Service without Attachment

Photos from Wahkhen Village, Meghalaya, a Khasi village

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along the India/Bangladesh Border

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“There are different kinds of attachment,” the man from the Ramakrishna Mission told me. “Not only are there attachments to people and things, but we also get attached to ideas and expectations. When you give something, do it with an open heart for the sake of giving, with no expectations of what you will get back, whether you are giving to strangers or to your own children.”

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Every week the Ramakrishna Mission gives. Medicine. Food. Education. It’s given without asking anyone to join their organization, given without expectation. The idea of service is central to most Hindus. Self realization and service. The two go hand-in-hand.

Coffee, the Cow Saint and Reincarnated Cats

 

I suppose that lots of random occurrences that are actually interrelated happen all the time, but being out of my element makes me more aware of them. Today I’m looking at connections that happened because of a cup of coffee.

 

There are few creature comforts from home that I miss, but coffee is one of them. 

 

Fortunately, I have a friend who understands the value of coffee, so with many “namastes” in the direction of Santa Cruz, I got a care package a while back with some lovely, dark espresso. The taste of that first cup of dark roast after six weeks of instant was a truly intoxicating moment. And the smell. I spent a good amount of time with my nose in the bag before I could even bring myself to brew a cup. 

 

The perfect cup of coffee deserves perfect fixings. I decided to go all out and bought a pan of fresh milk from the man who goes door to door through the neighborhood selling it from tin cans that he carries on a pole over his shoulder. Besides, I read somewhere that milk from Indian cows has nearly magical properties. Apparently, so does cow urine, but we won’t go there. 

 

I figured that pan would last me all week, but the next morning there was a knock at my door and there he was with his pails of milk. I see this man all over town, and he charges mere pennies for a pan of milk. Plus, he has sweet, soulful eyes and the most angelic smile I’ve ever seen. I just couldn’t tell him no, so I filled up another pan and put it in my fridge. 

 

Fortunately, there are lots of stray animals around. 

 

Now this is an indulgence, but I like to think that my cat, Emily, who was killed a couple years ago shows up from time to time in different reincarnations. And here she is in India mewling at my front door. 

 

Then I went to the Himalayas for almost three weeks. Surely, this would break the pattern of the cow saint and cats. But no sooner did I get back than I found the cow saint’s two sons going door to door. I knew it was them; they both look just like their father, tall and thin with the same soft eyes and sweet smiles. It’s hard to not fall in love with this family of reed-like men with their kind faces. 

 

And the cat, too, came back too, complaining loudly at the door once or twice a day and looking skinnier than when I left so I made some rice to mix in with the milk and she lapped it up. 

 

Maybe this is what I love about it here--the strange interconnectedness of things, these different threads of different lives that make their way to my door on a daily basis. It’s not just the cow saint and cats, but the retired priest who gives me a different saint’s card whenever I pass him on our evening walks. It’s the paper boy who pushes open my door and walks in to say hello in the morning. Or the disoriented elderly woman with no teeth and red gums who wanders in smiling and looking lost. It’s community and something I didn’t know I was missing until I found it. 

 

Getting Realer

 

A few years ago I made a commitment to be more honest with the world, but more importantly, with myself. I’ve been more or less successful, but living in a small town where I see half a dozen familiar faces every time I go to the grocery store makes it easy. I don’t want to get caught in a lie. Traveling through small Himalayan villages tests it.

 

For a long time, maybe most of my life, I was uncomfortable in my own skin and my semi-nomadic lifestyle allowed me to avoid dealing with it. 

 

Moving was an opportunity to recreate myself, and traveling, especially, gave me the chance to literally be someone else. I changed my name, background, profession and identity. Casual encounters in coffee shops or on trains didn’t meet me. They met a physicist from New Zealand; being poor in math, I liked to choose careers that I couldn’t possibly pull off in real life. Sometimes I mixed Spanish in with my English and claimed to be from Bolivia or Argentina. I was the estranged wife of a Hungarian diplomat or a daughter-on-the-run of a Mafia hit man. Who I am could never possibly be enough. 

 

Here in the Himalayas, I’ve had to bite my tongue more than once. After all, what harm do these lies do? Who would ever know? It’s just role play, a way of expressing my creative side. 

 

But I would know and lying has lost its appeal. So, maybe for the first time on the road, maybe for the first time ever, I’m practicing just being me. And, for now, it’s enough. 

 

Leaving What We Love

In his introduction to The Snow Leopard, Pico Iyer writes, “Sometimes we have to move away from that which we love the most” in justification of author Peter Matthiessen’s decision, just a few months after his wife died, to leave their young son for a trek through the Himalayas. This seeming abandonment has been one of the main criticisms of Matthiessen over the years. How could he do such a calloused, self-serving act? 

