Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Vipassana - don't try this at home (you'll never succeed)
Some of the ensuing words went round and round in my head for the entire ten days of silence. I'm not sure I should admit that one of my predominant, but unexpected preoccupations whilst undergoing a “massive surgical operation of the mind” was this bloody blog. It does feel strange, and perhaps very mildly exhilarating, to post mildly personal and detailed information on the internet, for anyone to see (by anyone I mean nearly no one). I guess any sort of publishing is similar though. There may be figures, approximations, predictions, but there is little live audience participation.
So, Vipassana... It was like prison, with a bit less freedom. We didn't exactly have bars on our cell window, but it was covered in an insect layer- I certainly couldn't escape that way. It was a third-world prison – we found four scorpions in the room as well as countless muscular, hairy spiders. Having solemnly agreed to kill no beings whilst incarcerated, stamping was clearly inadmissible.
This prison was also self-imposed. There were no big fences around the perimeter, just colourfully-decorated pieces of flint placed underneath the washing-line delimitation, saying “Course Boundary”. The multitude of signs advising on lavatory etiquette and the like all ended with a jolly emoticon and the simple reminder to “be happy”. Men and women were entirely segregated – the only time I saw a man up close was through the blue curtain separating our respective canteens.
The guards were baboons, definitely with third-world prison mentalities: no qualms about violence, stealing from inmates and generally instilling a high level of fear. On the walk up to the centre, I had already feared for my life, on sight of what I termed the Himalayan Silverback, huge grey and black monkeys, swinging and running through the forest. They look as big as gorillas when you are lost, alone on a mountain- the shortcut given to me by a lone passing motorcyclist had not quite worked. Within the prison, the baboons only chased me once, hissing and squealing with bared teeth. I managed to sprint faster than them long enough to gain refuge inside the scorpion nest. I suddenly felt very grateful for that insect layer over the windows, since the monkeys were still trying to attack me from outside. The adrenaline was not particularly helpful to that afternoon’s seven hours of sitting still. Prior to that, I had naively found them adorable. One even gave birth in our bathroom. That wasn’t quite so cute. You might be able to imagine a post-labour baboon from behind? I won’t elaborate further.
One thing I could not complain about was the standard of the food (though only two real meals a day). Sprouted mung beans for breakfast, YUM (and I mean it), the occasional chocolate ball and tropical fruit, etc...
I had felt very optimistic. On the day of registration, when we were still allowed to talk and drink chai and eat cookies, I thought, yes, I’ll definitely set time aside each year to leave the world for ten days, suspend all attachments, find satisfaction in my own mind. The envisaged manageable yet enlightening epiphanies did not materialize. Overwhelming waves of anger arrived first, following the first fifteen hours of meditation, after which I enjoyed two days of respite from my brain, but on day seven, well, then deep insanity erupted, a natural disaster of the mind, unstoppable, and probably unavoidable. There was no controlling those thoughts anymore, no peace, no escape, no sitting still. The physical pain from sitting on a cushion on the floor for twelve hours a day became inconsequential, it was the mind which was impatient, controlling, rebellious, competitive, jealous, wild.
I am a sloucher with a manic mind. My experience, though difficult in many ways, was really equally rewarding, even if I don’t know exactly how yet. Ok, so I didn’t turn out exactly how I would have liked, the revelations were not correctly punctuated, but everything that surfaced was already there somewhere. And as with all challenges, completion brought an immense sense of pleasure, and maybe a tinge of relief.
There are many, many Vipassana centres around the world, all offering free residential courses to anybody willing to commit. It is not a cult, nor is it in any way dogmatic, in fact Goenkaji himself deems blind devotion one of our biggest enemies. Intellectually I found it very interesting. This is not the point of course, but I think all amateur quantum physicists out there should attend a course. The technique is actually scientific in its nature, but designed to be used at the experiential physical level, which is really the only way for us to truly open our minds. This was the meditation employed by Gotama Buddha, 2500 years ago. He started at age five or six, became enlightened at thirty-five, and then dedicated his life to the eradication of misery in the population of India. My misery has not quite been eradicated, yet, but, errr, watch this space.
So, Vipassana... It was like prison, with a bit less freedom. We didn't exactly have bars on our cell window, but it was covered in an insect layer- I certainly couldn't escape that way. It was a third-world prison – we found four scorpions in the room as well as countless muscular, hairy spiders. Having solemnly agreed to kill no beings whilst incarcerated, stamping was clearly inadmissible.
This prison was also self-imposed. There were no big fences around the perimeter, just colourfully-decorated pieces of flint placed underneath the washing-line delimitation, saying “Course Boundary”. The multitude of signs advising on lavatory etiquette and the like all ended with a jolly emoticon and the simple reminder to “be happy”. Men and women were entirely segregated – the only time I saw a man up close was through the blue curtain separating our respective canteens.
