The Way You Are Just Looking For Always

The locals of Mcleod Ganj

("The way you are just looking for always" is the grammatically incorrect but still very nice slogan of The Moonlight Cafe, in the nearby village of Dharamkot.)

I've had a few small breakthroughs in the past week and I'm glad to be able to share them with you.

Many times I've asked myself, would it be better to never have been brought into existence?  And I've wavered between the 'yes' and the 'no' answer.  And I've decided why it is worth it for me to have been brought into existence, despite the pain and suffering, sorrow and tragedy that come with being human.  I know that I can help others, and it is part of my purpose in life to better the lives of other people.  If I can succeed in this endeavor, even with just a small impact, then it is worth it for me to exist.  

If you know me well, you know that since just before I finished my undergraduate degree, I have been battling depression and anxiety.  It has come under many different names.  Some call it "the dark knight of the soul".  Others call it "your 20s".  Since I have mastered the art of sadness (and the art of the squat toilet), I thought to myself, why don't I give the art of happiness a go?  Being sad is effortless while getting happy could be quite the challenge, and why on Earth did I come all the way to India if not to be challenged?

So I picked up the Dalai Lama's "Art of Happiness", and as with most books, I'm off to a pretty slow start. The good thing though is that it has put me in a frame of mind where I've been able to see some things very clearly that were previously quite hard to grapple with (although my newfound clarity could also be the result of the third eye I've been sporting).

Our society--mine, anyway--tells us that sad is bad.  Don't be sad!  Smile!  Positive thinking.  Don't dwell.  Cheer up.  Just go for a run!  Just take these pills.  Fight the depression.  Life is too short (... to have valid emotions).  You shouldn't feel bad.  

I used to think, I need to stop feeling this way.  I'm too blessed and fortunate to be wallowing in my self-pity.  What is WRONG with me?..............  But now I see that, personally, that the problem isn't the sadness or the depression.  It is the stigma I had about it and the constant 'battle' against it.  It turns out that fighting it (and 'should'-ing yourself) brings more sadness than the actual sadness you're fighting against.  What I realize now is that sadness if fine.  There's nothing wrong with being sad.  

When I came to India I brought my sadness with me, and I've broken new ground with it.  I used to try to keep it on the outskirts of my mind; it would wait for a weak moment and then invade me like an army on the offensive.  Surrendering to it has actually freed me.  I let it take me over and I embraced it.  I held my hands to my stomach and let it rise up my throat and out my eyes.  Tears flowed and flowed, and I felt absolutely terrible.  This lasted just a few days and nights.  And now, not even miraculously, it seems to have passed right through me.  Every time it came aknockin' I opened the door.  As it moved through me I held it, owned it, and I was saturated by it.   

Now I don't feel sad anymore.  That's not to say it won't come back for a visit, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.  But the only place where I actually am is here, now.  And it's not here with me anymore.  I accepted it, let it be, let it pass through me like a bad head cold.  And my system took care of it.  Om shanti shanti :P

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I recently befriended a South African guy named Dylan.  We met in one of these hole-in-the-wall restaurants.  I have come to realize that the best--and cheapest--food is sold in places that don't have a sign, and maybe don't even have a name.  There is a cook, a stove, some pots, and a bench.  The food is AUTHENTIC, spicy and cheap... I'd say cheap as chips but in fact, cheaper than chips.  Anyway, this guy Dylan, whose birthday it was, had just finished a 10-day Vipassana course.  Vipassana literally means "insight" and the course is 10 days of non-communication (even non-verbal such as eye contact) and hours and hours and HOURS of meditation, from 4am until 9pm, with a few breaks for meals, downtime and teachings.  I can't say what kind of person Dylan was before the course; I didn't know him.  But from what he told me, it had a huge impact on him and he recommends it to me and pretty much everyone.  He compared it to "five years of therapy" and he told me about some useful meditation techniques he had learned.

