A Little Piece of Wisdom...from a Ten-year-old

I sincerely apologize for my total failure to update this blog with any sort of regularity. My short time in Nepal thus far has reminded me of a supremely valuable life lesson: nothing goes according to plan, and if it does, it is a hell of a lot less valuable of an experience. Hopefully this time, I will not forgot it. Another lesson: not every white person who goes to Nepal thinks, feels, or appreciates things as you do. In fact, at least for me in this currently unfolding experience, it has frequently been the opposite. I hate to rant and complain, as it will only fan the flames of suffering, flames that I will have to extinguish through my own right effort if I am to ever escape the oppressive heat of my ego. Our unenlightened notions of a permanent self are like a fire, obscuring and distorting and consuming our actions and perceptions. The fire of ego burns so ferociously in us that we will go to almost any length to satisfy it. We amass useless fortunes when billions live off a few dollars a day, collect hordes of exotic luxury cars when many have no access to transportation at all, pay thousands for a worthless mass of carbon atoms (diamonds) that fund civil wars and genocides, undergo elaborate surgical procedures to reshape our nose or have a bigger bust even though burn victims cannot get skin grafts because they lack the right insurance, and destroy others' lives as well as our own just to feel powerful or popular or 'good' for a few fleeting moments. To see through the smoke and flames, the fire of ego must be extinguished. What lies beyond the blazing delusions of ego? The true self that transcends notions of subject and object: the Tathagatagarbha, or Buddha-nature. This is what the Buddha taught. Granted, I am a hypocrite, full of flowery and lovely speech but severely lacking in right view and right intention and just about every precept of the Noble Eightfold Path. I can make plenty of excuses, but they are just that, excuses, empty and devoid of any lasting form or meaning.
Anyways, that has nothing to do with why I started writing this post. It has virtually nothing to do with my (there's that damn ego again) time here, does not convey any useful or exciting information about my experiences, and hasn't made me feel any better about the less-than-ideal relationships (if they can even be called that) that have materialized between myself (ego) and the others in the group. Another pertinent lesson that even trying to develop attachment towards others will only bring suffering. I'll leave you with this, a poem written in my (ego) home stay sister's annual school magazine. It was written by a ten-year-old Tibetan girl, more proof that wisdom and kindness have nothing to do with misguided notions of maturity. Enjoy and take note.

If You Want To...

If you want to eat, eat anger

If you want to talk, talk gently and politely

If you want to fight, fight for truth

If you want to help, help the poor

If you want to build, build your character

If you want to increase, increase your knowledge

If you want to keep something, keep silence

If you want to learn, learn manner and discipline

If you want to see, see yourself

By Tenzin Riksang, Class V

Ketchen Dzong Reborn, Or Something I Wrote for Class

The following is from 2 October 2011:

Ketchen Dzong Reborn

“From the plains below, the old royal fortress of Ketchen Dzong appears as a corpse, lifeless and forsaken; for centuries, left to wither atop an otherwise barren hill overlooking Lo Manthang, or so it would seem…”

Gusting up through the Kali Gandaki Gorge like the kamikaze of Japanese lore, the relentless Mustang wind blows over Thak Khola and sweeps through the furthest reaches of Lo, past the Chinese border checkpoint and on into Tibet. This great lung (Tibetan རླུང་, wind) is just about the only thing the Chinese can’t stop from crossing the border. Like clockwork, as the sun approaches its zenith, the wind picks up and does not yield until the sun is again below the jagged horizon. To those who do not know otherwise, Ketchen Dzong (Tib. རྫོང་, fortress) and the ruins below look as though they may be from the time of ancient Sumeria. Yet, in only a few centuries, the blistering winds have done to Ketchen Dzong what five millennia on the Giza plateau could not do to the Great Pyramids of Egypt. This once unassailable fortress of the kings of Lo has been ground down to its foundations, a few walls managing to have weathered the elements thus far.

