5th - 14th Nov 09 Tushita - 10 Day Intro to Buddhism Meditation Silent retreat!

I have returned from a 10 day Slient retreat up in Dharmkot, up from Mccload Gange. I know many people would think that I could not possibly stay quite for 10 days but i did just about manage it! Well I managed 8 days anyway, then the yoga teachers in the group broke & had a mini chat about yoga, hehe we couldnt resist! I am really glad i did the retreat which was a very last minute decsion, as it was the last 10 day course of the year as its getting too cold. After we checked in we were shown to our dorms which were a bit like dungeons, then we were given some food & everyone got their last chats in before the silence began at 7.30pm. After looking forward to doing such a retreat things didnt begin exactly as I would have liked! Within the first 30mins of the first teaching & meditation I started to feel a little uncomfortable, then I suddenly couldnt sit any longer & jumped up from the floor, ran out of the Gompa (Tibetan name for temple) & just managed to make it down the steps before projectile vomitting everywhere! My silence was broken already as a nurse on the course came to make sure i was ok! She said afterwords that it was a spectacular site! I then had to quickly run to the loo, oh no my turn had come already for the dreaded delhi belly! On the upside I was then put into a single room for the night!

My tummy pretty much stayed the same for 10 days, each time I thought it was better I starting eating properly again & it was always a mistake! However I wasnt alone, just about everyone (40+ people on the course) got sick & got a cold. The teaching & meditation sessions were like a symthony of sniffs & sneezes & people running for the loo. Despite the silence everyone was really sympathetic & you knew we were all suffering together!

Our schedule was pretty busy with the first meditation starting at 6.45 & so i got up at 5.30am to do my yoga practice, then we would have a serious of teachings & meditations up until 9pm. Here & there we would have 30 min, 60min breaks & we all had Karma yoga jobs. I was super greatful for my job which was to clean the yoga room, the 2nd best job, the 1st was been the yoga teacher. However I was lucky that I got a turn at teaching everybody when Natasha (yoga teacher) got sick. It was good experience for all us yogi's teaching 20,30 people. I also ended up teaching silent yoga to a few keen people at 5.30am! That was a learning experience! My fellow yoga teachers were all great & it was so nice to get new ideas & share experiences (obviously since the retreat has finished!). I did feel for the people who had to clean the toilets, I am sure I will get that job if I do another retreat like this.

Learning about Tibetan Buddhism was v.interesting but by day 5 I feel i was starting to get a little distracted, I know this as there are doodles & badly drawn scary Buddhas in my note book! However this may have been the combo of getting sick, silence & consistant meditation practices. Some of the meditations were really intense, for me one we did on 'forgiveness' really opened something up & left me at the end of the session in tears & feeling like it wasnt finished! These things take years & years of practising & letting go apparently. Also another one that stands out was on 'anger', I am not an angry person but during this med I felt really uncomfortable due to my stomach gargling away & bloated & found it super hard to concentrate. At one point i felt like screaming & running out of the Gompa saying "Anger, Anger, i wasnt angry before but i am now". Luckily I restrained myself & managed to sit through the rest of the med even though my head felt like it might explode. Its amazing how some of the Meditations my knees, legs, tummy were fine & others were just killers, even sitting for a few minutes was tough & your mind would be racing! I have to say that as the week went on sitting did get easier, not that that made the meditations any easier. We did do a few chants which i loved.
Vajrasattva
Om mani Padme Hum
May all beings be free have happiness.....
Although I learned so much about Tibetan Buddhism & agree with lots of elements of it, I still found it hard to get my head around re-incarnation & Karma. From a Buddhist perspective the fact that I had about 5 bikes stolen in 4 years was due to my bad Karma in a previous life, i must have been a thief! Anyway elements to do with Attachment, Impermanence , attachment & emptiness were v.interesting & I will be definately be doing more reading but not turning Buddhist any time soon!

Once my sis asked me how I could have a Buddha in my front room when it had religeous conatations & i wasnt a Buddhist. My answer at the time was Buddhism is a philosophy, a way of life, now I would say the same but it can also be said to have certain religious practices, rituals, praying etc. However the Buddha itsself embodies"Peace, Happiness, compassion, free from suffering" & everyone has Buddhanature at their core they just dont access this".

