Thursday, June 30, 2005

Namaste

Hello,

well it’s been a while. I am sorry for the long gap but as you may imagine things have been pretty busy!

I arrived with little hassle into the pre monsoon heat of Delhi (45 Celsius at 7pm at night!) that’s more than 113 Fahrenheit for my North Atlantic friends.

Due to the heat I spent my day there hiding in the hotel and paid for an extra nights so I could stay right through till the bus left at 6.30pm I was pretty nervous about taking the bus by myself, I had some really bad experiences last time I was in India but luckily it was very uneventful and I was surrounded by a family of a lady, her children and niece so I just stuck with them for the whole journey!

As soon as I got to the nunnery I got to work, I hate being new and not knowing what is going on. And more recently I have been attending a 10 day teaching given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his monastery Namgayl in McLeod Ganj. It’s really tiring spending the whole day sitting on the concrete trying to listen to the interpreter on the radio going at a hundred miles an hour. But really I shouldn't complain!

I don't know what to write really, I don't want this blog to be a journal I want it to be about dharma and yet I thought I should probably give an update about my situation because its been a quite a journey so far. I had a really funny dream a few nights ago where someone drove me back to my old house and I said I don't live here anymore, I've moved. But I couldn't remember where I'd move to. For the life of me I couldn't remember where I lived so I just spent the night on the couch in my old house. It was a weird dream but no interpretations are necessary!

I think I already spoke a lot about identity and how I felt that most of identity was formed around my home and environment. When I didn't have a home I felt like I had no identity. If you’re not sure what I'm talking about check the last blog!

Anyway the moral of the story is trying to make an internal realization of emptiness. Buddhism and emptiness: the worst translation in religion! What I'm talking about again is the whole idea that we lack and inherent, unchanging, permanent existence. I've read many books and could sit here and talk about why in reality we are always changing and never the same but it would all be a very intellectual understanding.

The tricky bit about Buddhism is reaching a deeper understanding and acceptance, like its not some theory you have to convince yourself about it just is. So in a way all this moving around has been really good because all my stuff is gone and I keep changing homes and lifestyles and I can see how I really do change everyday and as long as I'm able to give up the person I was yesterday then I will be able to let go a bit.

The important bit is ... how is this going to make me a happier person? Yesterday the Dalai Lama said that if you practice Buddhism and are not getting happier you’re doing it wrong!! So I guess coming to see that you are always changing and never the same makes you happier because you can really relax.

I mentioned in my last blog the quote from the very first verse of the Dhammapada.

"what we are today is because of our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow; our life is the creation of our minds."

When we let go of ourselves and see that we are always different, then we can be happier and more relaxed as we don’t need to hold on to the hang ups that we seem to get so caught up in. For example you go out to a restaurant and someone orders fish and I really hate fish and they offer to let me try it but I won’t because I hate fish. If I think to myself well, Erin from yesterday hates fish, maybe today I'll like it and then I try some. If it’s good I've just gained a new experience, if not I just wont order it. I know this is a lame example but I hope you get my drift. It’s like if you get really hung up on yesterday you never get to enjoy today.

So many people I know get to this sad stage where they keep going to the bars they really liked when they were younger but now they find no enjoyment there. They're older, they've changed or the bar has changed and they find it really depressing. 'What happened? I used to really like this place and now its so crap.' They don't see that they are not the same person they were a few years ago, they need to let go of that person and not try to hold on to it. It’s like trying to hold water in an open hand. What ever happened in my childhood is in childhood. As I am no longer a child I have to admit that it is not me.

There is a really good quote from the 48 scriptures sastra from the Chinese tradition which talks about impermanence and non-self and says you have to look at things and say, 'this is not mine, it is not me it is not the self.' So you could look at your favorite piece of jewelry that your dead someone gave to you and say, 'hey this really isn't mine, I can't take it with me when I die, it’s not me, who am I really anyway and it isn't self.' You can still treasure it but then when it gets stolen you won’t fall apart.

Another example is photos. I really think that some of my friends take too many photos. I have a friend that has piles of photo albums full of photos from nights out, dance parties everything. Hundreds of photos of her and various friends drunk, hugging each other and smiling for the camera. What a waste. As soon as the photo was taken the moment was gone and just because she has a photo doesn't mean she will be able to hold onto it. People are so afraid of forgetting moments. They don't want to forget anything because then it will be like it never happened and that person and that moment will be gone forever. What they don't realize is that it is already gone. So just let go of it, when your dead those photos will all be thrown away. If not sooner.

I'm a real photo anorexic. I only really take photos if I’m on holiday and even then not that many. There are years of my life where there is no photo and I was still doing interesting things. I feel like if I can't remember it then it wasn't that important anyway. Everything you experience gets logged in your mind even though you may not recall it. If you have a bad experience with fish then next time you come across it you may automatically find aversion to it even thought you don' t know why. So everything you do leaves an imprint even though we may not remember the specifics and these imprints are really more permanent than a photo because we can carry them from life to life. So nothing is really ever forgotten or wasted, the deeper meaning and essence or lesson is still there somewhere


I hope this doesn't sound depressing, it’s not meant to be I just wanted to try and share my understanding of impermanence because I think a lot of the improvement in my own happiness has come from my ability to let go.

