APW: Walking in the Himalayas

Unfathomably mammoth mountains, in size, scope and nature, surround your being.  Perceived through two tiny intelligent eyes, gifted to our species, and walked among with a set of deceivingly capable, and rightly determined legs.  Distance and weight take on new meanings when the terrain refuses to be level, and ‘just around the corner’ seems like a most unfair expression.  

The crow bypasses the ground terrain as humans do while in urbanized setting.  Floating by on a gentle wind ignorant of the rock and circumstance below, or rather viewing it with an unaffected countenance.  When walking, one step at a time, one accepts the challenge and is engaged in conscious effort to attain knowledge and growth through the connection of feet on the bare earth.

And while the mind will play tricks and suggest suffering and delude you with memories of sandy sunkissed beaches and playing ball on flat low elevation where breathing was simpler and lemonade was chilling in a fridge, I dare you not to feel the presence of the snow (sometimes ice) covered giants.  It was with a present mind that I tried to stay in with my walk, but it certainly has the tendency to wander: like our feet, our dreams, like all the endless possibilities that await us on down the road.

Landscape and time never fail to define a culture, such as those that lived in the Himalayas for the last thousand years.  It is always apparent in varying degrees – more directly in history before globalization, airplanes, fuel, telephones and the like.  What we need to survive has always been cultivated from the land and within walking distance.  A combination of flowing water year round, availability to cultivate or harvest fresh food and dried food for storage, and timber for shelter and wood for cooking and keeping warm in the cold nights.  In the modern Himalayas, culture with a touristic twist, reigns supreme, and the people added as much warmth to the trek as the sun that peaked the mountains in the mid morning: allowing you once again to recall what it is like to have feeling in your fingers.

15 years ago, when I began dreaming of walking in such a place, this trek would have been completely different.  Though like any walk in life, it is how you approach it and how you are received by it that creates your experience.  The developing world has reached its aggressive hand with large and noisy Chinese Construction sites, and a road that has found its way to around 2500 meters.  Dero, Tshampa Porridge, Chhang (local alcohol), Buckwheat Bread, Rice, Potato Tarkaari, Tibetan tea and Black Tea, and Yak Meat now have company on the menu.  Most of the new guesthouses cater to trekkers with menus that include a breakfast of eggs and potatoes or muesli, as well as french fries and a version of pizza.  These goods are transported through roads on jeeps to their limit and then carried by mules (taking on daily loads of roughly 70 kilo loads at a time), to the villagers and guesthouses at higher altitudes. 

The path may be well walked too, though depending on time of year, the time you leave your previous night’s dwelling, and which trails you traverse, you can find yourself with hardly seeing a tourist for days.  Although part of the interesting international vibe of the trip is meeting incredible people from different backgrounds and sharing in this experience for entirely different or perhaps similar reasons. We were lucky too, to have some knowledge of the culture and language after living in Nepal for a short while.  Nepali culture is very enthusiastic and genuinely receiving to those who have made the effort to learn the language (not merely an action to cater to tourists).  We were able to stay in home stays where the owners did not know any English, and view amazing Gurung (the predominant local caste of this mountain range) communities.

We stayed in a few villages that were well over 500 years established, often the Stupa (temple) would still be standing, and these people, put simply, have figured it out.  The way of life was basically unaffected by advancement of the road, the food was perfect, the villagers were hardworking and the community was simple and peaceful.  It was interesting to view these villages in light of the ones I have worked in with the NGO.  These Gurung communities, though much further away from civilization, would appear to be much more developed.