Anyway the silence at times I found more funny than anything, particularly when we were doing walking meditation! You basically walk up & down a small distance v.slowly & with hands behind your back or in front. I found it v.entertaining as everyone looked like zombies so i had a little laugh to myself! I know the silence did me good & I only had a few times that I really felt that I would like to talk, maybe because we had 1 hour a day in discussion groups so it took the pressure off a little. One thing I forgot to mention was how cold it got, the weather really is getting to winter now in Dharmasala & we felt it living inside for most of the day in our blankets & sleeping in our dungeons!

One of the days we got to walk upto a Stupa sites, it was a walking mediation up there for 20mins, this was v. nice scenery but did feel kind of strange going out of our4oo m radious where we had been living for 8days!

Once we were allowed to speak again at 9am on day 10, it was v. funny as everyone introduced themselves properly yet we all seemed to know each other in a v.diff way! Then once we escaped the grounds & went out for dinner we all had a lovely postiive energy & we did find ourselves probably ranting a little but being more mindful of it, even if we couldnt stop ourselves! I hung out with my new yogi friends for a couple of days afterwards to share thoughts, experiences which i really enjoyed. I am going to travel & hang out with Natasha & Lori & Jay going to & in Goa!

Norbulingka & McCload Gange..

Next door to Ispiice is a Tebatan institute called Norbulingka, its a centre which is preserving Tibetan culture. I visited it for the first time the other day & found it so peaceful & relaxing. It has a beautiful temple set in Japenese style gardens. There is a huge golden budha, a traditional Tibetan wood work centre, sewing workshop & Tibetan doll museum. To my delight the cafe is so peaceful with the sound of water features & trees all around. Also they serve my favorite ginger & lemon tea & cake! I can see myself becoming a regular there!

I have spent the w.end in McCload which is a tourist hotspot hill station town. It is where the DL temple is & there is a mix of Tibetans, Indian, Japenese & western people. Despite it been an obvious tourist trap with stalls & stalls lining the streets selling everything from Tibetan Yak wool blankets (necessity round here at night!), Buddhas, Mo mo's(delicious parcels of food, a bit like Gautzers), I really like it. Everyone who has travelled around India however says its a break from India! I am staying at a hotel that costs 200 rupees or 2.60pounds & although basic is fine & i awoke on Sun morn to the sounds of chanting coming from the temple. I love chanting & it sounded so beautiful. I ventured to a yoga class on Sun morn, i have to say it was the most comedy value class I have ever been too! The teacher was an indian & had the most hilarious voice, he seemed like he should be a gay bolliwood star! His exhales consisted of snorting really loudly! At first i thought it was just for the breathing exercises but it continued throughout the class! He continually saying things like "no money tension, no work tension, no food tension & noooooooooo friend tension, only positive thoughts,negative thoughts outside, all problems will be gone!". I expect reading this you cant imagine how this sounds funny so I have asked a guy i met at the class (Paul) to film him so I can post it. He is just a classic! His yoga practice was quite different to the way i would teach,no alignment & insisting people should do things which they cannot do because of their body types! If nothing else the class made me laugh internally throughout it & thats a good thing!

In the evening myself & Paul went to a local Tibetan & then modern music gigs! The first the guy who organises the events was so humble, apologising to the audience for not having chairs to sit on but they rely on donations to keep the charity going. Everywhere in Mccload there are many charities raising awareness & funds to make people aware of what is happening in Tibet with the Chinese government. Its quite moving to see people who spend their lives fighting to free their country. There are many centres that put on evening talks, I went to one where a Tibetan Monk described his escape from Tibet after he had been held in detention by the chinese & beaten for protesting against the government. It really is shocking!

Fire ..... Fire.....Rubbish..

On Thursday with the community class kids we decided to educate them on their environment & have a litter picking session! We informed the kids that rubbish would pollute their streams where they wash their clothes etc. This went down well with the kids, the adults around the community watched on, starring like we were mad! Thinking afterwords we decided they associate picking rubbish with rag pickers! Rubbish in India is a big problem, not only is it everywhere even in the beautiful mountain towns but people actively just drop litter anywhere & everywhere. It doesnt matter what type of person (caste, class, rich, poor etc) they all do it, dropping litter as they go!

