An Exceptionally Brief Reflection on Begging

          The act of giving to a beggar has less to do with benefiting the recipient than it does with absolving one’s own conscience of guilt in that fleeting, yet unbearable moment. Having dispensed with a few rupees, the beggar can be forgotten and one can return to the more sanguine elements of the day. But, if one does not give, the guilt nags upon one’s soul like a terrible blister...that is, until one’s mind is pulled so far afield by some other distraction that the beggar and the guilt, indeed the entire incident, are rendered but one more forgotten sadness, buried so deep in the darkest recesses of memory as to never even have happened.

The Frequency is Courage,
- Doug B.

A Little Yin and Yang in the Land of High Passes

It’s been over a year since I last reflected and put my thoughts down on paper, or rather, imaginary paper on the internet. Finally, after more than twelve months of mental constipation, the weight of my collective experiences has forced my hands. A great deal transpired over the previous year, good and bad of course, but I don’t really feel like reflecting upon it now…maybe I will later, otherwise you will just have to wait for my autobiography (I already have several titles in mind). But, onto the present! For starters, I’m once more in Ladakh. For those counting, this is my fourth journey to this trans-Himalayan cold desert. Though the mountains high above, jagged and glistening white, seem static, immovable, unchanging, the valleys and settlements are in constant flux, as dynamic as the melting glaciers. This change, though it is the way of the world, is not all good. With the increase in access to information, medical care, and opportunity has come more tourists (not necessarily a bad thing), more trash, the throw-away mentality of mass-produced consumerist society, more vehicles, more drunkenness, and more pollution. And as the water channels running through the streets become ever more choked with discarded wrappers and empty plastic bottles there is less and less of what makes Ladakh such a wonderful and unique place. Less respect for religion and culture (a growing phenomenon among the local population), less sustainability, less village life, less farming, less respect and compassion. But who am I to begrudge the Ladakhis (or anyone else for that matter) the amenities and comforts I take for granted everyday back in America. Who am I to deny these people a satellite TV and a compact car, a washing machine and an electric stove? Though it makes for a depressing realization, the dream of the developing world is not democracy or the high-minded ideals of liberal Western intellectuals, no matter how much we might spout off about it. The dream of the developing world is an easier life, one with a certain degree of material comfort. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating the Ladakhis get rid of their cars and television sets and return to eking out a meager existence in the narrow valleys and arid pastures beneath the lifeless peaks. I have no good answers, no solutions to the curse of development. All I can really do is pose the following question in the hopes that someone more driven and capable and intelligent than I will be pushed to do something, if there is indeed anything that can possibly be done, and this question, actually questions, are as follows: was human life ever meant to be so comfortable, and as we seek to further insulate ourselves from the unpleasantness of the world around us, do we not block out something else? Something perhaps necessary to our existential wellbeing? Surely, as we immerse ourselves in decadence and lessen the hardships we face, something is abandoned, forgotten; a timeless element of our existence—let’s just call it calloused hands—by which I mean struggle and challenge and discomfort having a demonstrable, subtly positive effect on human life. Am I onto something…you be the judge.

                But that’s enough brooding for today. Rather, I’ll end with a little story from my morning hike. I was skirting the eastern edge of Leh, taking a purposely long and out of the way route on the way back into town. On the left side of the road was a little puppy, sleeping peacefully, or so I thought. As I drew closer, something was clearly amiss. A great many flies buzzed about, but the little pup did not move, its abdomen bloated, but terribly still. And so, a brutal realization dawned. This little puppy, having only recently come into the world, was dead. Its innocent spirit again being forced to navigate the crucible of the bardos, the liminalities all beings must traverse as they journey from one life to the next. I took out my headphones, uttered a few mantras, and made a quick prayer for the puppy to be reborn in a pureland, a dimension of no suffering in which enlightenment is easily attained in one lifetime. Nothing tears at me here quite like the suffering of dogs. Indeed, the first time I cried in India was after seeing a mangy, emaciated dog in New Delhi vomit up nothing but bile from its empty stomach, which other starving dogs proceeded to lick up. Brutal, right? Anyways, back to the story at hand. Having been vividly reminded of the Buddha’s First Noble Truth that all life is suffering, I continued with my hike, albeit, now a little distraught. It was not long before another dog, this one full grown, came trotting over a low rock wall, with, much to the benefit of my inner wellbeing, a little up in tow, this one very much alive. Judging by the size and colouring of this spritely pup, it was more than likely the sibling of the dead puppy lying some twenty meters behind me. And so, I was reminded of another eternal truth: the cruelness of existence is matched only by its beauty. For darkness and light exist side by side, complimenting and completing one another. As the Daoists would say, the Way, or Dao, is composed of both yin and yang. One without the other and the whole world would be but chaos. Harmony is balance, and so, for a few fleeting moments this morning, my world was harmonious. And that, dear friends, is as clean of an ending to a story you are ever going to get, from me, at least.