At the end of last year I had a less than quarter life crisis. Even though I am still quite young I freaked out when my birthday came by because I felt like I was wasting my life. A whole year had gone by and I had nothing to show for it. At that time I think I was tring really hard to hold on to the person that I had been a few years earlier when I had lived in backpacker hostels in the UK. But it wasn't working very well and I was disappointed. I kept thinking that I couldn't recognize this person. Who was this person staring at me in the mirror; it wasn't like me at all. There were a couple of issues at hand but one of them was that I had this really solid idea about how I was and it wasn't working for me at all. I was changing, time was moving on but I couldn't let go and I was causing myself a lot of suffering.

So now I try to not be me, but just be.

Monday, June 06, 2005

The Eve of Adventure

I would like to take this opportunity to write about some of the things that I have noticed since being back home. I am no longer in the Temple and have not yet left for India (that is tomorrow night!) so I'm still caught in this weird sud- intermediate bardo. The child like ghost that hangs around after someone has died and before they take a new rebirth.

I am settling back into 'normal life' very quickly, the volume of the television that I couldn't stand when I came back has now risen to the usual level and rather than sounding like the noisy drone I first found when I came back I am now, once again singing along with the adverts. I think this has been a really good opportunity for me to be more objective about myself and the condition of my mind. I feel like I have a bit more space now to look at myself and see what is going on.

The biggest change I've found in myself aside from an unexpected aversion to loud music is calmness. I'm not sure how long it would last if I stayed in this environment but at the moment I am under a lot of stress. I'm going overseas and have given myself like 1 week to organise everything including selling my car! So there have been a lot of bumps in the road this last week, but rather than freaking out and getting really cranky, generally I have been taking a deep breath and thinking, oh well! Even more surprising than my internal response has been that not long afterwards my problems seem to be sorting themselves out without too much effort. Not that I'm not trying, I'm just not killing myself over things anymore. If I can do something about it I will if not I just wait and see and then before I know it a solution has presented itself.

I wish I'd known this years ago.

The other thing I've noticed it the amount of my day I'm spending in fantasy land. I have a myriad of little awake dreams where I'm someone important doing something interesting. I used to spend a lot of my life living a fantasy and not worry about what I was really doing. Isn’t that sad? I never noticed how much I was doing it! So I've put a stop to it and I refuse from now on to ever let myself be carried away daydreaming. Its really quite damaging as it can change your perception of things.

For example I'm going to India tomorrow and if I sat here and daydreamed about what’s going to happen when I get there, how I'll meet a amazing lama who'll recognise me as a tulku and do all these amazing things, then when I actually get there and this daydream does not become reality I will be disappointed( please note I am not nor do I hold any hopes of being found to be a tulku). It may seem a bit OTT but if you think about the way we imagine new partners or jobs and stuff to be and then when we find out they are not we are disappointed by our own expectations. In another way if, while I'm planning to go volunteer in a monastery in India I spend my whole time fantasizing about finding a really great boyfriend and doing lots of cool things in Australia I may suddenly find that I don't want to go away anymore.

I don't know about everyone else but I have always had a very vivid fantasy life since I was in primary school but no one ever talks about these things so maybe I'm the only one. If you don't know what I'm talking about just ignore the top bit!!

Before I go I wanted to get a bit more on topic and tell you about how I came to know the Dhammapada. Someone suggested to me to go and read a sutra (Buddhist scripture) and I think they suggested the heart sutra.

Anyway I never really thought about reading a sutra at that time as I was more of a book person, having it explained to me by some author or another but I thought I'd give it a go. So I went to Boarders, (probably not the best place but better than Angus and Robertson who still put Buddhist books under 'New Age'). I couldn’t find what I was looking for but I did find the copy of the Dhammapada I still cart around to this day. It’s a Penguin classic. I opened it and read the first verse and it blew my socks off. I bought it straight away.

I don't have the time to talk about this verse but I think it is very helpful to anyone, Buddhist or not. To me it is the answer to the questions we so often come up with. It’s a very blunt and to the point quote and it’s been going through my head a lot recently. It’s helped me to let go of things and not worry too much. It’s also helped me not to get too caught up in stuff going on around me as well as giving me encouragement to go out, follow my heart in pursuit of reality.

"What we are today is because of our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts create our life of tomorrow: Our Life is the creation of our minds."

We need to take responsibility for our minds, not let them wander around where ever they like. We need to learn to let go, this life is only a figment of our imagination.

So taking responsibility for my mind, letting go of Australia and reality I take a deep breath and get on a plane to India. Hopefully all will go well and the next blog you read will be written in Dharamsala!