After we spent a good hour collecting we then had the problem of where does it go next. I asked where Ispiice rubbish went, no one was sure. Then before we had time to work out what to do with it, the family had lit a fire & the rubbish was promtly burnt! Oh NO!!!!! Plastic & all, there was a terrible smell all evening because of the plastic.... Whats worse rubbish in the streams, roads etc or fires everywhere polluting the atmosphere!

In a way we cannot have a go at poeple in INdia as there is no alternative to burning rubbish, if they were provided with bins, they do not have the infrastructure in place for collections to take place, the roads are so bad generally, how would collections take place & then where do you put rubbish in a country so overpopulated with people! In the mountain hill stations & towns there are signs to get people to buy filtered water from shops rather than buying plastic bottles. I have started doing this when I am in Mccloud but sadly thats not where i live. I decided that I couldn't go on buying plastic bottles but on the same day i decided this Aoife decided she needed to start drinking bottled water. After months of her drinking filtered water she has recently continually been sick! What a dilemma! It reminds me all the time of Slumdog Millionaire!

Later that night I did the most stupid thing, I know everyone reading will think what a muppet but i thought i would share anyway! I managed to do a real Helen thing, I set my tv on fire in my room! Whoops!! i haven't ever switched it on but now i managed to burn quite a large significant hole in it! Luckily i caught the fire before it got to the electrics & it just caused a lot of burnt plastic & bad smell in my room. I managed to look up in time to blow it out but it did shock me a little, the thought that I could have set my room & Ispiice rooms on fire was a little wake up call for me. Lesson of the day:- Dont burn candles on top of a tv! The bad thing is that i was aware that what i was doing was wrong & new I should move, if not blow the candle out but I didnt & then it was too late!!!

ISPIICE

Back at Ispiice, I spent the rest of the week going with the volunteers to the day care centre & helping out at the community class in the afternoons. At the day care centre we are currently painting the walls, putting ABC< pics & hindi writing on the walls to bring some life to the small room where young children come to play. This is a state day care centre & it seems that the teachers have little or no interest in playing with the kids, shocking really. One teacher seems to read her register & do calculations all morning! So the volunteers come & interact with the kids & give them drawing & games to do. Otherwise they often just sit, with very little life or anything to stimulate them. On Friday one of the kids wet herself & there was a puddle on the floor, the teachers were just going to leave it & they do just walk through it & let the kids, but then i passed some newspaper to them & they cleaned it up! It is amazing to watch, but i have to say these kids hardly cry, that is something i have noticed of all indian kids, even on very long, bumpy, uncomfortable bus journeys they dont cry or if they do its for a v.short time!

On a positive note, the kids of the local community where Ispiice is are so wonderful & keen to come to class after their school day ends, to have english & computer classes. The kids are so cute, they run upto Ispiice building which is next door to the house we go to, so that they can carry our things across. Everyone of them comes upto you & shakes your hand & says "hello Mam".

The house we go to is a family house however they have no money which is obvious as there are no windows in the frames & no paint or plaster on the walls. The whole family live in one room, sleep & cook. It is getting to winter here so it is so cold on a night & they all sleep without windows, i dont know how they do it. Yet the woman is one of the most loving people i have ever met, every day smiling & she always gives you a hug. Apparently Ispiice said to her that maybe they should move to another community as they had spent a lot of time with the kids in Sidhpur but she pleaded for them not to leave. She is so grateful to the help Ispiice gives the kids, its really moving. I have said that I will use some of the cake money that I raised back in the UK to paint the room where the kids learn, we are still working out how the rest of the money can be used most effectively.

Ispiice is a v.small charity which Varun set up, he is a lovely warm hearted guy that will run around looking after the volunteers making sure they are happy. Aoife is my friend from home & since coming as a volunteer she loved what Ispiice was doing & is now helping run the charity, getting volunteers & looking at ways they can get Ispiice involved in helping other areas of the community. It is very honorable dedicating all her time without pay to the charity. She is always working, even on Saturdays!

I have been teaching yoga to the volunteers on top of the roof where we stay! I do my own practice at 7.30 & then teach at 8.30. I feel privileged to be teaching with the beautiful mountains in the background & with the sun coming up & every day beautiful blue skies!