Some highlights:
We began our walking just before 7 am on longer days or enjoyed the slow mornings and warmer weather when at higher altitudes and took a later start.  We rotated between eating at guesthouses, order small pots (7 cups of tea in each), or cooking up our own oats and nuts or soup and noodles on the campstove.  We had days of 1000 m plus ascends and 1500 m descends, and were on foot with packs for 4 to 7 hours a day.  We encountered many animals, including being surrounded by 100 yaks while trying to enjoy a midday tomato soup, and caught paw prints of what must have been a snow leopard.   We walked to snowed over frozen lakes, and stayed warm by the fire in an unexpected snow storm.  We spent one night at 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) and will be perfectly content if a long period of time elapses before sleeping at such an elevation again.  We watched a film at 3,500 meters in a day of rest to help with acclimatization and always relished the feeling of arriving at the guest house and putting down the pack for the evening.  Viewing ranges of mountains jutting into the sky from 6,000-8000 meters.  Twice staying in a guest house suggested by two different folks named "Karma."

I have put together a gear list.  And a trip itinerary.  Though I will not post it here.  If you find yourself hiking in the Annaporna Range or in subtropical alpine regions, I’d be happy to share my experience and recommend some things you may or may not need, and specific side trails and home stays.

The trip was beautiful and a fulfilled dream of many years of wanting to hike around in the Himalayas.  I am very grateful to have done it.  And feel very lucky to have found someone special and not done it alone.  A dream in a dream.

APW: Mind Training

Nothing is the way is appears to be.  From Galileo’s birth to 1491 to Y2K to a journey to the east.  From the affects of foreign aid to the implications of a bite of supermarket chicken to pulling over on the side of the road and welcoming in the hitchhiker.  Here I am, nearly 6 months into my first trip to Asia, having just completed 4 months with the NGO, and recently a week long intermediary course on Meditation and Mind Training at Kopan Monastery.  The lessons of the world revealing illusions, in regards to people and places, keep getting reinforced. This last week was a stimulating change of pace that brought together old and new ideas and entered my life at a perfect time.

Kopan Monastery belongs to a Mahayana Buddhist tradition, originally from Tibet.  It is the same practice of the Dalai Lama.  What distinguishes Mahayana from other Buddhist sects is that once one reaches enlightenment (awakening one’s mind to the true nature of Samsara and liberating oneself from suffering), it becomes your purpose to free all other sentient beings of the same suffering.   Buddhism’s fundamental goals are to develop compassion and wisdom to realize we are all “in this together” and with a pure motivation, we aim to free each other from the delusions.  We all have an innate Buddha nature, and it is a simple matter of awakening the mind to realize its full potential.

 

This is one aspect of the religion that I especially relate to, that we all have the capacity to grow into enlightenment.  It acknowledges also the extremely unlikely circumstances that occur to create our perfect human rebirth.  This helps us generate immense gratitude and compassion, as we are not all so fortunate to be born with this mind and neocortex layer of our brain.  It attempts to perceive the true nature of reality and analyze what are the components and what is the I and the Mind?  Buddhists approaches these questions like a science experiment: generating a theoretical hypothesis, followed by practical meditation, and finally reflects on their congruousness with the original thought.  And then repeat, several million times.   Buddhism is acutely similar in its original belief, developed by Siddhartha Gotama Buddha 2600 years ago, of how the mind and brain works to the most recent theories of Quantum Mechanics.  And like any religion that provides a strong foundation for a human being, its aim is to develop the Self to be more apt to interpret and pursue the road that is now before you.

 

Buddhism may be mistaken in the west as a do-nothing, lazy philosophy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is a disciplined practice to attain wisdom to view the world from a clearer perspective.  Our classes began at 6:00 am with morning tea and concluded at 9:00 pm after an evening meditation session.  We engaged in 3 meditations throughout the day totaling between 2 and 3 hours, participated in discussion groups, and had teachings and meditations led by an Australian Nun, whose edited and translated many of the texts of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a Mexican Dharma Practitioner with a vivid imagination of the dharma, and a Tibetan Lama whose gentle, humorous, knowing presence in the room was perhaps the most powerful I’ve ever experienced from a teacher in a short period of time.

