chartandwaters

Hello, just wanted to say I'm alive, there's a lot I'm seeing and would really love to write but won't just now--too much to see and volunteering starts in two weeks. I managed to stay in McLeod, attracted by Buddhism and health food, but will be somewhere else shortly. My dad recently asked, half-joking I think, if I will ever return from India; yes I definitely expect to and I won't have a shaved head or wearing robes, if anything I'll probably have more jewelry and be more primping, but vegan. Happy 9th birthday to life-loving Grayson, my nephew. Very much hope my Mom, Retha and Izzy are staying cool in San Miguel. Much love, Gabi

Hello, everyone. I was delaying posting because I was considering buying a computer and using it to write my blog, rather than running up bucks at an internet place. Now I'm not posting because I have to get on a bus to Bir where there are some nice Tibetan monasteries and gompas (temples). I'm not sure what internet access will look like from there, but my family will definitely hear from me by Saturday at the latest (my time). Love, Gabi

Mine is Wednesday. I know that because I just opened my Yahoo, and it turns out today is the 18th. Which would make yesterday the 17th and Wednesday my birthday. Last night I was having trouble sleeping because of the cold. And I had decided I needed to get to Amritsar, which is supposed to be warmer, and has nice Sikhs, I can't spell it, and a golden temple. But this would require packing. So again I lounged in Dharamsala. I got caught up in a wonderful conversation at the great Sunrise Cafe, great because 4 feet by 8 feet, one table surrounded by benches, so everyone feels quite friendly--amazing how proximity can breed affection as easily as hostility--and surpassing cheap. It was a conversation about many things: MP3 players, Steve Martin, yoga, and I could go into details but I'm a bit tired. But last night in my sleeplessness I decided on a project I would do for the website my friend Stephanie edits, a website called "Tango Diva" or www.tangodiva.com devoted to solo women travellers (like me). She doesn't know about this yet.

By the way, aren't my parents awesome? They are both so unbelievably supportive, and I got to be born to such supportiveness. Because I may be on a bus on Wednesday, I want to thank them now, now, thank you! oh parents for being so supportive of and having faith in your travelling daughter!!!!

Then I went to lunch and journalled a bit and accidentally read some Sartre, but that's okay (interesting but depressing series of short stories "Intimacy"), and ate vegetable and tofu soup and a plate of two enormous fried vegetable and tofu springrolls, and lemon tea--there are many teas to which lemon is added here--a LOT of lemon juice, it's more lemon juice than tea and unless there's honey too it takes a while to get down, and I drink one with almost each meal so I am no doubt being detoxified out the wazoo. By the way, American restaurants make a HUGE mistake not adding "honey lemon ginger tea", as well as sweet, mango, strawberry and other fruit lassis, to their menus. As my brother would say, don't make me say this twice.

The meal was perfectly cooked and came (I'm guessing people like to know prices) to a little less than $1.80. Tibetan food is sometimes referred to as bland, but I find it very soothing, lots of tofu and vegetables, and very wide (1") soft noodles called thentuk that, when done right, melt in the mouth. There are also fried noodles and other fried delicacies, and meat. I'm more cautious than the travel doctor at home says I need to be about eating meat, but I promise to try some before I go. There are many people selling big pots of steaming momos on the street, a good-sized snack of five is 10 rupees (about a quarter) and sold in a little tinfoil tray or paper bag made of newspaper. (Plastic bags are outlawed in Dharamsala and I think all Himachal Pradesh--there are many good reasons for this, including that stray animals sometimes eat them--and as a result they are hard to find. When I threw one away, the hotel owners cleaned it and hung it to dry.) In any case, because there are so many opportunities to buy momos, if you like them you get to say the word "momo" over and over again. I think this would be a very good mantra, momo. Momos can be steamed or fried; they're dough pouches (like money bags) of spinach and cheese or mutton or mixed veggies or something else. Momos shaped like crescent moons and fried on one side are no longer momos but "kothays".

Ani di Franco is playing in the cybercafe, as great as the previous Bryan Adams was not.

Thing is, Tibetan food's not spicy at all; like any sensible culture the chili sauce comes on the side. So, since I do not have the gene that can handle spice, I have been able to luxuriate in the food here (and in other Tibetan sanctuaries/refuges) in the way that I, predictably, could not in North India (they say Southern Indian food is not so hot--I mean, it's good, but not hot).

Michele asked me about where I'm staying. The Snow Lion's right in the center of town and run by a Tibetan family who also hires four young, fastidious and weirdly thoughtful boys--3 Indian and one Tibetan--to run its restaurant and clean. The hotel is completely full and people come by wanting rooms every day since it's in Lonely Planet. It's also nice because everyone knows where it is, and the restaurant's popular so you're likely to have a nice conversation with someone if you want it. My room is I think the cheapest they have at 150 Rs (about $4.00; you can get rooms for less at the nearby town of Bhagsu), so it will go very quickly when I leave.

What made me happiest about the place is, first, that I actually got a room for cheap, but much more that when I first arrived the place was so busy that I didn't expect to have any nice relations with the owners of the Snow Lion. My room is right next to the four hired boys, who share two bunk beds in a room the size of mine, and we share a bathroom. So of course we smile constantly and wave and do our laundry together and apologize when two of us are competing for the bathroom.

None of the people in the Snow Lion have begging or overselling tendencies, everything's extremely straightforward. There have been only a few other attempts at relating. Partly hoping to engage the solemnfaced sisterinlaw, I asked her where she had her chupa made; I then had one made there as well but she was unimpressed as everyone does that. (I have become a SHOPPER here and am very interested in LOOKING PRETTY.) On the day of the birthday celebrations I decided to wear my chupa, and had, despite such careful observations, tied it all wrong. I came down to meet Kyrsie in the restaurant, and although it was closed the owner's wife Dolker was in the kitchen. (Dolker is always very sweet and, judging by how frequently she uses it, has learned that her beautiful smile does wonders to reassure customers who are feeling challenged by the big language barrier.) The seats were all on top of the tables but Dolker offered Kyrsie and me free chai and pie: "No, today you don't pay". Then she saw my untidy chupa, fixed it aggressively and taught me how to sit properly in it. When I commented that she wears only Western clothes--she wears loose, stylishly worn out jeans and simple tops--she said, "Not Western, not Indian, just Dolker". (Later, when I asked her if she liked a Kashmiri robe I was wearing, she scrunched her nose and said no, she only likes chupas and Western clothes, that's it. And one night, as she was hanging laundry, she loving me showed me a simple lavendar bra she was holding like, I don't know, the finest silver or, no, a precious cat she wished she could keep. "Gabi looook. Loook. I like so much." She laughed a little at herself--"Laundry, Korean girls downstairs"--and pointed to another one in blue, "Different color. I like....."

Wait, I forgot to tell you--

If you read the earlier blogs you heard me go on and on about the incredible Tibetan fashion and the women's full chupa, or dress. What could be the best, most awesome thing women would wear under their nearly floor-length chupas? So that if they hike them in the rain you would see these--what would it be--

Yes! Pantaloons! They wear pantaloons! With lace trim.