The guards were baboons, definitely with third-world prison mentalities: no qualms about violence, stealing from inmates and generally instilling a high level of fear. On the walk up to the centre, I had already feared for my life, on sight of what I termed the Himalayan Silverback, huge grey and black monkeys, swinging and running through the forest. They look as big as gorillas when you are lost, alone on a mountain- the shortcut given to me by a lone passing motorcyclist had not quite worked. Within the prison, the baboons only chased me once, hissing and squealing with bared teeth. I managed to sprint faster than them long enough to gain refuge inside the scorpion nest. I suddenly felt very grateful for that insect layer over the windows, since the monkeys were still trying to attack me from outside. The adrenaline was not particularly helpful to that afternoon’s seven hours of sitting still. Prior to that, I had naively found them adorable. One even gave birth in our bathroom. That wasn’t quite so cute. You might be able to imagine a post-labour baboon from behind? I won’t elaborate further.
One thing I could not complain about was the standard of the food (though only two real meals a day). Sprouted mung beans for breakfast, YUM (and I mean it), the occasional chocolate ball and tropical fruit, etc...
I had felt very optimistic. On the day of registration, when we were still allowed to talk and drink chai and eat cookies, I thought, yes, I’ll definitely set time aside each year to leave the world for ten days, suspend all attachments, find satisfaction in my own mind. The envisaged manageable yet enlightening epiphanies did not materialize. Overwhelming waves of anger arrived first, following the first fifteen hours of meditation, after which I enjoyed two days of respite from my brain, but on day seven, well, then deep insanity erupted, a natural disaster of the mind, unstoppable, and probably unavoidable. There was no controlling those thoughts anymore, no peace, no escape, no sitting still. The physical pain from sitting on a cushion on the floor for twelve hours a day became inconsequential, it was the mind which was impatient, controlling, rebellious, competitive, jealous, wild.
I am a sloucher with a manic mind. My experience, though difficult in many ways, was really equally rewarding, even if I don’t know exactly how yet. Ok, so I didn’t turn out exactly how I would have liked, the revelations were not correctly punctuated, but everything that surfaced was already there somewhere. And as with all challenges, completion brought an immense sense of pleasure, and maybe a tinge of relief.
There are many, many Vipassana centres around the world, all offering free residential courses to anybody willing to commit. It is not a cult, nor is it in any way dogmatic, in fact Goenkaji himself deems blind devotion one of our biggest enemies. Intellectually I found it very interesting. This is not the point of course, but I think all amateur quantum physicists out there should attend a course. The technique is actually scientific in its nature, but designed to be used at the experiential physical level, which is really the only way for us to truly open our minds. This was the meditation employed by Gotama Buddha, 2500 years ago. He started at age five or six, became enlightened at thirty-five, and then dedicated his life to the eradication of misery in the population of India. My misery has not quite been eradicated, yet, but, errr, watch this space.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Today: keepin' it simple
Mangoes for breakfast
Momos for lunch
"The taste for the spontaneous, natural, lifelike snapshot kills spontaneity, drives away the present. Photographed reality immediately takes on a nostalgic character, of joy fled on the wings of time, a commemorative character, even if the picture was taken the day before yesterday. And the life that you live in order to photograph it is already, at the outset, a commemoration of itself." Italo Calvino
Mangoes for breakfast
Momos for lunch
"The taste for the spontaneous, natural, lifelike snapshot kills spontaneity, drives away the present. Photographed reality immediately takes on a nostalgic character, of joy fled on the wings of time, a commemorative character, even if the picture was taken the day before yesterday. And the life that you live in order to photograph it is already, at the outset, a commemoration of itself." Italo Calvino
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
In India it takes approximately five men to do one man’s job, five more to overlook the process and a further five men to comment loudly on it all. Pretty convenient considering its ever-swelling population, or perhaps it’s an evolutionary trait. Did they start off with just two men to work, two to watch and two to scream about it? It’s quite difficult for me to imagine such a slick set-up since I first travelled to India in just 2003. Maybe we should invite a couple of local employment experts over to Europe to advise.
It even took me two days to get on a bus – I missed it on the first day. I did try to get on it but was refused access; mine was apparently the next one. Four hours later, after asking five different men, at five different times, and getting the same response each time – delay delay, wait wait – five men working together managed to work out that my bus had indeed departed four hours earlier (only one hour late).
48 hours and my fingers are already yellowing. Thankfully this is not because I’ve started smoking again, despite how attractive diazepam-loaded (and clear-skinned?) backpacker couples may seem to make it. Exaggeration aside, it is only the fingers of my right hand which have so far got it on with the dhal. The only time my left hand has touched food is to help rip a tough chapatti.