 

We were taught the basics of emptiness, death and impermanence, recognizing self-grasping and self-cherishing, karma, exchanging the self and other, identifying and remedying different delusions, and studied intensively 8 Verse of Thought Transformation.  A lot of seeds were planted that with nurturing will gradually grow.  It is possible to rewire one’s brain through the discipline and desire of practicing a task over and over again.  It is more tangible and easier to relate to in the context of training the physical body, though the same philosophy extends to the mind.  Another fact relates to sometimes we choose what we are interested in learning, and other times we receive lessons that we did not sign up for.  A simple metaphor could look like this:

 

Much of meditation, like any idea or practice, can be compared to cultivating a plant from seed.  The grounds (your perceptions) must first be cleared of stones, debris and then leveled.  The seed must be planted with care into a nurturing fertile soil at an appropriate depth, and then watered in well.  The seed must be tended to with affection for it develop its strong roots (continued practice), and then only after years of care and patience will it be possible for the fruit to be harvested.  It takes years to develop the mind through meditation.  And of course, if one is constantly awaiting the prize, they will miss out on the journey, and the fruit will not taste so sweet.  It is the balance of patience and action, tension and relaxation, that creates all these causes and conditions for the seed to thrive into a tree.  And remember too, if you plant an apple seed, do not expect a pear.

 

Mind training is a growing awareness and an application of this awareness inside and outside themoment.  I recall a Greyhound Bus Ride I took when I was 18 en route to North Carolina to visit my Aunt.  It was my first time traveling solo to the south and I booked my ticket to the bus station in Henderson, North Carolina, not realizing the distinction between Henderson and Hendersonville.  I was roughly 5 hours and $40 short of my destination.  I became aware that this situation was ideal conditions to create a frustrated and agitated mind.  Instead though, I rerouted my ticket, informed my aunt I’d be a little late, swallowed the bill, and enjoyed a book, conversation and the scenery from the window as we drove across the state to Western North Carolina.  If I hadn’t recognized the moment from a perspective outside of the present emotion, I could have had a miserable couple of hours, and off to a rough start to what turned out to be a great trip.  I entered in a positive mood and through a series of events, I found a job opportunity, interview for the position and accepted all within the week.  Our emotions do not have an inherent self-existence, but actually are a manifestation of the causes and conditions we are surrounded with in our daily lives.  Buddhist philosophy, neuroscience and cognitive psychology all go into much greater depth.  If you’re interested in further reading, there are many books which I could recommend, but this one here combines science and Buddhist Philosophy and a fascinating and very accessible text: Joy of Living by Nyingmar Rinpoche

 

I write all this to share about the past experience and try to gain some perspective on it, to encourage others to train their mind so the world becomes a more positive, approachable and desirable place, and to reflect on the title of this blog.  It certainly seems that throughout a wealth of experiences, not everything feels right or worthwhile.  We may feel regret for actions we have done, yearn for something else to exist that isn’t what is in front of us, become baffled by harmful and hateful actions pointed towards us or people we have a connection to, and shake our head at the injustice in this world.  The fact is this goes on every day, in every part of the world, without exception.  We cannot affect the reality of child labor, domestic abuse, exploitation of the poor and discriminated, malicious crimes and the like overnight.  We can be hopeful that there is a decrease in these acts in the modern world, though this also does not feel like a sufficient response.  If the world is covered with thorns, you cannot remove every thorn from this world.  You can however equip your feet (or your mind) for the rough road ahead.  If you approach a stranger or an enemy with compassion and wisdom, you will feel the difference in the response compared to treating someone with coldness and hostility.  If you train your mind with wisdom and understanding, possibly the idea of All Pursuits Worthwhile makes a little more sense.  T might help you cultivate a pure motivation of making yourself, your community and your world a more positive environment to live in and engage with.

 

Thank you, as always, for reading.   All the best, and some prose for the road.