Anyway, so after eight days or so Dorkel looked at me warmly and said, "Gabi, how long are you staying?" and I realized that somehow I was "in". We had barely been able to have any conversation, but we'd had just enough to agree we were totally fond of each other. It really pleased me. And it's why I really like staying in a place a while. Even the chemist nextdoor has started looking at me warmly, and I haven't particularly enjoyed our encounters (because he's brusque, because someone told me he overcharged Westerners, because he frequently doesn't have what I'm looking for and because I don't think he's a good chemist). Of course I'm a good customer, and it is partly that, but I think it's also just the sense of comfort we're all getting from familiarity.

Back to, um, lunch. Over lunch I wrote out some recent adventures and realized I could no longer survive here without a laptop. So I went immediately to ask my hotel where they had gotten their laptop, which the owners use to play solitaire. They said it belonged to a friend and they were trying to sell it for him. It is a 1997 IBM Thinkpad, with I believe no USB--I have to figure out all this--but with disk drives and workably light and should perhaps cost me $100, which is what I would like to spend on a laptop. So that was an odd coincidence. However, in standard bargaining style they have quoted me a very high price, but have loaned it to me for three days to try out. So that's nice. I wonder what I should do Wednesday? The bus to Amritsar leaves at 5am.

Much love and happiness! The song they're playing now is a Hindi, electronic version of Pretty Woman.

My friend Michele wanted me to write about more boring things, like what I eat and where I'm staying. I can't touch on those just now but hope this accommodates. This was written yesterday, so all the present tense action refers to yesterday.

For a few reasons I've been loitering around Dharamsala: For one I have a cold and was told that going higher, to my next two stops Manali and Leh, could be uncomfortable. For another I'd heard the Dalai Lama's next round of teachings might be much more comprehensible, and apparently they are--he is actually teaching, and slowly, rather than "merely" reading--but the idea of sitting in the open air temple isn't appealing. Also, there's a new Iyengar yoga center here I wanted to examine. And I am enjoying my daily 2-hour yoga class, nothing special but a fine class that's returning me to some old stronger place.

But mostly I have been waiting to see the Dalai Lama's doctor, who is right in the center of town and the doctor to anyone who wants to go; you pay just for the medicine (mine today was 80 Rupees, about $1.80). The main reason I wanted to go wasn't my cold but the fact that I have a perpetually stuffed nose; it is never ever unstuffed. I can breathe just a little through my nose but usually have to supplement it through my mouth. It's been that way since 1998, I think, after I lived with a series of serious smokers--or maybe I took too much Afrin, do I know? Anyway, a Western doctor in the states said it looked like an allergy (to air?) and recommended that he burn the insides of my nose to widen the pathways, and then I could breathe despite the allergy. When I asked if he might instead refer me to an allergist, he said, yeh, we could do that too. In the end I didn't do anything but buy this water pipe thing that supposedly cleans out your nasal passages, but which provided the same happy sensation as inhaling saltwater.

But breathing through your nose is important; the cilia weed out pollutants for which I believe we have nothing comparable in the mouth. And in yoga there are all these ideas about how nose-breathing is preferable to mouth-breathing, which makes you angry and fiery or...something. Particularly in hyperpolluted India, I don't like breathing through my mouth. So it matters to me.

I went to the doctor one afternoon and was told I would need to show at 5 am to get an appointment for the same day. I was having a hard time waking up for that.

But today I had luck. Woke too late but went anyway and the gates were locked; there was a sign saying the clinic was closed for the morning teachings. I had breakfast at the vegetarian restaurant next door, which Matt had told me is run by the doctor's wife. I asked her when the doctor might open; she said, he is open, ignore the closed gates. I went back, and behold the gates were open, I got the number 38 and since most of 1--37 was at the teachings it appeared I might see him within an hour.

The Dalai Lama's doctor, Dr. Donden, shuffled in and out of the examination room taking people's numbers. Dr. Donden is a shortish, wideish, old and somewhat sour-faced man who, with his shuffling inertia (poor circulation?), looks as if he is staying alive for the sake of the Dalai Lama. If the poor DL expires, I imagine the doctor will expire minutes afterwards. I don't recall quite what he was wearing, it looked somewhat monkish and with the male Tibetan skirt few laymen wear daily. Dr. Donden looked at me and my number, said, "Harumph harumph harumph" and held up his fingers in the shape of a canister. I said I didn't understand. "Pee-pee", he said frustratedly, and harumphed as he shuffled away, flapping his hand at me. I'm such a fool I didn't know the word for "urine" in Tibetan.

When people don't know your language and act annoyed, you never know if they're mad at you or themselves. This more than anything is hardening my soft skin; I too have been repeatedly pissed at some or another language barrier and taken it out on my innocent fellow citizens.

But I did realize at "pee-pee" that he had been asking if I had a urine sample. I asked at the front desk if this was necessary--there being no previous mention of it--and the receptionist, a serious-looking man who skillfully adds up and doles out Tibetan medicine balls all day (but whose shirt happened to have a stick figure of a wacked-out pirate and the words "Born to Be Wild....New York") said it depended on what was wrong with me. I asked what one would bring it in: A water bottle. (No sanitized container, nothing fancy, just a urine sample damnit!) I asked if there was a bathroom; he said, "But it has to be the first urine of the day". It was already ten o'clock in the morning, but by some completely strange luck I hadn't attended the bathroom yet and said as much. He looked at me as if that were very, very, very odd, and no doubt indicative of any number of other peculiar and possibly unspeakable habits in which I must routinely engage--but he handed me a keychain and motioned me around the wall to the bathroom.

Around the wall was a dark hallway lined with four locked doors. My keyring contained three keys. Fucking Alice in Wonderland. I'd already done my bit of courageous acts for the day: I'd interrupted the doctor's wife at her busy restaurant to ask about her husband's work, and I'd said the word "urine sample" aloud more than once. There's evidence that my brain has a quota for the number of nervy things it will do in day. I don't know what the quota is; only my brain knows. So at that point demanding that the busy pharmacist point me out the correct door didn't even occur to me, and I decided it couldn't be that complicated.

Let me note that this is one of those moments when the stereotype of the west as having no time for you is annulled by an Indian's hasty vagueness; oh, some may give excellent directions, but others will say "Just go there" while motioning at an entire city.

All the locks here are the same style and a bit awkward--hard to get the key into and turn it--and they must be opened and also closed with a key. Doors are all fitted with corresponding deadbolts. I tried the first door, fumbling around for a while in the shadowy light. Meanwhile old Dr. Donden shuffled into the hallway: Harumph harumph harumph. He pulled up beside me just as I got the lock undone, and he kicked open the door forcefully: Boiler room, no toilet. Okay. He didn't motion further, looking perhaps bored with me, but a nice monk gestured kindly in the direction of the other three doors--in one of these was the bathroom. Isn't this some sort of gameshow?