The Frequency is Courage,

-Doug B.

P.S. I would link unfamiliar terms for your convenience, but the internet is too slow for that to work at the moment.

The Fear of Familiarity and Another Story About Tourists

I woke up this morning before 6, spending another thirty minutes or so awake, but not so awake as to actually get out of bed. As is always the case during my first few days acclimatizing at high altitude, I have woken up, like clockwork, on an hourly basis during the night. The first time this happened, way back in the fall of 2008, I was a little bit freaked out. Now it’s just become part of the process. It should go away in a few days. Funny, how this blog so often delves into the most tedious matters of my biological wellbeing…anyways, it is my third time in Ladakh, and I find myself finally acknowledging that which I knew was fast approaching, but refused to see. Ladakh is beginning to lose its luster. Actually, I take that back. I have barely even scratched the surface of Ladakh’s beauty and culture, there is so much more to experience, so much more to see. On the other hand, Leh, Ladakh’s capital, and its surrounding environs have become, dare I say, familiar. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Leh, but as I begin round three of my misadventures here, it is now obvious that a great deal of this city’s almost frightening majesty has evaporated as its familiarity has grown.

            This is only natural, but I have never wanted to admit to it. Part of the reason I have become so enthralled by India, and Ladakh, and Nepal, and the hinterlands of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism stems from their oriental splendor (I can see my professors cringing now). When I first encountered India, and Ladakh shortly thereafter, it was foreign, exotic, and frightening. My senses were bombarded by a million new sights and sounds. As I endured new lows of suffering, I was also propelled to new heights of joy and fulfillment. There was a lot of crying and a lot of laughter, all of it pure and resplendent. I have clung to these first experiences, and in doing so, as the Buddha cautioned, I have only brought suffering upon myself and in some cases, those around me.

Let me now attempt to bring this back to my present quandaries concerning my existential relationship with Leh. My first experiences in India, and the lengthy (and ongoing) soul-searching that followed have led me to at least two conclusions: the first is that I am a Buddhist; the second is that deep down I am a nomad, a pioneer. I am desperately in search of that feeling of unfamiliarity and excitement. I long to climb new mountains, travel new roads, wade through new rivers, meet new people (clichéd), and face new demons. The notion of spending the rest of my life in a single context is absolutely terrifying. I know why this is, and why, if I am ever to be more than a Buddhist in name only, I must confront and ultimately liberate myself from such fears. This world is but an illusion, an infinite flux of causes and constituents devoid of permanence or inherent meaning. No wonder then that as I familiarize myself with the illusion, and Ladakh is part of this illusion, the uncomfortable truth reveals itself: my desperate need for new experiences is only a stop-gap measure, a means of finding temporary happiness on the long and arduous road to the state beyond suffering, nirvana. I didn’t mean for this to turn so negative, but I guess it fits, giving my uncomfortable realization.

On an unrelated note, I told myself that this time in Ladakh, I am not going to get so frustrated by tourists. Israelis, the French, whoever, let them go about their experience as I go about mine. Now I told myself this, and have been pretty open minded and non-judgmental over the last couple of days, but just now, as I sit in my good friend Namgial’s coffee house, I again find myself quite pissed off at my tourist kin. A white male, early-mid 50’s, Italian by the sound of his accent comes up to the counter; his tone is dismissive, as is his body language. It is obvious that he suffers from old Europe syndrome, and that these archaic, uncivilized people are beneath him. He begins complaining that he has not received his coffee, some weird chimerical half Americano, half Macchiato, but in a certain type of cup with a side of espresso. He badgers Namgial’s employee, a very nice young Ladakhi woman who is less than five feet tall and cannot weigh more than 90 lbs soaking wet, “Where is my coffee? Twenty minutes ago I ordered a coffee, what is taking so long? It does not take twenty minutes to make a coffee. This is ridiculous!” Having sufficiently swung his dick around, he goes back outside to smoke a cigarette. I don’t know how long it actually took to get his coffee. I don’t think it was twenty minutes, but it doesn’t really matter. Besides simply being an asshole to this very nice lady, Steve Job’s Italian doppelganger needs to pull his head out if his ass and look around. He is in India, in a trans-Himalayan cold desert. That he can even get coffee here is a miracle (and also a curse) of industrialized civilization. If he can’t wait twenty minutes to get his coffee, because he is clearly so busy on his vacation, he should have went somewhere with a Starbucks. But that too, would no doubt be beneath him. Tourists aren’t dicks, some dicks are just tourists.

Okay, with that out of my system I can get on with my life and you can get on with ours.

The Frequency is Courage.
- Doug B.