 

Six years ago, when my youngest son, Zeke, was fourteen I left him and my husband to go to China for a year. The previous year we had pulled him out of junior high to try to save him through homeschooling from failing seventh grade. Fourteen is a vulnerable age for any child, a time when they need a grounded life, balance, security. 

 

To this day I don’t know if I made the right choice or not. I like to tell myself that going to China set me on the path to becoming a stronger, more complete woman who is now able to be more present not only for my children, but for everyone in my life. But I can’t deny that I was mainly thinking of myself. 

 

Tomorrow my oldest son turns thirty and in ways I abandoned him as well while he was growing up. As a young single mother, I was full of ego, making my way through the university and from one relationship after another believing that if I could only find true love, I would be happy. I spent more time on my own romances than wondering how this ever-changing procession of boyfriends would affect my son.

 

Eventually, I did find love, but one that allowed me to indulge rather than transcend my flaws. Psychology claims that we recreate early patterns, especially from childhood, not because they work for us, but because they are familiar. We’ll even endure pain because it’s familiar. 

 

So now I’ve come to India, but for the first time on a journey that doesn’t feeling like I’m running away from anything. Nor am I running toward anything. 

 

As I move deeper into Buddhist thought, I’m learning to simply observe my feelings, but not place too much importance on them or on any epiphanies I might have. For someone who has long been ruled by emotion, this has been huge. We tend to believe so strongly in our thoughts and feelings; we accept them as the ultimate truth. If we think it, then that must be how it is. One night on a mountaintop we believe we see things clearly and so commit it to paper. Those words become our evidence. We can’t see that it’s only our idea of truth and nothing more, an idea that is fluid as water, as changeable as the wind. So often it’s our own rigidity or inability to see things from any point of view but our own that is damaging to those around us. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think is real in order to be free. Sometimes we have to leave what we love. 

Leaving What We Love

In his introduction to The Snow Leopard, Pico Iyer writes, “Sometimes we have to move away from that which we love the most” in justification of author Peter Matthiessen’s decision, just a few months after his wife died, to leave their young son for a trek through the Himalayas. This seeming abandonment has been one of the main criticisms of Matthiessen over the years. How could he do such a calloused, self-serving act? 

 

Six years ago, when my youngest son, Zeke, was fourteen I left him and my husband to go to China for a year. The previous year we had pulled him out of junior high to try to save him through homeschooling from failing seventh grade. Fourteen is a vulnerable age for any child, a time when they need a grounded life, balance, security. 

 

To this day I don’t know if I made the right choice or not. I like to tell myself that going to China set me on the path to becoming a stronger, more complete woman who is now able to be more present not only for my children, but for everyone in my life. But I can’t deny that I was mainly thinking of myself. 

 

Tomorrow my oldest son turns thirty and in ways I abandoned him as well while he was growing up. As a young single mother, I was full of ego, making my way through the university and from one relationship after another believing that if I could only find true love, I would be happy. I spent more time on my own romances than wondering how this ever-changing procession of boyfriends would affect my son.

 

Eventually, I did find love, but one that allowed me to indulge rather than transcend my flaws. Psychology claims that we recreate early patterns, especially from childhood, not because they work for us, but because they are familiar. We’ll even endure pain because it’s familiar. 

 

So now I’ve come to India, but for the first time on a journey that doesn’t feeling like I’m running away from anything. Nor am I running toward anything. 

 

As I move deeper into Buddhist thought, I’m learning to simply observe my feelings, but not place too much importance on them or on any epiphanies I might have. For someone who has long been ruled by emotion, this has been huge. We tend to believe so strongly in our thoughts and feelings; we accept them as the ultimate truth. If we think it, then that must be how it is. One night on a mountaintop we believe we see things clearly and so commit it to paper. Those words become our evidence. We can’t see that it’s only our idea of truth and nothing more, an idea that is fluid as water, as changeable as the wind. So often it’s our own rigidity or inability to see things from any point of view but our own that is damaging to those around us. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think is real in order to be free. Sometimes we have to leave what we love. 

Himalayan Spirit

It’s almost as if I can feel the mountains breathe, these Himalayas. Geologically speaking, they’re new. The most recent mountain range on the planet. They’re still rising, and maybe it’s this newness that makes them feel so alive. They are green and vast and they soar and dip in a never-ending cascade of valleys and peaks as far as the eye can see. I am in love with these mountains, with the raw, primal joy of simply being in their presence.