To reach Ketchen Dzong is no easy feat, especially for those unused to the altitude. Figures are unreliable, but the settlement of Lo Manthang, the capital of Upper Mustang, sits around an altitude of 3600 meters above sea level. From Lo Manthang, it is at least a three kilometer walk as the crow flies, ascending roughly half a kilometer over its course from the river crossing on the outskirts of town to the hilltop upon which the largest remnant of the dzong still stands. There is no real path leading from the plains to the hill tops, so any ascent must ultimately be improvised on the faces of the hill that are not so steep as to be unnecessarily impractical. The only company one can expect on such ascents, besides the interminable howl of the wind, are the crows that occasionally swoop along the hill side and seldom a vulture, effortlessly riding the thermals up to the heavens.

Ketchen Dzong, like so much else in this trans-Himalayan desert, is a pertinent reminder of impermanence (Tib. མི་རྟག་པ་, mitakpa). In the Four Noble Truths (Tib. འཕགས་པའི་བདེན་པ་བཞི་, pakpé denpa shyi), Śākyamuni Buddha (Tib. སངས་རྒྱས་ཤཱཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ་, śakya tubpa) taught that all compound phenomena are ultimately impermanent. Even the towering 8000m peaks of Annapurna (Nep. अन्नपूर्णा, Goddess of the Harvests) and Dhaulagiri (Nep. धवलागिरी, Dazzling White) that dominate the Southern horizon, will eventually turn to dust. The truth of impermanence becomes readily apparent climbing the slopes to Ketchen Dzong. With each step further, the hillside crumbles beneath the weight of one’s boot; dislodged pebbles and rocks cascade down the slope as wisps of dust and sand are swept skyward by the wind. On these loose slopes, the movement of but a single large rock can trigger a dramatic chain reaction, sending vast swathes of earth tumbling down the hillside and into the plains below. It makes for an apt demonstration of the Buddha’s teaching on the interdependence (Tib. རྟེན་འབྲེལ་, tendrel) of all phenomena. That the carcass of Ketchen Dzong, the peaks which surround it, the Kali Gandaki River, and indeed all of Mustang will eventually cease to exist seems less a stretch of the imagination and merely a matter of time upon reaching the base of the dzong itself.

In Buddhist ontology, the finality of death is held to be an illusion. Rather, death is an intricate aspect in the endless cycle of samsara (Tib. འཁོར་བ་, khorwa), for death marks the genesis of new life: rebirth. In Buddhism, perception is paramount. Flawed perception causes suffering (Tib. སྡུག་བསྔལ་, dukngal) and traps beings in samsara, only through right perception can beings achieve awakening (Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་, chang chub) and realize nirvana (Tib. མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་, nya ngen lé dé pa). Flawed perception is why, from the plains below, the old royal fortress of Ketchen Dzong appears as a corpse, lifeless and forsaken; this however, could not be further from the truth. For once inside the dzong’s battered walls, it becomes readily apparent, that the old royal fortress has taken a new rebirth. What appeared to be the withering skeleton of a once glorious past is actually a blossoming lotus of Buddhist faith.

Triumphantly, long wooden poles adorned by victory banners (Tib. དྷར་ཆོ་, dar cho) pierce the sky, hoisting dazzling strands of prayer flags (Tib. རླུང་རྟ་, lung ta) into the roaring wind. Printed on the victory banners and prayer flags are innumerable mantras (Tib. སྔགས་, ngak), sacred combinations of syllables that when recited, reverberate throughout the universe, purifying obscurations and generating tremendous merit. In Tibetan lore, the flag’s mantras are spread by the winds, riding the gusts over the land and up to the heavens, where they go to the benefit of all sentient beings. Securing the victory banners in place are massive piles of mani stones, large rocks on which Buddhist mantras have been ornately carved. These mani stones and the five meter high wooden poles they anchor were not found atop the dzong; they were carried up the wind-beaten slopes by individuals driven through a profound faith in the Buddha’s teachings, the Dharma (Tib. ཆོས་, chöe). The sheer number of fresh prayer flags and ritual scarves (Tib. ཁ་བཏགས, khatak) is a testimony that Ketchen Dzong is again very much alive. The innumerable mantras riding the ferocious Mustang wind, combined with the sincere efforts of those who have completed the arduous journey to consecrate the hilltop, have spiritually charged the dzong. Endowed with a new religious life, Ketchen Dzong has indeed taken a most fortunate rebirth.