 

Powers of Meditation

 

Nothing is the way it seems until the bubbles settle,

          Even after the curds been skimmed,

And the lemon seeds carefully plucked,

The substance’s transparency is still inclined to fade

A small leaf detaches from the mature Oak Branch

                From high canopy it undulates to the grass,

Anticipation rises affecting the pulsing heart

Unaffected, the leaf lands where it lands,

Tiny particles of steam after morning frost

                Every weather prediction and each souvenir

Changes history – Point of contact, A splash

A smile, a patient’s return to normalcy

One day you have never seen a naked woman

                The next you scratch your chin

In disbelief of the lack of timeliness of your driver

All moments share an inherent feeling

They all exist to be recalled and forgot

                Yet we cannot prevent our motion

From wondering what we are served next,

Ask Alice:  are you the pawn or the hand that moved it? 

flash forward in time

like the lightning bolt
who claimed the longest life
though the cloud protested
‘better to give the longest light,

a single ray of light may affect galaxies’

the star sighed, the thunder groaned

and the wolf howled,

They all agreed to perform their very best.

 A decade into the cave

And the lama finally gave into his itch

The dream felt more and more real

While the mind traced its way through the forest

Into a cobweb of endless trails

Each time its silk spun across itself

It took itself less seriously

another layer was shed

the form never stopped changing

And its true color revealed

 

Is it confirmed that the builder has done his blessings

And did the farmer truly give more than was taken

And did anyone notice the nun, with her bowl flipped over

After witnessing the sunrise skip her part of town

Still, the bird’s shadow never quit following

No matter how high she flew

And the empty vessel accepted

Whatever the creator wished to put inside

 

What if you were to take the brush

Away from the artist, rendering him

unable to paint expressions onto the emptiness

And if you spun the globe
Just faster than its average rate,
Would it expedite the process of mankind
Finding the same two truths
Recognizing this life is no different
Than the last,
And the one after,

Same players, Same stage,

We just exchange roles

APW: Weighing the Scales and Checking them Again

 

Life is more of a scale than a finish line. We weigh our actions and their consequences, our relationships and personal intentions, and we engage with this world affected by each other’s choices.  Each blade of grass we step on affects the ecosystem and each expression received by a stranger affects their day. Some balancing acts are more inconsequential than others and sometimes our small actions create large impacts that are not calculated and unintentional. 

 

The true scale that measures what we do is not digital.  It is not a product of the modern world.  You do not step on it and it does not read your weight aloud in a robotic voice after you insert a quarter in the machine. The scale I refer to is timeless.  It is made of two platforms, and is balanced on a fulcrum tensioned by chains, string, or raffia. On one side is the object in question, the variable, and on the other is the constant.  The constant is a standard of which we are accustomed to.   It can be relied upon maintaining its shape and size as an unchanging weight. Since I have arrived in Nepal, my constant is no longer reliable.

 

Before I begin to elaborate on what I am weighing, I must provide some context, both historical and personal. Some emotions, revelations, and special occurrences have occurred for me where I exist in the moment and the world inside of each moment is like a vacuum. It feels like an exception to this life, as if the laws of nature behave differently and what has happened will never happen again. These events are not meant for the scales.  They are greeted with happiness or sadness and accepted with gratitude. They are charged by strong emotions, love and hatred, and strong changes in one's personal world, highlighted primarily by birth and death, of a person, a relationship, or an idea. These are critical points in one’s life, transitions that progress our journey into its next stage of development.  These events occur similarly to people as they do places, with the only distinction being on how they are reflected upon. 

 

The rest of our life, from past to present to future, does not happen overnight.  Though we may wake up one day and we are thirteen, and another find we are thirty, and then sixty. I have blinked and it has been more than 7 years since I've lived in New York. I have blinked and I was in Hawai'i for over 3 years. I have blinked and I left places and people behind physically, though strong memories remain. Memories that have shaped me into who I am today and continually grow to become. A combination of the steadiness of growth and significant events and the energy (history of the people and geography) of an area we live in all play their parts in this scale. I have done more than my fair share of weighing since arriving in Nepal.  Then I blinked again and found myself four months having lived here and have accepted that my path has altered and have chosen to extend my stay.  

