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.

I'm Going Back!

This'll be short and sweet, like me.

In simplest terms, I am addicted. Not to a substance or activity or a person. What I am addicted to is more ephemeral, but if I had to describe that addiction using nouns, it is an addiction best defined in terms of place and culture. That place is where the Indian subcontinent is violently crashing into the Eurasian landmass, buckling the Earth's crust and sending it, like our dreams, ever skyward. In layman's terms, that place is the Himalayan region and its related environs (the Tibetan plateau, Bhutan, Ladakh, Darjeeling and Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, etc., etc.). That culture is more difficult to define. Eclipsing even the great Himalayas with their deep valleys, towering 8,000 meter peaks, clear glacial lakes, dark swift rivers, vast and empty deserts, cramped hill towns, placid summits, and violent avalanches is the ever more dynamic force of culture. Through the backdrop of this vast cultural milieu, itself arrayed along the mighty vistas of the Himalayas and Karakorams, the Dhauladar, Ladakh, Pir Panjal, and Zanskar ranges, and the Kunlun and Tian Shan mountains, flows a common current. That current is Buddhism, specifically Tibetan Buddhism (while convenient, the term Tibetan Buddhism is both misleading and a gross oversimplification of the various kinds of religious practices, Buddhist or otherwise, found amongst adherents of 'Tibetan Buddhism'; given that this is not a scholarly paper, the kind I should be working on right now, I'll just shut up).

So much for this being short or sweet. Disregard all the previous hot air and understand the following, I am addicted to very tall mountains and Tibetan Buddhism. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that for lack of a better transition, I am going back...a fact you probably deduced from this post's title. I am going back to Ladakh; the most glorious place on this planet Earth, the place where it all got started, where I discovered Buddhism and myself and a greater purpose in this precious human life. I am spending the summer volunteering, teacher English at the Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) and at a nearby Buddhist monastery. I have never been so excited to work and get paid absolutely nothing (from a very limited monetary standpoint) in all my life. Before I head to Ladakh at the beginning of June, I am stopping off in Kathmandu for a week to see familiar faces, embrace dear friends, and drink chang (pronounced chaw + ng)! Depending on how the universe aligns, and whether or not my dog passes from this life into the next, I may also make it to Tibet, the Land of Snows. This however, is still very much a dream on the horizon, a dream that with time, will either dissolve or materialize. I'll keep you posted.

सब्बे सत्ता सुखि होन्तु (Sabbe Sattā Sukhi Hontu - May All Beings Be Happy)

- Doug B.

P.S. My dog is old and has led a full life, so don't be sad about that.