weird. And the food we eat is so unhealthy, so processed, so disgusting, and so bad for your body. Even our western toilets are comletely unnatural--we can't even pee in a natural squatting position--we have to sit on a porcelain throne. It's seriously less comfortable for your body than an Indian toilet, not to mention the fact that it's less hygienic to actually sit on the same surface as someone who just finished using that toilet. But anyway. Just some reflections...maybe I'm going through a phase of rebelling against my culture, because this is the first time I've really seen something different.

Well today is New Year's Eve, and we still don't know what we're doing. But I think it's gonna be hard to do anything too wild; first of all, you can't even find a restaurant that serves meat in Rishikesh, let alone alcohol. And secondly, the gate to our ashram gets locked at 10:00pm, so there's no possibility of staying out till midnight. I suspect we'll just go out to dinner and go back to the ashram, but I would like to do something special and significant. I have already decided that I'm giving up caffiene for new years--it just makes me too jittery, psychotic, and dehydrated; I actually hate the feeling it gives me. I quit two days ago and I'm already feeling less insane. Yay. If I continue with no caffiene, lots of yoga, lots of meditation, and lots of rice, I might actually discover the true meaning of the universe one of these days. Just maybe.

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