I'm not sure why I didn't ask; they make it seem so obvious...so easy. I tried the next door, unlocked the lock and shifted the deadbolt but couldn't manage to shove open the door, and then couldn't manage to find the key to relock the lock. There were only three choices of key to choose from, but two of them looked painfully similar and I must have been using the same two again and again. Maybe I really had to go to the bathroom. Leaving that door be for a moment, I tried the next door, managed to undo the lock, drop it and shift the deadbolt--but not far enough. COuldn't shift it further, couldn't open the door. I turned to the previous door and, although I hadn't been able to open it, I at least managed to re-lock it while a woman turned on the hall light, shining a happy glow over all my ridiculous maneuverings.

The woman came over and gestured that the door I couldn't open was the right one to the toilet. I said I couldn't open it. She shoved the deadbolt hard, successfully--all Tibetans are stronger than all Americans--and kicked the door hard. Behold the toilet. Somehow Dr. Donden reappeared and gestured to me, I should stand out of sight. But I did notice that he managed some fancy skirt work in order to use the facilities without closing the door. Meanwhile I emptied the water bottle I was carrying into a nearby water fountain in preparation. Then he motioned that I was allowed to proceed.

By the time I proceeded to fill my bottle I must have been either overconfident or overwhelmed; I knew I was having a hard time aiming but it was impossible to me to imagine that most of the 12-hour store wasn't going into the bottle. The rest just went, oh, everywhere. I was sorely disappointed when I held up my meagerly filled bottle, only a centimeter of precious pee in it. I was very embarrassed to show my tiny reward to the Dalai Lama's doctor, who might send me home yet again.

When I came back into the waiting room with my sample tucked modestly into my backpack, I saw a much older woman, perhaps 70, carefully tightening the marmalade jar containing her very substantial sample and placing it, rather tenderly I thought, closely by her feet as if protecting a good cup of hot coffee. The next woman who came in, also very old, had her jar nicely wrapped in a transparent brown plastic bag. What a prude I am.

Anyway, my number finally came and the doctor took my sample, made no mention, blissfully, about my humble amount but motioned me into his little room, which had a couple of images of the Medicine Buddha on the wall, and, thank God, four framed diplomas. It also had a very excellent translator. The doctor took my pulse (as I'd been told was all he would do), the translator told him my problems and then wrote out a complicated prescription that involved taking five different kinds of pills four times a day. The translator said they wanted me to come back in a week as, he said seriously, the nose thing is very chronic. He also insisted pointedly that I come in with a sample of the first urine of the day, as if he didn't believe I'd done so before. I was so, so happy to have them take my stuffed nose seriously that I was beside myself. It gave me a lot of energy. So most likely I will take some sidetrips but be back in time for reinspection.

Before leaving I wrote a nice sign in English about how important it is to bring to your appointment the first urine sample of the day, and the receptionist allowed me to post it on the bulletin board outside.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it the title of this entry is a Sinead O'Connor album title and song (lyrics below). As you and so many others, all the while practicing nonattachment, climb the crowds as if they were so many Himalayas in search of a glimpse of the Dalai Lama, you may very well find yourself saying "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" over and over and over.

In which case, I'm writing to point out that it's actually easier if you say it with a rosary. Did you know rosaries are ubiquitous in religions? At the very least Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity agree: Rosaries are the way to go, and except for the cross on the Christian ones they can be delightfully nondenominational. I believe they're also an ancient technique for manifesting the positive virtues of obsessive-compulsive disorder. And I hope it's not inappropriate to say: His Holiness kept fiddling with his wrist during the proceedings as if he were jonesing for a rosary.

Yesterday I was relaying to two new friends over dinner something over which I was recently obsessing--a man who seemed to be about to become a friend, then holed himself up in his room for seven days straight wearing only white a la' Emily Dickinson and reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (yes very flattering, very). It upset me because there are not too many people here you'll find a kinship with--but then I deserve this because it wasn't so long ago that I holed myself up in the cabin behind my friends Annie and Bob's home, coming out only to eat and exercise. In any case, one of my companions, a strong-hearted Israeli woman named Adva, 27, thought my obsession was irrational. But the other man, the lovely Brazilian Bruno, 34, said, "But it's you. This is who you are. And we are all weird aren't we." Bruno's a very enthusiastic, positive-thinking man who, so far as I can tell from my three dinners with him, only speaks with passion. He has strong ideas about things--for instance, he believes in karma and reincarnation while not being especially Buddhist--and his conviction is catching. As an idea appeared to grow in his mind he looked to his wrist and made the gesture of spinning a bracelet rosary. Then he turned back to us, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, and nodded at us smiling: "That should be our first mantra, shouldn't it?" He cocked his head and nodded further: "We are all weird we are all weird we are all weird." We all laughed and I wrote it down. Bruno has a certain series of favorite repeat movements that include: raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes to engage you in his idea, cocking his head in contemplation, smiling with joy at the idea of something. I think, and I mean this in the most flattering way, that in this way he reminds me of a bird, the way birds frequently appear to choose between just a few key actions: cocking their heads, flying off, landing, pecking at something. But while they're mostly after food, Bruno's actions are all devoted to conveying an idea and convincing you to share his joy in it.

I had bought a rosary bracelet (as opposed to a necklace) for the first time on Sunday, and yesterday, feeling really out of sorts, went up to Tushita, a meditation retreat in Dharamkot, perhaps a kilometer up a beautiful, barely populated street. Tushita is a super lovely spot; it's very popular so I thought it might be commercial, but in fact the facilities are clean but humble, silence is kept through the whole place so it's fully serene, and the place is set deep into the hillside amid huge evergreens. Also, the landscape is tiered: The residences are on one level--high--the gompa, mess hall, reception and library on another, various offices on a third. The tiers create a sense of retreat and quiet at each level. There's also a pleasing gompa (Tibetan temple), which is pretty hilarious (but typical) compared to its peaceful surroundings: Huge multicolored tangkas (those Tibetan paintings painted on fabric), a 5-foot gilt Buddha with one of those pointed golden caps indicating he'd attained enlightenment, about eight individual 3-foot gilt Buddhas each in their own little glass-enclosed coveys and surrounded by "Christmas" lights and other paraphernalia; a four-foot, heart-meltingly compassionate statue of Tara, goddess of universal compassion (see http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/deities/tara.htm), and postings and requests for donations for the Maitreya project, which aims, with no small amount of ceremony, to build the largest Bronze statue of the Maitreya Buddha in the world (152 kms.) The actual Maitreya Buddha is expected to come to enlighten the world during a time when Buddhism has lost its purchase and needs to be rejuvenated. I heard one person say that the bronze Maitreya Buddha is intended to last long enough to greet the actual Maitreya Buddha and perhaps hasten his arrival. (See below for articles on the Maitreya Project and Buddha.)