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Not in Kansas anymore

I haven't had time to update my blog recently which is a shame because its been a bumpy ride!

The temple has been super busy with a national conference that we really should not have hosted with such a small number of staff. I was working from 7am setting up the dinning hall for breakfast spending the day in the cafe and only managing to creep away undetected at 10.30pm.

I was so busy being tired I didn't have time to realise that I was about to leave. In fact I ended up telling them that I was leaving less than a week before I planned to go after trying for several days (perhaps half heartedly) to get a chance to speak to someone in private.

The response was surprising. I thought they'd be angry or hurt (they may be Buddhist nuns but they are also human!) However, they were mainly very surprised and sad to see me go. They seemed quite genuinely sad that I was leaving and my friends were devastated. Its very hard for me too. If I hadn't been given this opportunity I would not have left and I didn't have the heart to tell them the whole truth about why I was leaving (only some very close friends) as I was ashamed. I knew that it is so rude to up and leave because I found a better alternative so I tried to keep that to myself although some of it leaked out. I honestly told them that I felt like the kind of practise I'm seeking is not the status quo in the temple and although I respected the way the Temple and order is organised and run it just doesn't suit what I need as a dharma practitioner.

I felt like it was better for them to think I was dumb than to think I was conniving. I guess it doesn't really matter what any one thinks, only the truth matters. I feel like I am trying to protect them because I care so much for them. To tell you the truth its been very painful to leave. In fact I lost it on the way out of the temple and balled all the way to the back door and then spent the next hour hiding out the back. I really respect and appreciate these people and every bone in my body wants to go back as quick as possible, but here is my problem. Should I be going back to the temple or am I just experiencing the suffering of impermanence by trying to cling to something. Ah it sucks being a Buddhist; you can't even let yourself be miserable!

So I went home yesterday. Although it’s not really my home anymore. I'm staying with friends and desperately trying to tie up some loose ends before I fly to Delhi on Wednesday. One week away. So now I'm really shitting myself. What the hell am I doing? I feel very stateless. I don't know who the hell I'm meant to be. Now that I'm back in my old world I can see that I have really, really changed and to be honest I have totally no desire left to remain in this saha world. I can see the futility of hours of tv, gadgets and useless occupations. I read in a book about the Karmapa 'we sedate ourselves with entertainment and useless pleasure but eventually we must face the truth.' (that is a rough quote). The truth is the futility of a self centred world view because everything we strive for will eventually decompose. In Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' he writes,

"the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And like this insubstantial pageant faded.
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on
And our little life is rounded with a sleep."

So neither this world, my old home or even the Temple environment can be counted on. It changes every moment. Even though I've been gone for one day I've heard that there have been some big changes. So what am I clinging to?

An idea of who I am? Before I was Erin who works in an office and likes to listen to her music and drive her car. Now I am Erin who likes to wear a grey uniform and live in a Chinese Buddhist Temple. Except now I'm not living in a Chinese Buddhist temple and I left my uniform there so I have to wear normal clothes again.

I read somewhere an article where someone tries to prove their point that when we think about it every single thing we do is motivated by a desire to ensure our happiness. Everything from the friends we associate with to the kind of socks we wear. So really missing someone is motivated by our desire to make ourselves happy.

So in a round about way I miss the temple because I'm trying desperately to cling to this idea of myself as a permanent entity. The solution would be to let go of myself. Sounds easy, but how the hell am I supposed to do that? Think about my own impermanence?; consider my lack of inherent existence? Perhaps, but to tell you the truth I still really miss the temple. I kind of miss myself too because now I don't know who I am. I feel like I'm dead, like a ghost. I don't exist here, that person is gone. I'm not in the temple either that person is gone. I haven't got to India yet so that person is just a future fantasy and I'm left with a sack of skin and bones running around shopping for brown shoes. One of the really important bits from the heart sutra is 'form is emptiness,' but then it also says that 'emptiness is form.' So I have a form and substance, what am I going to do with it?

I've been told that if after a month I want to return that I may. After that time I'm not sure what the deal is. I desperately wish I had someone I could talk too who understands this from a Buddhist perspective because all my friends despite their good intentions think I'm crazy and should just go find a normal job or go to uni or something. I'll talk more about what I've found out about myself since leaving temple later, right now I'm just letting myself be pushed along with the current. I'm working towards getting to Delhi, flights, visa's all sorted but my heart is still in the temple. I keeping think 'I just want to go home.' I was only there for three months but its had this profound effect on me. I really feel like I've left the movie half way through. The story has been constructed and the characters introduced but the full story line has not been revealed and the resolution is still another 45mins away.

When I received the e-mail from the monastery in India, even before I read it I thought to myself, if they are inviting you there you must go. When I read the e-mail and the dream became possible I felt really shocked and also scared but I knew that I had to go. So even though I really feel like a stranger in a foreign land right now I am resiting the temptation to go back to the temple, at least until I get to India and can see it for myself.

I just really want to go home. I hope I've done the right thing.