I came to Tashiding on a narrow road that brought me even deeper into this enchanted land. When I arrived, I was met by Phurba Tshering who will be my interpreter for the next ten days as we travel to the Lepcha and Bhutia villages of Sikkim. After dropping off my bags at the guest house, he whisked me to the mountain top to Tashiding Monastery to chant the vajra guru mantra with the villagers who had come for the puja. The monastery has been badly damaged in the recent earthquake so the puja is not taking place in the main temple, but in one of the smaller buildings. Several ancient stupas also lay crumbled on the ground.

On the way back down the mountain Phurba, who spent several years as a monk at Tashiding Monastery, and I talked about God, mountain spirits and what Buddhism means to us. “We’re Bhutia people and are Buddhists because our fathers and grandfathers and theirs were before them. We’ve been Buddhists since Padmasambhava brought it here in the 8th century. Buddhism is in our blood; it’s just who we are. But in the West you choose Buddhism because something in the four noble truths and the eight-fold path speaks to you. You may not know its history like we do, but you intuit its truth.”

And I have found something in Buddhism. Maybe it’s simply a more soulful, joyful way of living, of connecting with the world in a way I’ve never been able to before. I’ve come to love the sheer ordinariness of daily life. I relish simplicity whereas in the past, I over complicated so many things.

Back at the guest house, the lights went out, so I walked out on the balcony to better savor this Himalayan night. Fires and here and there a flashlight dotted the darkness. I knew somewhere a gibbous moon hovered only because I had seen it earlier. The Durga puja continues with chanting and drums, the occasional firecracker exploding in the darkness.

I feel both happy and sad. At peace with myself and the world, yet deep down a sorrow because no matter how long I live, it will never be long enough to experience all that I want to on this amazing planet.

The Daily Lives of Monks

Walking down the dirt road in Namchi, I hear a car barreling up behind me at breakneck speed. Hopping out of the way, it passes in a cloud of dust. It’s filled with young monks. American rock 'n roll blares on the radio. One of them has rolled the sleeves of his robe up to show off well-sculpted shoulders and arms. As they pass, he leans out the window with a beatific smile and gives me a thumbs up just as the car turns up the road to the monastery.

 

In a land where the hills are steeped with Buddhism, I’ve had to let go of this idea that monks are somehow more serene or spiritual than the rest of us. Last week in Gangtok, I saw two of them haggling over the price of a television. Another morning I passed one pissing on a bush. Even when I visited the sacred Enchay Monastery, the spot blessed by the notorious flying monk, Lama Drupthob Karpo, from the living quarters I heard men cheering a cricket match on TV. 

 

A few years ago in Thailand I remember watching a brawl between two young monks on the temples steps. One sect was heading up, the other going down, when one monk flipped the other off. It ended in a fist fight with the older monks pulling the two hot-headed youths apart. 

 

Watching the daily lives of monks has been both entertaining and illuminating.  My image of monks as sequestered, spending their days in prayer and meditation doesn’t fit. And sometimes it’s the ordinary people who seem to be taking the path more seriously. Shopkeepers count rosary beads. People on the street chant mantras under their breath. I like the sheer humanity of people going about their daily lives with a dash of spirituality thrown in. It’s a good reminder for me, Buddhist slacker that I am, that we’re all only human with our many flaws and our moments of grace, doing the best we can. 

Back to the Source

This is the third time I’ve ventured into the Himalayas and the magic gets stronger with each encounter. The last two times were both on the China/Tibet side of the slopes. This is the first time I’ve come at them from the India side and the vibe is decidedly softer.

It’s only two weeks after a 6.8 earthquake rocked the area and the road from Siliguri to Gangtok, which even in the best of times is not a great road, are now in parts nearly impassable. Army crews are out clearing landslides and in places huge chunks of the road have dropped into canyons that seem to disappear into the center of the earth. Not that it stopped the sumo taxi driver from passing along the narrow ledges.

The further we drove into the mountains, the more it began to feel like leaving time and the world behind.

Along the roadside, hundreds of monkeys perched on boulders or clung onto the cliffs. Mother monkeys nursing their babies and young ones rolling around together. Large males strutted along the shoulder and juveniles tossed pebbles at the vehicles. Whenever I see monkeys in action, I’m more convinced than ever that Darwin was right.

Something about these mountains moves me and I feel so at home here. Maybe it’s just that they are so stunningly beautiful; it’s like walking into a myth. Waterfalls around every bend, some like silvery spiders’ webs threading through the rocks while others thunder down the mountainside for hundreds of feet.

And now from my third floor window in the Fujiya Guest House, Mt. Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world, shimmers in frosted white. Tibetan prayer flags flutter on rooftops and this morning I woke up at dawn to a procession of monks chanting in the street below. It’s easy here to believe that monks can fly, flowers fall from the sky and yetis roam in the wilderness. It reminds me that the world is still full of mystery.