I circled the temple clockwise as is required, then sat in one of the provided plastic patio chairs and began spinning my rosary and saying to myself the word "equanimity", which I had learned in California to be one of the things some Buddhists pray on; equanimity allows you to feel what you need to while remembering that things will pass and change. Spinning the rosary was hypnotic, and the circle of it automatically brought into relief the cyclical nature of life that Buddhists are so keen on, and that is certainly a good argument for practicing equanimity. Then I just started crying--travelling here is emotional and sometimes crying feels like my only effective mechanism for cleaning myself out--and then I felt much better. I met a couple of travellers at a teaplace down the street and walked with them in newly pouring rain home just in time for yoga (which may get its own blog).

Perhaps there are better rosaries than rosaries. Poetry used to be my most excellent rosary: While I shouldn't idealize the difficulty of it, it's excellent for practicing beauty and dousing neurosis. You can spin a word for hours to examine every aspect of it, or spin a poem itself to see if all the parts contribute to the whole and the words pass easily through the mind, yes, like a strand of beads. A mechanic examines a car, a webdesigner a website, the same. But for now, and for probably no good reason, I'm interested in something so many of us agree to do together: the simple, persuasive rosary.

Here's addenda on the Maitreya project and Sinead O'Connor's song lyrics:

World’s largest bronze Buddha taking shape in UK

SHEFFIELD (UK), June 11: The world’s largest bronze statue of Maitreya Buddha, to be installed in Bodhgaya in bihar, is being conceptually "designed and developed" in this steel city with the state-of the art computer facilities.

"The 152.4 metre tall statue in a sitting posture will be a modern-day wonder of the world, three times higher than the statue of liberty," a spokesman of the Casting Development Centre, currently involved in the project, told reporters.

Though from outside it will be the statue of Lord Buddha, from within it will contain several chapels. Visitors will have lift facilities to reach the chapels located at the naval, heart and throat levels, he said.

The statue, scheduled to be completed in January 2005, will be seated on a throne, 17 storeys high, housing a huge temple. The feat of the statue would rest on a lotus, touching the earth and forming the entrance.

The 100-million-pound Maitreya project is currently in the concept development stage. UK firms Mott MacDonald, Whinney Mackay Lewis, Delcam and Castings Development Centre comprise the core international team who have joined leading consultants and contractors in India, including Larsen and Toubro, to build one of the world’s most enduring religious monuments, the spokesman said.

Necessary economic and enviromental impact studies will be undertaken and appropriate design, architecture and technology developed for the construction of the statue, he said.

The spokesman said the Buddha statue will be a colossal feat of modern engineering. The architectural, construction and maintenance challenges posed by the project require the latest skills in a variety of technologies.

Ashley Bateson of the Falcrum Consulting said the huge structure is being structured to withstand high winds, extreme temperature changes, seasonal rains and possible earthquake and floods to last 1,000 years. Griffin said "the Maitreya Project will be linking a 2,000-year-old art tradition to the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art technology available today."

The statue and park will be located in Bodhgaya, the site of the Mahabodhi Stupa, one of the premier pilgrimage site for the world’s buddhists and the ancient Bodhi tree, under which the historical Buddha gained enterainment.

The statue will face the Mahabodhi Stupa and will rise to the height of a 50-storey building. The base, upon which Matreya Buddha sits, will be a magnificent 17-storey building with prayer halls, a museum, exhibition hall, library, audio-visual theature, teaching hall and roof garden.

Forty acres of land has already been acquired for the project. There will also be meditation pavilions, fountains and pools and a playground for children.

Z hospital which will offer western, ayurvedic and tibetan medical treatment is part of the project in addition to a new airport a few kms from the site, the spokesman said.

The lead sponsor of the project is the foundation for the preservation of the Mahayana tradition, an International Buddhist Organisation with more than 100 centres in 30 countries worldwide.

Its founder, late Lama Thubten Yeshe, a Tibetan Lama who devoted his life to spreading Buddha’s teachings worldwide, conceived the project.

At present, Ushiku Statue in Tokyo — 120-metre high —is the tallest Buddhist statue in the world.

Peter Kedge, Director and Chief Executive Officer of Maitreya Project International, said the inward flow of funds the project is bringing to Bodhgaya will transform the economy of Bodhgaya and Bihar tremendously. (PTI), posted on http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/00june12/inter.htm

ALSO, FROM http://sangha.net/messengers/maitreya.htm: Maitreya, in Buddhism, the future Buddha, a Buddha who will be reborn in a period of decline to renew the doctrine of the founder of Buddhism, the Buddha. Maitreya is believed to be a bodhisattva, one who refuses entry into nirvana, a transcendent state free from suffering, out of a compassionate desire to help others. At present, he is believed to reside in Tushita Heaven, where he awaits his rebirth (see Transmigration). Although various calculations exist, this rebirth is expected to occur in 30,000 years. At the moment of his rebirth, Buddhist law will have completely degenerated, requiring a new revelation. After his rebirth, by some accounts, Maitreya will lead all beings still trapped in the cycle of rebirths to nirvana. Others maintain that he will preach for 60,000 years, after which he will enter nirvana and his doctrine will endure for another 10,000 years. His cult first appeared in India around the 3rd century then spread throughout China, Korea, and Japan. The traditions surrounding Maitreya describe him taking on a variety of forms, such as a slothful student, a companion of the Buddha, or a kind tutor. In China, he is revered as a folk deity who wanders the country with a third eye in his back. In addition, Chinese emperors and empresses have claimed to be the incarnation of Maitreya in order to achieve political security. Sometime in the 4th or 5th century, Buddhist monks brought the cult of Maitreya to Korea, where followers established him as a god of fertility who grants infants to barren women and answers the prayers of children. In Japan, celebrated teacher Kukai claimed he was Maitreya when he founded the Shingon (Pure Word) sect of Buddhism in the early 9th century. Maitreya remains one of the few bodhisattvas revered in both Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. Microsoft Encarta 1997.

Lyrics to "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"--Sinead O'Connor:

I'm walking through the desert
And I am not frightened although it's hot
I have all that I requested
And I do not want what I haven't got
I have learned this from my mother
See how happy she has made me
I will take this road much further
Though I know not where it takes me
I have water for my journey
I have bread and I have wine
No longer will I be hungry
For the bread of life is mine
I saw a navy blue bird
Flying way above the sea
I walked on and I learned later
That this navy blue bird was me
I returned a paler blue bird
And this is the advice they gave me
You must not try to be too pure
You must fly closer to the sea
So I'm walking through the desert
And I am not frightened although it's hot
I have all that I requested
And I do not want what I haven't got

Two of my friends (did you want to be named, friends?) made the huge mistake of asking me to blog MORE. The great news is that this means that any future loquaciousness is their fault. But there are now several new blogs.

The title of this entry refers to some underlying discomforts I'm needing to express. Maybe my biggest discomfort is feeling overwhelmed by the spiritual fervor and depth here among people who could so easily feel bitter and disengaged; it challenges me, as I know I could benefit so much from a spiritual practice, and I have none. I'm not talking so much about a devotion to a god or a creative power, but to meditating on morality and goodness each day.