Ketchen Dzong Reborn

Dear Robert...

Yes, really. Sure, as an influential figure in the technology world, his death deserves to be reported. As to why it has to be the front page story on every single English language news site, with further pages of analysis and commentaries and pictures, is completely beyond me. The tragedy here, which is not limited to Steve Jobs' passing but is endemic to the modern news media, is that this frenzy perpetuates ignorance and displaces or eliminates the reporting of actual news. Knowledge is the seed of action. If people do not know, if the means of spreading awareness (the news media in this case) are instead used to amuse and insulate, then of course people are going to sit on their asses and watch Project Runway or play Call of Duty while the polar ice-caps melt and famines turn the Horn of Africa into one giant graveyard. To illustrate my point, on September 11th, more people actually died as a result of the Second Congo War, than from the terrorist attacks on the U.S. In all, five and a half million people were killed during the Second Congo War, making it the deadliest conflict since the end of WWII. And yet, because the people dying were poor Africans and not rich white folks, their suffering was ignored entirely by the Western (sorry Isabelle) media. That is not to say that thew news media should relentless hammer images of conflict refugees, mass starvation, and general suffering into our heads on a daily basis as that can also desensitize and demotivate people just the same (see Narcotizing dysfunction). But back to the issue at hand, concerning your claim as to Mr.Jobs' charitable nature, he's actually notorious for his lack of philanthropy, especially considering how much money he had and how much of that money came from Apple using sweatshop labour to produce its products. As for who thinks it as a tragedy, there's an app for that.

xoxo
Doug <3

P.S. Thanks for pointing out the typo, I can´t believe that got past me. I´m usually a real stickler for spelling.

A Sad Day in the Apple Store

I found out recently that there are more Americans in absolute poverty than the entire population of Nepal combined. Greatest country on Earth, right? India is a whole different story, but this minor statistic makes dealing with beggars in Kathmandu a little less soul crushing. I still feel like a schmuck refusing to give 10 rupees, or 7 1/2 cents, to people who really look as though they could use it, just not quite as much of a schmuck.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs...oh, and the tens of thousands of children who will die today from poverty and disease. But really, I can see how the death of a 56 year-old fantastically rich white male, whose greatest contribution to society was a personnel music player, is the real tragedy here. My heart really aches at the loss of the founder of the world's wealthiest corporation.

Out of the Solar Cooker and Into the Frying Pan

I'm back from Mustang! A million things to say, a million things to do! Alas, I don't really have much time. In all fairness, nobody really has much time. This precious human life of ours is so short, and that's assuming we live to be nice and old and senile and lose control of our bowels and have a walker and wear depends. And that is a big, big, big assumption concerning the tincy, wincy, little, sliver of the illusion of time that is a life. At least, if you believe in reincarnation, you get an infinite number of times to get it right. I recently read it took Shakyamuni Buddha (born Siddhartha Gautama), the Buddha of our age, 550 lifetimes to attain enlightenment. If you're really interested in a story of triumph, a real feel good story, look into a little somebody named Milarepa, perhaps the most beloved individual in the history of Tibet. His life's story is recounted beautifully in the book The Life of Milarepa, translated by Andrew Quintman (a former SIT: Tibetan Studies student!). I don't want to spoil anything, but Milarepa kills 33 people and destroys an entire valley with black magic and then goes on to totally rectify his karmic misdeeds and fully realize Buddhahood in a single lifetime. How's that for a successful rehabilitation. Why did I start writing this post...oh right! Okay, first off, even though I'm "connected" to the digital world again, I'm still going to neglect the blog for a bit longer because I have three papers to write, two of which were apparently due today. Khey Garney (A characteristically Nepali response to situations beyond one's control, literally meaning 'what can one do'). They are short, so I should be able to manage. It's lunchtime, I'm not hungry. I'll leave you with a little something written by one of my SIT comrades that I feel is a lovely contribution to the human race or whoever else is on the receiving end of the bajillion electrical signals that form this blog. Enjoy.

The Frequency is Courage,
-Doug B.