Eye Opening

This time I have a good excuse for not writing for so long. I have been away in Thailand and although they have ample internet access in Bangkok I was genuinely too busy to write a blog. On my return when people asked me how the trip was the most honest answer I could give was ‘eye opening.’

Although I was only there for maybe 13 days in the end by the time I made it back it felt like it had been at least a month, if not more since I pulled out in the taxi and silently wept as we rocked and bumped our away along the dirt track that passes as a road to our property, heading to the bus station. Even now I still have no idea why leaving was so emotional for me. I had been here for months and I was only going on a 2 week vacation to sunny Thailand for a new visa, there was absolutely no reason to be sad, in fact any normal person would be excited at the proposition of a two week summer vacation considering that its really starting to get cold here, but for me I REALLY didn’t want to leave.

When we arrived in Thailand the first thing that struck me was how polite the people were. In Delhi airport you have to assume that everyone is about to rob you at knife point (they are but without the knives!) so in Bangkok when someone tried to speak to me I immediately yelled at them and tried to walk away, unfortunately this person was actually trying to point me towards the taxi rank! Oppss!

So here is the first ‘eye opening’ experience. I have been to Bangkok before, when I was 20 and returning to Australia after living in Europe for a few years. At that time I was only there for a stop over (heading to Tibet) and I had left my American boyfriend back in Europe, so emotionally I was a bit of a mess and also it was very hot, like 39 degrees Celsius and 95% humidity (it was the hottest time of the year and also Thai New Year). Anyway, I had a really terrible time. Everything was dirty and unbearably hot and as far as I was concerned everywhere I went people were trying to hassle me or sell me stuff but the Bangkok I discovered on that first morning only very vaguely resembled the one I had met three years earlier.

Obviously walking around with a Buddhist nun probably helped a lot but compared to Delhi this place was paradise. Even the beggars looked healthier than your usual middle class Delhiite. The streets were actually cleaned every morning and we saw women who worked for the council cleaning the phone booths. Where were the strange men following me around, the dirty beggars and unrelenting touts? Where was the smog, the sewerage and the chaos? The only thing I recognized was the 7/11s.

Suddenly it hit me, all those things I had experienced were not really there, my mind was in a certain state and the rest of my perception followed suit all the aboved mentioned was still there but it didn’t bother me this time so I barely even noticed. This kind of thinking it very basic Buddhist philosophy but when you really, truly see it, then it blows your mind.

The other thing I noticed that I hadn’t remember from the last time was the unceasing, blaring, nerve shattering, head splitting noise, that seriously never, ever, ever stops, (at least in Bangkok). Traffic noise I can deal with but I’m talking about music and blaring movies on a mammoth scale. For several months I have had a self imposed music ban. This will be hard for the folks at home to believe because I really, really love my music. In the past I would have music playing from the moment I woke up in the morning until I fell asleep at night, I was my music and my music was me. Unfortunately as a consequence it seems that I can remember every song that I have ever heard more than once and my mind can run through whole albums unassisted. Which was usually not a problem as I would be blaring some type of music over the top of my mental sound track but for the past few months for the first time in my life, I have tried to keep my mind quiet. And I can tell you that it wasn’t easy!

Anyway more recently I have been getting the hang of it and slowly have been recovering from my music obsession, so suddenly being surrounded by not one but several stereos all blaring old and usually really bad western music super loud was really driving me nuts, on top of this every restaurant was also screening movies on multiple tv sets dotted about their restaurant so if you weren’t listening to terrible western music you were listening to the sound track of some terrible action movie with very little dialogue and ridiculously over the top sound effects at full volume. What is wrong with these people that they can’t even eat without having something there to distract them? How did I not notice this last time?

So yes the old adage, perception is everything really came alive to me, their were more ‘eye opening’ incidents but I don’t want to bore you all at once with them. When I returned home and was recounting my music issue to a lady who has been staying with us recently she expressed her surprise at my stance on music and told me that she her self was a musician who didn’t have any trouble mixing music and Buddhist practice. She was a lot older than me, maybe more than double my age and so I told her that maybe it was because of my age but when I really think about it I don’t think that has anything to do with it.

I told her that when I listen to my favorite music it takes me to a different place, it makes me feel a certain way depending on the type of music I’m listening too. This in itself is not really a problem. When I listen to music that I use to really love it also reminds me of that time and the things that were happening to me. So what’s the problem?

Well, guess what, I am not the person I think I am and as far as I can see that is the whole point of Buddhism. In Buddhist philosophy they call it the reified viewed of the self. Which means we think we are a certain way and we back up this idea everyday in the things we do and say when really this person we think we are is completely a piece of fiction.

When I left Australia I really felt very naked, I was left on the fence without all my props, I didn’t know who I was anymore and I really could see that everything I thought was me had no true value or existence. When I look back at my blog I can see this although at the time I didn’t know how to express it properly.

So when I listened to music it reminded me of me, the feelings at the time, the moments of my life, this was all a way of backing up the idea of myself that I had created. So I really believe that if you are really serious about trying to make sense of all this stuff we get taught about selflessness then you need to give up the props that you use to create yourself.

So for this lady, she couldn’t imagine giving up her music because she didn’t want to give up herself, it had nothing to do with age and more to do with her motivation as far as Buddhism is concerned. So for those who need a bit of spirituality, who have some issues they would like resolved, than I know that Buddhism is for you and giving up music isn’t necessary, but if you want out, if you really want to end the unsatisfactory-ness of life and hopefully if you want to take as many people as possible with you, then you have to give up the music and everything else that is you.

So I’m sorry if this blog is not so inspiring, maybe there is someone out there who know what I’m talking about and then maybe you can feel a bit better about these types of choices because I know now that we are not alone on this one. I am really a very young girl, I know that this is not a normal aspiration for a 23 year old. Most of the nuns around here are already in their fifties, married, divorced maybe a few children. They say that they have experienced life, I think they have wasted most of it. I really don’t want to do that, more than anything else I want to die knowing that I really did something. I always knew that making money or babies wasn’t it, I knew that the best way to make your life really meaningful was to try and benefit others because one happy person out of 3 billion is nothing to brag about, it just took me 20 years to work out the best way to do it.

So this is the point where my mother calls the cult expert to try and un program me, luckily in truth my mother has been very supportive and yet I still think in her heart she is hoping that one day soon I will change my mind, come home and get an office job. Maybe I will although I really hope not. Now I have a teacher I really feel like I have made a commitment and I’m in this thing for life, more than anything else I don’t want to waste anymore time.

I cried when I left the nunnery because right now there is nothing else I would rather be doing and absolutely no where else on the planet I would rather be. I think that is the greatest achievement of my life so far.