My second biggest discomfort probably comes from reading "Holy Cow," a simple, funny book by an Australian atheist radio broadcaster who initially hates India but finds herself living here for a year, during which she travels and investigates different kinds of religions. It's a good book, but it feels like one long blog that she was clever enough to get published, making me think: this blog's already been written, what is it I've got to add? I don't know; but in fifth grade the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, now famous, then a travelling poet in the San Antonio schools, gave us all a portion of "The Writing Life" to read, by a writer named Annie Dillard whom I would later get to take class with at Wesleyan. And it said (I may be paraphrasing), "You are here to give voice to this: Your own astonishment."

So off I and we go to voice our unique kinds of wonder. But you can overdo it, can't you, you can easily get addicted to astonishment. When I was visiting some NGOs (nongovernmental organizations, a.k.a. nonprofits) in Delhi, I was extremely disappointed to get standard answers to the standard questions (Where do you get your funding? Grants. What's your biggest challenge? Funding.) Perhaps the biggest challenge of our time--finding the money to do good work--and all I could think was: Nothing new here...must move on. You can even play dumb to the facts in order to experience surprise, but I can't think of a good example of that.

Third biggest discomfort: I don't care that my friend Jamie thinks he might be the greatest poet in the world, Tagore's a bore: "Has not the word come to you that the flower is reigning in splendour among thorns? Wake, oh, awaken! Let not the time pass in vain!" So I heed Tagore and move on with great relief to Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo".

Fourth biggest: Trying to decipher the movements of a foreign culture in an unknown language, which is giving me some combination of pause and hives. In lighter moments it reminds me of that Tom Waits song in which you hear loud banging and Tom saying over and over again, "What's he DOING down there?" But more often I feel like an unnecessary anthropologist.

Take, for example, the cuffs on shirtsleeves--and shirtsleeves in general. Most sleeves on traditional Tibetan dress end in cuffs. At the traditional dances that took place for tbe birthday in the Namgyal Temple, the men wore troubador-style jackets, only one shoulder covered, with long sleeves that widen toward the wrist and end in fat 3-inch cuffs. The women generally wore the full chupas most Tibetan women here wear every day. Full chupas are beautiful dresses that I haven't found a good web picture of, so I'm going to try describing them.

My particular admiration for chupas stems from the fact that they admit women frequently have waists and even breasts! (I think the chupa might be controversially feminine to some; for that I apologize for my adoration.) The top of the chupa is sleeveless and completely fitted, and one side crosses over to button on the other, forming a modest v-neck and a fitted waist. At the waist the skirt has several inches of extra material on either side that tie in the back, creating two long folds that drape down and out from the center of the back. The men's skirts do this too. To me it's so elegant on everyone. Chupas are ankle-length. "Half chupas" are the skirts only. If you are married, you also wear an apron that is, curiously and beautifully, always printed in a pattern of multi-colored parallel stripes. The traditional blouse that fits under the chupa has a little collar that goes over the v-neck, and three-quarter sleeves that end in 2-inch cuffs.

In the early dances in these clothes, the women and young girls made supple, rippling arm movements that made their arms look as if they had four or five different segments. If you've ever seen Swan Lake, the movements are reminiscent of the arms of the dying swan, except that in the Tibetan dances they're the exact opposite of desperate and agonized. Instead they're completely peaceful motions in a moderate and unchanging rhythm, as if the arms could move this way forever and the dance could go on forever.

The men's arms moved in right angles, in little enthusiastic marching movements (cheerful, not militaristic). For most of each dance both the men and the women made little shuffling and kicking movements with their feet. Aside from the women's rippling arms the dances looked easy to learn; the dancers maintained upright postures the whole time and the dances look effortless and even casual, as if they were a simple extension of walking.

(The upright postures bemuse the modern dancer in me; clearly no Tibetan Isadora Duncan, wacky founder of modern dance, arrived to maneuver them into forward or backward bends or threw them onto the floor to roll and writhe--although maybe that's only because such moves are reserved for possessed monk oracles, a whole nother story.)

All the while, with no resource to turn to to understand these dances, I continued to observe with care that Tibetans believe sleeves should end in cuffs.

But just as I had concluded that, a new dance troupe came out wearing overly long, cuffless sleeves that passed their fingertips by about a foot. Silliest things I've ever seen. The extra cloth made the dancers resemble unmade beds, or adolescents who couldn't be bothered to roll up their sleeves. Naturally I assumed the dancers would still manage graceful movements, but any gracefulness--if it was still there--was chopped off by these floppy sleeves. My Finnish friend Kyrsie agreed that the dances looked strange and inept to her, and we both thought the Dalai Lama looked sad watching them, as if once these long-sleeved dances had been remarkable but something in the culture had been lost.

But who the hell am I to say. If I ask Tibetans about these dances, I will get five different answers, not because that's how Tibetans are but because, I think, that's how people are. Listen to my impatience! Matt, the lay Buddhist, told me that we should feel grateful for situations that give us the opportunity to practice patience, because otherwise we cannot expect WHEN we will have the opportunity to practice it. By contrast, there are plenty of beggars, so practicing generosity, for example, is easy. But we are lucky if we get to practice patience.

Now about penants, the essence of useless anthropology. Those streamers of penants that line car lots were also--in better material and richer colors--a decoration at His Holiness' birthday celebration. For lack of a good view of the proceedings I observed carefully that after every twenty green triangles, the 21rst would be either red, green, blue, or white. Yesterday I went to a Hindu temple devoted to Shiva the Destroyer (a "Shiva temple" in nearby Bhagsu), and lo and behold it too has penants. In addition to some decaying statues of Hindu gods, typical lovely rows of tinsel and Xmas lights, and numerous many-sized bells for devotees to strike on arrival, from the ceiling hang rows and rows of small, old, fading blue penants whose aged grace make them very pretty, hanging lightly as they do against a pale blue, cracked-paint wall and numerous hung framed and fading images of deities and gurus.

(Regarding the omnipresent bells of Hindu shrines, in a country where blowing your carhorn is as frequent as using your turn signal--no, much much more--the Indians have an interesting relationship to noise. By contrast, Tibetans turn noiseless prayerwheels.) (At the Shiva temple, there's also a fire which a sadhu--man who in the Hindu tradition has renounced everything to become closer to the gods--claimed has been burning for a long, long time, but he couldn't say how long, Lonely Planet doesn't mention it, and few of the Hindu tourists even noticed it. A bunch of sadhus were sleeping around it, and it was just some smoking logs, but in a very, very old room. It's so nice when things are old that I would have looked longer except that I found the main sadhu suspect.)

So there is general agreement that penants are festive. But when did they come from India to grace used car lots, or was it the reverse? My punchiness could be due to the fact that the town is so touristy it's making me feel less sharp. In fact--and this has been in many ways very interesting--my experience has been more about the many tourists I've met from Brazil, Israel, Finland, Australia, South Africa, England, Germany, Switzerland, France--a surprising mix in such a small town.