It’s very difficult to decipher one’s effect on Indian men. I answer the stereotypical questions honestly:
“Which country?”
“UK”
“Ahh, very beautiful country. You marriage?”
“No”
“Ohhh, you age?”
“25”
“Yes yes, you parents?”
“Yes”
“Ohhh, ahhh…”
One thing is for certain, the nudist couple on the front of my Calvino book, who have solicited much guffawing, are not doing much for my reputation.
I’m already the local nutter magnet. A deaf and squealing young waiter from the opposite restaurant firstly proffered his dangling, tikka’d and fried chicken legs, followed by his skinny but taut biceps, followed by his self-harm-scar-covered forearm. For his final serenade, he wrote “I love you” on his dirty palm (pictorial evidence to follow soon).
There is so much idiocy in India, so many ridiculous things I could choose to write about, so many orthographical faux-pas’, so much wildlife, man-love, life, death, but apparently “Delhi police wish you all a bright future.” There are also giant LED countdowns for traffic lights (I might suggest this to Boris – the potential relief from that blind impatience is palpable).
Travelling alone in foreign countries is brilliant, until something goes wrong and then it feels devastatingly abominable. In India, solitude is therefore a continuous roller-coaster. So far seemingly a productive roller-coaster… No postcards yet, but perhaps blogs are the postcards of the future. After all they are nearly free, accessible to nearly all (my grandmother is my only exception), and have the capacity to contain far more platitudes, useless information and bad photographs, and good photographs naturally (see above at some point in the future, perhaps). I thought I may as well make this a long one, seeing as my 10 days of voluntary silence are imminent, and you never know, they may well eliminate this egocentric desire to spread some sort of seed.
It was a noisy, bumpy bus journey from Delhi last night (though the man next to me was the most polite and subservient bald and toothless person I have ever sat next to – a Buddhist monk from the Tibetan refugee camp in Delhi – we almost spooned for a while) – please excuse any insanity. A bientot, peut-etre.
It even took me two days to get on a bus – I missed it on the first day. I did try to get on it but was refused access; mine was apparently the next one. Four hours later, after asking five different men, at five different times, and getting the same response each time – delay delay, wait wait – five men working together managed to work out that my bus had indeed departed four hours earlier (only one hour late).
48 hours and my fingers are already yellowing. Thankfully this is not because I’ve started smoking again, despite how attractive diazepam-loaded (and clear-skinned?) backpacker couples may seem to make it. Exaggeration aside, it is only the fingers of my right hand which have so far got it on with the dhal. The only time my left hand has touched food is to help rip a tough chapatti.
It’s very difficult to decipher one’s effect on Indian men. I answer the stereotypical questions honestly:
“Which country?”
“UK”
“Ahh, very beautiful country. You marriage?”
“No”
“Ohhh, you age?”
“25”
“Yes yes, you parents?”
“Yes”
“Ohhh, ahhh…”
One thing is for certain, the nudist couple on the front of my Calvino book, who have solicited much guffawing, are not doing much for my reputation.
I’m already the local nutter magnet. A deaf and squealing young waiter from the opposite restaurant firstly proffered his dangling, tikka’d and fried chicken legs, followed by his skinny but taut biceps, followed by his self-harm-scar-covered forearm. For his final serenade, he wrote “I love you” on his dirty palm (pictorial evidence to follow soon).
There is so much idiocy in India, so many ridiculous things I could choose to write about, so many orthographical faux-pas’, so much wildlife, man-love, life, death, but apparently “Delhi police wish you all a bright future.” There are also giant LED countdowns for traffic lights (I might suggest this to Boris – the potential relief from that blind impatience is palpable).
Travelling alone in foreign countries is brilliant, until something goes wrong and then it feels devastatingly abominable. In India, solitude is therefore a continuous roller-coaster. So far seemingly a productive roller-coaster… No postcards yet, but perhaps blogs are the postcards of the future. After all they are nearly free, accessible to nearly all (my grandmother is my only exception), and have the capacity to contain far more platitudes, useless information and bad photographs, and good photographs naturally (see above at some point in the future, perhaps). I thought I may as well make this a long one, seeing as my 10 days of voluntary silence are imminent, and you never know, they may well eliminate this egocentric desire to spread some sort of seed.
It was a noisy, bumpy bus journey from Delhi last night (though the man next to me was the most polite and subservient bald and toothless person I have ever sat next to – a Buddhist monk from the Tibetan refugee camp in Delhi – we almost spooned for a while) – please excuse any insanity. A bientot, peut-etre.
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