 

Here are a few of the questions I asked before I arrived and am still searching out the answers for.   Who are we to help and why go abroad to serve a foreign nation’s needs when one struggles with its own problems and identity?  Is it beneficial to integrate foreign ideas and cultures into other nations (especially considering history has already proven that many attempts of western nations to improve quality of life in developing nations has brought adverse reactions of damaging both the  environment and its local culture)?  Is it a western nation’s burden to fix the situation is has created after shifting the developing world’s history?  Globalization has affected the world so drastically and exponentially in a historical context, is my small pursuit as a volunteer trying to engage and help in a foreign world worthwhile? 

 

I do not have substantial answers to these questions, but I can share some insights.  Certainly the Jews have struggled throughout history and have only recently emerged as a more significant player in international politics and affairs.  Even though the opportunity exists, Israel is not without its own problems and is both constantly threatened by external and internal ethical developmental conflicts.  Jews are able to identify empathically with other struggling societies and help others through the developing processes.  Also, one can learn much from his or her experience abroad and can bring this knowledge home.  I do not believe it is our duty as Israelis or Jews to work here. Though as humans we can identify and interact with the many inherent problems in this nation, ranging from a corrupted government, to poor educational systems, abuse of women and child laborers.  We also can develop their critical thinking and analytical processes to broaden their choices of leaving their families in the village to work abroad or in the city. 

 

The answers to these questions are difficult and lead to more questions.  The truth is we do not know the alternative of what this world would look like in our absence.  We can only hypothesize that the patterns and tendencies of certain trends in this nation, if left alone, are very likely to follow the same problematic road and possibly worsen.

 

The I-NGO that I have joined, Tevel B’Tzedek (TBT), is engaged in "Holistic Sustainable Development." With both Israeli and American Jews, we come to Nepal to partner with a Nepali Run NGO, Nyayik Sansar.  The goals of the organization are to develop both the volunteers as citizens of the world and the Jewish community, along with offering their expertise to the villages and cities of Nepal.  We are encouraged to reflect upon the diversity of cultures and to build and strengthen Nepali communities and our communities at home.  With all the large and small miracles that have made this program a reality and an opportunity available to all its Nepali, Israeli, and International staff and volunteers, paired with its philosophy and approach, I have arrived to the conclusion of yes, it is positive that we are here.

 

What does it mean to work holistically in the developing world

 

There are at least 40,000 NGOs and INGOs in Nepal, that are trying to help. Ours is unique, as we are partnered, work and function together with the a Nepali Staff. Some NGOs are Human Needs Based, others are Human Rights based. Some deal with the physical, giving money, building infrastructure, and some try to develop the thinking and strengthening of communities, either for themselves or to fit in with the larger world. The most important consideration that I have discovered is why you are here, who are you trying to help, and are you doing it for them or for you. To work within the needs of the foreign culture is not what the western world is accustomed to. To say a bathroom is missing in this culture, without asking them why or seeing if they actually need one or know how to use one, is not a reason to build it just because you have traveled far to this country and think you need a hole to poop in.

 

What I like about the organization I am working with

 

Constant trainings and seminars are offered to provide a balance of where you are working and how you engage. If you focus all your time on "being professional" and "trying to help," you are working for yourself and not in the context of sustainable development. This program builds oneself too, in relationship to a community and to a world. We are taught the basics of the Nepali language to engage in simple conversations, we are given examples of failed attempts at development.  We receive information and experiences of previous volunteers. The specific program I am in is here in the area for 4 months as volunteers, though Israeli guides are here for minimally a year and the Nepali Staff working in these areas is here for longer. We spend one month in Kathmandu and three months in the village, living in the same houses and facilities, as a totally immersive experience and to not distance ourselves from the cultural way of life here.  We stay in each district for 3 to 5 years, which include a phase out period where we encourage the maintenance and continued development of the groups we have established by guiding the community through choosing leaders. The program has its methods and its models, but the volunteers keep questioning them, checking in as what is best in each area relative to the community’s own needs.  There is an excellent strategic 5 year design that is utilized as a functioning model for this organization.