I wish I could study religious costume across the world, I would certainly call my study "Wearing Religion on Your Sleeve." By which I am really referring to the array of public displays of religion across India, so different from our either more discrete, or more insidious, little crucifix pendants or stars of David. Here you might have a red dab on your third eye indicating you've completed your Hindu puja for the day; if you're Sikh your uncut hair is necessarily swathed in a turban; so many other examples. When I first arrived, I found myself laughing at America's claim to be a melting pot; I don't blame America for it, it was a probably needed message to avoid riots as our immigrant ancestors moved in, but I didn't predict the extent of India's pluralism--how visible it is, and how much, despite outbreaks of violence, people live not only in harmony but partaking in and respecting each other's customs. India's pluralism should be more renowned than it is, and there is so much interesting cross-pollination of religious practices (some of which was of course utilized as a method of conversion). And elsewhere India's religious expression is so gloriously public; for instance, one of the op-eds in the Times of India is always gracefully spiritual.

But there's also--arguably--a sleeve thing. In India most salwars (tunics worn with loose pants and a long dupatta, or scarf) have short or long-sleeves although you often buy them sleeveless, with attachable short sleeves, that most women attach despite how much cooler it is without. In Kashmir, where all Muslim women wear long sleeves, I wore a sleeveless salwar regularly until a leering young man told me I had "nice sleeves".

In either case the salwars are almost never worn without the knee-length dupatta (scarf), which is typically draped over the front to hide the chest, although it often enough rides up or is draped higher to hide the collar bones, where it still manages to look chaste. But please. One day, one of Tasleema's cousins was helping Tasleema wash clothes in the lake. This cousin, name forgotten, has a wildly beautiful face and glowing greenbrown eyes. She had her dupatta off as she was roughing it in the back of the houseboat when a male cousin called her name and she started to go to him, paused, gracefully turned and took her dupatta from the clothesline to drape it backwards over her perfect collarbones, then turned back and hastened out. I cannot yet tell my Indian friends that at that moment it reminded me of a noose. A Western man's business tie has a similar connotation, except that he wears it less frequently.

Meanwhile, I cannot get it in my head that the sari, a frequent alternative to the salwar in India, is considered conservative, as, although it hides the upper arms, it hugs the body and bares your midriff, right? I thought I'd see business suits in Delhi, but the woman's business attire is generally either salwar or sari. I've also lost my former fascination with the sari--it seems too complicated a method of attire.

But let us close with the beautiful Tibetan fashion. I feel like asserting that the Tibetans have the greatest fashion sense in the world (to the limited extent that I've seen the world) with the monk's attire particularly "dialed" (a word I've heard graphic designers say to mean "perfected as though tuned with precision to exactly the right station"). How did they determine so precisely the colors of God, by which I mean, how did they know that that wine and that bright yellow-orange, the warmest richest colors one can imagine, could endure centuries of wear, and how did they determine how noble it appears to cover only one shoulder with the outer robe? How did they realize how much better and happier both men and women look in long skirts? And when did they realize to be sure to have a tank top underneath in that exact orange-yellow? And where do they find them? (I saw one monk's tanktop that was the right color but screenprinted with "Armani".)

Postscript: According to the Isadora Duncan Foundation (http://www.isadoraduncan.org/about_isadora.html), Isadora directed several dance schools throughout her career. She said, “To dance is to live. What I want is a school of life.” The website adds: "Isadora Duncan died as dramatically as she had lived, when her long trailing scarf was entangled in the spokes of a wheel of a new Bugatti sports car." I'll bet hard money that many women riding scooters in their dupattas have met a similar fate.

Halloo. There are two new entries. Also, while keeping in mind that I've dated no one here, read the comments to "Well You Can Tell By the Way I Use My Walk" (by clicking on "8 comments") if you're one of those people who "love Michele" and want to crack up.

Per the comments of my family in the blog on Tibetan medicine, I definitely meant the fish turtle and pig develop over a period of weeks and not months. Also I meant not Mahayan but "Mahayana", see below if you want to know as much as I do about Mahayana Buddhism. Finally, speaking of conception, I did go back to the museum so I was able to record that "the course of conception is a fusion of the father's semen and mother's uterine blood with the consciousness of the intermediate state (Bardo) driven by its own past actions". On the Human Embryology tangka that showed the stages of the zygoteembryofetus fishturtlepig, there was an awesome little picture--one of the very earliest stages of course--of a man and a woman lying on top of each other in a little bed and a tiny man in a cloud (the conciousness of the Bardo) hovering above them involved in the proceedings.

Mahayana, says the internet, is a specific kind of Buddhism probably begun in the 1rst century BCE in northwest India. "Some of the areas in which it is practiced are China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan." Avalokiteshvara, the deity of compassion of whom the Dalai Lama is a manifestation, is a figure of Mahayana Buddhism and especially important in Tibetan Buddhism (for more on her see http://www.pilates-move.com/articles/Avaloketishvara). "The way of the Mahayana, in contrast with to the more conservative and austere Theravada school of Buddhism, can be characterized by:

* Universalism, according to which every individual is endowed with Buddha nature.
* Enlightened wisdom, as the main focus of realization.
* Compassion through the transferral of merit.
* Salvation, supported by a rich cosmography, including celestial realms and powers, with a spectrum of Bodhisattvas, both human and seemingly godlike, who can assist believers.

“Philosophical Mahayana” tends to focus on the first three characteristics (Universality, enlightened wisdom, compassion) without showing much interest for supernatural constructions, while “Devotional Mahayana” mainly focuses on salvation towards other-worldly realms." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana)

Finally, from a list someone has compiled of the best definitions of namaste at http://www.mlmgorilla.com/namaste/:

I honor the place in you
in which the entire Universe dwells,

I honor the place in you
which is of Love, of Truth, of Light and of Peace,

When you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me,
we are One.

It's been hard to think about how to talk about His Holiness the Dalai Lama's birthday proceedings, which were a disorienting mix of being basely upset at not getting a good seat, and being in the presence of the closest thing I can imagine to divinity on earth. The temple (the Namgyal Temple) in which the celebrations were held is open-air; though tarps were hung for cover many people did not fit under the tarps. It poured intensely all day both days, making everyone sick.

These were the first days this summer, I think, and definitely since I had been here, that it poured so intensely and for so long, which made it odd since everyone had been looking forward to these days for so long. Supposedly rain on a special day is auspicious (so, yes, good to have a special day during the monsoon). A huge water pipe broke and the town had no water. Roads closed to the next two major destinations tourists go--Manali and Leh.

The first day of the celebrations, June 6, a Finnish friend Kyrsie and I saw the Dalai Lama over one of the temple's many scattered video screens for a while and watched him accept the gift of two books, which he flipped through with studious interest as his devotees watched in awe. We then were able to get into a slightly better position to watch a series of celebratory traditional dances (described more in a future blog).