That's right folks, I've started practicing meditation.  I say "practicing" because I'm really just working on trying to do it properly, and trying to find a method that works for me.  Some people say stare at an object, some people say keep your eyes closed.  Some say lying down is bad- I do it anyway.  Some say, count to ten, or say a mantra.  Others say, just focus on the breath.   Damn, it takes a lot of focus.  One thing Dylan pointed out that has helped though is this:  The air you breathe in is cold, and the air you breathe out is warm.  That's something I can pay attention to.  Thoughts are going to keep popping up and that's okay.  But before you get that steam train running, before you start to head down that path, you say 'see you in a few minutes when I'm done' and you put your focus back on the air going in and out your nose.  I set my timer to 5 minutes and that is really no time at all.  I put some tiger balm on my upper lip so I could feel the air more... that seems to help.  The thoughts don't stop and I don't expect them to, but so far it has been very relaxing and it's making me feel GOOD!!!  I'm even thinking of spending my mid-semester break in February at a Vipassana centre in the Vancouver area.  I wanted to take a trip; now I know I can travel inward and explore uncharted territory.   

Dylan at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant

And for those of you who want to know less about what I'm thinking and more about what I'm doing, allow me to fill in the gap. 

My volunteer work started out pretty groovy.  (It has been on hold this week because the Dalai Lama has been giving teachings in town.)  The computer class I was assisting is over.  I tried a few different organizations' conversational english classes.  I really like the 90-minute class at L.I.T. (Learning and Ideas for Tibet).  It's very structured.  There is a daily topic and 3-4 questions written on the board.  The students (many of whom are Tibetan monks and nuns!) write the questions down.  You talk about the topic and answer the questions, one English-speaker to 3 or 4 Tibetans per group.  They write down the answers and they want you to look over their writing and make corrections.  After an hour each group stands up and the students take turns answering questions, practicing their public speaking.  Then we all sing songs!  It's super fun.  

I've also been putting time in with an organization called Volunteer Tibet.  I helped host an event last weekend where a very well-known Tibetan freedom activist and poet, Tenzin Tsundue, came to give a talk.  I wasn't familiar with him but he was actually quite captivating.  Most of my work with VT is actually helping Dagmar, the German woman working there for the next 3 months, making sure all of our flyers and brochures are written with correct English grammar.  How blessed and also how useful I feel, to have English as a first language.  Thanks to the woman who made sure that happened.  I'll also be getting VT's Facebook fan-page up and running so for those friends of mine, look forward to a FB suggestion.

There are more volunteer opportunities here than I could ever get to, but I'm trying to spread myself around a bit.  There is a Tibetan guy that has taken me on as his personal tutor.  We met on my first day of volunteering at the Lha conversational English glass, and he makes sure to hit me up for private computer lessons a few afternoons a week.  His name is Dorjee and he is hilariously funny.  I'll get a photo of him up here soon.  

Me on my first day at L.I.T.

My students; real live Tibetan monks!

Freedom activist Tenzin Tsundue

Me and Dawa working the booth outside Dalai Lama's temple

All in all, I am just loving India.  The most amazing thing happened to me the other day.  I was helping out at the Volunteer Tibet booth outside the temple during the Dalai Lama's teachings.  We charged 5 rupees (~8 cents) for people to check their mobiles, cameras and sharp objects, all forbidden to be taken inside.  A big Indian family, probably from the local area, came by to have a peak at HH... On their way in they were congregating in front of our booth trying to gather all their mobiles and cameras to check.  The little girls kept starting at me.  One of them had on a gorgeous purple Punjabi outfit with sparkles, matching pants, scarf, etc.  She came up to me and I told her, "I just love your purple outfit!  It's my favorite colour and it's so beautiful."  I was decked out in my Indian clothes as well.  She said to me (think: young girl's Indian accent): "Yes, you are very gorgeous yourself!  Can I shake your hand?"  Uh, yeah!!  Then her little sister came up and wanted a handshake too.  We took some photos:

  

That's all for now, folks... I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from HH's Facebook page:

"We can think of honesty and dishonesty in terms of the relationship between appearance and reality.  Sometimes these synchronize, often they do not; but when they do, that is honesty, as I understand it.  So we are honest when our actions are what they seem to be.  When we pretend to be one thing but in reality we are something else, suspicion develops in others, causing fear. And fear is something we all wish to avoid."