 

With what demographic do we work

 

We do not discriminate as we work with the schools, the children, the elderly, the women, the farmers, members of all castes. We try to build confidence, raise awareness of health and environment, strengthen the community, provide trainings to establish food security, and then work on income generation. These areas are poor, segregated, and diverse.  They face issues such as water and food scarcity and limited education.  Many family members go to work in the city, in brick factories, or abroad just to support themselves to have enough food on the table.

 

Each Nepali and his family though is different.  This nation has 27 million voices and each has their own truth. The Nepali women that walk around in constant pain from all the hard physical work, with a lack of access of medical care, suffer from physical abuse, and struggle to feed their families, can still wear a smile. They plow their field with ox, and they carry loads of grass three times their size on a basket on their back (dhoko) that is attached by rope around their forehead to feed their animals each day.  Women are doing most of the work too, while the men stand in large groups drinking Chia (Tea). 

 

Working in Nepal.

 

Barriers of language and culture and custom and religion and politics all exist. Every week a new holiday seems to come up. Timeliness is not emphasized. Prices are never fixed. Streets are not paved. Tires are not replaced, but 'repaired.' A meal that will fill you up for 24 hours costs about fifty cents. Animals, alive and dead, are being sold on every street in the city. To travel 60 kilometers can take 8 hours. Your neighbor may bring you vegetables very often and you wonder whether is it best to accept her generosity or refuse because you do not know truly if her family is hungry. You build infrastructure for agriculture, you know what you are providing theoretically is positive for the future, but does the political divide it has potentially created in its process outweigh its positive traits. Is the beginning the easiest or the hardest?

 

Working and living with Israelis

 

It is very welcome for me to find myself again in a community environment. Especially with such a strong and motivated culture as the Israeli’s possess. They are assertive, they speak their mind, they argue, they question, they strive for the best. They love what they do and do what they love. There are some culture and language barriers, but 2 American and 6 Israelis have lived together under the same roof for the last 3 months and we have grown strong as a working and living group. The meals are very delicious and nutritious, and there are few times that I have eaten better in my life. And when 6 people or more are working until evening together on someone's project to help them achieve it, you learn how much more can be achieved when you pursue the world together and not alone.

 

What we have done

It is the first Cohort in this area for volunteers. We have created groups in Agriculture and Women Groups in different communities in each ward. We have created groups in schools to begin an already an existing nation wide Youth Movement.  We have organized large events to create awareness on topics of environment and education. We have built a small carnival. We have created many activities and trainings. We have begun theatre club, chorus class, art class, sewing and knitting club. We are building chimneys so the women do not need to inhale the smoke from the fires they use to cook inside their homes. We have built a demo farm consisting of digging a large water reservoir to enable farmers to irrigate their crops during the dry season.  We have set up a plot of rows and installed drip irrigation and have done different plantings of the same crop to demonstrate field trials.  We have provided trainings on nutrition and crop rotation, building compost pits, building small nurseries, planting 500 fruit trees, building a chicken coop and goat shed, going over effective systems of gray water and waste management, doing home visits to help farmers with design, building, planting or specific plant disease questions and most recently, have built a greenhouse to grow seedlings, tomatoes, cucumbers and offseason vegetables.

And we are just one group in a short period of time and this organization is much larger than us, and the country is much larger than the organization, and the world much larger than that. Is any of what we have done been a positive impact to the community?  To the world?  To ourselves? I am still questioning it. And I do not have an answer. Only in the years to come will evidence of the scale tip to one side.