That night I met for the first time a Buddhist layman, Matt, who is devoting himself for the next four years to a course on Buddhism for the lay practicioner in Nepal. In the meanwhile he and his teachers are designing a practice for him which currently involves reciting the names of 42 Buddhist deities while prostrating between 300 and 800 times a day. If I recall he was a money manager before and through 9/11, but 9/11 made him evaluate what mattered, and he decided, after some searching, that practicing Buddhism and learning Tibetan (in part to translate Buddhist texts) would be good. He told me the next day at the temple the DL would lead a puja, or prayer service, and receive a series of offerings from the community. He recommended I get to the temple by 7am the next day for a good seat.

I did, and was very proud until I realized I was in the wrong place; the Dalai Lama was inside and I was out. Meanwhile I had been saving two seats for my friends who didn't show--luckily, since the seats seemed so poor. What I could see were the lines of hundreds waiting with their offerings: long, orange-cloth-wrapped rectangular bricks containing copies of scriptures; sacks of grain; potted plants; little gold statues of Buddha and Buddhist deities; and many other items. I think I would have gotten him a toothbrush and toiletries, since these always run out. I left sick and frustrated (it's particularly disgruntling to be frustrated when you're in the presence of the Dalai Lama AND on the vacation of your life), got breakfast and coffee, came back and, after hanging out, began to feel a rush of joy and wonder at the amount of reverence there, and at the faces of the many ancient and sturdy Tibetans who had made the journey from "neighboring" (2-day busride) towns. There was a particularly fascinating man with stylish modern glasses, a fedora, long hair, a twirled moustache and a troubadour jacket; someone explained to me that he was a freedom fighter from Nepal.

Then the Dalai Lama came to sit outside to watch some more traditional dancing, and I was able to see him with the help of two generous Tibetans nearby me, one a young man who patiently pointed the DL out to me through a peephole formed by people's shoulders and umbrellas, and, when I still couldn't see him, wasn't satisfied till I could; the other a very old man who was delighted when he saw that I was standing on tiptoes to look through an opening the size of a penny. Finally the rain lightened and the crowd reluctantly folded their umbrellas, then with further reluctance agreed to sit, and the dance floor was revealed to us. A white lion creature as I think one sees at Chinese New Years, made of a costume shared by two people, came out along with a wild white-dressed crazy deity who danced around in the weirdest and silliest way he could. Then a black lion creature came out. Then there was traditional Tibetan dancing.

The next day I ran into Matt at breakfast. I told him I'd been disgruntled at the poor seat I'd gotten in the morning. He had been sitting in the same place and watching the offerings, but he had been very happy about it. He said that there was a great deal you could do with the offerings; for example, you could meditate on imagining the offerings increasing infinitely to fill the world with goodness and plenty. And etc.

The birthday celebrations were largely untranslated and informationless, making the real, surprising joy of looking at His Holiness perhaps that much more appreciated. There's a Krishnamurti quote that when people lose contact with nature, then mosques and temples become important. It is easy to imagine that the Dalai Lama sits above both nature and temple, watching. The peak of the proceedings, I think even for those who are or speak Tibetan, is really just looking at His Holiness, who really does seem to emanate goodness. If you're lucky, you have enough time to look at him to wonder if you're just imagining how much goodness he is, or if you're projecting it, or the like, and enough time to come around to determining that he really is this good.

A part of voicing this gets stuck in my throat because it is the way people talk about some gurus that others mock--Sai Baba, for example...but there's a photo exhibit up for the Dalai Lama's birthday about both him and Gandhi, comparing the two icons of nonviolence. The exhibit includes a series of photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with an assortment of world leaders. We see him smiling with Prince Charles, smiling with Mandela, smiling with the elder George Bush. Frequently his hands are together in the position of prayer before them. Needless to say he is, in the words of Yeats, "a smiling public man"; but so is John Travolta, and I can't imagine John Travolta, who always seems so nice, manifesting so much goodness in a single bow.

Anyway, we see him smiling with his hands together before Clinton, and his bow has the energy of the Hindu greeting "namaste"--which means something like, "the divine in me bows to the divine in you." The Dalai Lama looks as if he is paying true homage to the divine in Clinton, not to his power or of course any of the sketchy stuff but truly his divinity. And then there's a picture of the Dalai Lama sitting in a chair next to the younger George Bush. Whose legs are sprawled, his torso pushed back and away from the D.L. as if taking in this peculiarly good monkey from a safe distance. And there's the Dalai Lama, his own body pulled slightly back as if in fear, his hands pressed hard together in prayer, but not to Bush, no, rather as if praying urgently that the world might be saved despite him. The photo's a rare instance in which His Holiness is not smiling.

Matt (Just a Friend) was with me and I asked him to react to the photo. He had nothing to say, maybe because compassion is his only option. But it was astonishing, I know it was.

Lately whenever I have to take long walk I try to remember any of the other words to "Stayin' Alive," so I finally just googled them. The song has been in my head since Kashmiri Rafiq told me a few weeks back that the Indian army used to pick on people who walk with a swagger. He walks with a swagger, so they picked on him. It's funny that he knows he walks with a swagger. So far I've been repeating the only two lines I know while trying to pass as many monks, nuns, pedestrians, shopkeepers, begging people, dogs and cattle as I can. Since wearing any kind of walkman has felt odd everywhere except Delhi, I am hoping knowing the additional lyrics will keep me good company.

Today the long walk was to the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, about twenty-five minutes downhill from my guesthouse, on the same road, and forty minutes back up. There are many things to see in that area: The seven main departments of the government are there, including the Department of Home. There's a library of ancient and recent Tibetan literature; a beautiful, perfectly preserved little gompa that I took many blurry photos of; a museum of Tibetan medicine; and a cultural museum with artifacts rescued from Tibet and also the first butter sculpture I'd seen, an incredible model of "His Holiness the Fifth Dalai Lama...and the Red Palace of the Potala". The butter's soft texture makes the palace extremely light and heavenly looking, and the rendition is cartoonish but not mocking: the little Dalai Lama sits right at the top of the building, with an exaggeratedly heart-shaped face, pointy chin, pursed lips and an overly large moustache. Above the palace sit puffy white clouds with, if I remember right, a border of yellow and around that a border of pink. They are held up by sticks but because of the softness of the medium look as if they're floating.

The museum also has several statues of Avalokitishvara, the "eleven-headed, eight-armed deity of compassion." (I think I've seen other representations of her with thousands of arms? Karin, Michele?) Nine of her heads are identical--identical earrings and crowns with exactly the same number of stones, but the tenth one, right on top, is a vicious looking lion-deity (anyone know who he is?), and then right above that is the littlest head, of Buddha. The Dalai Lama is believed to be the emanation of Avalokitishvara.

I went to two of the Dalai Lama's 10 days of teachings, during which he reads from a text written by previous lamas. (As I understand he gives teachings here two times a year, but this is a special year because he is not always here for his birthday on July 6, and it's his seventieth so the celebration is supposed to be great.) Everyone I know was finding the English translation, which you can only hear by bringing a radio, very hard to follow, in part because (1) many people like me don't have the English version of the text he's reading from, (2) the Dalai Lama reads very, very fast, so the translator also speaks fast as well as awkwardly, (3) b/c the Dalai Lama's voice is being broadcast over loudspeakers through the whole temple, it is very hard to concentrate on the English, (4) it helps to know much more about Buddhism than I do. But a Tibetan man explained to me today that the readings are very hard for the locals to follow as well, both because the Dalai Lama is reading so quickly and because the information and language are getting progressively harder (there are three stages of complexity and the Dalai Lama is going through all three). This man said the meaning is much more in the simple fact that the Dalai Lama is reading the text; when the attendees go back to study the text at home, the fact that they have experienced it through him will make the lessons go deeply into them "without interference".

The night before I went to the teachings I saw "Cry of the Snow Lion" with some fellow travellers; it was very very good, and described the history of Tibet's struggle, and how much the Tibetans owe their commitment to nonviolence to the 14th (the current) Dalai Lama. It also talked a lot about the Chinese kidnapping of the last two Panchen Lamas, the little boys selected one after the other to learn become the next Dalai Lama, and how the Chinese will not say whether the latest one and his family are alive or dead. What especially surprised me is how the Chinese have selected their OWN Panchen Lama and are training him. And the movie showed footage of the happy, elaborately dressed, spoilt-looking little boy smiling with government officials.

The first time I went to the teaching it was just really moving to see the Dalai Lama and the infinite reverence all around. When he passed through the area we were sitting in, most people faced toward him and put our hands together in prayer (although many say Buddhists don't "pray" since there's no supreme God in Buddhism). It was the first time I can think of that I performed an act of someone else's religion not merely out of respect. With the depth of emotion all around and in me, it felt like the posture my body should take before him. And then, once the teachings began, to see all the faces, young and old, refugees spinning prayer wheels or praying devoutly, some following the text, some not at all but staring off and running rosaries through their fingers the entire time. When he first arrived, most people, including the oldest and most frail, performed the bow in which they put palms together overhead, then to forehead, then to mouth, then chest, then get down on knees on the cement and prostrate, then get up and do it again.

The man who led me and some others to the temple is 23; when he was 19 he ran away from his family in Tibet because someone there had told him just a very little about the Tibetan culture and the Dalai Lama; his source was not even supposed to tell him that much, but the boy wanted to learn more, so he stole money from his family and joined a group and a guide who helped them cross to India. Only once he got here did he call his family to tell them where he was, and that he was okay. When he arrived he went to the free two-year school for adults, created by the Dalai Lama, in which they learn English and Tibetan, so his English is just four-years old though I thought it was quite good. He had a restaurant job here but quit it in order to be able to go to the teachings; he hopes he'll be able to find another job, though he's concerned because there is so much competition.

Most non-Tibetan people I've met didn't go to the teachings after their first experience; I went back just once more, today, to listen to the chanting that happens right before and is really loud and echoing. Then the teaching started, and a Tibetan nun next to me introduced herself; she is Brazilian and says she is Brazil's only Tibetan nun, and that this is hard for many reasons, particularly the cost of the visa. While we were talking, I noticed that while most monks of different ages around us were following the text, two monks, perhaps 18-years-old, were playing tic-tac-toe to my right. I mentioned it to the Brazilian nun, who, although she was just chatting with me and herself not listening to the teachings, scowled and said that many monks become such because their families know it will be a better life for them; otherwise they have no motivation.

(And now it's all right. It's OK.
And you may look the other way.
We can try
to understand
the New York Times' effect on man.)

I knew it would make me look like a very, very bad tourist, but first of all, the monks sooo started it, second, the locals here see so many diverse Westerners that I didn't worry that I was making an impression for all the USA, and finally it just seemed that there couldn't be a more life-affirming form of communication for two people who don't share a language than tic-tac-toe.

So once the monks finished playing, I went to initiate a game with one of them and he was really happy about it, only tucking the paper away when some devout locals passed; but then he taught me a game you play where you draw a little grid that includes three points marked "toilet", and you have to make the other man's pieces end up at these three points. Even I was taken aback that this was the game I was learning. Meanwhile an earnest young man who sounded German leaned over to me and said something like, "Are you sure this is really the time to be doing this?", and I said, "I'll be right there," finished learning the game and then did get up and write a nice note of apology to the German boy. He, meanwhile, appeared to be realizing that the English translation was simply unbearable to follow; he was flipping through his own English text trying to find where they were (I don't even know that the translator was working off an English translation). I watched him finally stop flipping, attempt to listen to his earphones diligently, then take them off and look very glum. It really was frustrating.

Then I went to a new small political museum that describes very simply and effectively what the Tibetans have gone through.

Nearby is a museum of Tibetan medicine that I need to get more time in, but it included many ancient, still studied medical texts, including one known as "Diamond Cutter", or "Perfection of Wisdom Sutra". According to the inscription, in Tibet every family has one and many people recite it every day. "It is one of the shortest and earliest Mahayan texts on the Perfection of Wisdom...In short it contains the gist of the second wheel of Dharma."

There were also several paintings that appeared to be comparing the body of a man to that of a building; for instance, an image of the lungs was juxtaposed with an image of a slatted wood building, and a man's lingam was drawn and elongated to turn into the water drain at the top of a home. The caption clarified that the painting is "suggesting a comparison between a human being sitting upright in a crosslegged posture with the arms dangling loosely by the side and the palace of a universal emperor".

The museum also explained that a fetus passes through three stages, the Stage of the Fish (5--9 mos), the Stage of the Turtle (10-17 mos.) and the Stage of the Pig (18-35 mos), so called because at this point in feeds on "unclean residue." I am telling this mostly for my Dad, an OB-Gyn.

The museum had examples of many different medical tools including an eye press, meant to "immobilize the blood vessels around the eyes before bloodletting."

Dharamsala is a crazy place in a lot of ways: It was the first Tibetan refugee settlement, with the Dalai Lama initiating the flight and setting up his government in exile here, and India gave them the place because there had just been an earthquake here so it seemed like undesirable property. But they came with their lovingkindness and much loved Buddhism and now it is now one of the tremendous tourist destinations.

HA!

The Tibetan people here do not seem to have the same rigidity with regard to dress and behavior as their Indian counterparts, and men and women have much, much more equal status. The Tibetan attire (though many wear Western wear) is beautiful and stately and I could write way too much about it. The Tibetan culture combined with the huge amount of Western tourists makes the place very homey for Westerners. You can show your knees and feel comfortable about it, walk around a hippie, get reiki or study yoga, and then there's the Tibetans' own commitment to massage and to astrology. There's a huge Israeli contingent here and a little town where many restaurants serve Israeli food. There's also Japanese, Italian, and Thai in this little town, and a wide assortment of movies shown in tiny theaters every night--Ray, Amelie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, many Tibetan documentaries, and like that.

Tomorrow I hope will be a big hike or else a visit again to the little but fascinating Tibetan museum. It will make at least one of you feel better to know I'm reading Gitanjali, a series of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore that won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Yeats praised it highly but it more appears to have influenced Whitman:

"I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards."

Also: "O fool, to try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come to beg at thy own door!"

(In the fool's defense, whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, you're staying alive, staying alive.)